Comments on: 2017-18 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Mavericks

By: Bruno Almeida

Bruno Almeida — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 05:40:40 +0000

The Bulls literally took Lopez and Holiday out of the rotation for nothing, called up Cameron Payne, who might be the only guard in the league bad enough to challenge Mudiay and only got a warning for it.

There’s no way the league ever punishes the Knicks for just tweaking the rotation a bit. All the bad veterans are still playing and all the young players have reasons to get minutes.

The Wolves lost 12 straight games to get Towns in 2015 while starting Adreian Payne and Chase Budinger and the league did nothing.

By: TheOakmanCometh

TheOakmanCometh — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:50:37 +0000

The tanking teams are now 1-432 against non-tanking teams since the ASB.

By: Jack Bauer

Jack Bauer — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:24:54 +0000

Everyone seems to love when we’re terrible.

Nice loss. This team just might be bad enough to move up in the draft lottery. They are on track to lose most if not all of their remaining games. This would be good

By: Knick fan not in NJ at this time

Knick fan not in NJ at this time — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:21:08 +0000

The fines for tanking from the NBA seem to be given only when teams are too obvious about; or, worse, actually admit publicly they want to lose. I think as long as the Knicks say they are trying to win, and just jigger their rotations instead of blatantly sitting people, they won’t draw league attention. Everyone expects us to be terrible anyway.

By: Grocer

Grocer — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:04:40 +0000

Yeah, Hornacek might not have been trying super hard to win that game.. If I were trying to avoid giving the impression that I was trying to lose to the Mavs, I would probably not play the new kid down the stretch in the 4th because that would be supicious. But I’d probably leave in guys who were making dumb fouls, keeping the Mavs in the game in the 1st half. I just might give 39 minutes to a starter who’s been ice cold and looked gassed for the crucial last five minutes of the game. I would consider some obviously bad defensive rotations. I might give 33 minutes to the guy who’s been getting called out by his teammate for lack of effort, figuring that he’ll start missing shots eventually.

But if I were Hornacek, I might also do all that shit trying to win the game. This team is poorly constructed, the rotations are gonna look like ass some of the time no matter what. Still..

Dolan’s Razor says that the Knicks are going to get fined ping pong balls in the next week or so for deliberately trying to lose games, despite the fact that they aren’t actually trying to lose games.

By: kevin5318

kevin5318 — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 03:43:25 +0000

@Enes_Kanter
…

– Mar 13, 2018

Kanter opting out would be a double win for the tank.

By: thenoblefacehumper

thenoblefacehumper — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 03:23:17 +0000

Yeah, I’m not sure what minute distribution would be “optimal” if the Knicks were trying to win every game but I see no reason to believe it would be radically different than what it is now. For all we know that really is their current goal.

I mean, sure we’re taking it pretty easy with Kanter and Lee. Those guys aren’t exactly Shaq and Kobe though, and who the hell doesn’t give veterans some extra rest towards the end of the season anyway?

By: Owen

Owen — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 03:18:32 +0000

Jock Landale alert. Looks pretty good.

By: djphan

djphan — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 03:18:14 +0000

courtney lee is the best backcourt player we have by a country mile…. we play kanter bigger minutes than koq …. and we play lance thomas…. th2 who is probably our best player now is playing out of position and has been on a persistent cold streak…..

i think i saw somewhere that we’ve trailed for 80% of all the available minutes since the ASB… i don’t find that surprising….

we have bad players and we are playing the worst ones…. whatever hornacek’s strategy is… it’s really good for the tank whether intentional or not….

By: The Glass Half Rebuilt

The Glass Half Rebuilt — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 03:12:23 +0000

Look the Knicks are actually playing everyone who deserves to play. The problem is our roster has so many one way players we could put together a football team. When Beasley, Burke, and Kanter are your best offensive players you’re bound to be the worst defense in the NBA. Kyle O’Quinn and Courtney Lee are the best players on the team and they play. We just have the Big 3 of tank ball with Kanter, Beasley, and Mudiay. There’s nothing else to it other than we are currently the worst team in the NBA. Hopefully that’s enough for us to land Trae Young because that kid is the next Steve Nash. I’d have no problem with Frank Ntilikina turning into Raja Bell if it meant we got this generation’s version of the player who revolutionized basketball.