i have no idea why suggs isn’t consensus #1…

1) Tom Thibodeau is the perfect coach for these Knicks because he brings accountability, toughness, teamwork, and defense. You cannot build from the ground up without all four of these principles.

2) There is nobody we could have hired in his place that would have done a better job. I wanted Ime Udoka to get the job, and a lot of people wanted Kenny Atkinson to get the job. We were all wrong.

3) Tom Thibodeau will not coach the championship contending version of the Knicks if this is what his offense will look like despite the personnel. Easy buckets do not exist and you can’t blame it on the lack of point guard play because of what our principles seem to be on that end. We pass the ball around the perimeter until one of our guys has a look he likes, and then it’s up to that player to make the right play. We do nothing off ball, we don’t try to get Julius Randle the ball as a roll man, and everything is dependent on one guy being able to break down a defense. If we get that one guy who can break down a defense, that will absolutely raise this floor and ceiling on this team. Once you go up against playoff teams though, they tend to take that guy away (look at what happened to Milwaukee, or even the Thibs specific 2011 Bulls) and your team falls apart. We will eventually need a coach who can build off of Thibs’ work because I do not believe we can trust Tim Thibodeau to build an offense that brings the best out of his players.

glad we get a chance to bounce back tonight, given how poorly it seems we’ve been playing the last month or so though – this could be the most disappointing loss of the season tonight 🙂

Raven:
And I just saw this. For all you folks getting your shots, keep social distancing and wearing masks…

The Mavericks were without coach Rick Carlisle, who tested positive for COVID-19 in the morning. After the positive test, Carlisle stayed behind at the team hotel. He met virtually with reporters about an hour before the game to announce the positive test while revealing publicly for the first time that he has been fully vaccinated since February.

It’s a bit concerning, but let’s see what comes of it. Initially, it was said the vaccines wouldn’t prevent exposure but definitely keep you from getting seriously sick or dying (which is huge). Also, I have read recently that recent studies are now claiming the vaccines can possibly prevent spread of infection. There’s still a lot more data to gather, access and refine, and I think more info on the effectiveness of the vaccines will be flushed out further as more people get their 2nd doses.

My wife and I got our second shots last weekend.

Z-man: Yeah, that would have been nice.

I don’t think a win tonight would tell us very much. A loss would be extremely telling, but even to get to 32 wins we have to win 8 games and you would think this would be one of them.

A lot depends on whether the teams below us are going to go all out to make the top 10.

On-paper wins: 2
DET, HOU

Probable losses: 12
BKN, BOS, LAL, DAL, ATL, PHX, DEN, PHX, LAC, LAL, SAS, BOS

Competitive: 9
MEM, TOR, NO, NO, CHA, TOR, CHI, MEM, CHA

If we go 5-4 in the competitive games and win both vs. DET and HOU, our record will depend on how many wins we get out of the 12 probable losses. If we go 3-9, that would be 34 wins. I can’t see us doing much better than that.

I would move ATL into the competitive tier and perhaps even LAL depending on how long LeBron and UniBrow are out. I haven’t peeped the Hawks lately, but they’re a .500 team more or less like we are.