If you wake up on Friday and see the score of the New York Knicks' game against the Brooklyn Nets, you might assume that New York has started tanking to improve its lottery chances.

But that's the saddest part about what unfolded on Thursday in the 121-110 loss at Madison Square Garden: The Knicks were actually trying to win the game.

Carmelo Anthony, Derrick Rose and Courtney Lee all played more than 30 minutes. There was nothing irregular about Jeff Hornacek's rotations. The Knicks took the court fully expecting to beat the 13-win Nets.

Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks just lost for the second time in five days to the team with the worst record in the NBA. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

"We're trying to win games," Lee said.

And that makes the Knicks' loss on Thursday all the more embarrassing. For the second time in five days, they came up woefully short against the team with the NBA's worst record.

On Sunday, the Knicks allowed the Nets to hit 18 3-pointers at the Barclays Center and snap a 16-game home losing streak in the process. On Thursday, New York gave up 38 points in the third quarter to help the Nets halt a 33-game road losing streak to conference opponents.

"It doesn't sit well," Kyle O'Quinn said afterward. "A team like that, you look at the roster, they shouldn't be in the gym with us, I feel. But they played hard and anybody can win. It's March. Anybody can win in March."

O'Quinn, a member of the 15th-seed Norfolk State team that beat No. 2 seed Missouri in 2012, was referring to the NCAA tournament.

Forget March Madness, though; Knicks fans know only March Sadness. They fell to 27-42 on Thursday, clinching their fourth consecutive losing season. The club has just three winning seasons in the past 16 years.

Anthony has been here for all of the disappointment and frustration over the past four seasons. He acknowledged late Thursday that this one was more disappointing than the others because of the expectations coming into the season.

NEW YORK KNICKS Check out the team site for more game coverage

"This year it's a little disappointing due to talent that we have in this locker room, on this team. For some reason we just couldn't get it together and get it going," Anthony said. "But yeah it's more difficult this season than it has been in the past."

For some reason, Rose, Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis never seemed to fit together. Joakim Noah never gave the Knicks anything close to what they'd hoped. And the starting unit never figured out how to get stops.

So the Knicks are left to play for draft position the rest of the way. They can only hope that they can find the right players in the draft and free agency to turn things around.

As far as the rest of this lost season goes, Hornacek said that he plans to keep playing his veterans unless he receives a directive from management to sit them. And that hasn't happened yet.

So, no, the Knicks haven't officially started tanking. It just looked like they were on Thursday night.