(Wednesday, May 09, 2018 11:26:42 PM)
Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, a two-time NBA Champion, admits he wouldn’t be the coach he is today if it wasn’t for Knicks new head coach David Fizdale.
[NYTimes] N.B.A. Playoffs: Boston Celtics Punch Ticket to Conference Finals (Thursday, May 10, 2018 3:52:27 AM)
A hard-fought Game 5 pushed the Celtics past the Philadelphia 76ers. Boston will face the Cleveland Cavaliers for a shot at the N.B.A. finals.
[NYTimes] N.B.A. Coaches Pick Dwane Casey for Coach of the Year; Brad Stevens Gets No Votes (Wednesday, May 09, 2018 6:05:31 PM)
The National Basketball Coaches Association has announced Casey as its 2017-18 coach of the year, two days after the Raptors were eliminated from the playoffs.
[NYDN] David Fizdale excited to coach Knicks guard Frank Ntilikina (Wednesday, May 09, 2018 9:42:12 PM)
In a job full of projects, among the biggest and most important for David Fizdale is Frank Ntilikina.
[NYDN] Erik Spoelstra reflects on ‘legendary fights’ with David Fizdale (Wednesday, May 09, 2018 9:41:13 PM)
Perhaps the working dynamic with Spoelstra provides a clue about why it didn’t work in Memphis for Fizdale.
(Wednesday, May 09, 2018 6:37:00 PM)
The Heat coach said he and the new Knicks coach had some “epic, legendary fights,” but built a solid relationship when the two worked together.
(Wednesday, May 09, 2018 7:58:01 PM)
With Jeff Hornacek fired and David Fizdale hired as Knicks head coach, center Joakim Noah apparently thinks he has a new lease on his career at the Garden. Fizdale revealed Tuesday at his introductory press conference Noah texted him congratulations. But Noah’s NBA rebirth likely will happen with another team. Sources indicate the likeliest scenario…
(Wednesday, May 09, 2018 5:24:07 PM)
As they researched the coaching candidacy of David Fizdale, members of the Knicks hierarchy interviewed many of those who had interacted with him in the past. But they did not meet with Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, who had a long relationship with Fizdale. They didn’t have to talk with Spoelstra. They had already talked…
(Wednesday, May 09, 2018 8:29:22 AM)
David Fizdale wouldn’t bite on LeBron James possibly coming to the Knicks one day, but he did acknowledge a kinship with the Cavaliers star. As an assistant coach, Fizdale was with James for all of The King’s four seasons with the Heat, from 2010 to 2014. When Fizdale was fired as head coach of the…
42 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.05.10)”
Sixers-Celts seemed like an NCAA finals game. Man, does the East suck for now. But yeah, both teams will be good for a looooong time.
Jaylen Brown is really surprising me. If he continues to shoot well, he’s a monster at the 2.
Yeah Z..they are. It’s fun. I wonder, what are the C’s gonna do when Hayward is healthy? You certainly can’t take Brown and Tatum out of the starting 5 now. AND THEY’RE BABIES! The fact that Brad Steven’s didn’t get a vote for COY is an absolute travesty. And Ainge should be EOY..and probably for a couple more years after it with the work he’s done. Wow.
I think next years starting 5 for the C’s should be Kyrie/Jaylen/Heyward/Tatum/Horford. Jayson has shown in college and the pros that he can effectively play small ball 4 imo.
I hate Ainge. Why can’t the Knicks have nice things like Kyrie Irving, Gordon heyward, young promising rookies/sophomores, and a bevy of picks?
I think Boston might surprise Cleveland. It seems clear that the way to have a shot against the Cavs (unless you’re a super team, like in the West) is to slow them down with strong defense and the Celtics have that in spades.
https://deadspin.com/future-of-basketball-luka-doncic-gets-a-rare-triple-dou-1825906872
First triple double in 11 years in the ACB… what a kid. Someone is probbaly picking Ayton over this guy and lamenting the choice for the next 10 years.
17 points on 4-4 shooting my fucking God!
The opposing team looks like it doesn’t belong in a pro league, even in Europe.
But yeah, the kid is amazing and he should be even more fun to watch in the NBA.
Real Betis is probably the worst team in the ACB, they’re last place in the standings and are bound for relegation, but it’s still quite a feat, yeah.
I came away impressed with Saric in this playoff run. He really struggled in the first few games against Boston, but I thought he adjusted well and stepped up immensely over the last couple of games in that series.
His improvement this year was striking. They really do have some crazy nice building blocks. If Fultz could give them anything next year…wow.
It really did look like a baby team taking their first steps, like OKC when they had their first playoff run and Durant had that absolute stinker of a series against the Lakers. I’ll be surprised if the Sixers don’t advance further next year already.
https://deadspin.com/the-philadelphia-76ers-should-blow-up-the-team-and-not-1825082317
This made me chuckle
The Celtics two best players-by far-in the playoffs have been Al Horford and Terry Rozier. What will they be like with Irving and Heyward? Idk-maybe pretty much the same, but in a different way. Rozier has played better by some metrics this playoffs than Kyrie Irving ever has in a playoffs.
The Cavs series should be interesting, because I don’t know if Kevin Love is reliable and if he’s not good that team is Lebron and a lot of bums and I don’t know if even Lebron can keep playing as well as he played in the first two rounds.
Celtics vs Sixers was a great series to watch, very evenly matched. Both those teams are going to be really good for a long time. The Knicks and the whole eastern conference is going to have a tough time competing with those two unless they get a serious upgrade in talent.
If Philadelphia had just cut down on the fourth quarter turnovers they could have won that series. Next year with Kyrie and Hayward back plus another high pick the Celtics are going to be crazy good. Likewise if Fultz lives up to even part of his hype and is a useful player, that team is stacked too. Loved watching TJ McConnel get minutes and make the most of them, he had a solid impact on both sides of the ball.
Torn between my burning hatred for Brad Stevens and the thought that the Celtics would be at least a more interesting opponent for GS than the Cavs again.
I’m surprised Cleveland is favored. Recency bias, maybe?
Boston is a better version of the Indiana team that Cleveland struggled with, and they have home court.
I took the Celtics to win the East at +2000 a month ago before the playoffs started (it’s in a thread here somewhere, I don’t have it bookmarked). I thought it was just good value but never thought they’d actually win. Now I think they’ll win.
I’d point out that there’s probably some recency bias in our evaluation of the Celtics as well. They also really struggled in their 1st round series against a team even worse than the Pacers. And while George Hill’s return explains some of the Cavs uptick, the Celtics improvement in the 2nd round is due a lot to horrendous late-game execution by the Sixers. I expect the games to be close scrappy affairs because the Celtics are awesome on D but Lebron is so hard to stop at the end of the game and while the Celtics have a lot of different guys to throw at him I don’t think any of their options are particularly good. I think the Cavs pull out enough of the close games to get through.
edit: I sort of forgot that Marcus Smart missed part of that Bucks series which would explain some of their improvement to the 2nd round as well. So maybe scratch that point.
I’m calling LeBron in 6
“the Celtics have a lot of different guys to throw at him I don’t think any of their options are particularly good. I think the Cavs pull out enough of the close games to get through.”
I agree, I’m not sure who they are going to put on LBJ at the end of the game when they need a stop.
Lebron in 6
Boston definitely struggles on the road. That was evident in Milwaukee, and they got a little lucky in Philadelphia.
LeBron will probably win.
As someone with a vested interest in the Celtics, though, I kinda want to see the case for them winning. I imagine the teams split in Boston, and it all comes down to if the Celtics can split in Cleveland. If they do, I think they can win in 7. If they can’t, they’ll probably lose in 5.
I think Boston’s game plan is to throw everything they have at all of LeBron’s teammates, shut them down, and hope that being superman every night wears down LeBron.
It would also help if Jayson Tatum remembered he’s a rookie and not superman and started playing a little worse than averaging 24 points on 63 ts% for the entire Sixers series.
Funny how nearly everyone on this board, including me, singled out Jayson Tatum as the most likely bust in last year’s draft. Let’s remember that before we get too high or low on any prospect in June.
I have to say, this has been a harder version of the Celts to hate than most. No Paul Pierce-types, humble coach, brilliant drafting, play the right way, etc.. Objectively, they would have been so much easier to root for than the Sixers. But man, do I hate that team.
I agree with this and I think it will probably work during large portions of the series. The Zach Lowe piece on the Korver-Love dynamic from yesterday was really good I thought and the Celtics have the perfect piece to defend that – Smart on Korver is a good base matchup and he’s the rare guard that’s strong enough that I don’t think Love can roll him in the post if they get the switch. When Love plays poorly is when this Cavs team start to look a bit light on offensive weapons.
Agreed on it being hard to hate this iteration of the Celts.
He was a beast last night. Played really smart basketball. Very impressed.
The Sixers played really dumb basketball in the fourth quarter of every game I watched. I don’t really believe in the value of coaches and I also reject the canonization of Brad Stevens but put a gun to my head and I definitely believe the Sixers would have won this series if you swapped Brown and Stevens.
I will take the Celtics in 7.
The Celtics are going to be better next year as they develop and get deeper, but they aren’t going to be a LOT better because the injured players will be back. They’re already getting excellent production from their starters. They can only play 5 players at a time. If you throw Kyrie and Hayward into the mix instead, they will just be even deeper.
Fizdale is saying all the right things. I hope he can develop these guys and hold them accountable on defense the way he says he will.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/brad-stevens-makes-the-celtics-better-than-they-have-any-right-to-be/?addata=espn:frontpage
Here’s a good article on Stevens.
The Celtics are going to either pay Marcus Smart or lose him because they have Terry Rozier and Kyrie Irving. I don’t know how many times they can continue to lose good defenders and be an elite level defense. They’re running out of not-so-talented-but-talented players to underpay. Boston might win 65 games next year and go to the Finals but it isn’t a guarantee. And when the Knicks are rolling out their starting five of Trey Burke, Frank Ntilikina, RJ Barrett, Michael Porter Jr, and Kristaps Porzingis we’ll see who’s boss around these parts.
I’m not one to sing the praises of the Celts or their coaches, but I have to give Stevens his due. He’s taken a team with:
*only 4 returning players from last year
*a rookie (that we all thought was trash) playing 35mpg and putting one monster performance after another
*a second-year player being a huge factor on both ends in 32mpg
*a third-year player playing out of his mind in 37mpg at PG
*Irving and Hayward out
*loss of several key players from last year through trades/FA e.g. Avery Bradley
*a critical bench player that is one of the worst shooters in the league
*a bunch of scrubs in the end of the rotation
*their highest WS48 player from the regular season getting scrub’s minutes
How anyone can dispute the magnitude of coaching job that made a ECF appearance finals possible under these circumstances is beyond me. I’m not sure if Pop or anyone else could have accomplished more with this team under these circumstances. And certainly not Dwane Casey or Brett Brown!
One thing that can’t be overstated is how freakin’ great Horford has played, clearly one of the smartest and most mobile big men in the league now that he’s healthy. Hart to root against him, he never seems to make a bad decision on either end and doesn’t back down from anyone.
Tatum is just so complete. I thought his “veteran”, controlled mid range style in college was covering a lack of athleticism and shaky 3 point shooting but oh boy, was I wrong. There was one possession last game where he picked up a turnover or a rebound in the paint and sprinted past the entire Sixers team right down the middle, outpacing even Simmons, who eventually fouled him. He’s going to be a terror to deal with.
At least his 3pt shooting has dropped quite a bit in the playoffs from his insane 43% on the regular season, but he’s still doing so much.
I think if I was forced to pick I’d probably say Brad Stevens is the best coach in the league at this point but I do think there’s truth to the idea that under a different set of circumstances people would look at this Celtics team and see a very talented young group studded with lottery picks and other first round talent making the leap a little earlier than expected instead of giving so much credit to the coach. I mean Jaylen Brown and Tatum are pretty comparable in pedigree to Embiid and Simmons, they have a veteran all-star on their side, and Rozier and Smart were both high 1st round picks in the last few years and yet there’s the perception that Boston is the scrappy underdogs. Philly was in a similar spot – they’re also heavily reliant on inexperienced stars, they also had a serious injury (obviously Fultz is way less of a known quantity than Kyrie or Heyward but he was expected to contribute this year for sure) and yet the narrative around them is pretty different and Brett Brown ends up with a lot less of the credit.
Tatum reminds me a lot of Grant Hill. Same size, similar well-rounded skill set. Hill was a better passer, but didn’t have the great outside shot like Tatum has.
All I know is that I wouldn’t trade with the Celtics. If you do, it’s very likely Ainge is getting the best of the deal on its face value, the player you get is going to disappoint, and the player Boston gets is going to improve.
JK47 taht’s reasonable, but I think his game is more like Melo’s except less selfish and more intelligent. He’s not as explosive as Grant Hill was, nor the ball-handler. He has the same smoothness and finesse to his game as a young Melo and similar athleticism(although Melo was thicker, both in the body and the skull!)
Thing is, only the folks here were rating Tatum as a potential bust. He was a consensus top-5 pick, and some had him going #3. Here was SI’s take:3. Boston Celtics: Jayson Tatum, F, Duke | Freshman
Reid Forgrave from CBS said this:
So the consensus beyond KB was that Tatum was a stud; only the braintrust here (and idiots like me) overthought things and essentially saw a poor man’s Melo. I would say that “Melotrauma” is the main reason why most here didn’t want to believe in his potential.
I mean, there were legitimate concerns. Draftexpress talked about him as iso-heavy, somewhat inefficient and having an old man’s game, more smooth than explosive, not advanced with his handle and having a hard time creating off the dribble, all things that he has more or less proven them wrong on in his first season. He was projected as a lesser athlete than Jackson and a significantly less promising defender than Isaac.
Props to Ainge on going against it all and picking the guy anyway, because he seems to be a hell of a player, but I wouldn’t be too hard on ourselves Z-Man. If we knew he had the ability to shoot 43% from 3 when he never had showed that level before I don’t think any of us would have had him as a bust.
I think that even at 36% from 3 he’s a hell of a player, and his scouting report was heavily skewed by missing time with injury. But the video evidence clearly showed the upside, just not the consistency.
Also, DX (so sorry it’s defunct) showed strengths and weaknesses for every player, so for Tatum they had to say something. While the weaknesses may be “legit,” they are not uniformly reliable or well-documented. Tatum went where he was projected to go despite a limited body of evidence, in a way, like Kyrie did.
I didn’t love Tatum as a prospect myself, I figured him as a high volume pointzz guy who probably wasn’t going to be real efficient. I was thinking Rudy Gay. He wasn’t really a great shooter in college, he was merely okay.
He had a very good rookie year but it wouldn’t surprise me if he regressed as a soph.
I don’t think he regresses (other than perhaps a modest decline in his 3-pt shooting, which was steadily well over 40% all year but on relatively low volume and he is only shooting .311 from 3 in the playoffs) because he has a very intelligent and mature approach to the game, and is athletic enough to be a factor on both ends. The one thing to consider is that he had a usage of 19% all year. It’s reasonable to ask whether he can sustain his numbers at a higher usage, but we won’t find that out for a while at least because when Hayward and Irving come back, his usage might actually go down! One fair question to ask is: how would he have done on the Suns or Kings had he dropped a spot or two?