The Knicks host the Nets tonight on the heels of the Nets both A. defeating the Denver Nuggets and B. trading for James Harden in a blockbuster deal where the Nets have promised the Nets their next 27 first round picks and the first born children of Joe Harris and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot
So the Nets will be very undermanned tonight, so the Knicks have a very good chance to get back to .500 tonight!
The Knicks also get Taj Gibson and Obi Toppin back tonight, but Toppin might not play (as he is a bit rusty).
Let’s go, getting back to .500, Knicks!
Since they’re playing the Nets, we have a return of our all-poll content!
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
236 replies on “2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks vs Kevin Durant, Joe Harris and Three Guys Off The Street”
Still stunned by today trades, lot of things to digest,
now I really disdain the Nets…
Let’s go Knicks!
I wouldn’t mind winning tonight!
I’m taking the under just because of how much I dislike the three of them.
This may be our last chance in a while to beat the Nets.
Dolan cannot be happy about this. Hope they up his meds lest he forces Rose to make some rash moves. ( I’d be okay with moving Noel for Nic Claxton and Shamet.)
So, the only further thing that the Nets can do now to improve their team is start selling souls, right?
Or have they already done that?
Commented on the last thread:
We just released Omari Spellman so I guess him. Jeremy Lin is on GSW’s GLeague team, I don’t really know how that works. And Trier is still available.
EDIT: And I’m sure they’ll be some buyouts around the trade deadline and some decent players will shake loose then.
I was thinking Noel for Harris might worth it but then I looked at his contract- he’s owed 55m for the three seasons which I think is more than he’d be worth to the Knicks. And I’d rather keep Noel than kick the tires on TLC.
Maybe I’m wrong but I think Dolan will never ok’d a trade with the Nets…
P.S. I mean a real trade, not a dream as KD for DSJ 🙂
So, as I understand it, the Cavs receive Allen and Prince for Exum and a first round pick and a second round pick. The first round pick seems to be Milwaukee’s, which is almost certainly not going to be a high pick. That seems to me a great deal for them.
We won’t know for sure until the full trade is officially announced but last I saw all the first round picks, Brooklyns 2022, 2024, 2026; Milwaukee’s 2022; and Brooklyn’s swaps in 2021, 2023, 2025, and 2027; were going to Houston. There’s a 2nd round pick going to Indy also. Don’t see any picks going to Cleveland.
Two more games being postponed Friday: Wizards-Pistons and Warriors-Suns. Hard to imagine that the NBA is going to get through the season without another bubble.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. No picks are going to Cleveland. They traded away a first round pick that was originally Milwaukee’s and their own second round pick. I still think it’s a great deal for them
Sorry, yeah I misunderstood.
No need to apologize
Oh, KOQ is a FA. He’d fit in perfectly as a bench big for Brooklyn.
My reaction to the Harden trade:
LET’S GO METS
Durant vs baby3on3Durant
Can’t Wait!
3 guys off the Brooklyn street might not make for a bad starting 5, just saying… (is Marbury back from China?)
4 1st round picks. That must be over 8 years or something like that. A decade of misery is upon them. I wouldn’t make this trade for 1/2 the value!
Plus pick swaps. If the Nets implode or suffer a major injury, the Rockets walk away like kings. As is, the last 4ish years may turn into some excellent picks.
The four swaps start in the 2021 draft and go every other year until 2027. The four outright picks start in 2022 and go every other year until 2026. Houston’s getting 2 picks in 2022, Brooklyn’s and Milwaukee’s.
I doubt this leads to a decade of misery. Durant, Harden, and Kyrie are 32, 31, and 28. They could easily play at a championship level until at least the 2026 season.
They should just vaxx the NBA players/coaches already, it’s not that many doses, they travel all the time, and we’re fucking up the rollout enough that there are doses going to waste.
Can’t believe the announcers are talking about the Harden deal and not the return of Obi Toppin
i’m not sure how nets look defensively in this deal… none of these guys are known for their defense… even the coaches… gonna be interesting if they can get these guys to buyin defensively…
Julius needs to put these bums in the spin cycle!
Durant and Irving have opt outs next season. I voted the under on the poll for a reason! If there ever was a team ready to implode, it’s the Nets. They could win 80% of their games if they don’t kill each other.
Three Dicks, two cray cray.
What are the odds that team implodes?
Tanking Forever…holy crap. We basically had the same thought.
RJ shows he’s just as good from 2 as from 3
No shooters but Mitch
Arenas are going to have to purchase rim insurance for when we’re in town…
RJ already RJing
Offensive options for the Knicks:
(1) Mitch offensive rebound/dunk
(2) ????
(3) Randle
Watching this lineup shoot night after night is so depressing…
I think the Invisible Sixth Man is guarding us tonight
Also, apropos of nothing, but it’s pretty funny Jarrett Allen is backing up Andre Drummond. Although maybe he is a power forward these days.
HA
Randle has Jeff Green on him close to the basket. Post him, man, you are so much stronger.
I am losing hope that RJ will ever be even a below average perimeter shooter.
It’s in RJ’s head now. He passed up a wide open 3 to pass to Rivers.
Guess the JaVale McGee point center offense wasn’t working out. Who would’ve thought?
It’s the right play, get the ball to the corner where it’s more efficient and passing to the better shooting Rivers. But boy is it painful to watch
Maybe Randle’s trade value goes up as teams panic re: Nets
LaMelo making me look bad…
It’s great when we can’t miss
And then Randle airballs it
Heat check didn’t go too well but he’s playing well, he’s more or less our only offense.
Randle better than Durant so far!
Three possessions Durant-vs.-Randle. Julius should try to get KD in foul trouble, but:
Twice Randle had Durant on him in the paint, but chose a jumpshot. Hit both. Posted him and hit it too. Cannot argue with the results, but they should pound the paint, where the Nets are thin.
Durant is better on D than you would think.
What happened with Lamelo?
Thibs saying: pick and roll and shot. Probably a message to RJ.
Durant is really long, Randle is really not. I don’t think it’s that much of a mismatch if Randle has to finish over KD.
There we go Quick
iq…in da haus
let’s get it going young man
Yes! Let’s go, Quick.
Bringing in Knox for a defensive possession, we’re truly tanking now.
Not Rivers’ night for now…
It’s me or Barrett’s losing handle a lot in the last few games?
Barrett can’t even do a last-second heave correctly.
Thibs: If you’re open, Brick it!
RJ really is afraid of taking that 3, isn’t he? He had a wide open one with the clock expiring.
Thibs was giving Knox a hard time after the 1st quarter buzzer. Probably because he badly missed Durant on the play that led to those KD’s FTs.
He’s brutal right now, like random dude on the street bad, so not too surprising.
Maybe don’t bring in literally one of the worst defensive players in the league for that possession?
RJ is really messed up right now…
only reason I can watch these games right now is for mitch and quickely…everything else is meaningless…
rj doesn’t have to shoot every open 3 he has… that doesn’t make him afraid….
He’s the only long-ish wing player, so I’m guessing that’s why? He’s looked better on defense this year, but yeah he still sucks.
Those uncontested 3’s really get under my skin.
I’ve watched some Nets games, and so far I think Nash is doing way better than I thought. Brooklyn usually plays well even when their stars are not on the court. Let’s see what happens with the new roster.
Same, Mitch and Quickley are the only interesting things about these games. Hopefully, we’ll be able to add Obi to that but I’m not hopeful.
Knox just can’t move his feet.
Among other shooting woes, RJ seems to suffer from bunny block.
I mean, he did have around 3 seconds to shoot the ball before the quarter ended and then failed to get off a shot in time so….
I think Obi is available tonight.
We finally get Noel and he starts sucking!
RJ isn’t setting his legs when he shoots, like, ever… not surprised he’s missing everything.
yeah…fingers crossed he shows some promise
Obi’s in!
and what’s the big deal with that?
his brain connection to his feet has one of those old Intel chips…he never got the upgrade
get mitch back in there
And he’s out. WTF is the point of that?
I think what people will remember from this day might be that it was when The Bruce Brown Game happened. I can feel it.
I’d like for us to get a shot off if we can….
Nice arc.
Brown is hunting IQ.
Reggie Perry would’ve been a fine pick up with the 33rd pick for some teams, but the Knicks just had way too much talent already, so it’s good they traded that pick.
Voted over, Kyrie is always injured (or AWOL) but KD and Harden are durable, so i think next year with a more well rounded roster, they’ll be real contenders. With a window of 4 or 5 years, it’s highly likely they’ll win one. But my heart was pushing me to vote under.
That’s a 2
I think knox needs to go into the starting 5….rj to the bench…need a shooter
Knox’s stroke is so pure.
Knox is looking very confident from 3pt land. Great corner 3…. err 2 pointer 🙂
Too many ORebs, come on.
Is that Knox or Durant? Can’t tell.
the defense is pathetic tonight
Payton refuses to pass to IQ on the perimeter.
maybe this is your first knick game but that’s kind of been a running theme this season and rj isn’t alone in that…
@TravisAllen02
Everyone getting arrested and losing their job for storming the Capitol building are realizing why their grandparents wore hoods.
Randle doing a number out there…
please god…get us a good pick for Randle
So? He should still get the open shot off. I don’t understand whats so hard to fathom here.
Randle really does have pretty good touch, not sure why he’s never been able to be a consistent 3PT shooter
I saw that the other day on Twitter. Good joke.
I was going to make a joke about Knox getting drafted because his body is similar to Durant’s, to your point TNFH, and then Knox started going off.
Maybe I am on to something…
Toppin hurt already?… also Payton quick hook ?
KEITH. FREAKING. SMART.
Quickley’s chemistry with Mitch off the PnR needs some work.
IIIIIIQQQQQQ!
Strange looking shot but I will take it
brown is abusing iq
Ugh. Randle Melo’d that possession there hogging the ball, doing nothing and then dumping it off to a shooter to bail himself out.
Can’t turn your back there, Mitch
Never thought I would see Mitch get dehumanized like that.
Hard to watch.
DJ not dead yet, that was kind of nasty
Shit, Knox, nice try, but KD gonna KD.
How is James Harden gonna share the ball with University of Miami legend Bruce Brown?
It was an improper hedge…he was spun around and had no leverage
At least IQ’s offense is looking alive again
We’re playing ok today
how many times is thibs gonna go with this shit line up before he tries one that can shoot…
Wrong night for Rivers to have his worst game of the season…
this is a really boring game
No box-out
payton is dog shit
I did not expect Knox to be shooting over 40% from 3 for the season.
Payton playing like Payton plays.
Ugh.
Well, we are playing the Nets without two of our superstars so this scoreline makes sense
Has RJ made a 3 this week?
It’s officially pathetic … first 8 games truly truly truly an anomaly
Barrett missing a three and Payton been blocked,
a snapshot of their game.
Payton is playing like shit and Barrett is melting right under our eyes…
For all his shortcomings Randle is playing alone, I feel sorry for the guy.
Payton, Rivers, and Barrett are 2 for 19.
You can put together a 5 man unit of just Knickerblogger commenters and we’d shoot better than any combination the Knicks can put out.
We sure do stink
I started listening to “Still Got the Blues For You” by Gary Moore and decided and shut the Knicks off. Greatness and horribleness should not be on at the same time.
We are bad and that was always going to be the case, but it’s worth mentioning RJ’s play over the past few games has basically precluded us from winning when you consider how much he plays
Barrett, Payton, Rivers combined 2-19 (0-7 3PFG).
Where are Burks and Frank?
I’m really tired of the “Barrett’s not shooting well but he does oh so many things” bullshit…
#You can put together a 5 man unit of just Knickerblogger commenters and we’d shoot better than any combination the Knicks can put out.#
Sad but True!
I never scored a shot outside of the paint in my high school career and I think I could still shoot better than RJ….
You ever get the sinking feeling that the Knicks may have struck out on 4 lottery picks in a row?
He’s a decent enough passer and a decent to good rebounder for his position but it’s nowhere near good enough to make up for not being able to score at any level.
What if Keith Smart was helping RJ’s shooting?
There’s something totally dispiriting about a Payton/Rivers backcourt, along with almost everything else about the Knicks.
I hated the Obi pick especially with Haliburton available but I’d like to see him play actual minutes before declaring him a bust. It definitely feels like we struck out on 3 lottery picks in a row.
Frank is slowly becoming our best player by simply not demonstrating he still sucks. 🙂
#Frank is slowly becoming our best player by simply not demonstrating he still sucks. :-)#
Frank seems to me right now as Gary Payton!
And Thibs still goes with the same starting five for the third quarter…
ok RJ
RJ bailed out there.
Well, thats the closest Mitch has ever come to hitting a jumper….
Now take a three dammit!
RJ’s best quarter in forever
KD so easy
Fucking Durant
He is so good
I feel like such an asshole that I ever thought he shouldn’t be on this team
Rivers left an elbow on Brown; Jordan received him with an elbow in the paint. The refs called nothing.
Kd looks like playing against his neighbours just for fun till the barbecue is ready
Robinson easily could have kept that inbounds…
Forgot how insanely good KD is.
Kevin Durant has not lost a step my friends… still silky smooth as always.
At least IQ,Knox and RJ are showing some signs of life…
But their road is looooooooooong
KD may be the most versatile great shooter/scorer ever. He’s literally impossible to guard.
Yeah, Mitch should have just caught it.
KD really is amazing. Especially when he is being guarded by 6’3 guards.
I think we might not have given enough credit to KD’s basketball IQ when considering how he would return from the injury. He’s got every single possible shot in his arsenal on all 3 levels of scoring, and he’s still unguardable because no one can block his jumper, and the guys who can are never going to be fast enough to stay in front of him even when he’s lost a couple of steps. Just effortless scoring.
Quickley, you’re killing me with these floaters.
That pass by Shamet, trying an alley-oop, was one of the worst I’ve ever seen, hehe
Quickley’s commitment to that floater is something….and not always good.
Yeah, the floaters from 15 feet are disturbing…
Best quarter in a long time for Barrett despite being far from perfect…
Despite his defensive shortcomings I’d rather play IQ 48 minutes, or until he fouls out, than Payton… at least one of the two could have a future… but stop that stupid floater!
Thibs needs to find playing time for Knox…
Knox is just so sickening as an all-around player but the boy can shoot!
Good move by Knox there
That’s the best driving layup I’ve ever seen Knox take.
That stroke is so pure. A real shame he can’t do a damn thing else worth a damn. I don’t know why his teammates freeze him out so much.
Noel for Bruce Brown. Who says no?
If we combined Knox’s stroke with RJ’s game we’d have a perennial all-star.
🙁
Happy to see RJ coming alive
Pretty sure we’d have a player that’s a pretty good 3point shooter mediocre at everything else instead of a pretty good 3point shooter who’s bad at everything else.
More Knox follies
Quickley’s trying hard out there
IQ better off shooting that floater from four feet than 15
A 20 year old NBA player with those skills will be a very good.
IQ looking like a different player tonight
Well, like the exact same player but it’s working
We should just force our opponents best player to switch onto IQ every game and let them foul out in 10 minutes
Mmm, he could be definitely no guarantee.
Hey, we scored over 90 points!
The Quickley Stan-Club rises again!
(don’t take much joy from the L though)
give it to knox
The Nets are toying with us
I am sold on Knox’s stroke. I think he has it figured out at the NBA level. The rest is a MAJOR work in progress.
payton and randle refuse to feed knox…douchebags…
This guy on the Nets with the weird hyphenated last name is annoying as fuck.
Something to build on!
I want to see a starting lineup of IQ, Burks, Bullock, Randle and Mitch. Good shooting. Good defense. It was telling that Thibs implored the team to chuck up 3’s during that time-out listen-in.
I maybe seeing things but there seems to be cliques. The vets (Randle and Payton) do not pass to the kids.
Any word on Obi?
I walked through the living room and my son had espn on. I said “who’s playing”, he said “the Nets and the Knicks”, I said “what, why??”, he shrugged, i stopped to watch a few minutes…
First time ever seeing Barrett, Robinson, Knox, et al in an actual live game time.
Barrett seems okay. Knox doesn’t look as bad as advertised, but the sample is tiny and he missed some shots, Robinson looks passive and tired (they don’t even look to involve him, which is weird, cause I thought the only thing holding him back was his foul rate).
this is a 10 pt game?
Yeah, the phony garbage time comeback.
That last shot by Randle bothered me
I’m really happy that Thibs has left most of the starters in the game. It’s definitely more important to play as many guys as close to 40 minutes as possible in the hope that we can improbably come back in this game. Way more valuable than getting Quickley and Toppin some more burn.
I’ll hand it to Thibs.
This team doesn’t stop playing hard.
Bothered Doris and Mike as well.
Been awhile since we’ve had a classic Knicks fake comeback.
It’s a fake comeback, but after the past 3 games it’s something the team can hang its hat on going forward. Hopefully.
Thank god hockey season starts tomorrow and the other pro team that inhabits the garden that actual did a rebuild the right way is back on the ice…..
I hope RJ doesn’t miss another shot
Robinson’s reboundunks are a sight to see.
Well IQ and RJ stopped the bleeding…
shit game, Payton and Rivers were awful, at least RJ finally made some shots
ps, I just told my 13 year old daughter that Harden was traded to the Nets. She said “isn’t that what he wanted?”, i said “yup, he acted like a big enough baby that he got what he wanted”, she said “like trump”, I said “pretty much”, she said “they should have traded him to the Knicks to the Knicks just to teach him a lesson”…
(There is so much in this conversation that I am proud of)
Friday they’re at Cleveland so the Knicks could carry over this momentum and win their next game.
Talk about fake comeback all you want.
I like the fact that the team is fucking with BKN after they toyed with us all night.
I do like that the Nets have to be so annoyed at the end of this game.
Did someone get into Thibs’ ear about his mask? I feel like he hasn’t taken it off at all this game when he would barely keep it on in all our previous games.
So cool 🙂
I don’t think the Nets are annoyed. They beat a team with Durant and scrubs and have Harden in the fold.
Yup!
Bringing back KD for the last secs is a moral Win!
I’ll gladly take it!
I don’t know why I watched this game
How did Knoxak not get a single three in that fake comeback once it was within 10? How silly.
I dunno why they freeze him out so much. He’s clearly one of the team’s better shooters.
Everyone, especially Randle, went hero ball at the end.
Can we make a poll about this game?
Would you prefer this game to had been postponed due to shitty starters protocol?
Yes? No? Idk?
They had to bring Durant back on to the court, so I think that’s gotta be annoying. The rest of the game, of course, was a cakewalk for them.
was rooting for false comeback
That is my main criticism of Thibs so far…it doesn’t appear that he is designing plays or an offense to get certain guys- Mitch around the hoop…Know or IQ from 3 (or Burks when he returns in late April)…instead we get Julius or Payton or RJ…wtf?
Loss aside, I’ll take relatively good RJ and IQ shooting games for the rest of the season.
They just brought KD back to take FTs. It was really nothing.
Why isn’t Luka a Knick?
Probably the best outcome. Nice bounce backs for RJ and I.Q. and Knox continues to shoot well while the tank becomes one step closer to reality.
Fake Comebacks are more Fun than Heads to the Ground Garbage Time Blowout Losses!
I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a bounceback for RJ. His overall box score is fine, nothing great, but that’s all based on going red hot in the 3rd quarter of a blowout; he was terrible outside of that.
Problem with Knox is he is strictly a spot up 3pt shooter. Anything off the dribble he’s awful right now. He’s not someone you run off screens, he can’t catch and shoot quickly off the catch unless he’s spotting up with his feet set already. But even today he did put the ball on the floor at times successfully so hopefully that is something we will see more often.
Fake comeback aside (I like annoying the Nets) basically the game was lost in the second quarter,
Rivers missed his first 7 shot, Barrett his first 6 and Payton was just Payton.
Durant with “only” 26 points, but Bruce Brown (6’4″) had 14 rebounds (6 Off).
Sorry but I didn’t like Mitch game tonight, a block here, a dunk there but generally he was less springy than usual and DAJ burned him more than once.
Sign of life from Barrett after an horrid firts half (I’ll sign for a full year of 7-15 nights),
we could criticize Randle as much as we like, but he’s playing well and has been the best player of the team all year by a mile,
Rivers had a bad night (maybe he needs to take all his shots in the fourth quarter),
IQ missed his first FT of the year (breaking a streak of 18) but I liked his game (15 ft floater aside) and hope he’ll become the starter soon,
Knox shot very well, including a drive and a stepback, right now he’s our best three point shooter, alas he’s unable to do anything else and gets freezed by Payton/Randle every time.
I didn’t understand or like the Toppin guest appearance.
Let’s hope that Burks and Frank will come back soon.
It’ll be very hard to out-tank Detroit but we could try our best…
We may be worried about Obi Toppin, but Timberwolves fans (if there are any) have to be even more concerned about Anthony Edwards. He’s been pretty awful for a # 1 pick.
Some pretty good NBA prospects in the Texas/Texas Tech game on ESPN 2 (Greg Brown, Terrence Shannon Jr., Kai Jones).
Honestly the second half of that game was decently fun to watch, can’t complain. Give me more 6 3PA games from Quickley!
With Knox it’s all about baby steps. He’s not the worst player in the NBA right now….that’s a step forward.
Knox drove to the basket once and hit a step back jumper after a dribble or two. These thoroughly unremarkable acts, regularly observed in most NBA players, were some of the first instances of such exhibited by him.
There was some very mild rejoicing….
He still stinks. But his TS% might be above league average after this. So that is something.
Yeah, he’s been shooting so well that he’s downright playable so far this year. It really is a huge improvement. A very limited player, but that’s still a huge step up for him!
Knox is still just 21- he’s younger than both Obi and Quickley. If this were his first/second season (which wouldn’t be crazy given his age) everybody would be pretty excited I think. Having watched him play in a fog for two solid years does temper the enthusiasm quite a bit though. But a 6’9″ 21 year old who can really shoot has some asset value so let’s hope he keeps it up.
Oh, totally, even if he’s “just” Knoxak, that clearly is valuable, in and of itself.
It was kind of interesting to see Durant in Randle’s ear after the game- had that “keep it up I like what you’re doing” vibe.
Would you trade Randle for an impending free agent ‘Dipo?
watching Halliburton…how the heck did we pass on this guy?
He’s good. Seems like a guy who rarely loses control of what he’s doing.
Nickeil Alexander Walker just randomly puts up 37 points on 23 shots against the Clippers. This season is weird
Not to minimize KD’s greatness, but I feel like this was a game we should have won. Defense should have been simple- make Durant beat you by himself. Who cares if he goes for 60? As long as we’re not letting their shooters get free and letting DJ dominate the boards, we should win that one. But they absolutely killed us in the 2nd quarter. Oh..and someone needs to tell Elf to stop shooting jumpers. He needs to focus on attacking the paint. I know it’s hard without Bullock or Burks out there, but he’s gotta stick to his guns.
I don’t wanna kill the team because I know we’ve got some injuries, but I don’t know what Thibs is thinking. If the goal is to get shooting in the starting 5 while guys are out, then you elevate Knox or Quickley and leave Rivers as your 6th man. Teams don’t fear Rivers from outside.