Month: December 2019

Berman doing a little more work for Mills, throwing Fizdale under the bus a little more after the bus left the station weeks ago:

There are still some excuses you can offer David Fizdale.

The last five games he coached with the Knicks, he faced title contenders in Philly, Boston, Toronto, Milwaukee and Denver. Fizdale did not have starting point guard Elfrid Payton, part of the recent resurgence, for 17 straight games.

And while Fizdale has gotten rousing support from the coaching fraternity, the old Bill Parcells adage is never false: You are what your record says you are.

After gaining revenge on the depleted Wizards in Washington Saturday to close out 2019, Miller stands at 5-6 – already one more victory this season than the 4-18 Fizdale.

All those coaches/ex-coaches who killed the Knicks for firing Fizdale — Rick Carlisle, Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra, Stan Van Gundy — are eating New Year’s Eve crow.

Only Jeff Van Gundy was sharp enough to acknowledge Miller as a shrewd basketball lifer deserving a crack at age 55.

“Mike just wants to focus on basketball,” one NBA executive in touch with Knicks brass said. “David is a lot about the glitz and glamour. He may have created some self-created distractions.”

It’d sure be swell if Randle could just be the guy I really liked on the Lakers a couple of years ago. I thought he’d be a nice pick-up then and then he did even better in New Orleans. Then he came here and was horrendous. If he keeps playing like he has lately, though, I’d gladly stick with him (although, if a team wanted to make a compelling offer for him, I’d obviously still listen if I were the Knicks) and see if he can be part of the next good Knicks team in a couple of years.

Bradley Beal has officially been ruled out for tonight’s Knicks/Wizards game. Isaiah Thomas is back from his two-game suspension, but the Wizards’ decimated roster continues to be decimated. It’s essentially IT and Troy Brown.

The Knicks get Wayne Ellington back and Mitchell Robinson is active despite toe issues.

Meaningless winning streak, here we come!

Let’s go? Knicks!

The Knicks head allllllllllllllllllll the way to Brooklyn to play the Nets tonight, in a rivalry that has lost so much juice that it was literally taken off of the nationally televised scheduled tonight (cutting the Knicks’ amount of nationally televised games from 3 to 2).

The Nets are playing strong ball, going 16-13 while playing without Kyrie Irving for quite some time and playing without Caris Lavert for a while now, too, as Spencer Dinwiddie has played so well that you’d have to imagine that the Nets could get quite a haul if they were willing to trade him when Irving returns (as Irving and Dinwiddie don’t exactly have complementary games). Obviously, with Irving’s injury history, it probably makes more sense to just hold on to Dinwiddie as a safety precaution.

The Knicks will be playing without Dennis Smith Jr. and Marcus Morris and Taj Gibson continue to be questionable.

The Warriors won last night, so the Knicks could probably afford a win, so beating the Nets would be nice, provided Mitch or Barrett were the reason for the win, of course.

Let’s go! Knicks?

The Knicks host the Washington Wizards, who are one of the worst teams in the league (along with the Knicks). However, the Wizards are in the middle of an absurd stretch of bad luck with injuries, losing their pretty impressive rookie (and staring power forward), Rui Hachimura, plus their starting center, Thomas Bryant, their fill-in starting power forward, Davis Bertans and one of their top reserves, Mo Wagner. Their point guard starter (he took the job from Ish Smith), Isaiah Thomas, is also going to miss the game due to a suspension over an altercation with a Philly fan (Philly had a deal where every fan would receive a frosted treat if an opposing player missed both free throws, so the fan was cursing Thomas out in hopes that he would miss and Thomas went into the stands to show his disapproval).

So that’s a whole lot of guys missing this game. Bertans, Hachimura and Bryant are their #2-4 leading scorers.

In other words, Mike Miller’s Knicks really ought to win this game.

Let’s go? Knicks!

Sorry for the lack of game thread last night, folks. As you, I am sure, noticed, the site had some issues last night.

Anyhow, I figured we should have a new thread either way, so let’s go with SNY.com’s Coby Green on the inevitable move of Elfrid Payton to the starting lineup:

As the Knicks continue to figure out their point guard rotation this season, Mike Miller made his first adjustment to the starting lineup since taking over as head coach.

Elfrid Payton got the nod at the one spot for the Knicks Saturday night when they faced the Bucks at Madison Square Garden, a spot that for a majority of the season had gone to Frank Ntilikina.

Ironically enough, Payton had actually one the starting spot in training camp to start the season, but got injured just a few games in, leading to Ntilikina being inserted into the lineup thereafter.

In Saturday night’s blowout loss to the Bucks, Payton put up just six points on 3-of-7 shooting in 27 minutes, but that wasn’t the selling point of his night for Miller.

“Well we go back and kind of look and Elfrid had 10 assists and two turnovers,” Miller said at the post game press conference. “And so the one thing we’ve seen him do consistently here as he’s come back from his injury is he’s helping other people, and you have to have that facilitator and that guy that does it, and he’s taken that role and he’s done a very good job with it.”

“We’ll have to take a look and see what is best for out group,” Miller added when asked if Payton will start for the Knicks going forward. “We’re going to look at this film and see where we felt like our strengths were and take a look at it, like we’ve always been doing. But he’s been playing very consistently, he really has.”

Ntilikina went from the starter to fourth in the guard rotation behind Payton, Smith Jr. and Trier.

The Knicks have a tough matchup tonight against a Miami Heat team that has put together quite a strong team based around underrated prospects, plus, of course, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, who was a lottery pick in 2017 (few things will make you feel worse as a Knick fan than to look at the last two lottery picks in the 2017 draft, Donovan Mitchell and Adebayo, while the Knicks had the #8 and #9 picks. This is not even taking into account Jarrett Allen and John Collins, both taken out of the lottery in the first round).

If Mike Miller could pull this off and actually have a winning record as the Knick coach? Wow, that’d be something.

And it’s funny how much of it has been about simply not having a moronic defensive scheme.

Let’s go, Knicks!

The Hawks are having a terrible season, so this is good timing for Mike Miller, as he tries to get back to .500!

Hopefully Morris increases his trade value!

Let’s go? Knicks!

After an impressive come from behind victory on Friday, the Knicks finish up their West Coast trip with a rematch with the Denver Nuggets, who destroyed the Knicks the last time these two teams met.

Mike Miller would actually be over .500 as the Knicks coach if they shock the Nuggets tonight. You have to figure that this will be a classic trap game for the Nuggets, so there might be a chance!

Let’s go? Knicks!

The Knicks head into Sacramento to take on the mediocre Kings, who are playing without Fox, who destroys the Knicks.

Let’s go? Knicks!

The Knicks head to California tonight to take on the one team in the NBA that is likely much worse than them, so the Knicks likely SHOULD win this game, but they’re so good at grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory that victory is over in the corner, whimpering about how it never gets fed, so who knows?

Let’s go! Knicks?