Over their last 20 games, the New York Knicks are 2-18.

After getting off to a decent start to the season, the organization received awful news when star Kristaps Porzingis went down with a season-ending ACL injury. Not only did that put the rest of this season in instant jeopardy, but it also created some major questions about next year as well.

How long will it take for the big man to recover? Once he comes back, will he pick up where he left off or will be never return to that level? What will the team look like around him when that time comes?

There are more questions than answers at this point, and that should be concerning to Knicks fans everywhere.

But, there could be some good news coming.

Now at 25-45, the Knicks rank 11th in the Eastern Conference and are one of nine teams with 25-or-fewer victories on the year. Since they own the rights to their first-round pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, there's a solid chance that they could end up with a high selection.

But, despite the recent struggles and the fact that the team would most likely benefit by losing the rest of their games, Knicks players want to make it clear that the word “tanking” is not part of their vocabulary.

Trey Burke, who has emerged as a legitimate producer after starting the season in the G-League, said it bothers him that Knicks fans might be rooting for the team to lose.

“It bothers me, but I understand,” Burke said, per Al Iannazzone of Newsday. “From a fan’s standpoint I understand. But from a player’s standpoint, they have to understand as well. That’s all I ask of them. I ask the fans to understand our standpoint, too.”

“Do you all want us to go out there and to look bad, to look like bums? They might say we already look like bums. Whatever they say,” he added.

Since Burke and some of his teammates are playing for future contracts, they won’t be taking the remaining games for granted.

“That’s not in my DNA to go out there and lose,” Burke explained. “I don’t know how to play like that. I’ve never been taught how to play like that. We go out there, we got families. We’re not only playing for the organization, playing for the city, we’re playing for our families as well. I just don’t know how to do that.”

Center Enes Kanter echoed Burke’s sentiment.

“We’re going to go out and try to win,” Kanter said. “We’re going to go out there and do the same thing we did [Saturday] — offensively, defensively, make each other better and go out and fight every possession. … The Knicks pay me to win games and I’m going to try to go out there and win every game.”

“We’re trying to win every night,” Kanter added. “We got Chicago coming up. We’re going to go out there and try to win that game too.”

The Knicks host the 24-45 Bulls on Monday. Since Chicago has recently been ravaged by injuries to Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and Lauri Markkanen, it will be interesting to see how competitive the game is.

One thing is for certain: New York’s players will not be backing down, even if they’ve struggled mightily in recent weeks.