(Sunday, March 17, 2019 3:01:30 AM)
The New York Knicks will play host to the Los Angeles Lakers at Madison Square Garden
(Saturday, March 16, 2019 10:17:23 AM)
During a rare, wide-ranging interview earlier this week, Knicks owner James Dolan voiced confidence that the team would enjoy a successful summer in recruiting top tier free agents. â??Yes, I do think that. I think we offer a pretty good situation for [to acquire free agents],” he said on The Michael Kay Show. “One is a […]
[NYTimes] How the Los Angeles Lakers Blew It (Sunday, March 17, 2019 7:00:10 AM)
Maybe they were never going to win a championship this season, even with LeBron James, but they were not supposed to be this bad. What happened?
(Saturday, March 16, 2019 11:04:58 PM)
Zion Williamson led Duke with 21 points as the Blue Devils captured the ACC title Saturday night, and now the likely No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft will showcase his talents on the big stage that is March Madness.
(Saturday, March 16, 2019 11:03:41 PM)
Lance Thomas has been here before. In the waning weeks of a wretched season, the Knicks’ unofficial captain has seen teammates’ minds wander to summer vacation in other years. Some groups fractured. That isn’t the case with David Fizdale’s 13-56 team. Though the Knicks possibly are headed to posting the worst record in franchise history,…
(Saturday, March 16, 2019 1:51:50 PM)
John Mara used to be an untouchable around here, because there was a time when it seemed everything the Giants glanced at instantly turned to gold. But as much as any other job in sports, ownership is a fickle one, because it is almost exclusively a reflection of how the team is doing. You almost…
(Saturday, March 16, 2019 9:40:53 AM)
Knicks owner James Dolan insisted he was “ambushed” by a fan who recommended he sell the team. What is the word he would use to describe an ownership that has offered fans two decades of incoherence, ingratitude and incompetence? Dave Gettleman, the GM time forgot, misread the capability of his roster and the market, and…
(Saturday, March 16, 2019 8:50:05 AM)
Knicks coach David Fizdale can’t say he is surprised LeBron James and his purple-and-gold gang arrive at the Garden for their lone visit bruised, battered and out of the playoff race. James will face the Knicks in a Lakers uniform for the first time Sunday at noon. In initial meeting in January — a Knicks…
55 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2019.03.17)”
WTF is going on with Elfrid Payton? 4 straight triple doubles, 2 straight games with 16 assists.
It does seem like it takes longer for point guards to figure things out in the NBA. But I pray that Mills and Perry don’t see this and think Mudiay can make the same jump in year 5 of his career.
It would be interesting if the NBA demanded that every team play a 12:00 Sunday game every week. I’d love to see the analytics based on location and age of team. Also I’d like way more data about where, with whom and for how long the players party on Saturdays.
Payton is a pretty good box score stuffer, he plays like a mini Rondo without the elite defense of his early days. It’s a shame he simply can’t score to save his life, or he would be a pretty interesting player.
By the way, the trash Spurs are on a 8 game winning streak and are virtually confirmed to be in the playoffs yet again… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ll only believe a Pop team is missing the playoffs when they get eliminated.
Must be annoying to know your team would probably be 48-22 and a Finals contender if Kawhi’s uncle had kept his opinions to himself.
I wouldn’t mind the whole “no offensive system” thing as much if Fizdale instituted a rule that 50% of their possessions would be lobs to Mitch, especially when he’s standing under the basket with a 6’5″ PG on him. Am I blind or is he open for a dunk on virtually every possession? And Trier, Allen and Dotson are dancing with the ball instead of putting it in the air?
Is an assist:turnover ratio of 2:3 good?
Emmanuel Mudiay wants to know.
lol, Mitch has played 8 minutes. At least we’re seeing what we have in Mario Hezonja
I never thought I’d be happy to see Lance Thomas enter the game until I saw him come in for Mario Hezonja.
That’s a bullshit call.
How the fuck was that a foul on Trier? He didn’t touch him!
ha, they look like a bunch of guys out there who never played together before…the lakers don’t look much better…
the whole game feels like nothing but turnovers and fouls…
TOs (Opp pts off TOs): 22 (26)
That’s a quarter of our possessions. The good news is it’s pretty funny.
this is a really tough game to watch…thankfully I have it on the dvr and i’m able to fast forward a bunch…
so, I guess the front office has pulled the plug on frank…
I thought he was still injured?
He tripped over his own feet. Dude’s really leveraging his kindly old man look.
I’m good with this win.
A block on Lebron by Hezonja as a byproduct of good defense.
I’ll take it.
Holy shit, how did that happen?
Add one more to the Knox managed to shoot over 50% counter!
I would doubt there’s been a lower point in Lebron’s career than getting blocked twice by Mario Hezonga to end a game
Any defeat we can deliver to James is satisfying to me.
Looking at our remaining schedule, I’m seeing at best 3 more wins
@ Raptors
Jazz
Nuggets
Clippers
Raptors
Heat
Bulls
@ Magic
@ Rockets
Wizards
@ Bulls
Pistons
That should be good enough to keep us at the worst record (especially since I think we lose tiebreakers to both the Suns and Cavs) Though 2 losses to the Bulls would really help solidify it.
That was honestly hilarious. Just don’t do it again down the stretch.
it was interesting to hear frank yelling to mario after the game: you ain’t going nowhere…
I wonder if he meant with the knicks or the nba…
kevin really needs to work hard on his “old man game” – cuz, he ain’t beating nobody with his first step…
The Knicks should probably trade DSJ for a couple of 2nd rounders while he still has decent value and keep Mudiay on a really cheap contract as the backup until they find their long term starting PG. There’s not much difference between the two but they could get something for DSJ if they move on that.
Adding Durant puts the Knicks into immediate win now mode. He’ll be 31 and on a tight window. We don’t want to become another LA. With KP you could at least argue Durant would be #1 and KP #2 and you go from there with development, trades etc… Then as Durant aged and KP peaked they could swap roles. Without KP it’s add another star NOW or forget it.
Hezonja has some impressive highlights for a guy who shouldn’t be in the league next season
my recollection is that there is no tiebreakers for worst record, they just split the odds
Stopped keeping track of Knox’s stats a little while ago but assumed he might get more efficient as the season went on. Just looked through his splits, and as a whole it seems like he’s stayed pretty consistently sub-par as far as shooting numbers go. Havent been able to watch any games since the beginning of the season, but are his horrible shooting numbers due to a problem with his mechanics or his shot selection? I’m all for the young guys getting experience, but I feel like he’s just having his bad habits reinforced.
Crazy win. If that wasn’t the surest proof ever that LeBron is slowing down I don’t know what is. He was flat out terrible on the last few possessions, culminating with Hezonja blocking him twice to win the game, yikes. Father Time is undefeated, and it looks like it’s catching up with Lebron who it turns out might be human after all.
Nice win over the Lakers, 2-0 vs. them this year, sweet.
Still searching for something valuable that Knox brings.
If this game didn’t get you excited for next year’s inevitable Mudiay, Reddish, Knox, Hezonja, DAJ starting lineup I don’t know what will.
I’m a frustrated Jets fan waiting for Father Time to vanquish Tom Brady.
I think we’re being a little too hard on Knox. The main thing he doesn’t bring is consistency. He misses more than he makes, plays bad D more than he plays good, etc., but there are times (like today) when he shows flashes of a guy who can become a big, athletic, skilled wing. He gets some tough rebounds in traffic, moves his feet pretty well on iso D, handles the ball a little bit, gets to the line a bit, and I think his FT shooting form has improved. His rebounding is up to 5.5 per 36, his usage is down to 22%, he’s not turning the ball over or fouling a ton, and he’s shooting 34% from 3 on 6 attempts. He’s played 1700 minutes without getting hurt. He won’t turn 20 until August and seems even younger than that (like a teenager on Take Your Kid to Work day.)
I’m not saying that he will develop into a great, or even good player. I’m just not ready to give up on him yet.
we should have a contest for who can guess where Mudiay, Vonleh and Hezonja will be next year and what salary they will be making. DeAndre can be the bonus round.
@27,
Well if we only win at most 3 more games, we’d only tie one of Cleveland or Phoenix. They play each other so one of them is guaranteed to finish with 18 wins.
@34 correct
How is Hubie Brown still broadcasting? He was born in 1933! There are people on the court who could be his great great grandchildren….
Good for him….
Hubie is still pretty good too.
So is Giannis
The 2nd round of the Eastern Conference playoffs is gonna be so interesting. Milwaukee vs. Boston (the Celtics luck out, of course, by probably getting Indiana instead of Philly in the 1st round) Toronto vs. Philly.
Lots of teams with something to prove, will be fascinating to see how it all shakes out and who gets to be the runner up for the NBA championship.
I was looking at Alex Len’s numbers and thinking how indistinguishable they were from someone we’d have considered an all-nba candidate 10-15 years ago. So I looked at how many guys (over 100 min) have put up at least 17/10 TS 55% in a given year. In 2003-4 there was only 1. Shaq. A typical number between 2000 – 2015 was 3-7 guys. This year there are 31.
My guess is that if he can gain 10 lbs of muscle and some semblance of a left hand over the summer he’ll immediately jump from leading candidate for worst rotation player in the NBA to just garden variety bad. I think that if he can eventually get up to around 235 lbs he might look like a completely different player. Right now he reacts to any contact like he’s just been hit with an electric cattle prod but with his frame he should be able to get strong enough to play through contact. That said, given his complete lack of defensive awareness and ball sharing skills I’m not sure that’ll be enough to make him a decent starter. I wouldn’t trade him for a second rounder just yet and given how shallow this draft is I’m not even sure I’d trade him for a late first but it’d be tough to say no if someone offered a pick in the late teens/early 20s.
Tiebreakers mean nothing for the lottery. Teams split the ping pong balls and then a coin toss decides who is the “official” #1 (as in whose worst case scenario is the #5 pick).
So a tie would be horrible for the Knicks. This was a funny ending to a game, but Hezonja with a game-winning block could easily be this year’s Ndour game-winner if the Knicks aren’t more careful.
If Knox turns into Giannis over the summer he will really be something….
😉
Mudiay, Dotson, Hezonja and Knox all had good offensive games. I think this may be a function of playing the Laker defense as much as signs of improvement.
That’s certainly what it seemed like, yeah.
Ugh, Bucks lose Brogdon and Blazers lose McCollum on the same night. Blech.
I said early in the season that Atlanta had no players I’d want on the Knicks. I eat crow on that one.
I’d trade the entire Knicks roster except Robinson for John Collins and Trae Young, and I really did not expect to be saying this about Young. Instead of hitting the rookie wall, he’s been improving a lot lately, averaging about .570 ts% since January with very good assist numbers.
I really liked John Collins at draft time, and believe I mentioned him as one of the guys I’d take over Frank. Trae Young, not so much.
LeBron has been LeCoast for much of the regular season for years, and although his numbers have dipped, he’s still incredibly productive at this game. I think the real issue is that he has nothing to play for except token, moral-victory wins against shitty teams in the late regular season. The last time LeBron missed the postseason was 2004-05, when he led the Cavs to a surprising 42-40 record and missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker. We’re in uncharted waters here. This is a guy who just led two different franchises (and arguably three completely different core rosters, in total) to the Finals in EIGHT consecutive seasons, and has never finished worse than 9th in MVP voting, ever, and has been a top-5 MVP share-getter since 2005-06. That’s insane. He probably had no idea that this could happen.
But if you want to talk about how his I-can-turn-any-team-into-a-Finals-contender hubris led him to this moment, I’m down. We knew this team capped out as the 2017-18 Cavs, and that was with a bunch of hypotheticals all turning up in the real world. Haha, didn’t work out as planned.
I also thought Atlanta would have trouble winning 20 games. So much for that.
I was a big Young fan coming into the draft (honestly, I was a big fan of pretty much the first six guys in the draft, plus Mikal Bridges!). I just was a much bigger Doncic fan. I’m glad that the Hawks are at least getting a decent consolation prize.
Yeah, I said I would be very happy if the Knicks drafted Young with the 9th pick, but I expected him to struggle a lot more out there. He’s really a very gifted passer and if he maintains this ts% he’s a pretty valuable player already. I would still trade him plus a first for Doncic, but Atlanta came out of it with something good too.
Watched a little bit of the Nets/Clippers game…man, I really wish the Knicks become good again so I can watch games like that that have some meaning to them.
That was a good game. Russell was hot, Dinwiddie most definitely was not.
Gallinari has evolved into a pretty terrific player. I have said it a thouasand times but I thought he was better than Melo when the trade happened and nothing that has happened since has changed my mind about that. He’s going to end up more deserving of the HOF than Melo, who will be a first round lock I would think.