Game Thread: New York Knicks @ Los Angeles Clippers

So many interesting possibilities today.

1. The Clippers play the Lakers on Monday. There is a real possibility that they might look past the Knicks today, making today a proverbial “trap game.”

2. Afternoon games always seem to be weird. Remember when the shitty Lakers beat the Warriors during the season when the Warriors won 73 games? That game was an afternoon game, as well. Right around this point in the year, too (March 6, 2016).

3. Afternoon games in Los Angeles for New York teams tend to be sketchy due to the players partying, but this young Knicks team seems oddly more disciplined than some of the Knicks past veteran teams, so I am not expecting them to be lethargic today.

4. The Clippers had some reason to miss the playoffs this year (they lose their first rounder this year if they make the playoffs), but they just keep playing so damn well. Honestly, if they keep this current team and ONLY add Kawhi Leonard to the team, I think they could be in the mix for home court next year and they have room to add a lot more than just Kawhi. They have some free agents that they’re bound to lose, though, so it is unlikely that we will see this particular Clippers team next season.

Let’s go, MitchRob!

70 replies on “Game Thread: New York Knicks @ Los Angeles Clippers”

Watching Gallo run makes my joints hurt. Also, are they going to address his shiner?

Let’s play a game: count how many times Knox dribbles with his left hand! (I’ve got one so far, 8:52 1st Q.)

Is Shamet the next Knicks-killer? I’m getting Reggie Miller vibes.

I really don’t think Ellenson has the athleticism to stick in the NBA even as a fringe player. Dude is slow.

Joking aside, I wondered a few times in here who the hell Shamet was. Kept seeing these kinds of shooting lines when he was a Sixer. Don’t know if he can do anything else, but for a rookie he has value.

Knox’s really playing like shit, he deserves a couple of games in the dungeon.

I’m losing faith in our staff, after 60 games we’re still looking as if they picked five random guys at the gym and let them play freely.

Compare that with the progress of the Hawks, and there’s really something to be worried about.

Mitch is our only ray of hope.

Mitch is a pretty bright ray of hope, though.

Trier is not a point guard, but I think he is an NBA player. I don’t expect more than a polished version of the player he already is, but that is a good, efficient SG on a cheap salary.

Edit: at least Trier looks for Mitch! Reason alone to appreciate him.

So, if I’m hearing Clyde right, we still have an open roster spot, right?

I’m losing faith in our staff, after 60 games we’re still looking as if they picked five random guys at the gym and let them play freely.

I fairness though, some relatively key rotation pieces went out in the KP trade and the current group is effectively a patch work of 2nd rounders, undrafted rookies and guys coming off 10 day contracts. Not exactly world beaters.

I’m losing faith in our staff, after 60 games we’re still looking as if they picked five random guys at the gym and let them play freely.

Yeah, well, that’s exactly what they did.

I fairness though, some relatively key rotation pieces went out in the KP trade and the current group is effectively a patch work of 2nd rounders, undrafted rookies and guys coming off 10 day contracts. Not exactly world beaters.

And yet somehow have a similar winning percentage to the pre-trade guys.

Yeah, Trier is a NBA player, he’s probably going to end up being a 3rd guard off the bench, a combo guard who comes in as a scorer, but that’s not bad. If he can someday start shooting more threes while converting them at the 38% rate he’s doing, he could be a decent starter.

We’re doing a good job of consistently scoring half as many points as the Clippers.

And yet somehow have a better winning percentage than the pre-trade guys.

Strange times indeed. That said, even the worst tanking teams have a purple patch every now and again. In 82 games you eventually hit some okay form, even if only for a short burst.

Joking aside, I wondered a few times in here who the hell Shamet was.

If you spent even a few minutes in r/sixers, you’d know he was the final piece to the Superfriends/bromance/homoerotic dynasty that the Sixers are (were?) building. I’m perpetually embarrassed for that subreddit. Wait ’til they figure out that this NBA thing is most often run as a business.

Me at the end of 1st quarter: “Hey, at least it can’t get any worse.”
Narrator from Arrested Development: “It did.”

Do we have a single player who doesn’t bite on head fakes?

There’s a real chance the Clippers score twice as many points as we do

hey i was busy and forgot there was a game how r we doin

Put it this way, we haven’t hurt our lottery odds.

Do you think we’ll hate Brad Stevens as much when he heads to Duke in the summer of 2021?

I wish that Fizdale would just play Mitch until he fouls out. They’re going to lose by 50; no point in saving him for crunch time.

hey i was busy and forgot there was a game how r we doin

It’s goink great…

I also continue to be baffled by the fact that Mitch doesn’t play 30 minutes or foul out….

The Suns won yesterday, we’re screwing the Lakers by losing, it’s been going pretty well if you ask me.

I feel like Brando in Apocalypse Now:

Horror. Horror has a face…
It’s called Knicks’ basketball…

But I agree that screwing the Lakers is so sweet 🙂

Knox is just so terrible. Please bench him.

Nice to see Kornet on the court again.

The thing about Mitch is that I don’t see anything to “solve” by the rest of the league. He’s just going to get more opportunities to be tall, long and athletic. I think he’s a DPOY candidate the moment he gets starters’ minutes.

It will be interesting to see how he matures physically. If he fills out too much and loses his mobility he could be a guy who peaks early. I could see him at his defensive peak in the next couple of years.

But maybe he improves….

Well, maybe not the moment, but definitely soon thereafter. Like a week or two?

@38

Yeah, but at the same moment he could also learn how to position himself better so he doesn’t need to make up ground so much… there are scenarios where Mitch doesn’t improve much, or where he improves in some aspects and loses in others, but what’s truly exciting is that even the bad ones still result in a very productive and useful player. Unless he turns into Eddy Curry and eats his way out of the league, his size, wingspan and instincts will all still be there, and he’s a rookie with zero experience pretty much.

well, only 19 more, right?

I feel like I must have done something wrong in a past life and now I’m forced to watch these games.

Fiz keeps saying we should judge him by player development, not wins. He’s doing equally bad in both measures.

MitchRob and Jaren Jackson Jr. are going to be competing for DPOY honors down the line the way Gobert and Draymond do today.

Unless he turns into Eddy Curry and eats his way out of the league, his size, wingspan and instincts will all still be there, and he’s a rookie with zero experience pretty much.

You aren’t kidding. Even by rookie standards he’s inexperienced. The guy is a 20 year old who didn’t even play one full season of organized college basketball. How is it possible that he’s this good? You just can’t attribute that to freakish athletic talent, it also has to come from a freakish athletic/basketball IQ as well.

Fiz keeps saying we should judge him by player development, not wins. He’s doing equally bad in both measures.

I feel player development is a bit of mixed bag atm. Mitch has been great and Trier has shown something for a undrafted rookie. You can also see Kornet coming along as well in comparison to last year. Mudiay has even improved a bit (although it was a pretty low bar tbh).

Frank seemingly regressing is a concern and Knox seems to have plateaued. Given those two are our lottery picks, you can probably downgrade any grade for player development this year.

I feel player development is a bit of mixed bag atm. Mitch has been great and Trier has shown something for a undrafted rookie

There’s a difference between player development and giving minutes to young players. These kids are just showing us who they are. DeAndre Jordan and Kerry Kittles have seemingly done more to develop Mitch than the coaching staff.

That block on Harrell was terrific.

Harrell is a very good player but I predict he fades out a little more quickly than most. Something about that body type and style never seems to have longevity.

I am fine with trying Ellenson but he and Kornet really seem duplicative. Kornet somehow makes Ellenson look plodding on defense, although Ellenson does seem to have an extra gear with the ball in his hand.

There’s a difference between player development and giving minutes to young players. These kids are just showing us who they are. DeAndre Jordan and Kerry Kittles have seemingly done more to develop Mitch than the coaching staff.

That’s fair. I guess development is usually be committee, so hard to say how much impact Fiz has had.

That’s not a plateau it’s a crater.

Also fair. I may have been cutting the rookie a bit too much slack ha ha. The only reason I say his development has plateaued is because he is prone to having pretty good nights shooting that give us a glimpse of a relatively handy NBA player. Those have been few and far between in the 2nd half of the season, so crater may be more apt.

If Fiz is interested in Developing DSJ maybe he should play him with a starting lineup that’s somewhat competitive. Start DSJ, Trier, Dotson, Vonleh (or Kornet if you want spacing) and Mitch. Mitch should be playing at least 30 minutes any night he’s not in foul trouble. At this point you’re not really helping Knox by playing him- give him a few night off and see if that gives him enough legs to get back to being a bottom 5 guy instead of by far the worst player in the league.

Also- Trey Young had 18 and 5 in 18 minutes before getting tossed- if this was a deeper draft that trade might be somewhat defensible but I’d rather have Luka than Trey and somebody like Langford.

Only Fiz’s player development strategy is acceptable is if he doesn’t believe most of these guys are going to be here next season.

Just looked at Trier’s game log and he’s had a TS% of .631 on 20% usage over his last 21 games not including today. If he can just cut down his turnovers (and compete a little harder on defense) he has a chance to be a very useful player.

I told my fiancee her team did us a solid by losing to the Suns last night. Her retort was the typical “the Knicks suck!”. To which I reminded her that not only am I well aware of that, but that’s it’s fine for this year.

LA fans are just a different breed of.. well… something. I wear my Knicks hats somewhat regularly, and someone tends to comment along the lines of, “aww maaaaan,
The Knicks…”. People here don’t really understand the concept of tanking. Nor do they root hard when their teams lose – they just find something else fun to do.

I feel player development is a bit of mixed bag atm. Mitch has been great and Trier has shown something for a undrafted rookie.

Vonleh is flatlining lately but he’s been an improved player this year as well. Dotson seems to be settling into a role and that’s improved his effectiveness over the Lance Thomas clone thing he was trying before. I think Fiz has been moderately good at development. Kornet is improved. Most of these guys’ improvement seems to be in how they are playing as opposed to skill improvements. Maybe somewhere there’s somebody who could make Knox and Frank into NBA players but Fiz has a decent rate of success.

Was there a defensive possession in the first half where Knox didn’t lose his man? I didn’t see one.

LA fans are just a different breed of.. well… something. I wear my Knicks hats somewhat regularly, and someone tends to comment along the lines of, “aww maaaaan,
The Knicks…”

In NY I get “you’re a Knicks fan? I’m so sorry.”

@56

Grocer, you’re right. Now that you mention it I think there’s a lot of recency bias from the last two losses bringing down our evaluation of Fizdale’s player development. For example, if we go by PER, VORP, BPM, and WS/48 it’s certain that DSJ is currently playing better this season with us than he did the last or earlier part of the season with Dallas. Same thing with Vonleh. Dotson too for the most part (BPM likes him better and his PER is around the same).

MitchRob has also improved by leaps and bounds as the season’s progressed.

I think the Lakers just has a lot of fans who aren’t as die hard as we are. It’s a team that has had recent success and people sorta just expect the Lakers to eventually be good again because well, when was the last time they were terrible? The last time they had two straight under .500 seasons was between 92 and 94 after Magic retired, and before that it goes back to 76.

So yeah, they’re kinda wired into thinking the Lakers will just magically turn out to be good again, because that has simply always happened.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them!says:

I was wrong on Trae Young. I thought as a rookie he would be low efficiency, TO prone, defensive liability. In other words, I thought he’d be terrible. He started off that way, but he’s improving rapidly. He’ll have to become less of a defensive liability to become a star player, but he’s improving everywhere else. Overall, I don’t think the Hawks are as upset right now as they might have been in the first half of the season. Right now it looks like Young at least has a chance to be the better scorer and play maker than Doncic. That didn’t seem very likely a couple of months ago.

I think the thing with the Lakers is that they generally have good management. We’ll see if Jeanie keeps that going.

So we’re 3 wins behind the Cavs now, starting to get confident about being in the bottom 2. And the difference between 1 and 2 is so marginal, it’s hard to get too worked up about it, right?

@62

The odds are all exactly equal for the first through fourth picks, then the only difference is that the worst record is guaranteed the 5th pick, and the 2nd worst has a 20% chance of picking 6th. It’s not too worrisome, but the lottery odds this year are very scary anyway, even for the worst record, there’s a very real chance that it will be crazy with teams moving up and down all over the place. I’m honestly genuinely scared of how the lottery will end up going.

@57 haha like those folks won’t be rooting with us next season if Durant comes.
But yeah, I think me rocking Knicks gear out here (last Sunday my fiancee convinced me to wear my Porzingis jersey bc she paid good $ for it as my bday gift, lol) is a dead giveaway that I’m from NY. Because who in their right mind that’s LA born and raised would ever be a Knick fan, right? I do get props every now n then for it, though.

Btw… I don’t know how anyone who watched us blow that Cavs game could think of anything other than admiring Fiz for his masterful late-game tanking. With a 14-pt lead, no way the Knicks lose that if he leaves MitchRob and DSmithJr in there the way they were playing.

Speaking of tank commanders: yeah Knox has been terrible, and I’m thinking the Knicks anticipated he’d be such, and drafted him with the vision he’d be one of the tank “anchors” while under the plan of being developed. In a perfect world of one-year true tanking, he stinks this year and makes a major leap in year 2. We’ve debated what it might take for that to happen and the feasibility of him leaping. I think it’s also plausible this could’ve been their plan all along with him as a “high-upside” pick.

Tankathon says the fourth worst team gives up 1.5% in the race for the top pick. I think we are safe though.

Even by rookie standards he’s inexperienced. The guy is a 20 year old who didn’t even play one full season of organized college basketball. How is it possible that he’s this good? You just can’t attribute that to freakish athletic talent, it also has to come from a freakish athletic/basketball IQ as well.

Yeah, Mitch has very fast reaction time in addition to his freakish athletic talent. It is like he is a step ahead of everybody on the defensive end. You can call this “IQ” or “awareness” but whatever you call it he knows how to snuff out a play. He is the place where possessions go to die.

In Mitch’s last four games he is 23-29 from the floor and 14-17 from the line. That’s a tidy .822 TS%.

Per game, he’s averaging 15 points, 12 rebounds and 4.25 blocks.

He is playing some ridiculous basketball right now.

Yeah, sometimes it might seem we’re getting hyperbolic about Robinson, but it’s really warranted. Those numbers are simply amazing and there’s a very select few veteran Centers who can put up this level of production. He’s massively improven over the course of his first season, which is so rare.

There’s all types of arguments that could be made about sample size, opposition quality etc, but there’s nothing that indicates this production is a fluke or just a player getting hot for a stretch. This TS% will probably lower in a longer stretch and he’s still going to struggle a bit against better rebounding teams or playing against better players, but if the improvement in the free throws is for real, I’ll safely say right now we have a future superstar in our hands.

Speaking of tank commanders: yeah Knox has been terrible, and I’m thinking the Knicks anticipated he’d be such, and drafted him with the vision he’d be one of the tank “anchors” while under the plan of being developed. In a perfect world of one-year true tanking, he stinks this year and makes a major leap in year 2. We’ve debated what it might take for that to happen and the feasibility of him leaping. I think it’s also plausible this could’ve been their plan all along with him as a “high-upside” pick.

in some of my more “glass is half full” moments, i’d like to believe this is true, and, fiz has been complicit in the team’s effort to secure a positive draft outcome…

yeah, i’ll leave it at that…

cdiggy, you making me think i need to go ahead and re-up on some more gear…hmmmm, now i’m thinking of the boxes of old knicks, yankees, giants gear (along with a bunch old uniforms which no longer serve much purpose) i got sitting out in the garage that i need to bring to goodwill…

i really like some of those burnt orange style shirts, hats and hoodies though…kinda always wanted to rock one of them knick bucket hats like sen dog…

Comments are closed.