Despite the Knicks‘ playoff hopes being essentially non-existent at the halfway mark of the season, rookie coach Derek Fisher has no intention of allowing his team to tank for a shot at a higher lottery selection, Peter Botte of The New York Daily News writes. “I’ve only worked for one team in this capacity so I can’t get into what other teams may or may not feel,” Fisher said. “The only way I know how to approach a game is to try to win it every time. So I can’t read other people’s minds and what other organizations are trying to do. That’s not my job. You’re asking the wrong person about that. Maybe if you talk to them you can ask them. But there’s no interest in thinking about which pick we might get based on the way the ping pong [ball] bounces when we play Philadelphia Wednesday night.”

“There’s just no correlation in my mind,” Fisher continued. “Maybe some people see it differently. It’s the NBA. You always will get a chance to have good players. But will you have a foundation, a system, a way of playing that allows for the good players you have or the good players you eventually have in the future to be able to be successful?”

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division: