Knicks Morning News (2022.11.10)

I was worried from the start, games like the one in Minny are insidious for a team like us, because they can install false confidence and make you think that you’re doing the right things, while in reality they’re an astral conjunction where a team in a steady downward spiral (the Wolves) overlaps with a player’s supernova night (Randle).

We did NEVER lead in the game, we cut the lead to 15 in the 3rd then went on a 4:45 drought that allowed a Nets’ 9-0 run and the game was over.

Anyway, to me at 5-6 we’re still chalk on the season win-loss preview, but the road to get here was not smooth (more on that later).

Some questions/observations from the game:

– Randle’s spot-up tendencies can open up some more playtime to Obi. Maybe (and situational) we can really go “Jumbo” with Randle playing as a “3” on offense and a “4” on defense, Obi playing “4” on offense and “3” on defense and a center protecting the rim.
But we really needs Obi to move his feet on opponents’ “3”s to make it work…

– Sims had a decent game, but why start him when we have evidence that Hartenstein’s better suited to help the starters find some spacing in the paint? The Lefty Squad’s offense was crammed and Brunson’s Payton-like night didn’t help.

– Bad shooting night for many, but Cam (0-7), IQ (1-8) and Rose (0-4) stood out. Plus RJ and Obi missed some point blanks layups that scream “soft!” to the skies.

– Grimes’ management is confusing. Situational, garbage-time, starter, available but garbage-time bound. I understand he missed the preseason and needs to get into his groove, but what’s better than a game decided at halftime to give him some real minutes?

– There’s a lot of talent in the league, many player (like our own Obi) just need the chance to prove they belong.
The never ending list of unknown or underrated player that have “their night” against us has become so long that I’m came to the conclusion that our coaching staff isn’t good at preparing games, focusing our game-plans too much on stopping the “established star of the day” and getting burn over and over by (supposed) “scrubs”.

– KD’s a world class whiner, a fickle and unsufferable primadonna, but he’s a fantastic basketball player and I’m sad he choose Brooklyn.
Then I remember that he choose them to play with Kyrie and I’m less sad…

Grades:

Randle D-
It’s not a coincidence he has the worst plus/minus of the team (at -28). He was the only Knick with something going on offense in the first half but he gave everything back on defense.
5th consecutive game with more TOs than ASTs (his ratio for november is 15/22).

Brunson F +
Not the right game to lay an egg. He had a Randle-esque AST/TO ratio, missed a lot of shots and graver he forced a lot of shots. In a couple of occasions he unusually ignored Obi and RJ, who were alone and with an highway to the rim, choosing instead to go by himself (and missing the shots).

Barrett F +
4 missed FTs away from getting his 20s 🙂
Some good moments sprinkled in a cocktail of mediocrity.
I’d like to watch him play a full game without he and Randle stepping on each other feet.

Reddish F-
Awful. Infuriating. 1 assist, zero rebounds and zero steals in the last 47 minutes, is it good?

Sims C
Starters’ best plus/minus (-7), I can’t say anything bad about the kid. I can say a lot of bad things about whoever plays him 27 minutes.

Rose F
He has dropped as a leaf in november (23% shooting in the last 5 games). Every shot is short as in “heavy legs short”. At his age, with his injury history, every good game can be the last. I still give him some more games to decide if he’s cooked for good, the man has more resurrections than the Phoenix.

Toppin F +
Energy’s not everything. Missed a couple of layups in a way that would made Charles Smith proud. Not a good thing, nah.

Quickley F
It’s time to put a picture of his lost shot on the milk cartons.

Fournier F +
For a moment he looked finally at ease with his new role, but it was a flash in the pan.

Hartenstein F +
Didn’t shine for sure but he’s gone from playing more than Mitch to playing less than Sims in the blink of an eye. I’m confused and I think he’s more confused than me. Anyway, tied with Fournier (!!) for bench’s best plus/minus (non-garbage division) at -6.

Mykhailiuk A-
This guy can’t miss a three! But he clunked a FT and missed a chance for a glorious 4-points play.

Grimes NA
Is he ready? Is he available? Is he situational? Is he a starter?
Don’t miss the next issue of WTF is Grimes!

Arcidiacono & McBride NA
Europe will love you guys (and Ryan, we have a stilish light-blue uniform waiting for you here in the Boot)

Thibs F
His team was unprepared and apathetic from the jumpball and he was unable to inspire any kind of reaction. Wasn’t avoiding this kind of letdowns one of the main reasons to have him as coach?

Disclaimer: ROA (Rant On Arrival)

It was Game-11 and we’ve already had:

– Santi Aldama season high (18) against Memphis;

– Theo Maledon season high (15) in an OT win against the Hornets without Lamelo and Rozier;

– A 18-0 blackout in the 3rd QRT in Milwaukee, during which we had a timeout after the initial 9-0 run and came out of the timeout to allow another 9-0 run;

– A 15-37 4th in Cleveland that morphed a 9 points lead in a 13 points loss. Included in that game: Dean Wade career high (22) and Kevin Love season high (29);

– A 23 points-lead meltdown against Atlanta, at home, in a game that we lost by 13 and includes Dejounte Murray’s career high (36);

– A narrow win in Philly against the Sixers without Embiid and Harden. We needed a frantic comeback from down 12 in the 4th to win;

– A complete no-show in Brooklyn, in the game Edmond Sumner had his season high (18);

I know the players are the one that… play.
But the fish smells from the head.
We had a lot of roster continuity in the last couple of years (plus a parade of PGs) and still the offense on most night is muddy, our defensive schemes look flimsy, and the ferociusness and focus that are Thibs’ trademark aren’t there most of the time.
Do we really need an Marines Drill Sergeant to help us lose by 27 to the Nets?

The Phillies were 22-29, fired Joe Girardi and went to the World Series.
The Nets fired Steve Nash (it was a classless move, they should have done it in the summer) and are playing better (a streak of 4 games with opponents held under 100 points).
In both cases the players “reacted” to the new voice or, to put it in another way, they were left without excuses and forced to show up or feel ashamed.

Sometimes (sometimes, not always) it works.

Now we get two softies (DET and OKC) before embarking on a 5-game West trip.
I don’t think the FO will do anything, but maybe they’ll better start thinking about it.
Or maybe Thibs and the Playing Boys just need to do a better job.

Or my preferred choice – Becky!

You old satyr! 😉

@Z-Man

First of all, sorry for being late, time-zone matters and I had to recoup some sleep 😉

Re: The absurdity of Randle’s grade.

Maybe it’s me, not being accustomed to the A-F system (here we use in theory a 1-10 scale including “half votes”, but in reality nobody ever got a vote under 4 and nobody get a 10, for instance a football striker who scores an hat trick gets a 9 or 9.5).

Going into the specifics, I don’t think (and I didn’t write) that he was the main responsible for yesterday loss, he clearly wasn’t.

I gave him the highest grade of the “real” starters (to me Sims isn’t one of them) and he was the second best player of the team (not counting Super-Svi).

The team was terrible, no energy, no effort, no ball movement, they were never in the game, it was a pathetic, listless team performance.

And he didn’t have a good effort in a loss (as he did with the Celtics where I gave him a “B-“, a good vote by “european standard” when a team lose 🙂 ), he was only the best of a disastrous bunch.

Should I have give him a clear cut “D”? Maybe, or maybe I have been conditioned by Macri and Co., who flooded Twitter with clips of his defense and turnovers…

Anyway those are my grades and you have the right to think they’re absurd.
I don’t thing they’re “absurd”, I think they have a logic and you disagree with that logic.

RE: The Knicks being chalk at 5-6.

Before the season, when our yearly W-L prediction poll shows up, I did my game-by-game guess to get my wins total (it was 45 this year, check the thread)*.

In my tea-leaves readings, the first 11-games were like this:

@MEM – L
vs DET – W
vs ORL – W
vs CHA – W
@ MILW – L
vs ATL – W
@ PHI – L
vs BOS – W (I had us going 1-3 against the Celtics this season)
@ MIN – L
@ BRK – L

So I was expecting a 5-6 record and in the post I explicity said that it was “my” prediction, not the general consensus (I wrote: “to me at 5-6 we’re still chalk on the season win-loss preview”).

Again, different opinions, the salt of life, if you had our chalk at 3-8 we’re up by 2 games and you’re probably happier than me 🙂

* I don’t review game-by-game prediction during the year.

go outside, y’all

If I go outside at 1:00 AM I’ll probably get checked by the Carabinieri 🙂

@Z-Man

I’ve always said that in general I don’t believe in “pure” stat lines, that’s why I only do grades for games I watch entirely, and while I try to be as objective as I can I don’t think it’s possible to put subjectivity aside doing “whatever” in life.

I can only assure you that I don’t have an “agenda”, not even firing Thibs… 😀

On our roster Julius and RJ (and often IQ) are stats stuffers, like many other players around the league, RJ’s awareness for 20-points games is the litmus test for this.

In a stat line a contested acrobatic tap-in that bounces in and out counts as a missed point blank layup, a hurried three as an hailmary at the end of a quarter or an off-balance shot-clock beater (whoever talked about “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” was right sometimes 🙂 )

A stat line doesn’t tell you how and when things happens and to me that’s not only “pure aesthetics”, it’s understanding how a game went.

So no, I’m not impressed by Julius’ stat line (nor I would be if his name was Paolo, Giannis or Joel), I watched a player that kept us barely afloat in the 1st half (taking 12 shots) then scored 5 points (shooting 1-3 from the field) in the second half when we needed to comeback and whose defense wasn’t good all game long.
Were his teammates worse? Yes, that’s why they got worse grades 🙂

And you have all the right to disagree on everything I said.