2017-18 Game Thread: Knicks @ Cavaliers

The Knicks’ 2017-18 season comes to a merciful end tonight. The chances are high that the Knicks will lose this one, since the Cavaliers still have something to play for. They are currently the #4 seed and getting to the #3 seed (and a second round match-up with the Kyrie-less Celtics) is clearly a very juicy place to be, so the Cavs will be playing to win and the Cavs are much better than the Knicks, so even if the Knicks try to win (and they will try to win, because they’re morons), the Cavs should pull this out. So that would mean a tie for the #8 seed and possibly even a three-way tie for the #7 seed if the Nets win tonight against the Celtics!

Do note that Kevin Love and Kyle Korver will rest this game and Lebron might be pulled early. The only slight problem would be if the Bucks intentionally lose to the Sixers so that the Bucks would drop to the #7 seed and play the Celtics in the first round. If the Sixers are blowing the Bucks out, the Cavs might pull Lebron, as well, and who knows? They could want to make sure the Nets don’t tie the Knicks for the #8 seed, but I doubt they would do that.

Around the league, two huge games today between the Utah Jazz and Portland Trailblazers playing for the #3 seed (it is insane how amazing Gobert is – he took a shitty team and made them good almost singlehandedly) and the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets playing for the #8 seed (it would be too funny to see Thibs lose out on the playoffs after burning his guys out for Year 312).

This is prooooobably the last game that Jeff Hornacek will coach for the Knicks. Scott Perry has made some poor moves to go with some good moves (signing Trey Burke certainly looks really good), but he hasn’t made any, “Oh no, how could you?” moves, unlike Steve Mills. He hasn’t done a Mega Max Melo or a Bargnani trade or a no match Lin or a signing Joakim Noah or a trading for Derrick Rose or a signing THJ or anything like that, so I will cross my fingers and hope that he somehow avoids hiring Mark Jackson to coach this team. Come on, Perry, I want to believe in you! Give me a reason to believe in you! Don’t hire Mark Jackson!

Let’s go, Nick Young! Swaggy P!

77 replies on “2017-18 Game Thread: Knicks @ Cavaliers”

it is insane how amazing Gobert is – he took a shitty team and made them good almost singlehandedly

Gobert is awesome but this is kind of a weird thing to say. The Jazz without Gobert are actually much better than most of the Western playoff teams without their headliners. Take Lillard off Portland or Jokic off Denver or Westbrook off OKC or Towns off Minnesota or LMA off the Spurs or AD off the Pelicans and none of them get the positive point differential the Jazz did in 2000 minutes without Gobert this year. Maybe you’re just implying he’s underrated.

The Jazz are 37-18 with Gobert in the lineup (possibly 38-18 after tonight, but also possibly 37-19), and 11-15 without him. I have no doubt that other teams with star players would have similar splits, so praising Gobert for the achievement isn’t a slight on any of them, who would also have similar effects.

The guy on the Jazz who gets overlooked the most is Joe Ingles, who is lowkey a terrific player. I thought last year was fluke but he’s been even better this season.

It’s not as bad as that tho. He played 1:49 when the best the celts so it’s really 12-15. And they played a ridiculous stretch of games without him the second time he went out:

CLE
HOU
OKC
SAS
OKC
DEN
GSW
CLE
NO
DEN
MIA
WAS
CHO
IND

I mean Gobert is really good but I don’t think the Jazz are shit without him; they are better than most playoff teams without their star. They have two of the more underrated guys around him Ingles and Rubio and they have Mitchell and Favors. That’s not a playoff team but it’s a pretty good surrounding cast. The record is misleading adjusted for SOS they played to a slightly positive SRS without him.

The Jazz do have a lot of good role players + Mitchell, but Gobert is just so crucial with how he anchors everything. He might not be more talented than some of his counterparts but he’s just so impactful on defense it changes their team. The splits might also have to do with the fact that they don’t have a backup for him, it’s only Favors out of position or Ekpe Udoh.

I like a lot of Jazz players, like Mitchell, Rubio, Ingles and Exum who has returned well, O’Neale is serviceable too, but Gobert is the engine on that team. Maybe yeah, he’s not more impactful relatively to Westbrook, Lillard or AD, but to me he’s on their level.

This is not going the way it should be going. The Bucks are ceding the game to the Sixers. This could get scary.

When’s the last time that the top four seeds in the East won 50 games or more? Feels like it’s been a while.

It was embarrassingly almost last season. 😉

Luckily for my memory, it had been a while. Not since 2010-11.

Is LeBron even playing in the 2nd half? Nets and Bulls are surely losing… holy shit……

the plan was to sit Lebron once he got to double figures in points (he’s currently adding to the longest streak of consecutive games scoring at least 10 points) and he’s got 10.

Years from know I’ll be able to tell my grandkids about the night the Knicks went into Cleveland and against all odds secured the #9 pick in the draft.

It’s unbelievable how stupid this team is.

“What could we do? They took Lebron out, we had to win!”

Are we just locked in a never ending spiral of suffering?

This is just so annoying, how can a team be this terrible at everything?

The Celtics are starting fucking Abdel Nader and Shane Larkin and a random dude named Bird and are going to beat the Nets with their entire team.

Guess I’ll just watch my boy Jimmy Butler taking the Wolves to the playoffs and forget about the Knicks existence.

I hate when I am right…about something bad.

At least I’ll always remember those great wins against Miami and Washington! Fond memories.

go knicks…

we were bound to lose any kind of coin flip anyway…

twenty nine wins is nothing to sneeze at…

good wolves/nuggets game…jokic ain’t no joke…

In fairness, our young bucks are leading the charge. IIRC the one caveat on the board was that most would be happy if we were winning because of our young guys ha ha. We should be due to win a coin toss right?

“That’s how you rebound Wiggs!”

The T-Wolves announce team is embarrassing

Just tuning in (I thought I’d watch the Mets go to 10-1).

Any chance at all that Hornacek and the players are giving a big middle finger here to Steve Mills, what with all the rumors that H. will be fired?

Winning this game would be so Knicksy
This would have been a great year to be picking 5-6 in the draft instead of 9-10. But that is just not meant to be.

Jokic can’t be doing well, he’s one of those weak Euro types, like the guy on here said a couple days ago. They aren’t capable of being anything other than second-bananas, dontcha know.

After 43 scoreless minutes you know this is gonna be Wilson chandler for the win

How does Chicago get away with benching RoLo and Justin Holiday and only playing Markkanen 22 minutes? They need to be disqualified from the draft lottery and be forced into pick 14 by default.

Also, I think Frank Ntilikina and Trey Burke work really well as a starting back court. Tim Hardaway Jr’s contract shouldn’t get in the way of balance. Let him come off the bench as a super sub, and let’s focus on getting some combo forwards.

There were some tight sphincters down the stretch of that Minnesota/Denver game. Both teams will benefit from the experience, but the playoff experience is certainly going help the T-Wolve’s young players take a step forward next year.

I don’t even get joy from bagging on other teams, or, take joy in their demise…

the knicks could be in a league of one and still find a way to fuck it up…

at least were acquiring more guys on the team whom you can root for…

I do appreciate that…

horny’s smirk has totally driven me crazy yet…hopefully he learns to communicate and figure out decent rotations…

him basically saying now that everyone knew this season was part of a larger rebuild is kind of weak…

I do think we can do better though coaching wise, just have very little trust in the front office to make an impactful (in a positive way : – 0) hire…

I will not lie to you. It brings me great joy to see the Nuggets miss the playoffs.

horny’s smirk has totally driven me crazy

I hope this is the last we’ll see of it.

I’m in the minority here, but unless we are hiring an assistant coach like Ime Udoka or David Vanterpool (because the Knicks will absolutely without a doubt be hiring a black head coach), I’d rather keep Hornacek on for another year. I don’t want us running after Rivers or Jackson. I’d even take David Fizdale, but I really just want a guy smart enough to know Burke and Ntilikina should be the starting guards next season.

Doc Rivers would actually be the Knicksier move, because he would cost a first round pick to acquire.

Mark Jackson is close to being the Knickiest move.

World order is intact tonight. The Yankees and Red Sox get into a brawl and the Knicks win a must-lose game to the Cavs to fall to 9th.

The Warriors should avoid pissing off Kawhi this week because if he suddenly decided to play the Spurs might take them out in round one

We can never have anything nice. This is our destiny and it always will be.

Someone will probably pass us in the lottery too.

for a while I was hoping to see monty williams on the sideline…

some of the feedback here though wasn’t all that positive towards him being successful as a head coach…

crazy enough, i tend to trust a lot of the feedback here…

I really liked fizdale’s rook rant…don’t think anyone could have won in memphis…

short of mark jackson and david blatt though, can’t think of too many successful (record wise) available coaches…

I’ve joked so many times about the Knicks ending up with Miles Bridges that I’m just a bit terrified about the karmic consequences.

Dolan’s Razor will never fail you.

“The most irritating possible outcome will be the actual outcome.”

Happens every time.

Fuck this team.

They played Kornet and Hicks over 30 minutes and sat down Lee and THJ while the Cavs rested everyone. What else can they do to lose short of ordering their players to miss, which no team would do?

They also finished the season 6:24 since February.

The Knicks have a long way before they can be considered smart but this was not one of their bang your head against the wall moments.

Rambis got fired too? Oh thank god.

Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson

(Please no Doc Rivers too)

Just don’t hire Mark Jackson. I could live with just about anybody else as coach. Just please. No Mark Jackson.

Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson Please no Mark Jackson

Dolan’s Razor says the coach will be Mark Jackson. And we all know how accurate Dolan’s Razor is.

I mean, after today the Dolan’s Razor is about as confirmed as the earth being round, so it surely will be him and it will be terrible. Just like with the earth being round, we’ll have to listen to months of arguments about how he’s being unfairly judged and “not given a chance” and that he will be good.

This will be a long and depressing offseason.

Winning last night is crushing, though at least it saves us falling back to 8 on a coin flip.

But the last few wins have come in the scheme of playing the young guys and we still have something like the second worst record in the league since KP went down and indeed since a while before. Every team wins a few so it isn’t really the last few weeks that killed us – it’s the absolutely interminable failure to pick a true path between trying to win and rebuilding. Not playing Frank more, Dot more, calling up burke sooner – these are bad errors. (Not to mention Willy).

That said, i respect Hornacek but I don’t think he’s a good coach and so I think that was the right call. This summer is huge and will tell us a lot. How we handle Noah, Lee, KOQ and Kanter, plus the coaching hire, will say a lot about the real strategy of Mills and Perry.

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