2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks @ Jazz

The Knicks head to Utah for a rematch with the Jazz, who have won EIGHT STRAIGHT since losing to the Knicks.

So we all know what that means, right?

Bad News for the Jazz!

Oh wait, shit, that’s the Bad News Bears slogan. Sorry, it means…might as well lose this one!

Especially since the Jazz have been SCORCHING hot from three lately, so it is a good game for the Invisible Sixth Man to shut some shit down!

Let’s go get back to close to .500, Knicks!

198 replies on “2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks @ Jazz”

Couple of really nice passes from RJ. Good to see him involved early after whatever last game was.

Solid-looking defense flummoxing the Jazz. We started 1-5 and were only down by 1. Now the offense is starting to flow a bit. Smart time-out for them.

rj featuring a hostage dribble for i think the first time…

he has been trying to expand his dribble drive game… def some new moves being thrown in…. but he’s also taking it to the hoop much stronger…. all good things to see…

The pass from RJ to Randle, giving up a contested shot in the lane to give Randle an uncontested dunk, will do a lot to cement the relationship between the two.

Every once in a while Randle will be ambling up the court and my brain registers him as Noah Vonleh

Quickley in early tonight….so far a long miss and a travel….maybe he wasn’t ready?

Obi hit a jumper at the end of the shot clock…He might shoot with higher arc than anyone I’ve ever seen.

Good defensive quarter but Utah is ice cold. I don’t look for that to continue. Too many open 3’s are still being passed up. This would be a nice win, if the Knicks can hold on.

IQ with 2 TOs and 2 missed long 3’s but the team is playing well so whatever.

Just what I was thinking. Team has more energy when he’s in, even if he’s not delivering. And he did make the tech — glad they put him up there.

Gobert is surprisingly nimble on offense. It’s strange he can create better than Mitch with the ball in hs hand. Obviously he has been at it longer but it amazes me that Mitch is still so limited.

If we ever meet the Jazz in the finals (cue Nelson HA!), at least we know we have our man.

Alright this Austin Rivers thing is getting weird. Shades of Melo’s 62.

Clyde repeatedly making the argument that IQ needs to be on the second unit. Must be reading Knickerblogger.

Did the Jazz insult Rivers’ mother at some point or something? Or has he had a deep loathing of jazz music since he was just a child?

Utah is on the phone with Leon, looking to trade for Austin Rivers.

Z-man:
Strong move by Obi…

That was the first time I saw Obi create his own points in the paint. Also one of the first times that he has been under control when driving to the basket.

Don’t ask me why I know this but RJ’s TS% on the season just hit .500. Stop the count!

if iq has rivers’ half this thread would look like wall street bets

pt is the invisible 6th man….

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a first half by a Knicks quite like this one by Rivers.

Also, it is kind of weird how much the Knicks, like, apparently own Donovan Mitchell.

I love you Mitch even if these refs are garbage He got super high there. Might have been a goaltend but I didn’t think so.

I love Elfrid too just because of the way he looks for Mitch.

d-mar:
Our lead is disappearing Quickley

We’re gonna need at least one of Burks or Quickley to start making shots to keep up with the Jazz’s improved shooting this quarter.
That, or Austin-nova needs to stay aflame when he gets back in.

Every time it becomes the Elfrid Payton show I don’t understand. I just don’t understand why he has the ball so much

When Payton gets into the paint, it seems like he can score a couple of times before his efforts go flat.

Mitchell Robinson’s lack of offense (other than alley-oops and putbacks) is horrible for spacing. Robinson had the ball on the dribble at the top of the key with no one around him and Gobert did not come out of the restricted area.

I like Elfrid’s D (well not on that play) but if the other team is shooting well from 3, he just can’t keep up.

Anytime you have a player scoring 100pts/48min, you just gotta bench him for Payton

Grocer:
Looking like it’ll be hard to trade Burks for anything.

He’s sucked this game but he’s done fine so far in the rest of the season. His averages are perfectly cromulent for a backup wing on a playoff team, he can generally shoot, and he’s cheap. No reason to think someone won’t want him unless he keeps dropping stinkers.

That shot by Randle was ridiculous.

Mitch Robinson has a really funny voice for a man that enormous

thenoblefacehumper:
So is Thibs trying to preserve Austin’s perfect game or something?

I’m not really sure what else Austin could have done this game to earn more playing time. Maybe he could gaslight Thibs into thinking he was a core bench piece on the Bulls playoff teams of Thibs heyday.

i am not a huge austin rivers stan but i do feel like if you have a chance to go 100 for 100 you should be given that chance

Not a good game from him tonight and it’s a small thing but it is nice to have a free throw shooter as reliable as Quickley. Feels like we haven’t had a dude like that in a while. Please do not come at me with any Jose Calderon based fact checks or something, thank you!

Grocer:
Burks d has been really poor tho.

There’s a reason he’s available for $6M on a 1 yr contract. Historically he’s been inefficient and has a rep as a bad defender.

i’m scared to checked the correlations but is it possible burks, quick and rivers economized their souls via an affordable time share with the devil

Frank was .864 on FTs last year. Sure IQ will pass him in FTA by next week, but still

The Jazz has woke up, sure. But we’re playing with our head in the clouds on both ends.

few things would be more painful than kevin knox suddenly reclaiming his limbs on a new team

Remember last time we played the Jazz and Mitch dominated Gobert in the 2nd half? Yeah, that’s not happening tonight

Shocker: Knox with a dumb and-1 foul

Anything that requires thinking from him is brutal. And they don’t even use him at the one thing he doesn’t need to think at – just taking threes. Why don’t they look for him for threes more?

they were having so much success in the first quarter with rj pnr’s… and he’s touched the ball less than 5 times since?

ptmilo:
few things would be more painful than kevin knox suddenly reclaiming his limbs on a new team

You right… but when he plays like he has today, with his past seasons, you almost wanna take your chances and say “good luck elsewhere, kid”.

cuz he’s generally sitting on the bench for not doing anything

But imagine bringing Steve Novak into the game, not passing him the ball and getting mad at him for not rebounding or playing good defense. It just doesn’t make sense.

I guess when you depend on Rivers having another 10 for 10 half to win, that’s not a good sign…

I’m turning this off. Team has run out of gas fast and has stalled on E.

Seems like we just ran out of gas against a much better team…which is understandable.

DRed:
Burks and IQ 2-20. . .tough to win with that

That is tough. But this team looks completely frustrated – when their offense stalls, their D eventually goes to shit and that’s exactly what’s happening.

Seems like we just ran out of gas against a much better team…which is understandable.

Losing to the Jazz is very understandable. Losing to the Jazz even after building up that big lead is very understandable. 20-3 to start the fourth, though? Not so understandable.

That is tough. But this team looks completely frustrated – when their offense stalls, their D eventually goes to shit and that’s exactly what’s happening.

Spot on. I don’t get it. Thibs should be better than that.

Would have liked to have seen more Toppin, but as Brian always points out, this is game 7 of the NBA Finals.

The good news is I kind of intrinsically trust RJ Barrett to do something smart when he has the ball these days. Big development in his production as measured by the #eyetest

we’re one of the worst offenses in the league playing one of the best defenses….

also this is one of those few matchups where mitch doesn’t have a physical advantage ….

Alec Burks is having the opposite of a revenge game against his original team…

Would have liked to have seen more Toppin, but as Brian always points out, this is game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Why in the world haven’t they emptied the bench?

Brian Cronin: Why in the world haven’t they emptied the bench?

Imagine if we had put Iggy in and gotten blown out by 30 in the second half, boy would that be embarassing

The annoying this is I don’t know whether losses make the front office think “okay, maybe we shouldn’t be buyers after all” or “damn, we would’ve pulled this out if we had Derrick Rose”

Brian Cronin: Spot on. I don’t get it. Thibs should be better than that.

It just might be the personality of the players on the team. Many of our guys that came via free agency weren’t know for coming from consistently winning teams – except for Rivers who took himself out of his rhythm by fouling in that first half. Which – by the way – WHO DOES THAT WHEN THEY’RE INFUEGO?

thenoblefacehumper:
The annoying this is I don’t know whether losses make the front office think “okay, maybe we shouldn’t be buyers after all” or “damn, we would’ve pulled this out if we had Derrick Rose”

I know we need guards who can break down a defense consistently and be a threat from outside, but yeah I’m a no on bringing him back.

Stepping back, it was sort of predictable we would get blown out in the 2nd half. I’m actually glad they played one good half. Most of our losses have that in common…at least a half of solid basketball and usually more.

Jazz have SO many shooters, besides Gobert and Favors, is there anyone who can’t knock down 3’s?

Speaking of guards: when I watch Payton play, I see a guy who can get into the paint but not necessarily break a D down. He’s not tilting the D – they just look at him when he’s in the paint and know he’s got one, maybe two makes in him tops before he starts bricking.

Jazz have SO many shooters, besides Gobert and Favors, is there anyone who can’t knock down 3’s?

There was a great article about how it all came about from Bogdanovic breaking his hand. Snyder realized that they had come to rely on Bogdanovic too much for the team’s three-point shooting, so he decided to use Bogdanovic’s absence to make everyone else on the team start shooting threes to make up for Bogdanovic’s absence and the result has turned them into an entire team of three-point shooters.

i think most folks have been noticing this by now but i finally think rj has arrived to nba rotation level worthy level…. it’s been very visible since the charlotte game but he’s actually had himself a really solid month….

the numbers are decent over this stretch and i think the evidence is clear but there will be plenty of time to go over that… here’s some eyetest stuff…

there’s a moment in every player’s development where the game sort of slows down for them… we are looking at obi who’s absolutely on the other side of that now… IQ too despite the hot shooting… and rj was for awhile this season and last….. everything looked like he was a half a step slow… both in his play and reactions.. the sixer game if you get to watch it again it was very apparent there especially when he was matched up against simmons.. rj was seriously overwhelmed….

but once the magic game came around…. there was this sequence in the third qtr.. he was playing great and then he got the ball in the open court and at that moment he had like 4 or 5 defenders in the vicinity and it felt like no one was going to stop him… and then he got called for a bs offensive foul… that was from my view a turning point where he was now imposing his will onto the game…

and he’s been doing it ever since… the way he’s finishing is just a lot more stronger and SMARTER takes to the rim… and he’s doing it in a variety of ways… he’s making much quicker decisions.. and it’s usually the right ones…

and most importantly he isn’t forcing it… 11 shots in 40 minutes is probably the lowest he’s ever had in his entire life… that’s a far cry from the chucker we saw at duke…

his game is maturing.. and i hate to jinx it but i’m confident enough to now say that he’s doing exactly what he needs to do and progressing in the areas that are crucial to his development… and that could mean big things.. how big we’ll see next year but we have something now..

Was Frank injured again or just in Thibs’ dog house? Pretty insane that neither he nor DSJ could get ANY burn in a bench emptying fourteen point loss.

Was Frank injured again or just in Thibs’ dog house? Pretty insane that neither he nor DSJ could get ANY burn in a bench emptying fourteen point loss.

Thibs plays a tight rotation and Frank is not in it. He likely felt it would be embarrassing to have Frank come in just for garbage time, so he used Pinson instead, who can’t be insulted by garbage minutes.

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