Whoops, sorry, folks, I thought they were IN San Antonio tonight, so a later game start. My apologies.
Hopefully the Knicks start the game on time, if you know what I mean!
Let’s go, Knicks!
Whoops, sorry, folks, I thought they were IN San Antonio tonight, so a later game start. My apologies.
Hopefully the Knicks start the game on time, if you know what I mean!
Let’s go, Knicks!
132 replies on “2021-22 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Spurs”
the josh primo game
Let’s gooooo Knicks!
tyler johnson’s white sleeves are so big his teammates keep thinking he’s a knick
At one point does Randle realize that contested 20 foot jumpers are no longer good shots?
It’s 6 on 4, let’s win this. 😀
I have confession
I took Spurs +6.5
RJ trying to lead yet another glamorous NBA ranking… Missed Dunks! 😛
The Spurs, like the Celtics, are playing hack-a-Mitch when he’s under the hoop.
I referee HS basketball and there’s a rule that players undershirts have to be a similar color to the uniform.
Have no idea why they don’t have that rule in the NBA
Well, that might be the best way to endure this season. If we win, you’re happy for the win, if we lose, you’re happy you won the bet.
End of first quarter: yawn.
Tonight’s donation parlay … bucks money line , Celtics money line, Spurs +6.5, Knicks Spurs under 212.5 , Georgia money line , UGA Bama over 52.5… root it in, guys
Plenty of room tho… i can double dip … Knicks win by 5 everyone’s happy !
that foul will get obi back to the bench
taj a rare victim of the coriolis effect there
IQ’s best pass of the year, Taj blew it…
LOL. It was on purpose to help RJ not think too much about the missed dunks. 😛
2nd unit just doesn’t have the same spark anymore… too slow
obi is basically taunting thibs to pull him with this help d
I respect Clyde as a former player but his commentary is getting washed up. Wally was good, calling previous couple games
Nothing slow about Obi
your post is moderation and so is your mom
Is there a ranking for more alley oops? Obi must be Top3, at least.
Grimes is def a lot more than a Bullock type
Saying Wally is better than Clyde is the ultimate troll
Grimes completely inside the arc. Mike Breen: “his foot was on the line”. Hilarious.
Wally burner account alert!
We’ve banned posters for less
easy guys…that’s wally’s moms
We’re going toe to toe with the Spurs
Pretty damn impressive right?
This offense is just rudderless. Kemba and/or Rose will help to some extent, but it’s not good for our long-term outlook that we’re screwed without the old heads.
hello rj
extend rj
Elf’s mom tried this and now he’s with the Suns. If this means Wally is with the Suns next season, WELCOME Wally’s mom! 😀
This game is a microcosm of the RJ Barrett experience. It’s puzzling how he can look so lost and then so dominant, and then turn back into a pumpkin again. I can’t understand it.
clyde once called stuart gray’s hair provocative
Ye old step back … contested
Love my optimal end of clock play call…iso Randle stepback 3
What a nice end of half FGA by Randle
speaking of hair…that number 15 on the spurs looks like he uses the same barber that worked for the Celtics in the 60’s…flatop deluxe
This post is stumbling and bumbling and needs some hacking and whacking.
On the last play it looked like Randle motioned to Burks to go elsewhere with the pass and Burks went to Randle anyway.
I swear to god Keyboard Cat came onto my tv after that Julius fail
editors note- i really need my edit function back
Primo looks like a 15yo. :O
Sacre bleu that was an ass drive
Bob Hill the Wally Pipp of NBA coaches
rj actually has 6-7 assists worthy passes already
I went to college with one of Bob Hill’s kids and he was a real dick
Breen trying really hard to put a positive spin on Randle’s dreadful performance
Well whatever RJ’s next contract is he should start negotiating it tonight
Missed dunks aside a really good game for RJ,
points, decent defense and good vision.
I guess if you squint you can tell yourself he’s just been focusing on facilitating or whatever, but I see a more general detachment. Not sure what he’s giving us tonight.
Randle’s 1-7 the only thing keeping it close
RJ playing great. Must be said, he doesn’t get very high on his dunk attempts.
So let me get this straight — Randle stops shooting and all the Knicks suddenly are playing well…
Just put in Obi for the all drafted lineup
Great block by RJ
This might be RJ’s best all around game of his career.
I’m sure RJ Barrett has blocked other shots but I don’t remember any. That was awesome.
every game randle looks like a different character on in treatment
I can’t stand the out of bounds turnovers in the corner…
IQ!!!!
It feels like we’re blowing them out and we’re only up 7
tonight is exhibit Z in 21/14 from whiteside ain’t 21/14 from gobert
Yup, not all points, rebounds and blocks are created equal…
Cade Cunningham with a nice boxscore line.
rj is winning this game by himself
Barrett believing his own hype. Not a good thing…
Robert Williams >>>Jacob Poeltl
Poor Obi, first he was alone, then he had the mismatch and nobody cared…
P.S. and Thibs put him on the bench…
Parlay done leg 1 of 6 … giannis jsut threw bad pass … bucks about to lose to hornets … Georgia Bama is not gonna go over .. Knicks are crushing …
Here’s a word of advice … next time I post my bets … take the complete opposite. You will be rich in due time …
iq is really taking advantage of the extended pt…starting to look like somewhat of a pg
Then he got taken out because he’d hit double digits in minutes played…
RJ doesn’t have the athletic explosiveness to finish at the rim as well as some other players. He’s going to have to develop some timing and other tricks to avoid getting blocked as often as he does going to the rim. Hopefully that comes next year or soon after. Better spacing will also help. I love the way he’s passing. He HAS good court vision and passing skills, but he has to take that next step where he draws doubles and can use those skills better- like tonight.
Yeah he’s really good at keeping his dribble alive and getting into the paint. In a good stretch right now
And can we save some of these 3’s for Wednesday? I’m going to the game!
Grimes is cold-blooded.
He should put him back in now … will he ?
Helps that the Spurs played an OT game yesterday and they have some good depth pieces out with Covid but this is still a nice performance to see from the Knicks.
It happens, better to miss a bet screwing a lot of games than losing because just one went wrong.
My personal cardinal rule is “never bet on my teams”.
🙂
Nah, but I’m betting that in three minutes we’ll get our three minutes of Deuce!
This would have been a good night to give Obi some extra run given that Randle is even worse than usual.
Booing Randle in the 4th quarter of a game in which we’re up 23 is incredibly stupid
No, he will let Randle pad his stats up by 20…
I never usually do … I still wanted the boys to win no doubt but I wanted some consolation just in case… and they had 6 points to work with !!!
He added another turnover so that’s good
It’s also incredibly stupid for Thibs to have him in the game
RJs shooting 63% at the rim this season. That’s certainly not elite but it’s acceptable-it’s better than anyone on the Knicks who isn’t bigger than him.
extremely
Obi toppin chants !!! Poor Julius … fans are dumb. Awkward … I’m not about public humiliation. That’s just rude
Yeah, it’s a flat out good win. Not an amazing win, but a totally good win.
It was a game we can’t lose even trying,
but there are different ways to win and this, with RJ, IQ and Mitch playing well, is one of the best…
Deuce got a big time haircut. Maybe he hopes Thibs will think he’s someone else and play him more
Arcidiacono still on street clothes for 3rd straight game … useful signing for a 10 day
LOL
Doesnt make up for the 1999 Finals but still always nice to get a win vs the Spurs.
At least Randle got his rebounds and mostly let other people shoot
KB now 12-12 in motivating players to have good games
Nice to see RJ have a good game. Same with IQ, Burks, Mitch, Fournier, Grimes and Taj. Obi was meh and Randle pretty much stayed out of the way and got defensive rebounds. I’d classify this as a taking care of business win.
Defense won the game for us today. Offense was good at times as it wasn’t ran through Randle, especially in the second half, and the ball was moving freely for the most part. RJ was making quick decisions, drive, shoot or pass. Booing Julius was despicable. He totally lost confidence in his shooting and needs to work on that, but we should never forget what he gave us last season.
Yeah, I don’t like the booing, it should be reserved for particularly bad performances during blowout losses. Randle didn’t help himself with losing his cool though.
Booing Julius, who plays really hard, is bush league.
We have to be really worried about Randle. The boo’s are in his head and he can’t get away from them. He has a case of the Yips.
Booing Randle is so stupid. He apologized. Who are these fake fans who feel the need to incessantly shit on this guy when he’s having a tough time. We won. He apologized. He led us to the playoffs last year and was MIP. You can think he’s not meant to be here long term or the right guy to lead us but this is just shitty fan behavior. Period.
I hat fans who feel the need to creat divisions amongst the team. Quit trying to insert yourselves into the narrative. Boo the team if they play horribly. Fine. But booing an individual player who hasn’t actually done anything wrong as a person…this shit makes me angry.
One could argue that playing Randle when we’re up 23 is actually the perfect time for him to be in the game.
Absolutely no sense in booing Julius tonight,
he didn’t shoot well but didn’t force things and let others handle the offense.
Did he react to the boos?
at this rate…I hope kemba has to sit for awhile…I like iq getting these minutes…he’s getting confident and comfortable handling the ball, shooting, playing dee…I can see more upside in his game…even clyde noticed that he was developing a jumper in addition to the set shot/floater combo…
I have been saying it since game 1 vs Atlanta: this is a different (and dumber) breed of Knicks fan. I think with so many professionals working remotely, the crowd has become significantly younger and drunker.
I said I didn’t like the Randle booing the second I heard it but at the same time it’s not the reason he’s sucking, because he’s been sucking all year and the booing just started. Today he came out and promptly chucked like 4 of the worst shots I’ve ever seen and threw in some ugly turnovers as a treat. I’m not a boo bird myself but if that kind of thing continues, I would imagine people will continue to boo.
It’s a good thing it actually doesn’t matter at all what you pay players in the NBA, otherwise I’d be worried about 4.5 more years of this at $27M AAV.
I don’t feel sorry for Randle. He brought this on himself. Just play some decent ball, and you won’t hear the boobirds anymore, bub.
I think we’ve found the perfect recipe. Julius is allowed 7 shots a game. He can take whichever ones he wants, good, bad, horrible. But only 7. We might never lose.
Julius Randle makes, on average, $241,000 per basketball game, whether he plays well or poorly or even at all. I do not feel bad for Julius Randle.
It is bush league. And Randle has to play better. He is brutal to watch on offense.
The booing is expected. Right or wrong, if you tell fans to shut up and continue to suck, you will be booed.
Also to be fair, we were already booing him before his comments. And his performance tonight deserved a couple boos.
All nba played make more money in a year than most of us will in a lifetime. Mitchell Robinson only makes one million a year. I will consider myself to be very lucky and will have worked my ass off if I can retire with a million in the bank.
How much he makes is irrelevant. Fans are supposed to support the team and the players on it. Plenty of players have donned the Knicks uniform and have had stretches of play worse than Randle. He literally carried the team last year. He apologized and is playing bad. Booing him when we’re winning the game is bush league and classless.
He has kids. As far as we know he doesn’t beat his wife or drive drunk or assault people or do anything off the court that merits people not respecting him as a person. This is fucking ridiculous and if you think other players around the league aren’t noticing that a guy who was second team all nba and led his team to the playoffs is getting booed by his fans the next season when we aren’t even that bad, you’re kidding yourself.
No it doesn’t. Booing your own players is stupid and childless. Has Fournier gotten booed or Mitchell Robison son or Noel for being injured. Maybe we should boo Thibs when he doesn’t sub in a player at the right time. Let’s boo RJ when he misses a free throw
hahahahahahahah swift would like you to KNOW that you are BAD and BAD THINGS are what you DO
It’s one thing to explain why booing inevitably takes place, and another to justify it. Randle sometimes stops the ball from moving, sometimes is careless with it, sometimes is indecisive or makes questionable decisions. Don’t forget also that he is the one player opponents key on. However, Julius is not selfish. He is the first to sacrifice and defer to others if things don’t go his way. He leads the team in assists and today, for example, he took only seven shots. The problem with his shooting, which has been getting worse and worse through the season, is above all mental. I hope his is getting the help he needs. Booing him only makes things worse, especially when it’s clear he DOES care about the team.
I’ll leave The Tao of Booing to others, but from a basketball perspective, it was no coincidence that when Randle got out of the way (*), RJ ran the offense way better and played way better. As Breen noted more than once, RJ is an excellent playmaker.
Hopefully, Randle will ask for a trade and a “fresh start.”
(*) His unwillingness to shoot in the second half sure seemed intentional, which is kind of weird, but the team functioned better so I guess it’s all good. Even better would be if he just went to spots on the floor where others could get him the ball and he could actually be effective.
Randle seems too inside his own head at this moment and it seems to be exacerbating his trying season. Hopefully, he is not one of those players ( former Yankees Sonny Gray and Ken [ “he spit the bit” per The Boss circa 2000], Clay who cannot play in NYC. That the Knicks are 20-21 with this version of Randle lends some hope that the team can make a run, if he ever gets it together and finds his proper role. He just seems lost at this moment in time.
I disagree.
I just think that the stupid fan has been given a social media platform and a voice they never had. Now stupid people empower each other.
there really are different types of boos, when you think about it.
There’s the spoiled brat boo, like when Yankee fans booed Mariano Rivera bc he blew a save to the Red Sox in an April baseball game.
There’s the you-should-feel-shame boo, like the Astros got for cheating.
And, in Randle’s case, there’s the “dude, you really gotta do better, and we’re taking it upon ourselves to hold you accountable until you do” boo.
Of course, they all sound the same. But really Randle should know it’s not personal. He is playing like shit, and much of it is his fault.
I’ve never been a booer but honestly, Randle has been pretty bad all things considered this year, so I don’t think booing is out of bounds. I do think chanting another player’s name (RJ) when Randle is at the free throw line is pretty heartless, and all the yahoos cheering Randle being out with COVID should have their Knick fan credentials confiscated.
Conspiracy theory — FO has told Randle they’re open to moving him and it has him in a funk. The Jerami Grant rumors really don’t make any sense otherwise, unless Obi is going in that trade.
by the way – a couple weeks ago I said I’d be happy to eat crow but that RJ was just a guy. Looks like I better get my crow-eating bib on…
that is certainly part of it, gonygo, but the guy who has season tickets and lives in NJ or Westchester largely isn’t going to the game any more. He’s giving the tickets to his son, or selling them to a rich kid on stubhub.
Getting giddy over big performances vs. scrubby, undermanned teams is a big part of what we do here.
I think this is more true of the throwaway games like yesterday, byt yeah, the crowd is way different than it was when I has season tickets during the Ewing era. We had a section in the Yellows with many hard-core fans who could only somewhat afford the seats but were at nearly every game. Booing the home team was a rare event.
So this is warranted when the team is winning a game by a fairly large margin at the end of the game when he’s only taken 7 shots the whole game?
I wouldn’t call Randle’s play last night selfish. If he’s taking 20 plus shots and missing shot after shot and the team is losing because of it, then yeah, boo him. But IMO booing a guy in the 4th quarter when we’re winning or chanting RJ Barrett’s name when he’s shooting a free throw or chanting for Obi Toppin or chanting Randle Sucks at the end of the game…its way out of line. And I agree that it seems like the Garden crowd has gotten douche bro since fans have been back in the building.
I don’t know. I think it’s a bad look. Randle brought some of this upon himself by giving the thumbs down but he apologized and I felt like his statement was well written and thought out, not pithy and terse.
I just feel like other stars see this and might think “see, this is why I don’t want to play for The Knicks.” Other fans don’t do this to their star players. And you can reply with “Randle isn’t a star” but dude made the all-star team and was second team all nba and was a beast all last season, helping us get the 4th seed and our first playoff appearance in a decade. You would think a fan base that has been starved of watchable basketball for so long would be grateful to him and no, that doesn’t mean he should stay here forever regardless of how he plays or that he is our number one without question. It just means…show the dude a little respect. He was 1for 7 last night, not 1 for 17.
I guess I just feel like if you’re a fan, you rep the team and stick by them no matter what. I don’t even like booing the team when they’re bad. I think fans can help elevate the play of a team when they get behind them. But booing a team I can understand. Booing a player when we’re winning or trying to create some RJ vs. Randle division on the team or some Randle vs. Obi division (when there isn’t one there)…it’s just dumb and entitlted.
Looking over Randle’s stats this year — the obvious difference between this year and last year is his 3 point shooting. I mean, going from 41% -> 31% accounts for almost all of his drop in efficiency (from 56.5 -> 51.5 TS). If you raise his 3P% to 40%, his TS would be 55.4%. His rebounding and assist numbers are about the same from last year. The other thing that has gone way up is his # of “lost-ball” turnovers – at the halfway point, he’s already had 45 “lost ball” turnovers (honestly it feels like many more than that ), so is on pace for 90ish. Last year he had 70 even though he was initiating the offense a lot more.
very strange that his shooting has just disappeared this year. I guess last year is looking like a fluke, but more likely there is some mechanical issue and also a confidence issue. Re: his handle — he either needs to work on it a lot more or he needs to handle the ball less. Or both. And his defense has suffered as his offense has suffered.
If I’m another team, I wonder whether getting him out of the crucible of MSG might be a good buy-low opportunity. He’s already shown what he is capable of. For a team like Sac or another small market team that is just happy to make the playoffs, he might be a good trade target.
This is so true of everything now.
Agree overall, but it’s the body language and lack of effort on defense that the fans are reacting to IMO. If he was diving on the floor, fighting through screens, and playing like a maniac on defense (which we know he is capable of), I don’t think there would be any booing at all. It’s his lollygagging up the floor after missing a shot, his Enes Kanter-esque defense when playing “drop”, etc. that draw the boos.
He belongs in Sacto or OKC or NOP or some other hideaway market putting up his empty numbers free from any real glare or accountability. He obviously has no chance of getting that freedom and slack in New York.
you’re right, swifty.
the first time he got booed, I think it was fans saying “enough already”.
last night smelled like the spoiled brat variety boo.