Day: December 23, 2020

I was waiting for the Pacers to announce their starting lineup. Their new coach is even cagier than Thibs.

The Knicks open the season in Indiana, a team that finished with the #4 seed last year, despite playing without possibly their best player in the bubble.

The Knicks’ starting lineup is:

Elfrid Payton
Reggie Bull-LOCK
RJ Barrett
Julius Randle
Mitchell Robinson

Bullock is a weird choice over Burks, and I fear that it was sort of like, “Oh man, that Cleveland game was so good!” hangover, but at least Mitch is starting, thank goodness. He did everything they asked of him in the preseason, so to not start him would have been way uncool.

The Pacers starting lineep is:

Malcolm Brogdon
Victor Oladipo
TJ Warren
Domantas Sabonis
Myles Turner

It’s probably not good when each of the five starters for the other team could make a reasonable case for being better than anyone on the Knicks, but hey, at least their bench is not as good as their starters (although the Holiday brothers sure can shoot it).

The Knicks played the Pacers well last year, with one game being lost on a missed free throw by Randle, so I think that the Knicks can hang with the Pacers in this one. Maybe not win, but I think the Pacers will know that they were in a fight. And hey, maybe the Knicks COULD pull off the upset. Again, they did beat the Pacers once last year. It’s certainly possible that they could do so again.

Hopefully Immanuel Quickley plays well enough tonight to really start pushing the issue as to whether he should start going forward.

Hopefully Mitch and Noel form a dominant interior presence.

Hopefully Barrett has a good game.

Hopefully the Knicks look good, overall.

Welcome to the 2020-21 season, everyone! Let’s go, Knicks!

And as part of our all-poll content…

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

Ah, the truest sign that time is actually passing, we have another “How Many Wins Will the Knicks have?” prediction thread, a Knickerblogger tradition as valued as never being willing to kick anything to the curb or wondering whether the true responsibility for a player making a bad play is held by the player who passed that player the ball (welcome back, Woody, we missed you!).

This dovetails nicely with our all-poll content.

As is my wont, I will bid high, and say that the Knicks will win 31 games. As we saw with Jeff Van Gundy, a good defense is like three point shooting in March Madness. It keeps you in games you otherwise should not win. RJ Barrett is looking good, Mitch is awesome and it’s possible that Quickley can help the Knicks offense be less terrible than normal. We shall see.

Also, please, Thibs, just freakin’ start Mitch. Please!

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.