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62 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2022.11.05)”
Super fun win, great to see Obi and Randle on the floor at the same time, although clearly they don’t practice any 5-out stuff in practice as Randle kept on camping in the lane for no apparent reason.
As someone said in the previous thread – the most likely reason this grouping worked was that Randle and RJ literally had zero FGA in the 4th quarter. It helps when your most efficient scorers actually do most of the shooting! 9 shots for Obi, 3 shots for Brunson, and 2 shot each for Reddish, Fournier, and Quickley.
I really do find it interesting that in game 8 of the season, Thibs already changed his starting lineup and went to this highly unusual lineup (for him). Have to wonder if there already are rumblings in the FO or even from Dolan that patience is growing short. Like someone said, there was some desperation tonight — which is a good thing!
Last thing – why can’t Immanuel Quickley put the ball in the basket?
One thing about the Nets – nothing gives me more joy than watching them self-immolate, but I would honestly be happy if they go on a run while Kyrie is out. Maybe that would give Joe Tsai and Sean Marks the courage to just cut the guy. Kyrie is one of my least favorite people on the planet, and I’d love to see his malignant narcissist butt sit around hoping to get a call from someone.
I’ll be very interested to see how Cam performs tonight. It’s one thing to show up against an undersized (and as Brian points out,dumb) Sixers team, and another to do it against a smart, tough team like Boston
(and I’m going to the game, at the beginning of the 4th quarter I texted my friend that I was about to put the tix on StubHub)
1. Cam is inevitably going to have more “knucklehead” games, but he’s getting better on both sides. He was good on defense last night too. Even Thibs trusted him down the stretch.
2. If Obi can improve a bit more defensively and on the boards, we may have our stretch PF.
3. We are winning some games with Quick shooting poorly. Last year when he slumped the team was terrible. When he turns it around we may go on a bit of a tear.
4. RJ is slowly righting the ship. His TS% in November is 55.3% despite still not hitting 3s at a satisfactory clip in Nov either. The 3s will improve. He’s not that bad.
5. Similar with Randle. The 3s are not dropping, but he’s been fine otherwise. The 3s will improve. He’s not that bad.
6. With the emergence of Cam as a useful player and Grimes back, it’s Fournier who may be out.
7. Would someone please get a defensive rebound so I don’t have a stroke!
Which thread are we posting on?
I feel like we need a group consensus on this
The daily bot strikes again… sigh
I like starting my morning reading Max’s grades, right after the Times and the Journal.
LOLOLOLOL 😀
My God! I have NEVER seen Thibs scramble like that. Today is the first time that I’ve felt like Thibs is on shaky ground. I would not have started Grimes last night. He clearly isn’t ready. I would have started Quickley or kept Fournier in on limited minutes- as in give him the first 8 minutes to see how he goes and then manage his minutes accordingly. However, it is very clear that Fournier isn’t in the plans- even over Cam..in my opinion. I don’t know how we move Fournier without taking 50 cents on the dollar. Even then, we’d still have to find a desperate contender or should be contender like the Lakers or Philly even. But I don’t see a feasible trade with either squad. Let’s just hope Grimes can stay upright and improve over these next few games
To his credit (again), over the last two games Thibs did exactly what we’ve been begging him to do for two years. Against the Hawks, our young guys didn’t step up. Against the Sixers they did. Let’s hope Thibs stays with the long roster tonight even if Obi goes 0-9 and Cam has 10 turnovers. They must make mistakes to get better.
Someone in the other thread floated the idea of using Obi at the 3. Yes please, totally agree. Why hasn’t this already been happening? I get the worry about rebounds when using Obi and Randle without a true center, but Obi (or Cam) could/should easily “steal” minutes from RJ without it being an insult to him or any deep drop in defensive ability.
One thing: posters here seem to believe Thibs is playing the long roster bc his job is on the line, but I stand by my argument that he genuinely sees this year as the right time to use all his young players on the court and/or that Leon is insisting he showcase them for subsequent deals. IMO both goals are in parallel and are beneficial to team play and in the trade market. There need be no threat of firing for them both to have this incentive.
So. Tonight. One bad game. One good game. Let’s see what happens v the Celtics. Also, I suspect neither Cam nor Obi has ever been game planned against by an NBA team. We’ve seen how opponents have figured out RJ, IQ, even Brunson, with bad news for us. For sure some will soon make Obi and Cam look more like mortals or the losers many on this board believe them to be. It will happen. The good news is that we have a lot of depth now. The opponents can’t game against everyone. Maybe a little focus on Obi or Cam helps the other guys.
btw the betting previews for the Celtics game are funny. All discuss last night’s Sixers game as being won by Brunson and RJ. But we know better. Hahaha.
I was watching basketball last night with one Knicks fan and one Nets fan, and this is what we were discussing:
Would each teams’ owner approve the following trade? Randle and Fournier for Kyrie Irving.
Leave our feelings out of it, because Dolan doesn’t care about us. I think he would do it and I’ll tell you why:
– the Knicks have proven to be an inelastic product; they would weather the backlash.
– there’s a huge portion of Knicks fans who aren’t the brightest bulbs and they want stupid things. They would probably be excited.
– I bet you Dolan loves Kyrie. I bet you he sees Kyrie as a media victim, and we know how Dolan hates the media.
– there’s a strong element of “fuck you, everyone” in such a move, and that is *exactly* what an entitled prick like Dolan loves to do (see: JD & the Straight Shot opening for the Eagles)
So we were all convinced Dolan would do it.
It’s the Nets we weren’t sure about. They could just suspend Kyrie all year til they can cut him, then start over next year. Is that better or worse than getting Julius Randle and Evan Fournier now? It’s hard to tell. And holy shit does that say a lot about how bad of a job Leon did last summer.
@FredKatz
Obi Toppin and Julius Randle played together for a little more than 10 minutes tonight.
During that time, the Knicks outscored the 76ers 29-15.
Down with the bot!
Macri’s bonus newsletter today asks the same questions I have:
1. Was this a sign of Thibs improbably realizing he has to shake things up for good, or just desperation after perhaps the worst loss of his Knicks tenure?
2. More importantly, how much of this will he stick with? Especially if we unsurprisingly get our asses kicked by the Celtics tonight?
I don’t necessarily want thibs to stick with the closing lineup-we missed a fuckton of good shots before the 4th and the sixers had some weird lineups. But I want to see thibs willing to go back to it at least situationally
So tonight will be a major test of the Z-man myztique vs. the Celts at MSG. The last one I was at was the Michael Beasley game. Then last year my daughters were at the RJ buzzer-beater game.
The one thing in our favor vs. the Celts is size in the front line. Their bench is very thin other than Brogdan and Williams.
Whatever the reasoning was, I’m glad Thibs at least got a look at that small ball lineup and it worked out. Now it’s in his quiver. If he never uses it again, that’s on him. If Mitch is out for a couple of games or is ineffective, that gives Thibs the opportunity to go to it again.
@Z-man Watch out for Kornet and Vonleh!
One thing I have to say in favor of Thibs is that he also plays who he thinks will best help win regardless of their contract status or salary. If he thinks Fournier isn’t the answer as a starter he will play someone else. That’s as it should be but not all coaches are like that
One thing I have to say in favor of Thibs is that he also plays who he thinks will best help win regardless of their contract status or salary. If he thinks Fournier isn’t the answer as a starter he will play someone else. That’s as it should be but not all coaches are like that
Haha. Anyone watching Thibs in the postgame might have been surprised to hear he has been designing and perfecting the small ball Obi/Randle lineup for a long while. He’s been eager (but patient) for his chance to show it off.
Didn’t Brunson say that they hardly ever do that in practice?
Good tweet from Schwinny Pooh on Cams evolution
https://twitter.com/shwinnypooh/status/1588910690781495296?s=21&t=bv7NcjeYocnvLO7njhapOw
Changing shot patterns is good. Far from a believer in Cam but he was definitely catalytic last night
Also, are you kidding about Thibs?
“ He’s been eager (but patient) for his chance to show it off.”
He said basically that, with all the caveats of “the right time”, but I and everybody in the press room did not believe him. So, yes, I am joking about his attempt to control the narrative 😉
But also. Credit to the guy. He is hardly being rigid this year. It’s like he read all of our posts over the summer, dyed his hair black, and grew a beard. I’m down for it.
We know why Thibs doesn’t like the small lineup. It’s not some hard fast rule that applies to all small ball lineups. It’s that neither Randle or Obi is especially good defensively and together they would likely get abused by good big men and players that beat our perimeter defenders and get inside. He thinks the net of better offense and worse defense will be negative. However, he has been stubborn in not at least trying it against other small lineups until yesterday.
And why not Obi and Randle with Mitch or Hart at times? If everyone rightly complains that RJ and Randle make the paint claustrophobic, and Mitch only makes it worse, why not spell RJ a bit with Obi?
Wiser minds must weigh in.
The coaching staff may have talked about it, but they obviously haven’t been practicing. Now, they have no excuse not to practice it from time to time to be ready in game situations. It’s also obvious to me that they need to practice against zone defenses.
Some observations after 8 games:
-We are 13th in pace. That is astonishing, being that we haven’t added any speedsters to the rotation from the last couple of years.
-We have the 20th ranked offense and 10th ranked defense…that seems right in line with our record and preseason expectations.
-We are 1st in opponent’s FG% (3rd in 2pt%, 2nd in 3pt%). That’s including the CLE game where they went 23-50 from 3.
-We are last in opponent’s TOV% and 28th in DRB%. So our defense is strained by not forcing turnovers and giving up too many OREBs. However, we don’t send teams to the line very much (5th in FTA/FGA) so it seems that we are happy to let opponents live and die with the 3. We are last in opponent’s 3PA allowed per game (41!) but 3rd in opponent’s 3pt% so that is a continuation of a central tenet of Thibs’ defensive philisophy.
Boston is going to be a good test of that aspect of our defensive philosophy. They are 4th in 3’s attempted per game (39.4) and 3rd in makes. Seems like the game will come down to whether they are hot or cold from out there.
There was a beautiful sequence last night when they got a DREB and thre ball never hit the floor in transition leading to a dunk.
Obi (less so) and Randle (more so) are both capable passers in transition and can both run the floor, so having them out there with a big (especially Hart) might be interesting, especially against the Celts. I wonder if having those 3 out there with RJ and Cam might lead to some of those no-dribble transition sequences that are just so beautiful to watch. That would be a really big, athletic lineup that might give opposing defenses some problems if they could avoid turnovers.
I guess I’m saying that the shift to an uptempo offense has opened up some lineup possibilities that wouldn’t work at a slower pace. I hope Thibs keeps throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.
we scrambled and got lucky to beat what looked like a mid-tier euro league (no offense cyber or max!) club…so any serious takeaways from this game are well…nil…other than…thibs really was just throwing darts at names to get a combination and lo and behold he found something that allowed us to escape (mostly due to some embarrasingly poor execution from the opposition and really, with some of the shots we took down the stretch…we had no business winning that game)….but it was fun to see Obi scream on that one 3…
quickley looks off and discombobulated…I know at some point last year he did the same shit and then “turned it around” when the pressure was off…but something is off with that guy…some of the shots he was taking last night…looked like RJ type wing and a prayer stuff…the delta between him and Maxey is huge..
We have four wins. Two were against tanking teams. One was against Charlotte minus Lamelo and Rozier, and the other was against Philly without Embiid and Harden, and both of those were squeaker wins. Three of the four losses were double digit losses where we simply got outclassed.
I’m not all that impressed with the results. We’re very lucky to not be 2-6.
Al Horford out. Queue up the PF lineup
We blew a 9 point lead in the fourth quarter against Cleveland and a 23 point lead at home against Atlanta. We could easily be 6-2.
I’ve come to present two mea culpas. James Wiseman is a head-case. I really thought talent would win out. Still could, but he has to battle his brain. Or perhaps his heart.
And Cam might actually be a rotation player. Still early days there, too, but the talent everyone could see is being matched with a sudden and mysterious lack of stupid.
Yes but one of those losses was on the road in OT against one of the top teams in the west and the other was against the bucks who are undefeated and have arguably the best player in the league on their roster. And the Cleveland and Atlanta losses we had leads in the second half and Cleveland was also on the road. To me the Atlanta loss is the only unforgivable loss of the season so far. At home and we were up big.
Which is to say…results so far are inconclusive.
I forgot the Memphis loss was in OT on the road. With a couple of made free throws in regulation we could have one that one also.
Zach Zarba, Curtis Blair, Dedric Taylor.
I don’t forget who stole us the game in Memphis… 🙂
Obi was the reason we didn’t extend the lead in Cleveland to start the 4th quarter, we would’ve had a lot more chances to win the game if he had scored in half of the 4 possessions he wasted. Against Atlanta to start the 4th quarter, he was blocked by a 6’0 guy (!?), followed it by missing 2 chances to make a 3P that would’ve cut the lead to single digits, and then when Atlanta was getting away he missed a 1ft layup (!?). I’m glad Thibs kept his faith in Obi and that he finally delivered yesterday.
We’ve lost to the 1st place team, the 2nd place team and the 4th place team in the east. We’re about to lose to the 3rd place team. And we lost to the 4th place team in the West. If we get IQ & Grimes going we’ll be okay.
Both Mitch and Grimes are listed as questionable for the Celtics game. I would just rest them both. Start iHart and Quickley (or, more likely, iHart and Reddish), bring Obi in as first guy off the bench, etc. And if Rose is really just hurt or whatever, hell, play Deuce a little when Brunson is resting.
Yes. Make it so, Alan. CUT TO: Bizarro Thibs trimming his beard and copying Alan’s suggestions onto yellow post-it notes.
I’m also glad that Thibs now is looking to solve one of our problems, Fournier and his lack of defense. And frankly, maybe his lack of offense too, this season. I still believe we have another problem (Randle) that needs solving, but this one is probably not on Thibs, it’s on Leon to find a new home for Randle and hopefully get a defensive stopper back. I still think Phoenix would be open to trade Crowder and Saric (to match salaries) for Randle. We’re talking about a player one year removed from being All-NBA 2nd team. 😀
I’m down for the coach change… Thibs for Alan seems good to me! 😉
@Hubert – I think Hubert was also the one to suggest that we go after Miles Bridges after the pictures of his wife/GF were released online.
Hubert- sometimes it’s just not worth it.
Kyrie Irving has succeeded (in terms of team success) in precisely one place – in Cleveland with super-prime Lebron James keeping him in line. He would completely destroy this team.
somehow caught the last 4 minutes of the game…
pretty wild stuff…I don’t know, I really dislike those seasons when we start strong and then fall apart…
I’d be okay with .500 (thoroughly mediocre) through January, roll the dice, hope we develop cohesion as a team to finish the season…
It was before the pictures came out, Frank. After the pictures came out I admitted I made a mistake.
As for Kyrie, I did not suggest I want the Knicks to trade for him.
I’m concerned that it might happen, though. It’s very Dolan, don’t you think?
cam reddish has been a nice early season surprise…I hope he continues…
julius at the five seems to work offensively…
No, not even Dolan would think about Kyrie. He doesn’t even have a say about the team moves, since Phil.
My biggest surprise is his defense, he looked so lost in preseason and now looks good on that end. Definitely didn’t saw that coming.
Grimes and Reddish could be better versions of Burks and Bullock.
That lineup really is a problem in terms of defensive rebounding. We all love Obi but he just not a great rebounder and butt is not big enough to root guys out. Randle is ok but has short arms and is definitely undersized at the 5. Cam is a bad rebounder too. Pretty much have to have RJ in that group, the only plus rebounder of all of them in terms of his position. You’d like to have Quickley in there for his rebounding but prob need Brunson to really have the offense work – he’s so great in a real 5-out offense. Brunson, RJ, Cam/Grimes, Obi, and Randle would be pretty fun.
There are definitely glass half empty vs half full ways to view our record, which is why I insist upon a 20 game window to fairly evaluate who this team really is relative to the 38.5 Vegas preseason number. All I know right now is that we should win between 30 and 50 games and probably around 40.
With the Jewish population in NYC what it is, I’d think the Knicks would be the last team to trade for Kyrie. Dolan can’t be that stupid, can he?
Yes he can but I doubt he would do it anyway.
I can’t think of any city where Kyrie would be welcome right now.
Sure, Kyrie won’t be welcome many places, but most those places won’t alienate 12% of their fan base and don’t have Jewish celebrities with season tickets.
Looks like we’ll be without Mitch for at least a couple of weeks
In Knickspeak 7 to 10 days with a sprained knee means…
He’s only got four months to live, poor guy
Mitch’s proclivity for injuries is unfortunate…
Reddish starting tonight!
Cam “The Incinerator” Reddish!
Banchero is a freaking beast…coach k should have like 10 titles…he gets the least out of the best…
Agree Pepper, Banchero is a beast and Bol Bol can really play too.
Fun game in Orlando.