I wouldn’t call the Randle/Obi lineup a good insurance plan.

I 100% believe that IQ has been very good on defense this year. I am not knocking him at all this season on defense, even if he got burned a lot tonight. However, the important thing tonight is how the Warriors know how to create looks for players. It is a lot harder to stop a guy when his team is specifically trying to create looks for him.

It is what still makes me shake my head at Jamal Murray’s stupidity last game. Everyone in the world knows they need a three pointer for the tie, so he just dribbles the ball with Quickley on him, like, assuming that Quickley will just say, “Okay, fine, shoot the three” at some point. Quickley played fine hard nose defense on the play, but Murray should have taken it for granted that his defender would be guarding him not to shoot and he just then…dribbled the ball and assumed that he would get a look still. What a foolish possession.

It reminded me of the possession following LJ’s four-point play when Jackson was triple-teamed him and he still tried to shoot it!!

But then you have Randle/Obi lineups as backup to the backup, and Randle/Obi lineups made sense to use more anyways, right?

In other words, I love Sims and I think Mitch/Sims is an awesome center pairing (if you want to play these types of centers, that is).

I was right in the middle of suggesting that it was fair enough for Rose to not be willing to risk giving Sims the backup role this season, but as I thought about it, is it fair enough? Shouldn’t he be able to judge this stuff better and realize that maybe backup center wasn’t where the Knicks should use their extra free agent money this season? I like Hart, but if you have Sims on your team already, shouldn’t you know your own talent well enough to be, like, “Okay, we actually have an in-house backup already, let’s use this money on a defensive wing” or whatever. Like Bruce Brown, for instance. Wouldn’t Bruce Brown play a lot on this team?

The argument against trusting Sims is basically that the Knicks couldn’t afford risking a key backup spot on a young player in case Sims turned out to not be for real, but, like, why think that way with a team that already needs a lot of help to take the next step?

He does it all as a weird hobby, so he’s been fine so far, as he doesn’t bet that much. He’s just good at it and he enjoys it. Way too much in my opinion (as I am met with these long sprawling texts about his various gambling thoughts all the time), but at least he’s not bad at it.

That gambling article was fascinating. That’s why my weird gambler brother uses many different gambling sites.