84 replies on “Game Thread: Orlando Magic at New York Knicks”
I spent the afternoon in a green jersey. I’m switching to blue and orange now. I’m expecting similar disappointment. When does spring training start?
We could actually win this one but it’s a second of a back-to-back and so we won’t.
Melo Melo (getting waived after 10 games)!
The Magic are bad, but they’re sorta competent on some ends, which probably means this one will be a shitshow from start to finish. It would be an important loss against a tanking competitor but well, let’s hope our young dudes play well!
I understand espn is the typical frozen dinner of sports reporting, but, this was pretty uncalled for:
, the turmoil-plagued New York Knicks return to Madison Square Garden on Sunday night to host the woeful Orlando Magic
I don’t think the magic are really that woeful 🙂
I don’t think ESPN knows how words work.
Are we turmoil-plagued? Is there some controversy I don’t know about or did ESPN just use that phrase out of habit?
I mean, there’s not even been turmoil, the team is just bad and young. How can you say these Knicks are in turmoil when just in the past couple of years we had Rose going AWOL, Noah getting suspended and punching the coach in two unrelated events, #StayMe7o, the exit interview skip, Phil saying Phil things, 3 sided geometric shapes, etc etc.
This is actually a sea of normality compared to what we know as turmoil.
This is perhaps the most “functional” basketball team we have seen operate at MSG in a long time. They are young, without their best player and they played the best friggin team in the East yesterday and hung with them for 3 quarters. TNT, ESPN, SNY, YES, WFAN, NY Post, NY Daily New…. whatever, they use sensationalism to sell advertising. It’s far from the truth. I love that this team is losing now but doing so well. They play tough defense, they run, they make a shit-ton of rookie mistakes. We’ll get a good draft pick, KP back next season and maybe a free agent or two. Next season we need to make the playoffs. Not this season. This season we watch kids run around with their hair on fire and that’s just fine with me.
Maybe they mean Sprint-Gate? To call it a reach is being charitable lol.
and god forbid develop some efficiency with them),
If you’re referring to NBA efficiency, sure. He has a TS% of +.800 right now and it doesn’t look fluky.
Melo Melo (getting waived after 10 games)!
Melo is negative player on both ends and should probably not even be in the rotation on a good team, but his role in Houston’s decline is being wildly overrated. They were missing Paul and Harden for a few games due to injury/suspension and those guys have both played way below their norms so far this season. Gordon has also been terrible. Melo has been better this year than last (which I concede is not saying much). He had two totally atrocious games that have sort of distorted his overall stats a bit. He’s had some nice games.
Melo has been better this year than last (which I concede is not saying much). He had two totally atrocious games that have sort of distorted his overall stats a bit. He’s had some nice games.
I’m not sure what stats you are looking at, but his efficiency is a hair higher than last year despite a 1-11 and 2-12 game. They all have terrible games here or there. That’s part of the overall picture. You can’t just draw a line through them unless there’s a legitimate reason. But those two are pretty extreme in a 10 game sample to still hold a 51.3 TS% .
He’s bad. We all know that. But Houston sucks so far because Paul has been bad, Harden and been mediocre, and Gordon has been in a coma, not because Melo replaced Ariza. Houston’s defense was poor at the start of last season also. It’s the offense that has collapsed this year.
I mean, yeah, Melo is clearly not the only reason why Houston is losing, but he’s one. It’s annoying to see that once again this narrative of “Melo is being scapegoated!!” is coming up, when all the Rockets are doing is cutting their losses on a move that was obviously bad 2 months ago and has obviously proven to be bad.
People around twitter, reddit and all are buying into this “oh poor Melo that’s so sad” while he’s making 27 million to play this terrible basketball.
Jeez, I’m beginning actually feel bad for the guy. I guess I should remind myself of how he derailed our rebuild by forcing us to trade for him instead of signing as a free agent and also let Denver use the nets as leverage to drive up his cost.
Ok I don’t feel bad any more.
I know he’ll probably suck on LA, too, but I’m excited to see him with LeBron when that inevitably happens.
You guys should look at the TS% of Paul, Harden, and Gordon and Houston’s NBA rank on offense and then tell me if swapping Ariza for Melo is the reason their offense sucks. I’m no Melo fan. As I said in my first post, he’s not even a rotation player on a good team. He’s simply not the reason they suck so far this year. He’s been the least of their problems.
Fucking hell he needs a shooting coach
My eyes are bleeding but that was a terrific block from Frank
Loved that block, not so much the missed open shots.
We’re about to see the worst scoring first quarter ever…
This is just like the fucking Jets game
Yikes… this start…
First the Jets, then the Knicks…
We are so far away from being sustainably good it’s sad
Kanter will singlehandedly get us to ten points this quarter. Oof.
WE WANT BAKER!
WE WANT BAKER!
WE WANT BAKER!
How does Kanter not block that shot by Simmons – does the dude have T-rex arms?
It’s hard to be down by 20 in the first quarter, but we have serious ability…
Fizdale’s excellent plan to get our guys to take it stronger to the hoop by raising the rim 6 inches in practice appears to be backfiring.
I know many of us have doubts about the Knicks being able to be legit bottom-3 in the league, but games like this makes me think they have it in them.
Down 20 at the end of the first quarter and it’s not like they’re playing the Warriors or a even good team. Yikes
Well, the Magic have some actual NBA players, so I guess they’re a better team.
I guess building a winning culture is hard unless you have winning players, you know.
Mozgov’s still all-in on that haircut!
Mo Bamba’s hair is legit. So was that defense on Mudiay. This is embarrassing.
Has Knox ever attempted a pass in his life? I swear everytime he touches the ball it’s going up, 100% of the times.
Every Knicks Magic game is absolutely unwatchable
Working hard to stay down 20
It’s really a shame Kanter is so porous on D. His activity in the offensive paint is really upper-echelon good.
What’s with Mudiay’s feet and kick when he shoots 3’s? Weird.
Zion here we come.
HUD could use the Knicks’ bricklaying skills to build more affordable housing.
This might be the worst basketball I have ever seen. Still better than most of the Melo years.
Enes should be nicknamed “The Accumulator.” Amazing how he fills a box score.
Free Trey Burke!
Not trying to open old wounds around here or anything, but Jerian Grant would be the best PG on our roster.
I keep thinking, they have to bring in X, or this game will get out of hand… But there’s no X.
Vucevic is definitely on the scrub that kills the Knicks every time hall of fame, together with the immortal Jodie Meeks when he played for Orlando.
I’m beginning to sense a pattern where the other teams big scores 20 points on 8 shots because we have zero interior d.
I think the game is already out of hand. May has well tell X to hit the showers and have an early one.
@44 when he hit the first three I remembered that I was disappointed we sent him out. When he hit the second I was actively sad. Of course, if the Knicks weren’t playing like trash I might not have gotten that far
Gonna be Furious Fiz at the half.
I hate the early judgement on young players but I am going to be very surprised if Kevin Knox ends up a keeper….
Baker should be on the court. He’s better most of the scrubs we have on this team now. At least he plays one side of the ball well.
I don’t mind having to watch this crap as long as it means drafting one of the Duke freshmen but of course what will happen is the Knicks will draft right after all 3 are gone.
Why did none of the youngsters play much at all in the 2nd quarter? Went the last 6 minutes with Hardaway, Kanter, Hezonja, Burke, Mudiay, and/or Vonleh. If we’re getting blown out, I at least want to see guys who could be good in the future.
Maybe Fiz thinks those are the best guys and was worried about having an absolute blowout embarrass everyone. Frustrating to not see Mitchell Robinson come back in after picking up 2 fouls in 2 minutes though.
@49
Yeah, it’s not even like he’s good or anything, it’s just that it’s a reminder of the circle of futility the Knicks have been on for these years. We started with him being bad, then went on to start like 8 different guys who are probably all either equally as bad or just useless veterans, Jennings, Rose, Jack, Mudiay, Ntilikina, Chasson Randle, Burke, Sessions… at least the 3 guys on this team are very young but yeah, that’s all there is to like.
I’ll be watching Bucks and Nuggets to see if I can remember what actual basketball looks like.
@54
Ntilikina missed 3 shots straight away and had two atrocious turnovers, Dotson did his best Lance Thomas impression and contributed literally nothing and Robinson got two quick fouls… I’m generally all for playing these guys whatever happens but they were really just horrible, I don’t mind benching them when they play this terribly.
I never doubted these guys. Here we come, 14% chance at Zion Williamson, here we come!
There is nothing in Kevin Knox’s game that indicates a useful NBA player. Dude should’ve went in the late second along with Collin Sexton.
Had a great 3 on 3 workout though!
How’s it goink? I tapped out after the first quarter
It’s inexcusable that Frank has 5 MP
Really tough to rebuild quickly when you miss with your Top 10 picks even if they are 8th and 9th which meant all the best prospects were gone. Still hopeful Frank and Knox can at least be useful rotation players.
At least Knox is getting to the FT line tonight and he just had a nasty putback dunk.
It’s inexcusable that Frank has 5 MP
I agree, 5 minutes was way too much.
Over/under on us getting to 80 points?
This game is making me sad.
I just wanna see Robinson get 11 blocks
Robinson swats another 3!!!
Knox is a rookie working his way back into the rotation after an injury. What is Franks’ excuse?
Glad I stuck around for that one!
Also of note – Trier has 2 blocks on the night.
It’s inexcusable that Frank has 5 MP
At some point though, you have to show a bit of tough love if he is playing shit. I mean you would prefer him to ride out the bumps, but I guess Fizdale is living by the sword on the whole “merit” thing for better or worse. Not sure any of the other guards played much better though.
NBA.com stopped updating the score after the 3rd quarter
At least Boston is struggling. It’s funny to see serious basketball analysts blame Jayson Tatum regressing from being the best corner 3 point shooter in NBA history on Kobe Bryant. A guy who wasn’t that great of a shooter in college isn’t actually better than every shooter who ever lived? Fuck, he never should have had a conversation with Kobe.
@71 yeah I agree. Had I not watched the game, I’da been like “only 5 minutes for Frank? WTF? Was he hurt?”. But his play reminded me of a starting pitcher who had absolutely nothing working from the 1st pitch.
@74
Upside is I guess the guards that soaked up most of the minutes were relatively young, so it wasn’t like we gave 25+ minutes to Jared Jack and still lost by heaps. It’s just a shame they all sucked.
Robinson with 9 blocks?? Is that a typo?
Rebecca Harlow needs to work on her interview question-generation the same way the Knicks need to work on their passing and outside shooting.
Grandmaster Tank and the Furious Fiz
nice…
And now Boston is coming back. Just let me have one nice thing.
9 blocks in 22 minutes is insane.
Man, Charlotte is like the ‘what if” Knicks. We easily could have Bridges (WS48 .130), Monk (WS48 .055) and (still) Hernangomez (WS48 .259!) but instead we have Knox, Frank, and I guess Luke Kornet in the G-league, womp womp…
@71
Sure, if one of the backups is playing markedly better, then let Frank sit. But that wasn’t the case–every guard was absolutely awful tonight with the exception of Ron Baker’s 5 minutes of garbage time. He’s 20 years old and you’re playing 26 year old Trey Burke and Emmanuel fucking Mudiay in front of him because he had a bad first five minutes? FOH. Yes, those 5 minutes of play were brutal, but if he’s ever gonna be a starter in this league, he has to learn how to play through slumps.
Sure, if one of the backups is playing markedly better, then let Frank sit. But that wasn’t the case–every guard was absolutely awful tonight with the exception of Ron Baker’s 5 minutes of garbage time. He’s 20 years old and you’re playing 26 year old Trey Burke and Emmanuel fucking Mudiay in front of him because he had a bad first five minutes? FOH. Yes, those 5 minutes of play were brutal, but if he’s ever gonna be a starter in this league, he has to learn how to play through slumps.
As I noted, the other guards didn’t play much better either, so he could have stayed on and just tried to ride it out. I guess my view is that player development is up and down, and it’s maybe not terrible to let Frank sit when he is down. Upside this year is that Fiz has been more inclined to let Frank play through a bit, rather than being yanked on every error like Hornacek was doing last year.
The issue isn’t 5 minutes of terrible basketball, it’s 2,070 minutes of terrible basketball. Frank is one of the worst offensive players in the league. Despite all the bullshit (not that it wasn’t true, but that it didn’t matter) about how hard he worked on his game during the offseason and having a full training camp, he has now regressed to identical numbers as last year. He has not improved in a single aspect of the game, not one iota. And the funny thing is (not really funny, but whatever) that his DBPM and DRtg both suggest that he is grossly overrated on defense as well.
Sure, Trey Burke has been awful, but he has had at least some success as an NBA PG. As bad as he’s been (predictably) Mudiay has looked better than Frank, he’s just as dumb as a post. Frank has been ever so slightly better than Ron Baker.
But yeah, don’t hold him accountable. Let him keep playing no matter how bad he plays. That’s a great message to send to the young guys.
84 replies on “Game Thread: Orlando Magic at New York Knicks”
I spent the afternoon in a green jersey. I’m switching to blue and orange now. I’m expecting similar disappointment. When does spring training start?
We could actually win this one but it’s a second of a back-to-back and so we won’t.
Melo Melo (getting waived after 10 games)!
The Magic are bad, but they’re sorta competent on some ends, which probably means this one will be a shitshow from start to finish. It would be an important loss against a tanking competitor but well, let’s hope our young dudes play well!
I understand espn is the typical frozen dinner of sports reporting, but, this was pretty uncalled for:
I don’t think the magic are really that woeful 🙂
I don’t think ESPN knows how words work.
Are we turmoil-plagued? Is there some controversy I don’t know about or did ESPN just use that phrase out of habit?
I mean, there’s not even been turmoil, the team is just bad and young. How can you say these Knicks are in turmoil when just in the past couple of years we had Rose going AWOL, Noah getting suspended and punching the coach in two unrelated events, #StayMe7o, the exit interview skip, Phil saying Phil things, 3 sided geometric shapes, etc etc.
This is actually a sea of normality compared to what we know as turmoil.
This is perhaps the most “functional” basketball team we have seen operate at MSG in a long time. They are young, without their best player and they played the best friggin team in the East yesterday and hung with them for 3 quarters. TNT, ESPN, SNY, YES, WFAN, NY Post, NY Daily New…. whatever, they use sensationalism to sell advertising. It’s far from the truth. I love that this team is losing now but doing so well. They play tough defense, they run, they make a shit-ton of rookie mistakes. We’ll get a good draft pick, KP back next season and maybe a free agent or two. Next season we need to make the playoffs. Not this season. This season we watch kids run around with their hair on fire and that’s just fine with me.
Maybe they mean Sprint-Gate? To call it a reach is being charitable lol.
If you’re referring to NBA efficiency, sure. He has a TS% of +.800 right now and it doesn’t look fluky.
Melo is negative player on both ends and should probably not even be in the rotation on a good team, but his role in Houston’s decline is being wildly overrated. They were missing Paul and Harden for a few games due to injury/suspension and those guys have both played way below their norms so far this season. Gordon has also been terrible. Melo has been better this year than last (which I concede is not saying much). He had two totally atrocious games that have sort of distorted his overall stats a bit. He’s had some nice games.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/anthoca01/gamelog-advanced/2019/
Not really.
I’m not sure what stats you are looking at, but his efficiency is a hair higher than last year despite a 1-11 and 2-12 game. They all have terrible games here or there. That’s part of the overall picture. You can’t just draw a line through them unless there’s a legitimate reason. But those two are pretty extreme in a 10 game sample to still hold a 51.3 TS% .
He’s bad. We all know that. But Houston sucks so far because Paul has been bad, Harden and been mediocre, and Gordon has been in a coma, not because Melo replaced Ariza. Houston’s defense was poor at the start of last season also. It’s the offense that has collapsed this year.
I mean, yeah, Melo is clearly not the only reason why Houston is losing, but he’s one. It’s annoying to see that once again this narrative of “Melo is being scapegoated!!” is coming up, when all the Rockets are doing is cutting their losses on a move that was obviously bad 2 months ago and has obviously proven to be bad.
People around twitter, reddit and all are buying into this “oh poor Melo that’s so sad” while he’s making 27 million to play this terrible basketball.
Jeez, I’m beginning actually feel bad for the guy. I guess I should remind myself of how he derailed our rebuild by forcing us to trade for him instead of signing as a free agent and also let Denver use the nets as leverage to drive up his cost.
Ok I don’t feel bad any more.
I know he’ll probably suck on LA, too, but I’m excited to see him with LeBron when that inevitably happens.
You guys should look at the TS% of Paul, Harden, and Gordon and Houston’s NBA rank on offense and then tell me if swapping Ariza for Melo is the reason their offense sucks. I’m no Melo fan. As I said in my first post, he’s not even a rotation player on a good team. He’s simply not the reason they suck so far this year. He’s been the least of their problems.
Fucking hell he needs a shooting coach
My eyes are bleeding but that was a terrific block from Frank
Loved that block, not so much the missed open shots.
We’re about to see the worst scoring first quarter ever…
This is just like the fucking Jets game
Yikes… this start…
First the Jets, then the Knicks…
We are so far away from being sustainably good it’s sad
Kanter will singlehandedly get us to ten points this quarter. Oof.
WE WANT BAKER!
WE WANT BAKER!
WE WANT BAKER!
How does Kanter not block that shot by Simmons – does the dude have T-rex arms?
It’s hard to be down by 20 in the first quarter, but we have serious ability…
Fizdale’s excellent plan to get our guys to take it stronger to the hoop by raising the rim 6 inches in practice appears to be backfiring.
I know many of us have doubts about the Knicks being able to be legit bottom-3 in the league, but games like this makes me think they have it in them.
Down 20 at the end of the first quarter and it’s not like they’re playing the Warriors or a even good team. Yikes
Well, the Magic have some actual NBA players, so I guess they’re a better team.
I guess building a winning culture is hard unless you have winning players, you know.
Mozgov’s still all-in on that haircut!
Mo Bamba’s hair is legit. So was that defense on Mudiay. This is embarrassing.
Has Knox ever attempted a pass in his life? I swear everytime he touches the ball it’s going up, 100% of the times.
Every Knicks Magic game is absolutely unwatchable
Working hard to stay down 20
It’s really a shame Kanter is so porous on D. His activity in the offensive paint is really upper-echelon good.
What’s with Mudiay’s feet and kick when he shoots 3’s? Weird.
Zion here we come.
HUD could use the Knicks’ bricklaying skills to build more affordable housing.
RIP Henry George never forget
http://knickerblogger.net/knicks-morning-news-2018-10-16/#comment-631954
This might be the worst basketball I have ever seen. Still better than most of the Melo years.
Enes should be nicknamed “The Accumulator.” Amazing how he fills a box score.
Free Trey Burke!
Not trying to open old wounds around here or anything, but Jerian Grant would be the best PG on our roster.
I keep thinking, they have to bring in X, or this game will get out of hand… But there’s no X.
Vucevic is definitely on the scrub that kills the Knicks every time hall of fame, together with the immortal Jodie Meeks when he played for Orlando.
I’m beginning to sense a pattern where the other teams big scores 20 points on 8 shots because we have zero interior d.
I think the game is already out of hand. May has well tell X to hit the showers and have an early one.
@44 when he hit the first three I remembered that I was disappointed we sent him out. When he hit the second I was actively sad. Of course, if the Knicks weren’t playing like trash I might not have gotten that far
Gonna be Furious Fiz at the half.
I hate the early judgement on young players but I am going to be very surprised if Kevin Knox ends up a keeper….
Baker should be on the court. He’s better most of the scrubs we have on this team now. At least he plays one side of the ball well.
I don’t mind having to watch this crap as long as it means drafting one of the Duke freshmen but of course what will happen is the Knicks will draft right after all 3 are gone.
Why did none of the youngsters play much at all in the 2nd quarter? Went the last 6 minutes with Hardaway, Kanter, Hezonja, Burke, Mudiay, and/or Vonleh. If we’re getting blown out, I at least want to see guys who could be good in the future.
Maybe Fiz thinks those are the best guys and was worried about having an absolute blowout embarrass everyone. Frustrating to not see Mitchell Robinson come back in after picking up 2 fouls in 2 minutes though.
@49
Yeah, it’s not even like he’s good or anything, it’s just that it’s a reminder of the circle of futility the Knicks have been on for these years. We started with him being bad, then went on to start like 8 different guys who are probably all either equally as bad or just useless veterans, Jennings, Rose, Jack, Mudiay, Ntilikina, Chasson Randle, Burke, Sessions… at least the 3 guys on this team are very young but yeah, that’s all there is to like.
I’ll be watching Bucks and Nuggets to see if I can remember what actual basketball looks like.
@54
Ntilikina missed 3 shots straight away and had two atrocious turnovers, Dotson did his best Lance Thomas impression and contributed literally nothing and Robinson got two quick fouls… I’m generally all for playing these guys whatever happens but they were really just horrible, I don’t mind benching them when they play this terribly.
I never doubted these guys. Here we come, 14% chance at Zion Williamson, here we come!
There is nothing in Kevin Knox’s game that indicates a useful NBA player. Dude should’ve went in the late second along with Collin Sexton.
Had a great 3 on 3 workout though!
How’s it goink? I tapped out after the first quarter
It’s inexcusable that Frank has 5 MP
Really tough to rebuild quickly when you miss with your Top 10 picks even if they are 8th and 9th which meant all the best prospects were gone. Still hopeful Frank and Knox can at least be useful rotation players.
At least Knox is getting to the FT line tonight and he just had a nasty putback dunk.
I agree, 5 minutes was way too much.
Over/under on us getting to 80 points?
This game is making me sad.
I just wanna see Robinson get 11 blocks
Robinson swats another 3!!!
Knox is a rookie working his way back into the rotation after an injury. What is Franks’ excuse?
Glad I stuck around for that one!
Also of note – Trier has 2 blocks on the night.
At some point though, you have to show a bit of tough love if he is playing shit. I mean you would prefer him to ride out the bumps, but I guess Fizdale is living by the sword on the whole “merit” thing for better or worse. Not sure any of the other guards played much better though.
NBA.com stopped updating the score after the 3rd quarter
At least Boston is struggling. It’s funny to see serious basketball analysts blame Jayson Tatum regressing from being the best corner 3 point shooter in NBA history on Kobe Bryant. A guy who wasn’t that great of a shooter in college isn’t actually better than every shooter who ever lived? Fuck, he never should have had a conversation with Kobe.
@71 yeah I agree. Had I not watched the game, I’da been like “only 5 minutes for Frank? WTF? Was he hurt?”. But his play reminded me of a starting pitcher who had absolutely nothing working from the 1st pitch.
@74
Upside is I guess the guards that soaked up most of the minutes were relatively young, so it wasn’t like we gave 25+ minutes to Jared Jack and still lost by heaps. It’s just a shame they all sucked.
Robinson with 9 blocks?? Is that a typo?
Rebecca Harlow needs to work on her interview question-generation the same way the Knicks need to work on their passing and outside shooting.
nice…
And now Boston is coming back. Just let me have one nice thing.
9 blocks in 22 minutes is insane.
Man, Charlotte is like the ‘what if” Knicks. We easily could have Bridges (WS48 .130), Monk (WS48 .055) and (still) Hernangomez (WS48 .259!) but instead we have Knox, Frank, and I guess Luke Kornet in the G-league, womp womp…
@71
Sure, if one of the backups is playing markedly better, then let Frank sit. But that wasn’t the case–every guard was absolutely awful tonight with the exception of Ron Baker’s 5 minutes of garbage time. He’s 20 years old and you’re playing 26 year old Trey Burke and Emmanuel fucking Mudiay in front of him because he had a bad first five minutes? FOH. Yes, those 5 minutes of play were brutal, but if he’s ever gonna be a starter in this league, he has to learn how to play through slumps.
As I noted, the other guards didn’t play much better either, so he could have stayed on and just tried to ride it out. I guess my view is that player development is up and down, and it’s maybe not terrible to let Frank sit when he is down. Upside this year is that Fiz has been more inclined to let Frank play through a bit, rather than being yanked on every error like Hornacek was doing last year.
The issue isn’t 5 minutes of terrible basketball, it’s 2,070 minutes of terrible basketball. Frank is one of the worst offensive players in the league. Despite all the bullshit (not that it wasn’t true, but that it didn’t matter) about how hard he worked on his game during the offseason and having a full training camp, he has now regressed to identical numbers as last year. He has not improved in a single aspect of the game, not one iota. And the funny thing is (not really funny, but whatever) that his DBPM and DRtg both suggest that he is grossly overrated on defense as well.
Sure, Trey Burke has been awful, but he has had at least some success as an NBA PG. As bad as he’s been (predictably) Mudiay has looked better than Frank, he’s just as dumb as a post. Frank has been ever so slightly better than Ron Baker.
But yeah, don’t hold him accountable. Let him keep playing no matter how bad he plays. That’s a great message to send to the young guys.