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2022-23 Game Thread: Nine Knicks vs. Cavaliers

Following an inevitable win against the Cavaliers to make sure that Thibs will continue being latched on to the Good Ship Knickerbocker forever, the Knicks host the Atlanta Hawks with their new official nine-man rotation.

The consolidation trade that they really have to make now that Reddish and Rose have joined Fournier on the bench will be fascinating.

Let’s go, Knicks! Kick Trae Young’s ass!

146 replies on “2022-23 Game Thread: Nine Knicks vs. Cavaliers”

Knicks are being scrappy, and Grimes is being brilliant.

Had a brief fantasy that they would toss RJ for that flagrant.

Shots are going in but the flow of the offense, with one exception (Grimes’ pass to Mitch), is cumbersome and Randle is keeping the ball a lot…

Hitting some threes! Been awhile since I’ve watched a game on TV.

Cyber is in the house, fresh from a drink with 3 friends from high school, what happened until now?

Cyber and Deuce entering the game.

I’m heading to dinner. Don’t blow it.

I’m a little sick of that Quickley floater…

Yeah, an airball floater is not a good thing.

Good first.
With the Hawks missing some pieces (Collins, Hunter and now Murray) and us shooting well, this game reminds me of last year’s Christmas one.

FTY (Fuck Trae Young)

One of these days RJ will figure out a contested fadeaway isn’t a good shot with like 14 seconds left in the possession, right?

Wow, RJ was never not going to shoot the ball on that sequence. He dribbled and dribbled and never once glanced at a teammate.

He’s really struggling.

If the ball goes to Hart at the foul line, something good’s going to happen.

Didn’t IQ used to routinely drain threes as part of his game? Isn’t that basically how we met him? Or did I hallucinate that? I can’t believe he’s somehow now *after* RJ and Obi on some in-house shooting flow chart.

So that Vit something from the Hawks is the candidate for the Lord Sumner award, right?

Barrett up to three turnovers.

Anyone for a 9-man rotation… with Cam?

I know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but can’t RJ find a better way to show Randle his love than copying his turnovers?

Is Grimes literally the only Knick who knows how to cut?

It’s fun to see. He should teach his teammates that trick.

Man, even if you just replace RJ with Torrey Craig, this becomes a strong starting unit.

Well, hard to argue with a 12-point lead at the half. Barrett is playing like a truck tire fire, the rest doing fairly well. Brunson’s 1-7, seems they’re focusing on him (as others have mentioned). Which means too much Randle dribbling, but he’s been doing good things (the inevitable jump pass went to Mitch for a dunk!). Deuce needs to take more than one shot.

Without being able to watch , but reading the comments, RJ sounds terrible tonight. But looking at his box score he has 9 points and three rebounds on 7 shots and his plus minus is positive. That seems ok to me.

Grimes isn’t sexy but he’s fundamental as hell. It’s really weird to watch a Knick who seems to understand what both teams are doing and act accordingly.

RJ sent me into a blue streak cursing fit with his head down attack the basket at all cost bullshit. Fuck that nonsense!

Grimes makes lightning-quick decisions. So cool to watch.

Since I couldn’t watch, can someone please tell me what happened between RJ and Murray?

looking at his box score he has 9 points and three rebounds on 7 shots and his plus minus is positive. That seems ok to me.

That’s why you can’t judge a game only on boxscore 🙂
He started 2-2 in the first 4 minutes than missed everything and his 2.5 TOs (he was saved by a jump ball once) were really dumb.
He’s been awful.

It was pretty innocuous, Murray went up for a side long 2 and RJ turned his back with his hand up. Technically he was standing in Murray’s landing space but Murray did seem to land with his feet forward a bit. Totally unintentional but a Flagrant 1 in the spirit of the rule.

Murray took a jump shot and landed on RJs foot. RJ had sidled into Murray’s space

Since I couldn’t watch, can someone please tell me what happened between RJ and Murray?

Flagrant 1 for unintentionally invading Murray’s landing area on a jumper.
Murray turned his ankle and he’s out of the game.

Just great sequence from Grimes on O and D. Never looks fast but is always in the right place.

So good to see Grimes hit a shot

Grimes and IQ are just better than RJ. I kind of feel like it’s going to get awkward before the end of the year.

Grimes “I’m back” game, very nice!

Randle’s really feasting on tha Collinsless-Hunterless Hawks.

FTY

Grimes is the only Knick player with a copy of “Holzman’s Basketball: Winning Strategy and Tactics” on his nightstand.

In Trae, Deuce may have the weakest defender he’ll see all season. Go score, young man!

The MSG announcer just called Isaiah Hartenstein Frank Kaminsky. I have no more information than you as to how or why this happened. Just reporting.

Hopefully Julius keeps some of this good vibe going. Monster game for him tonight.

i’d love to see how much the next coach fired odds have flipped on a long thibs and short nate mcmillan trade from like saturday

Great turnover and tech by Barrett.

And Thibs yanks him!

Can’t believe I missed the Deuce shot.

One thing I’ve noticed the last couple of games- Thibs isn’t yelling go, go, go on every rebound. Slowing down the pace seems to be working.

Naturally we have close to our A lineup in the game up 25 with 6 minutes left.

Never change, old man.

Lol, I think the scheme now assumes Randle just isn’t going to stay on his man. Rotations to Randle’s guy anytime the guy moves around.

Sims minutes.

Great Randle game. 34 and it didn’t feel like he was forcing it much. The assists all came within the flow of the offense too.

Just like the Christmas game, a nice walk in the park 🙂
Very good games for Randle (no turnovers!) and Grimes,
keep in mind the Hawks were missing 3/5 of their starting lineup
and don’t forget to always, always, chant “Fuck Trae Young”.

Schedule’s good for another 10 days, we need to take advantage.

Lol, I think the scheme now assumes Randle just isn’t going to stay on his man. Rotations to Randle’s guy anytime the guy moves around.

Maybe Thibs traded that to Randle in exchange for no turnovers and hitting half his threes. I’ll take it.

the cleveland nine triumph again…

ha, guys on the bench, not in the rotation – we are winning without you…

RJ needs to get kicked off the island next – do it thibs – the eight man rotation…

The Knicks should tell other GMs, “The problem with Randld was that we had too big of a rotation. He’s fixed now, please trade for him.”

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TNFH, were there many fans in the arena tonight? I’m only asking because Randle had a great game….

Z-man, don’t look at me about reassessing Grimes. I’m the one who said he reminded me of a young Klay Thompson. I got push back on that.

The Celtics are beating the Suns in Phoenix 83-46.

Boston scares the fuck out of me, although maybe (or hopefully) they’re peaking too early

~2 game delta separates the 10th seed from the 4th seed in both conferences. 25 out of 30 teams are in playoff contention. Only 5 teams gave up and we’re expecting a historical draft. Adam Silver’s ping pong odds and the play-in system doing what it was designed to do. Should be a fun ride for the remaining two thirds of the season.

Just saw a stat on sportscenter…Randle is first knick in history with 30pts..15 reb..5 assist and 5 3’s in a game…only 8th player in NBA history to do that…

d-mar, same here & they know it.

“I think me and JT are probably the best two-way players in the league.” – Jaylen Brown

We’re 1.5 games out of the 4th seed. Just sayin’…

(we’re also 1.5 games out of the 12th seed, but I digress…)

“Just saw a stat on sportscenter…Randle is first knick in history with 30pts..15 reb..5 assist and 5 3’s in a game…only 8th player in NBA history to do that…”

Heck of a game for an albatross…

The writing is on the wall- Randle will play well enough that someone will offer to take him for expiring contracts at the deadline and the Knicks will either decline outright or ask for enough assets in return to squash the deal.

That’s always been the fear. I was thinking we were finally past it, but, well, Dolan’s Razor and all…

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Let’s trade Randle for nothing is the natural conclusion of this thread. Impressive logic, folks.

According to the box score, Obi only played 8 minutes. What happened to him?

Knee injury, Knick fan. He’s going to get an MRI, which doesn’t sound great.

In postgame, Thibs talked about the possibility of RJ playing some 4 in the meantime. If Cam is just out of the rotation for good until he’s dealt, I’m not sure what other choice we have. As we’ve discussed, PF is by far the thinnest spot on the roster. Lots of our guys can play somewhere between 1 and 3, and we’ve got three centers who deserve minutes (but not together), and meanwhile even our good good friend Feron Hunt is gone.

Thanks Alan. It’s not good news. I actually don’t understand why they traded Hunt. He was our actual third string at the four. He seemed not so bad a player actually.

I’m a bit worried about the Obi injury – seems certainly to have been a non contact knee issue and was really laboring for a couple possessions before they took him out.

In terms of on-court stuff – clearly the biggest problem on this team right now is not Julius Randle but one RJ Barrett. On his post-game pod, Macri asked the great question of whether this team would have a better record if Cam had played all of RJ’s minutes instead of RJ — and the answer to me is clearly yes. RJ literally has been one of the worst players in the NBA this year – I don’t think that is debatable. Without his pedigree and his “work ethic” and “dawg mentality”, he would clearly be an 8th or 9th man on this team.

Regarding the defense – this is sort of what we saw with the Bulls last year when Lonzo and Caruso were guarding the POA – between Grimes, Quickley, and Deuce, teams are just really having a hard time getting into their offense. Some of it is missed shots and injured players, but with their ball pressure, these guys really speed up the offensive players and get them out of rhythm.

Idea for Thibs is — with the 2nd grouping of Deuce, Quickley, RJ, Hart (and whoever subs for Obi) — let Quickley or Hartenstein run the offense instead of RJ. RJ as an offensive hub is far worse than Julius as a offensive hub.

sorry, really hating on RJ today. Hopefully he proves me wrong but I’ve never been high on him. Not athletic, no touch around the rim, never going to be a good shooter. Honestly – hopefully Obi is only out a short time, but Rj’s future is as a small-ball 4 most likely – like Derozan was for SA, like Keldon Johnson was last year for SA (56% minutes at PF per B-R) – would minimize his lack of foot speed.

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