2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks @ Nuggets – Difficult Road Trip? What Difficult Road Trip?

The Knicks made a major statement in the second game of this nominally difficult west coast road trip by stomping the Memphis Grizzlies, and so they now come into Denver on fire, especially Derick Rose, who is on a hot streak we haven’t seen from him in, like, nine years!

Julius Randle was dominant, as well, of course, as per usual.

So while Denver is also playing very well despite losing their ostensible second star player, Jamal Murray, so don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to undersell how tough this game will be, but dang, man, Memphis was supposed to at least be sort of a challenge and they stomped them, so forgive me for being overly excited about the Knicks’ chances tonight.

Come on, Knicks, make them regret ever fleecing you on the Melo trade, get this win!

For some good vibes, check out this classic Knick victory in Denver…

Let’s go, decade-late revenge-for-Melo game!

100 replies on “2020-21 Game Thread: Knicks @ Nuggets – Difficult Road Trip? What Difficult Road Trip?”

kind of sorry i don’t watch more hockey…looks like things got heated right out of the gate tonight with the rangers and caps…

holy cow, is dolan really maybe/sort of/possibly having a steinbrenner type transformation…

One key to tonight will be to get Jokic in early foul trouble.

Edit: Or the Knicks could pick up 3 fouls on the first possession.

ephus:
One key to tonight will be to get Jokic in early foul trouble.

Or Barrett with two in 21 seconds. Sheesh.

Wow 28 seconds in and Thibs gets a tech. Absolute world record pace there.

Remember when we used to debate on this board whether Jokic was going to be better than Porzingis? Life comes at you fast man.

Not many bright spots here other than me maybe being able to go to bed early

Did Breen really just say that Jokic outweighs Noel by 80lbs? That would put Jokic at over 300lbs lol.

Dude ain’t fat or muscular enough for a # that big. Must have some dense-ass bones.

Yeah, this is going to be embarassing, I’ll give it until half time maybe before I’m gone

Bruno Almeida:
Yeah, this is going to be embarassing, I’ll give it until half time maybe before I’m gone

Guys! Six minutes in!

Embarrassing mostly … they are playing so weak … not smart … Randle complaining … Noel on that timeout looks like he’s laboring with that ankle … we already putting ourselves in unfavorable position with the refs now too.

KB Apprentice: Guys! Six minutes in!

That’s why I’m waiting until half time!

But yeah, we seriously have no one to check Jokic even half decently, which makes this the worst type of match-up for us. We can defend wings and guards really well, but those dominant bigs are so hard without Mitch, Taj etc.

In Randle’s shoes, I feel like LeBron would say: “I got Jokic.” Julius should try it.

And now Elf on a rampage of terrible play. Just what we need.

Sort of thinking Thibs should just swap out for the bench. See what Rose and IQ and Taj and Burks can do.

Man, how do you not take RJ out on 2 fouls. That is him pretty much done for the half.

Memphis was a great game, but — no illusions — this road trip will be tough.

Mostly because Jokic, Anthony Davis, and Gobert are playing well, putting up what can only be described as Julius Randle-type numbers.

Meanwhile, we are down by 20 already. So I can only dream for the future and imagine a backcourt of Vildoza, Quickley, Rose, Barrett, Bullock, and Burks

Go Knicks!

What have you done for me lately? Softest bunch I’ve seen in awhile. Hope they get back to it

Jokic should pursue any scoring record he wants tonight. His personal best, the Denver franchise record, Wilt’s 100…we got nothin’ for him.

taj has been unbelievable this year… but this is one game where we are sorely missing mitch….

Slowly chipping away from a 20 point deficit down to a 22 point deficit, we got this

Jokic could get pulled now and he’d still outscore the entire Knicks team for the whole game

I know that doubling Jokic has not worked this year (1.46 points/possession) but the Knicks do not have anyone who can guard him one-on-one.

Yeah, someone has to step up and just “stop” Jokic by thinking of nothing else. Rodman used to do that. Anthony Mason (the locksmith! haha) same. Just shadow and deny all game long.

They need to hack him until it’s too dangerous to keep him out there. I’m not advocating to actually do that to the most entertaining and likable big man in league history, but it’s the only way he’s not gonna hang 60-15-15 on this team that is definitely legit and for real and going deep in the playoffs.

Someone tell Jokic Thibs would never give him this much rest with a chance to get 100. Or any other time.

Imagine how many points Porzingis would hang on tonight’s squad. He, unlike other certain tall Euros, is actually a shot creator!

I’m currently at a Chinese bank sending money to the US, which always takes an hour and sometimes goes wrong. I’m keeping track of the game on my phone and It seems the banking is more fun than watching. . .

Hawks destroying Phoenix and looking at their remaining schedule Hawks might lose 1 game rest of the season if that.

Normally we hang around in the 10-15
Point range but i guess it’s 20-25 tonight? Get within 16 here and win two quarters by 8.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
Imagine how many points Porzingis would hang on tonight’s squad. He, unlike other certain tall Euros, is actually a shot creator!

At some point early on I may have suggested that I wouldn’t trade KP for Jokic. Not my finest hour…

KJG:
Normally we hang around in the 10-15
Point range but i guess it’s 20-25 tonight? Get within 16 here and win two quarters by 8.

Yes please.

The comeback is only as fun as the number of points you’re down early 😉

BigBlueAL:
Hawks destroying Phoenix and looking at their remaining schedule Hawks might lose 1 game rest of the season if that.

I mean if we get the 5th seed and play the Hawks does home court advantage really mean anything?

So much for my idea. Ashame all self inflicted late here … so much for my 16 point plan. I don’t have a 21 point plan.

d-mar: I mean if we get the 5th seed and play the Hawks does home court advantage really mean anything?

Oh yeah I don’t mind at all finishing 5th, playing the Hawks in the 1st rd without homecourt wouldn’t matter much.

the nuggets have just been on another level since they got gordon…. and the murray injury hasn’t really changed much….

they probably will miss him come playoff time but they are a really good team….

KJG:
So much for my idea. Ashame all self inflicted late here … so much for my 16 point plan.I don’t have a 21 point plan.

IQ and Rose continue to hit.

Burks turns it around.

Pelle spends all 6 fouls on Jokic.

And somebody pay some (any?) attention to their little guy.

Looks like I don’t need to update the magic numbers after tonight…

Compazzo is a lot like Prigioni, only six years younger than Prigs was in 2013.

Hopefully we just signed the next link in this chain

Z-man:
Looks like I don’t need to update the magic numbers after tonight…

Uh, hold that calculator

love the compete here. Down 22 but playing hard. They just denied Millsap three times at the rim.

I’m going to give this game more time. Don’t sleep on the Knicks!

I know we’ve probably ascended beyond moral victories, but if the Knicks hang in there and make this a low-teen, single digit loss, I can be at peace with that,

And when the hell did the Nuggets get red unis???

A lot of uncharacteristically sloppy stuff preventing us from making a game out of this one

thenoblefacehumper:
A lot of uncharacteristically sloppy stuff preventing us from making a game out of this one

Totally. And Denver’s been just sloppy enough themselves that if we just quit the mistakes we can compete.

Vintage Randle tonight. As in, the 2019-2020 version.

I worry a bit about Julius’s temperament. He seems to get rattled and gets tunnel vision.

Z-man:
I worry a bit about Julius’s temperament.He seems to get rattled and gets tunnel vision.

Yeah, I feel like there have been a couple games where Julius gets bottled up and chooses to distribute more. Tonight was none of that. He just kept going with his head down and complaining to the refs.

BigBlueAL:
On the bright side at least the Yankees are good again.

There’s just too much talent there for them not to turn it around. Hopefully in a month from now we’ll look at April as a one-month hiccup.

Back to Knicks: one reason I’m happy for the overall progress of the franchise is that they’ve been able to mitigate a pure drafting mistake in Kevin Knox. Both Bridges and MPJ – guys that were in the range of the Knox pick – have clearly outperformed him to date, and none of them are on teams that currently suck. If I remember right, most on the board wanted Mikal, many were meh on Miles, and some (like me) didn’t want to take on the injury risk that MPJ was at the time. We needed a player with the potential of mid/upper-card talent, and we missed hard.
BTW, the only reason I don’t put Frank in the same category of pure bust/mistake is because he was projected in the range of our pick, and some here had him pegged as the pick.

I would not be shocked if Frank is a solid rotation player next year, somewhere. I would be shocked if Knox is on an NBA roster in 2022-23.

lot of blowouts tonight…

Jazz are up 30, Celtics won by 36, Blazers won by 36, Hawks won by 32, Sixers won by 20.

Cmon Thibs get Randle out of there.

Ok he did. But he should never have put him back in

Not watching the game and just checked the box score… fuck, it really is the Austin Rivers Revenge Game. SMH

Wasn’t our night. We knew getting 1 game out of these next four was gonna be pretty hard. No real need to get bent about this L.

Put this game out of your minds and prep for Phoenix, K’s.

An off night for CP3 it appears, plus a 23-point 4th Q advantage for Atlanta with balanced scoring all over. Pretty impressive win I gotta say.

d-mar:
“Ghosts of bad draft picks past” on the floor for the Knicks

Hey, they’re both +11! They should have started.

I love garbage time stats…

nikola letting julius know there are different levels to this mvp thing…

giancarlo making me look bad for questioning how he could ever be worth his salary…he’s hitting like bamm bamm with a bat…

I missed the Knick game tonight. I had a good excuse – I was at Yankee Stadium, sitting 10 yards (sec 123, row 1) from the Astros dugout. My brother and I were relentlessly attacking (all clean – not even cursing) the cheating Astros. At one point I got Altuve to glance back at me. That was after I yelled out “Does your wife know you’re a cheater?” That one bothered him. Even through the rain, the fans were vicious.

Here’s a good one. I bet you never heard this phrase before. “Tonight fans coming to Yankee Stadium were told that they could not bring trash cans inside.”

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