Game Thread: New York Knicks at Cleveland Cavaliers
Start Time: 02/11/2019 19:00:00
Someone has to win when Cavaliers host Knicks
The good news is that someone will have to win Monday night, when the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers play each other. The bad news is … someone will have to win.
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131 replies on “Game Thread: New York Knicks at Cleveland Cavaliers”
I’m team tank, but this streak has gone on long enough that it’s not great for the psyches of our young’uns. I’ll take a W tonight before we go right back on the road to Zion.
https://sports.theonion.com/lebron-and-lakers-hoping-horrible-series-of-failed-betr-1832537573?utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=Facebook&utm_campaign=SF&utm_content=Main&fbclid=IwAR3sYcNyGEjFKyHxjnF2jwuQnndKOK5oubH2Q3Fu1YQ007h1QzXbdl7Xim4
Onion on point as always.
It’s the exact opposite. It’s just a way of saying that yes, in theory, every team has the mid-level available to them, but it counts as a cap hold for that amount, so it’s essentially useless (as if you have $9 million in cap space available, you just use the cap space. There is no need to use the MLE there. So you “renounce” the MLE, which frees up the $9 million and then you just use the $9 million in cap space to sign the player).
So it’s just some confusing rhetorical language. The main thing to remember is that teams under the cap do not have access to the MLE. They can only exceed the cap with the room exception and any bird rights that they have after using that player’s cap hold.
The buyout season can be so annoying some times. The Raptors just getting gifted Jeremy Lin is a pain in the ass.
They can have a W when they earn it.
This would be the worst possible game to win. Cleveland is one game behind us in the tankathon.
If there ever were a game to want to lose to foster the Tank, this is it. It is a 2 game swing with Cleveland.
If you want the Knicks to win a few games for the rest of the season, I’m with you. If you want them to win any games against Cleveland, Phoenix or Chicago, I do not understand how you think.
Yeah, if they’re going to win a game, it should not be against Cleveland.
Yeah, this is the Kursk of tank battles tonight. Need an L.
Brian,
Thanks. The mid-level exception language is quite confusing and several places I’ve read that the Knicks could use it to sign Jordan.
Also, I agree that the WORST win would be against the Cavs.
I agree but we already lost to them so I could stomach a win tonite.
“Yeah, this is the Kursk of tank battles tonight. Need an L.”
Good one. nice reference – Largest tank battle of WWII, maybe ever.
Yes a few wins would be nice before the season ends just not against Cleveland or Phoenix
This should be an interesting battle of train wrecks. About the only reason to watch is to see Robinson.
If we can eek out a win in the Zion Bowl tonight (i.e. we loose), we surely have to be well on the way to getting a frozen envelope. I mean yeah the franchise is worth $4 billion and has been it’s own worst enemy for the last 20 years, but at least the Cavs had LeBron twice and fans under the age of 65 that remember their last championship.
It’s a super confusing way to make the point, agreed. As for articles about it, that’s what I was saying the other day, the media really doesn’t seem to know anything about how the cap works. It’s kind of annoying.
Rommel has nothing on Collin Sexton when it comes to tank commanding
While it’s annoying thst the media doesn’t know what it’s talking about it’s amazing that so.many people here do. Love all you capologists!
scary game tonight – if ever there was a time for it – we really need that fizmagic working for us…
guessing DJ will have a double double – just hoping it’s not some 20 – 20 type…i imagine DSJ will be good for 25 at least…knox will probably have a “good” game (maybe 20 als0) – hopefully no one else on our team (like trier or super mario) picks tonight to go off…
go jordan clarkson and larry nance jr. – we need you guys…
Mario and Kevin are our own Montgomery and Alexander
i remember as a kid putting together some small diorama of the battle of el alamein…wish we had frank and mud both available for the game tonight…
Problem is we have a stealth anti-tank weapon…the mitchitzer
This blog is the best.
Seriously, you guys are awesome. If this blog ceased to exist I would probably stop giving a shit about the Knicks altogether.
Dennis Smith Jr and DeAndre Jordan are gonna go nuts tonight. I think this is a win for the Knicks.
It’s like our own Battle of the Bulge:
Fizdale to the Cavs : “You must Surrender now ”
Cavs : “Nuts!”
Hezonja must be Patton’s illegitimate child’s great-grandson…
Knicks lobbing hand grenades into the Cavs tank.
hmmmmm, yeah – seems like vonleh has found his way to fiz’s dungeon…
The Jordan free throw mental thing is really amazing — whoever worked with him on that really earned their money. He’s up nearly 50% over his career average.
That said, I hope he misses the rest of his shots tonight.
G-league, anyone?
I don’t get how this is a 1-point game. We should be down 20.
so far this year we are 0 for 3 against the bulls, suns, and cavs…probably no accident…seems we finally learned how to tank (a few seasons late, but)…
unfortunately though, we play those same teams 4 more times this year (not including tonight)…
gotta make the magic happen fiz…if we do end up winning a handful more of games by season’s end – let it not be against any of those teams…
If the Cavs win by 10 or more, are we allowed to forfeit the remainder of the season?
Can we just clear the entire roster and start from scratch?
I would be all for the NBA letting us clean house and having an expansion draft.
The Mitchitzer already getting off a few salvos.
DSJ with only 2 shot attempts???
i’m starting to really warm up to that young man…hopefully knox and mario take most of our shot attempts…
unfortunately they were both UFOs.
WOWOWOWOWOW! HEEEEEEZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONJAAAAAAAAAAAA
Some may choose to switch to NBA TV at 8 and watch Harden go up against Luka. I choose to watch Mario “The Human Highlight Reel” Hezonja.
Seriously, that could be a top 10 dunk for the year. Mario, you suck, but have to give you props for that one!
Show some love for Mario. That slam was fierce.
In Wilt’s day, that wasn’t a goaltend…
i don’t think i’ve seen sexton play this year – how’s the matchup between him and DSJ going?
Did I miss something good?
only if you’re watching the game…
We really need to move Knox before other GMs realize how much he sucks
Oh, I just saw. RIP Chriss.
Dennis Smith Jr and DeAndre Jordan > Tim Hardaway Jr, Enes Kanter, Trey Burke, and Courtney Lee and we are still the worst team in the NBA.
I’m starting to think we might not be good
I tend to be a #KnicksOnly guy when they’re playing but Luka vs Harden is giving me quite a look from across the bar
That’s like saying I tend to be a Phyllis Diller only guy but Beyonce and J Lo are eyeing me up from across the bar…
I swear the eye-test tells me Knox snags some tough-ish rebounds but the pesky numbers say he rebounds like a point guard.
I still like Kadeem. I think the main reason I’m somewhat sympathetic to the current front office, even though I don’t like the kind of player they seem to have an affinity for, is they seem to have a general idea of what kind of players a team in our place on the win curve should sign to fill out the roster. Allen, Trier, and MitchRob all getting big minutes feels like the kind of thing that wouldn’t happen under the last few regimes. Even Hezonja and Vonleh were much more sensible targets than, say, *looks around, then whispers as not to offend anyone* Afflalo/Williams/Thomas etc. even if their contracts were mostly pointless.
Just gonna be honest and say I don’t know who Phyllis Diller is but I think I get the idea?
I mean, anyway it’s Beyonce and J Lo, even I would go for that.
Phyllis Diller made a career out of self-deprecating jokes about her looks.
Well, I turned it on for a nice Mitch block but other than that, pretty dismal.
Sometimes when they cut to Fizdale gesticulating to the refs on the sidelines he kind of looks like he’s a coach in a Key and Peele skit.
MITCH!!!!!!!!
Mitchell Robinson is actually an All Pro wide receiver.
Holy shit, Mitch!
Have they considered lobbing in Mitch’s general direction every time?
Actually I hope they don’t, going undefeated for the rest of the season would be a tough break.
I do think I am seeing better guard play from Jenkins and Allen than I have seen in a while. I remember Jenkins being good in college. Surprised he has been wandering in the wilderness.
Max Jenkins and Allen immediately!
MITCH!!!!!!!!
How crazy is it that Frank Ntilikina might have actually been a 3rd string guard on our G League team?
Phyllis Diller was a crazy-haired comedian that played up her ugliness.
MitchLob is all we have left and somehow it’s enough
Also, Mitchell Robinson is a better basketball player on both ends of the court than Jayson Tatum. Fight me.
I’m really glad we clarified Mitch’s role on the team going forward by trading our second best big to Dallas
Who needs Kyrie? We have Kadeem
If the Cavs aren’t gonna play Love at all in the second half we might have to respond with Closer Mario
I like thinking about the future of Mitchell Robinson.
Yeah. Mitch is still so raw. He bites so hard on pump fakes. And is perfect in every way.
Kevin Knox, you da real MVP
A lot of Knicks are having decent games and Knox is just singlehandedly carrying the tanking load! Impressive stuff for a rookie.
May the Tank be with us
questionable moment for knox to bring out his patented air dancer
You just know this bunk ass Cleveland team is going to win the lottery again
Allen is balling I see.
Keep raising that value, son.
Dennis Smith Jr is a pretty useful defender it appears.
I was shocked at the game I went to that they didn’t throw him any lobs in the second half after throwing him, like, six in a row in the first half and they all worked.
Someone has to win this game, right? Has there ever been a game where both teams lost?
The knock on Kevin Knox was that all his soft ass floater shit was not going to work at all in the NBA.
Well, here we are.
LUUUUUKE!
Oh no, is this the Kornet game?
We need OT in this mess.
I say free up mitch for a 3-pointer
Damn, DSJ had a nice little well-rounded game I see.
MitchRob is a beast.
Draw up the play for Knox he was a lottery pick!
John Jenkins signing already paying dividends
Whew!
If we wanted to win I would’ve really liked that play by DSJ though
The Tank marches on.
YASSSSSS
17 STRAIGHT BITCHES
YOU CAN’T STOP THIS TANK
EVEN CLEVELAND IS NOT SAFE FROM THIS TANKING MACHINE
Who the fuck is Jenkins?
Excellent tank job drawing up the final play for the guy on the 10 day contract
My only regret is that we got smart to this whole tanking deal the year that the NBA changed the structure of our draft.
When you have an 18-year party, it takes a while to take out the trash.
The funny thing is, Mitch is playing like a #5 overall pick and us costing us the vet’s minimum for the next 3 years. Hard to beat that!
The fact that Mitchell Robinson wasn’t drafted in the first round is a travesty.
@98 it just goes to show you how important an athlete’s support group is.
2 games up on Cleveland in the tankathon! Kadeeem the Dream! Mitchell Robinson! I’m honestly just having a lot of fun watching the actual scrubs playing instead of Mudiay or THJ or Kanter, so I really can’t complain. The losses are still coming and the games have been more watchable.
Pretty crazy, but I guess now we know why he was never sent down even when he obviously should have been!
There might be some truth to the notion that they didn’t send him down because they didn’t want to expose him.
watching the nbatv telecast of dallas/houston…
so it seems like they took a break from that players only crap…but, instead of just letting the home or road announcers call the game – they got some folks (steve smith, candace parker, and some play by play guy) sitting in a studio “lounge” talking about the game…
granted, some team announcers really suck, but, this ain’t so good either…
if we just drafted smith…. and basically anyone else last year… we’d be sort of interesting.
Kenneth Faried is such a scrub, right Z-man?
Someone is salty.
thankfully the clips at minny are broadcasting…
ralph lawler has got to be the biggest homer in the league (maggette’s just kind of annoying and whiny) – still, much better than what they got going on there in the nbatv studios…
Courtney Lee clearly learned a lot from Lance Thomas while he was here. Two games in a row with tree falls in a forest numbers. Maybe he really is cooked.
says the teenager from Phoenix who played at Kentucky
Keep Robinson and Frank.
kevin turns 20 in august…I can’t imagine either himself or frank ever thought they’d play this poorly once they reached the nba…
you would think they’ve gotten every iteration of the “why do you suck so bad” question…
I like the fact that at the moment we are holding on to our last two first round picks and doing our due diligence…
really though, what difference does it make, we’re trying to lose, and, most importantly – who do we have better to put out there in their spots…
well, except maybe for everyone on our g league roster..
I can’t see how Paul George is not in the MVP conversation. I’d vote for Giannis, but there are only a handful of players in the league that can carry a team on offense and also impact the game significantly on defense. George is one of them. Westbrook looks like he’s beginning to decline but George is carrying them.
So Steve Ballmer, the owner of the LA Clippers, went on Kevin Durant’s new web series over on ESPN+ and literally said the fans know everything they know. I thought I was crazy, but after that he said “it’s not like we have something back here in the lab like we did at Microsoft” while the owner of the Denver Nuggets was nodding in agreement.
I’m taking that as confirmation that NBA teams don’t have any super advanced stats that lead them to see something in guys our basketball reference searches tell us are bums.
I mean what do we think Frank could put up in the G-League, TS% included? There’s no faster way to tank a guy’s trade value than to have him put up a sub 50% TS with the Westies.
Knox is so young it’s way too soon to write him off, but he looks like another Mills/Perry special.
1. Can create his own shot (check)
2. Scores pointz (check)
3. Makes occasional highlight reel plays (check)
4. Scores inefficiently (check)
5. Plays no defense (check)
6. Doesn’t make winning non boxscore plays (check)
7. Suspect basketball IQ.
Yep, that’s Mills/Perry checklist.
Why does that line smell like mothballs?
These Knicks G league players are not any good. They just look OK relative to the dumpster fire Mills/Perry have built here so far.
Until last season I would argue that Paul George was overrated, but this season he has been absolutely incredible. His BPM is 3 times higher than last season, he lowered his turnovers and had massive improvements on both efficiency and volume. At this point he’s the clear 3rd in the MVP race, I still have Giannis and Harden ahead of him but he’s been performing so damn well.
Why is Kevin Love still on the Cavs?
hopefully to help the Cavs win a few extra games 🙂
@118
He definitely stepped it up this year, but he’s always been underrated here because the impact of his defense is not in the boxscore. If Westbrook could shoot, they’d be a serious contender. They are better and deeper than they’ve been in awhile, but Westbrook is just not the same (at least regular season). George will not be able to carry the team in the playoffs every night. He’s going to need help.
George hasn’t always been underrated, he hasn’t always been this good. He’s having a career year.
These Knicks G league players are not any good. They just look OK relative to guys like Frank.
this
[Signed 4-yr/$120MM extension on Tuesday, July 24, 2018.]
Fun fact: Kevin Knox has had a total of 2 games this season where he made more than half of his shots
For what it’s worth, BPM thinks he’s a 0 on defense and a big minus on offense (in Dallas this year). I think that’s mostly rebounds but I don’t think he’s actually a bad defender.
Anyone figure out who Jenkins is yet?
@127
This guy:
https://www.postingandtoasting.com/platform/amp/2019/2/11/18220145/knicks-ink-former-vanderbilt-standout-john-jenkins-to-10-day-contract
I could joke about his age, how he’s all upside from here, etc etc, but congrats to him for continuing to improve enough he looks like he could stick on a roster. Even 12th men in the NBA are really, really good.
Jenkins is a guard drafted 23rd in 2012 by the Hawks. He is known for his shooting, particularly three pointers. His career three point average is 0.369. I think he was considered promising for a while, but had some injuries and after three years with Atlanta, he bounced around with short stints on various teams, including Pheonix, Washington and the Westchester Knicks. The Knicks lost more players than they got back in their recent trades and waivers, and now need bodies to meet the roster rules. So now we have Hicks on the big club and I guess the ten day contract is for trying Jenkins out.
Seriously, I saw this headline and I thought to myself, “That’s an odd second career…”