2021-22 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Fifth Straight Victim

The Knicks host the Charlotte Hornets in what is just about the most guaranteed win of the season, as the Knicks vie to keep their chances for the play-in to last until the last day of the season before they inevitably miss out.

There will be no Grimes or Fournier tonight, so I assume that means that Taj will play the 3.

Let’s go!

122 replies on “2021-22 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Fifth Straight Victim”

Randle slaps Fournier’s hand after the errant pass. Sign of an attempt at being a teammate?

Then allows a blow-by on D.

I’m not watching the game, I’m looking only at Randle after the introduction boos…

It looks like Julius is deliberately freezing out Fournier tonight.

Until the second of the two threes (that he both shot from a totally stationary position and without any dribble) Randle barely moved, both on defense and offense…
Now he looks a bit more alive…

geo:
curious now pepper, do you know french?

if so, how?

i know a little bit… 4 yrs in high school and then I lived with a french woman for about 2 years…and had to be able to speak with her mom when she called to show I was making an effort to apprendre la langue…

KB Apprentice: E4 more obvious than usual with his negative reaction to Randle’s iso.

Randle has been freezing him out and it’s obvious. Thibs doesn’t care.

If Randle would just play happily off the ball… we’ve beat this drum to death… this is my first game watching from scratch in about 15 so I’m seeing how fun it is when he’s not initiating … he really is suited in between 2nd and 3rd option. He has 1st option tools but he’s just not good enough at using them … doesn’t shoot well enough .. doesn’t effectively take advantage of mismatches… makes bad decisions… these are all positions he shouldn’t be put in…

McBride brings ball way too far back on that shooting form … that last 3 was fugly mechanics …

Let’s win this! We all know that finishing on a 10-game winning streak is the epitome of Knicksy, so we must do it! 😀

Obi has now thrown Mitch more lobs in this game than Randle has in 3 years

Ugly stretch by this unit, with IQ and Burks the main culprits, then Mitch bricked a dunk…

Topping is a far more complete player than he has shown.

Not sure why he has been standing in a corner for two years.

Can’t go crazy but he is becoming a useful piece

one of obi’s worst defensive stints all year. in the wrong spot on almost every possession. on the other hand his downhill dribble drive lob to mitch was awesome.

In the “Give credit where it’s due,” Julius is passing out of the double and triple team.

Sort of damning with faint praise, but I tried…

Whenever I see Fournier at the foul line I think he looks just like a center back for the French National team and then I realize that’s impossible because he doesn’t play any defense.

Maybe Toppin doesn’t either but we should let him loose on offense.

I still don’t understand how a professional basketball player shoots FTs like Mitch does now

So they took points away completely for a missed out of bounds call while checking for 2 vs 3… that is bizarre…

pepper:
Randle sucks

Put aside his offense, where he is moving in slo-mo and walking up the court,
his effort on defense is a big zero, he is not even trying…

I’ll give him credit for contesting that shot and hitting Bridges in the face while doing it 🙂

Fournier shooting well but making a mess everywhere else. I thought he was out tonight for “personal reasons.” Any details?

KB Apprentice:
Fournier shooting well but making a mess everywhere else. I thought he was out tonight for “personal reasons.” Any details?

He went from out (in the morning) to questionable (in the afternoon) to available, no details…

Looks like a classic “Will the bench push them to victory” and then “Will Thibs put the first team back in toward the end and lose the game.”

Fournier would be a very good player if basketball had the same rule on substitutions as in handball – meaning he’d be replaced every time we’d be getting back on defense, and re-enter when going to offense.

cybersoze:
Fournier would be a very good player if basketball had the same rule on substitutions as in handball – meaning he’d be replaced every time we’d be getting back on defense, and re-enter when going to offense.

LOL. Clyde (in a jovial birthday mood perhaps) did compliment E4’s D early in the game, but …

Randle’s best offensive game in a while, but he never, ever hit the heat checks.

cybersoze:
But not all is bad, Fournier has a good STL%

I know you guys all hate E4, but I still want him on my team.

Max: Randle’s best offensive game in a while

This is good for our plan to trade him. 😉

seems the very end of the bench isn’t enough for julius, he split to the locker room…

KB Apprentice: I know you guys all hate E4, but I still want him on my team.

I don’t hate him, only his defense. Maybe if we surround him with better defenders, he can go unnoticed on that side of the play.

A loss tonight will put the Hornets out of reach and lower Atlanta magic number to 1…

Max: and lower Atlanta magic number to 1…

Thibs: “One is greater than zero, so this means we’ll still be approaching every game like it’s game 7, right?”

cybersoze: Thibs: “One is greater than zero, so this means we’ll still be approaching every game like it’s game 7, right?”

The Hawks will play at home against the free falling Cavs tomorrow night,
so we’ll be eliminated before our next game Saturday…

McBride really reminding me of Frank with his play style…and his inability to do anything on offense.

Will the Thrill:
McBride really reminding me of Frank with his play style…and his inability to do anything on offense.

It’s borderline worse … I dunno… we’ll always have the Frank stepping to Lebron game… deuce needs to start there

See now, for D, we all would prolly keep this unit on the floor to close, but E4 is set to check back in. I’m never sure what Thibs is thinking.

If it’s not shot selection it’s simply shot making … our top guns striking out tonight

Psycho goes back to the starting lineup, the key of our success all season long…

And then he calls a timeout, because they’re doing exactly what they always do…

Shouldn’t the “huge Knick” contest that Bridges dunk? Foul him at least, i mean.

The defense has been terrible all night long,
this team has the special talent of laying an egg every time there’s some sort of momentum or a glimmer of positivity…

Max:
The defense has been terrible all night long,
this team has the special talent of laying an egg every time there’s some sort of momentum or a glimmer of positivity…

Blame me… it’s when I have action…

So are we finally eliminated from this goddamned play in? God I hate this Knicks season so much.

Frank is better than Deuce. He defends much better and both are zeros on offense.

Max:
We’re 5th in the NBA in dunks?!!!?

Now I’m surprised…

Mitch is second in the league in dunks and Obi is 24th

Ugh, O’Connor, just ugh.

The guy is still one of the better coaches in the league, and still the Knicks’ best asset (with RJ Barrett closing hard). Unlike Randle, Thibodeau also wants to remain employed in New York in the worst way.

Yes, the Knicks best asset is fucking Thibs. Yes, that’s totally logical. Fucking sportswriters.

In the almost two seasons under Thibs, the Knicks are over 0.500, despite a much improved Eastern conference this year. That’s much better than in many seasons before that. Some of that improvement is certainly due to Thibs. So from a contributing wins point of view he is valuable to the Knicks.

It’s not even a knock at Thibs (although, on a totally separate note, man can I not wait until they finally fire Thibs, so it’s not that I wouldn’t be totally down with knocking Thibs, but in this particular instance, it isn’t meant as a knock on Thibs), but that he is their best asset? It’s beyond moronic.

That said, “In almost two seasons as the coach, Thibs has the Knicks a game over .500” isn’t exactly much of a feather in the cap, especially when the recent games that got him over .500 as a Knicks coach were wins that, if anything, hurt the Knicks going forward due to worsening their draft position.

That is why I said “ from a contributing wins point of view”. I realize you and others would like to be losing more than we actually are at this point in this season. If that’s not what you want, Thibs is not as much of an asset. It’s hard to compare him to players in value anyway. For example, I don’t know if McBride is helping us wins games at this point actually, but would you trade him for a better coach? Probably not. So I agree comparing Thibs value to player value isn’t a good idea.

Darn!
The Spurs had a real chance to push the Lakers closer to hell but Keldon Johnson missed an incredible layup…

I give Julius credit for facing the music last night and playing reasonably well. Probably wasn’t easy. And I sympathize with how his 5yo son being there and hearing the boos makes it hard for him. Despite all the bs, I’m rooting for him to recover, both as a Knicks fan and as a person.

I feel bad for Randle the person even as I desperately want Randle the player off this team. He’s obviously going through something we don’t know about, and maybe a change of scenery would help with that. But it’s hard to imagine him working through it here in a way that’s beneficial to the Knicks.

Apologies if this has been asked and answered in an earlier thread I missed, but the Tankathon standings have the Lakers with the 9th pick as of now, and the Knicks with the 12th. But if the Lakers make the play-in tournament with a worse record than the Knicks and then are eliminated from the play-in, would they still draft higher? Or do the play-in losers automatically get slotted behind teams that couldn’t even make the play-in?

Julius isn’t the worst person the world, just the one who commits the worst turnovers.

the Tankathon standings have the Lakers with the 9th pick as of now, and the Knicks with the 12th. But if the Lakers make the play-in tournament with a worse record than the Knicks and then are eliminated from the play-in, would they still draft higher? Or do the play-in losers automatically get slotted behind teams that couldn’t even make the play-in?

The 14 teams that after the play-in are out of the playoffs will be ordered by their records,
as were before the play-in tournament existence (when the East was so bad that many Western Conference winnng teams during the years have been in the lottery while EC teams with losing records have not).

So yes, the Lakers can have more chances than we do… 🙁

Alan: I feel bad for Randle the person even as I desperately want Randle the player off this team. He’s obviously going through something we don’t know about, and maybe a change of scenery would help with that. But it’s hard to imagine him working through it here in a way that’s beneficial to the Knicks.

Exactly this. It’s for the best that he goes, even for him and his family. And it’s already being reported that he’ll ask out at the end of the season. Which puts everybody in agreement that he should go, including himself.

Max: So yes, the Lakers can have more chances than we do… 🙁

The good news is that the Lakers don’t own the pick. If in top 10 goes to Pellies ( below that goes to Memphis). If the Knicks don’t win the lottery, wouldn’t mind if LA did.

Max: So yes, the Lakers can have more chances than we do… 🙁

First: The Lakers won’t make the play-in, next 2 games for SAS are both at home and both against a tanking team (POR).
Second: But even the Spurs can have better odds than the Knicks if we keep up the game7 approach.
Third: And if we keep winning, don’t forget the Pelicans they’ll have better odds too.
Unless we change the way we fight for wins, and i’m not saying to blatantly lose, just don’t outwork a team trying to win in the end (eg, game against Miami), we’ll be 12th as predicted by some of us earlier.

Guys, I’m not worrying about our spot, only responding to Alan’s question about the rules… 🙂

I already know we’ll pick 3rd or 12th no matter what 😀

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