2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks @ A Team That Said, “Luke Kornet? Sure, He Could Improve Our Awful Team”

The Knicks head to Boston with the same record as the Celtics. If they win tonight, they’ll sit alone in 7th place, which would be swell.

A battle of two almost .500 clubs. Two teams enter. One leaves with a non-losing record. To paraphrase Elvis (himself covering the Everly Brothers), let it be the Knicks.

Let’s go get back to .500 and embarrass the Celtics in their own arena again, Knicks!

146 replies on “2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks @ A Team That Said, “Luke Kornet? Sure, He Could Improve Our Awful Team””

I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball

and beat the damn celtics (BOO!!!!!!)

no more close but no cigar kind of game…hope we can finish this one out…

Dennis Schroder is a good bargain play, & I’m not sure he’s much worse than Dinwiddie or Ball.

He turned down 4/$84M from the Lakers, so he certainly does not think he’s a bargain play.

My cola and my chips are ready!
Let’s play a good one against a supposedly good team

owen — okongwu starting vs the grizzlies (but no melton) tonight if you’re wondering what to put on once we’re up 40

Today i already had a bad L on the Champions League, here in Europe, so i need the Knicks to win this game even more than usual 🙂

They really need to do something about this fastbreak killing fouls…

Meanwhile the Celts are shooting blanks and we’re playing like shit, hooray!

Ummmmm sorta starting this game like we’ve finished the last few. Lazy dum stupid … I’m not confident

My roommate who does not watch basketball: “do they just give it to number 30 every time?”

Just a complete 100% fact right now. We are better much better when Randle simply finds the open man

It doesn’t help that Obi … a crappy rebounder … is out there with other not so great rebounders …

Is Noel considered a better rebounder than Gibson. I feel like the answer is yes but I dunno what the stats bear out

Here goes the clockwork again… starters back in, so they could lose the game…

On the bright side, we won’t need to pay Randle too much if he keeps shooting this way

They almost have as many O boards as we have total boards. … no way we’re winning tonight. I’d love to eat my words

Gonna ride Randle again tonight. I’d rather have someone else at end of quarter / game.

Barrett’s fantastic first half performance saved us from a collapse.

The Plague is 0-3 with 3 turnovers.
The Celtics have 13 OREB in two quarters.

Considering the OREB discrepancy, trailing by 1 at the half probably not too bad all things considered. Wouldn’t hate having Mitch though. Heck, even Jon Henson might be able to grab a board!

Thibs needs to smack Randle in the head and let him know he may be the best player on the team but he’s not a superstar. He’s a #2 or #3 option that just happens to be the #1 option on this team because we aren’t that good and RJ hasn’t passed him yet. His shot selection and basketball IQ have been deteriorating for awhile now and it’s starting to piss me off. Every possession counts. He was playing so much smarter early in the season. I think all the hype went to his head.

Elfrid rocking the 0-3 for 0 points, 1 rebound, 3 turnovers, 2 fouls in 10 minutes.

it’s great that rj is hitting threes but we probably shouldn’t be using him like he’s steve novak

And for all the haters out there, Obi got a rebound. I even saw it. A thing of beauty.

A Payton’s explosion, nice…
Randle is way better when is under control…

Celts go cold again, we need to take advantage…

The problem with Elf is that no matter how shit he plays, you can always count on a burst from him that almost certainly guarantees he continues to get heavy minutes.

Knicks setting an all time record for blowing a 7 point lead. Under 1 minute is impressive work.

dtrickey:
The problem with Elf is that no matter how shit he plays, you can always count on a burst from him that almost certainly guarantees he continues to get heavy minutes.

Yes… also his rare competent moments underlined how much this team could be better with “solid, not detrimental” point guard play…

tristan thompson has to be the all time leader in rebounds stolen from teammates

I’d say the defense in this game is slightly different than in the IND-MIN game…

Interesting he brought in Barrett for Obi this time… oh here come the rest of our lead blowers… just Randle actually

That was a defensive blunder by Burks for leaving Tatum to pick up Smart…

Upside is the 7 point lead has lasted a bit longer, so a nice in-game adjustment by us.

We bring our methodical lineup back at 8 7 and 6 minutes. That’s a really long time to slow down the game even more than we typically do… Thibs takes a timeout to say what … slow it down

The Yankees and Knicks need to cooperate more on scheduling IMO

I really feel I’m in the running for masochist of the year… and with good chances…

I don’t love Tatum .. prefer Brown but they at least get to basket … we get Derrick Rose push shots

Surprise surprise, two offensive rebounds in the same sequence for our opponents…

Just when you think RJ has turned a corner…still not ready to be the #1

Certainly not forgetting Randles been complete ass … the what have you done for me lately spotlight is on RJ. Sucks though…

What the fuck was that … is it worth watching these games ??? Honest question

This stupid, gimmicky double team defense the Knicks have used past 2 games down the stretch is a joke.

Is being 2-8 in close games on Thibs or the fact we don’t have a legit #1?

you don’t really mind smart shooting those shots… they just happened to go in….

just one of those games we missed mitch very much…. and randle’s 2p offense going to shit…

Is being 2-8 in close games on Thibs or the fact we don’t have a legit #1?

Bit of both. Either way, picking a bad time in a short season to be going 4-6 with a logjam in the lower part of the East playoff picture.

If Randle doesn’t play like an all-star it’s hard for us to win

ptmilo:
burks getting blocked on a 2 there makes a ton of sense, great take

And that ridiculous 3 he chucked up a bit earlier …

It’s very hard for this team to beat teams like the Celtics, who, aside from having very good players, have had their core working in the same offense with a variety of plays for 3-plus years. The Knicks, on the other hand, have been using only a handful of very basic sets up to the all-star break. But Thibs really has to add to the offense at this point.

It was fun while it lasted,
there’s a good chance we’ll never sniff .500 this season.

Randle is rotting under our eyes, it’s a pity we waste Barrett’s great shooting game.

Maybe at the end we’ll end up with the best situation, playing one or two games in the play-in and getting a lottery pick.

I just really really hate losing to the damn Celtics, specially when they’re garbage like this season, but oh well, I guess it was expected. I can take losing to any other team but this one always sucks so much.

Z-man:
Randle doesn’t look right, he’s just laboring out there…

He doesn’t move without the ball at all anymore. Not as much hustle until down the stretch… really just meanders around the court until he has the rock in his hand… then he gets his burst. It’s not a good look

Was that the best game of RJ’s career? Knicks need to win two of the next three at home against the Grizzlies, Raptors and zombie Lakers.

for the folks who thought this would never happen…

rj is now shooting 38% from 3…

dtrickey: Is being 2-8 in close games on Thibs or the fact we don’t have a legit #1?

The team didn’t play as hard as they have to in order to win in the first half (hence the Celts getting all those rebounds); and the players outside of RJ were ass. Randle was fairly brutal, and our two three-point experts were a combined 4-14 from three. Lots of dumb plays scattered throughout the game. We just don’t have the talent to be casual or bad. I have lots of problems with Thibs, but this game was on the players.

They really miss Mitch on the boards. Randle is obviously banged up also.

I agree about Mitch. We were fooled a little bit by us playing ok while he was initially gone but the team isn’t talented enough to miss one of its best players for this long. Noel is good but not having Mitch takes away one of our key early season strengths of having two really good centers that can play the whole game. I think Randle too is getting worn down and is conserving more energy now with Mitch gone.

Without Thibs a lot of these games would be blowouts.

Fair point

Despite no Mitch, I really don’t think there are any excuses for dropping games like this. It’s a nice change of pace to hoping we lose all the time, but we just lack that extra gear Miami has for example to get it done in the clutch. Maybe RJ becomes that guy eventually but in the interim we just aren’t there yet.

I see that the Mavs lost to the Rockets and check the box score, and Porzingis and Doncic both played.

Bad loss for Dallas.

RJ’s shooting is greater than this loss. It looks like we finally hit on one of our lottery picks.

Wins are more fun than losses but I didn’t give a damn about the win total before the season and I don’t give a damn now. Give RJ and Immanuel Quickley all the minutes and let the chips fall where they may.

thenoblefacehumper:
Poku beating Obi to NBA relevance is really something

Some of that is situational, no? If Obi was on the tanking Thunder he would probably have some “relevant” games….

Z-man:
On a less obvious note, Romeo looked decent out there…

I heard the Boy Wonder actually ask where’s Romeo and I couldn’t help but smile. At least he didn’t say wherefore art thou.

I really, really enjoy Memphis, but is anyone else sad that Grayson Allen might be an actual NBA player?

mitch’s injury…randle wearing down and reading his own press, iq coming back down to earth and rose getting the ‘rona have tweaked the fragile thibs ecosystem…the fight is there…just not the karma…

pepper:
mitch’s injury…randle wearing down and reading his own press, iq coming back down to earth and rose getting the ‘rona have tweaked the fragile thibs ecosystem…the fight is there…just not the karma…

Definitely

As painful as these close losses can be, I’m feeling better and better about the team long term given the way RJ is playing.

We are losing these games because we don’t have enough offensive firepower or a true #1 closer. You can get away with a C like Noel or a SF like Bullock if the other 3-4 players are high level scorers. Then they add value in their defensive and more limited offensive roles. But not when your PG is low volume and inefficient also. Randle starts trying to do too much and RJ is improving but not ready to be a #1 option.

With Mitch and RJ we have 2 very good young pieces (though I still hope Mitch eventually expands his game a little). Randle is still a good player even if we are asking him to do too much now. We need another legitimate versatile shooter/scorer and an upgrade at PG and this can be a very good team.

d-mar: I see that the Mavs lost to the Rockets and check the box score, and Porzingis and Doncic both played.

Bad loss for Dallas.

I’m starting to suspect Doncic and Porzingis legitimately don’t like each other.

You can sometimes see it in KP’s face and body language. He looks disgusted when Doncic takes a bad shot or he’s not getting the ball. Then when he finally does get the ball, he throws up trash because he hasn’t touched it for 5 minutes.

Doncic has a tendency to try to do too much, but it’s worse with KP. He seems to not trust (or like) him. He sometimes looks him off and passes to someone else or throws up a tough shot rather than give it to him.

It’s like they are both feeding off each other in a negative way instead of a positive way.

They both want to win and they’ll play together because they have to, but I think both would rather be playing with someone else. It would not shock me if behind the scenes KP wants out. If he asked for a trade after not being happy in NY, it would look really bad. It may not even be possible with his injuries anyway. But I think he’s unhappy in Dallas right now playing with Doncic and Doncic does not like or trust KP either.

I suspect if he could do it all over again knowing what he knows now and maturing a little, KP wishes he was still in NY.

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