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2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Sixers, Time to Take Down Philly for the Holidays!

Remember when the Philly fans hit Santa Claus with snowballs back in the day? Well, time for some Christmas revenge on Philadelphia, and for the Knicks to beat up a really good Philly team (that is still playing without the exciting young star, Tyrese Maxey, but has both of its main stars, Joel Embiid and James Harden, healthy).

Let’s go, Knicks! Make Thibs’ Christmas a happy one!

110 replies on “2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Sixers, Time to Take Down Philly for the Holidays!”

Ess- May it be benign and end quickly.
Big game for Mitch Rob. Embid will be pumped for national TV game.

Yep, feel better Ess and watch as much tv as you can. That is what what my wife did last month when she got it. She seemed not unhappy with the arrangement.

Very good first quarter, good defense, good ball movement (11 ast on 13 made baskets, zero turnovers)…

ISM’s taking a night off,
huge half for a Randle, RJ took mostly good shots but he’s misfiring and we need him to regroup…

I fear Jalen Brunson just lost us the game…

Infuriating that prayer went in, but wow, superstar performance from Randle. Perfect half from him.

Julius serving some roast Tucker at Christmas dinner tonight.

(Also, this three point lead feels like it should be a 9 point lead lol)

Embiid has more FTs than the Knicks, disgusting

I have the same vibes of the Grant’s and Siakam’s games, every time you graze Embiid it’s a foul and the same isn’t true on the other side.

Both RJ and Brunson started strong but lost momentum. Gotta re-group.

If Mitch gets the benefit of a couple calls, that will help. Ditto Sims.

Let’s get a good Q4.

Several times now Mitch has stopped Embid on D with a strip/block only to watch Embiid score on a put back. Really frustrating.

We are staying with these guys today, though. Good test.

We have no margin for error and we are basically playing that way….. Don’t know if it’s sustainable. But still very positive in the long view.

Randle and IQ gotta find Brunson after that stop (instead of losing the ball out of bounds). These little things are our problem as they accumulate.

It’s impossible to watch a game like this, with this refs, and not burst a vein…

Anyway we get crushed every single time we made an error, every single fucking time…

The Knicks can’t win these shootouts against the better teams, they need to actually play some defense.

Hard to win when the other team can’t miss from three and has an extremely friendly whistle…

It’s been so long since we’ve had someone who can really demoralize the opposing team like Harden. We’ve defended him pretty well I think! It just doesn’t matter.

Randle got mauled and then Hart with a clear path. Hart has been making horrible decisions this game yet again (it’s dumb to sag off Niang)

Gotta get Mitch back in.

We have a chance here. No pessimism from this optimist. But we can’t do what Randle just did — turnover leading to a (likely) take foul. They gotta learn from the pain of previous losses.

Last time we’ve had someone like that was I guess Melo from 2011-2014 and at certain times Allan Houston would have games where no matter what the other teams did defensively he was scoring.

Again. Stop sagging off Niang!

RJ also quietly hurting us this half.

“ We’re missing our open looks.
They are not.”

Totally but, as usual, it seems like we’re rushing (RJ) flailing (Randle) while they are patient eg finding Niang

Lots of missed bunnies and open 3’s for RJ.

Also this does not look like a legit top 10 defense. It looks like we have no hope of getting a stop right now in the 4th quarter of what had been a close game.

RJ losing us the game and the refs can’t call one foul for us. Smh

I mentioned earlier, the Knicks can’t win these shootouts vs better teams cause eventually they’ll cool off while the other teams will continue to score at will.

The Knicks have to defend better and it starts early in the game. They lost this game in the 2nd quarter when they decided to just not bother defending the 3pt line and got lazy defensively after establishing a double digit lead.

Feels like the worst thing that happens to this team is they get off to a great start offensively and feel like that’ll carry them the entire game.

This game was lost on Melton’s halfcourt heave at the buzzer of the 1st half, after Brunson’s absurd turnover.
That shot stole our soul and we had no chance after that.

And how many evidence we need about the 4-game bench not working against good teams because it can’t score?

This game sucked ass, but when Harden plays like prime Harden not many teams are beating the Sixers

This loss wouldn’t matter as much of they hadn’t blown the games vs Toronto and Chicago. But at least the next 3 games are on the road so they’ll probably win 2 out of 3.

Second unit sucks.

More importantly, Sixers have the two best players in the game and that usually winds up as a W.

Sure. Nobody is beating prime Harden but it’s the *way* we are flunking the 4th that is demoralizing. We went away from moving the ball and now everything is a panic prayer. That happens too often. It’s fine if a better team beats us, but we can’t F our own shit up so often. That’s unacceptable.

Niang was 20-49 on threes against the Knicks in his career BEFORE this game.
So our plan was to let open a 40% shooter all night.
Good scouting folks.

Leaving their stretch 4 open so he can take like 6 3s in a quarter is not a recipe for winning basketball. We overdefended on Harden.

Toronto was desperate and the Sixers are a top team, but as you guys said, the Chicago loss was the one that really hurts.

PS — Brunson left in the 4th with a bad hip and did not return, so: cloudy weather ahead.

Nevertheless, enjoy the holidays, gents. Wishing you all the best.

Happy Holidays everybody! Disappointing Christmas loss, but I’m still optimistic about the direction of the team. The 9 man rotation is cool, but there are definitely times when another shooter would come in handy. It also looks like Brunson is getting worn down. It’s a long season, Thibs has to be smart about minute allocations. Get well soon Ess!

Back on pace for 44 wins. This is what mediocre teams do. Don’t get carried away on winning streaks and don’t freak out on losing streaks. Merry Christmas.

Has anyone else’s opinion not changed much since the winning streak? The Chicago and Toronto games were frustrating but I wouldn’t say those losses really added much in the way of negative data points.

The Sixers are really good, we don’t have the offensive dogs to hang with them.

All in all, 18-16 feels about right. We desperately, desperately need an elite offensive player. We knew that already.

“We went away from moving the ball and now everything is a panic prayer.”

Totally this. RJ missed a ton of shots toward the end, but we just stopped moving the ball and started going one-and-done. We had like 25+ assists by the middle of the third quarter, but why bother to keep doing what works…

Well, happy holidays.

Mine hasn’t changed since the start of the season. The winning steak and the losing streak are just random clusters of results happening together.

And I still want to know why they call him the minivan.

First let me acknowledge a couple of things:
1. Embiid is a PROBLEM
2. This team let go of the rope in the 4th.

Philly is a good team, but it’s time to be concerned after losing 3 straight after the 8 game win streak. We lost all 3 games in the same fashion- and 2 of them to teams that we should beat at this point of the season. I’m sure the guys will right the ship because they still are playing well overall. But- losing 3 straight the way we lost them and to whom we lost then to is absolutely troubling.

And one small thing about Deuce. It’s clear that he’s not confident enough to play his game. Maybe he’s looking over his shoulder at Rose, I dunno. But today he frustrated me on offense. Passing up shots he should take. Not probing far enough into the paint when he had the space to do so. It was just mind boggling today.

Ah well..on to Dallas on Tuesday *shrugs*. If they lose to LA today, they will be out for blood on Tuesday

Hubert This is from The Athletic
This is the thing with Niang: He’s a unique player. Physically, he doesn’t fit the mold of an NBA guy. He can dunk on a good day but will probably never bang on anyone in traffic. He’s never going to beat you in a 40-yard dash. He’s lost a ton of weight since his collegiate days at Iowa State but is never going to resemble Adonis. He was more of a power forward and center in his days of Big 12 dominance. He played a ton out of the post, and if the league was in his future, he was going to have to expand his game in all facets that didn’t include shooting the basketball.

Put it this way. His nickname isn’t “The Minivan” for nothing.”
I guess he is versatile and meh in the same way a minivan is.

‘And I still want to know why they call him the minivan.’

According to the announcers, “He uses his body, not his athleticism.”

Which I presume is a(n) euphemism for knocking people over.

In an interview once he said Donovan Mitchell was like a Ferrari and he was like a minivan.

He is in Tier 1A of the Athletic Nickname rankings. Elite of the elite.

been thinking a bunch about what you wrote yesterday poindexter…

wondering how those pretty serious health challenges may have altered your perspective in life…

for some strange reason i’ve always had this notion of underachievement in life – no wife, no cool job title, no bigger home on the beach with even more stuff to surround me…

i attribute a lot of that to my health challenges throughout life, nothing to do with the fact i’m kind of lazy and not super smart or anything…

by the time i was 40 or so, i just feel like i got tired of being either sick or hurt all the time and all i’ve wanted since is to have a good day, be happy and as healthy as possible…

Thanks for all the well wishes, everybody. Fortunately, I fell asleep at halftime.

Our bench scoring has been fully exposed as lousy. I hope that doesn’t lead to some horrible Kuzma trade.

Anyway, happy holidays, kbers!

Merry Christmas/Happy holidays $ etc to you all.
There was just no way i was watching this game at 9am. We were out in Irvine last night celebrating Christmas Eve dinner with the in-laws. Didn’t get home til about 1:15am. So gift exchanges weren’t gonna happen til mid morning.

I’m with you on that, Geo

But..we push. It gets tiresome- carrying that sword and shield all the time and wearing that mask. Some days I feel alot like Kratos in Ragnarok. Kinda sick of the fight, but that’s all he knows and never giving in to everything that wants his end lol

it seems to be a self anointed nickname…

Now I picture him driving a minivan to practice over and over until it caught on, like George Costanza ordering the T-Bone.

Biggest grievance, BBA?

Idk… this team is tough to fix with small moves. Basically we still need a number one guy ahead of Randle and Brunson… and RJ ain’t it.

But I guess in the short term, they could use an experienced bench scorer.

Agree that not much in a macro sense will change without a major move. The real contenders have guys who can effortlessly create a lot of good shots, and we do not.

Some shorter-term thoughts:
-Might be time to go back to a 10 man rotation, we seem pretty gassed at the end of games.

-This might not be popular, especially with Raven, but if we’re sticking with 9 men I’m not sure it’s sustainable to keep playing McBride. He’s downright Ntilikinian on offense. It’s possible when we inserted him in the rotation his energy was a necessary addition, but now that we’ve stabilized whatever Rose can still bring offensively might be more important. This isn’t a change I want to see because I prefer McBride even if it costs us a win or two, but it might be the win maximizing formula.

-When Obi gets back, we should run the offense through him for the 12 or so non-Randle minutes he gets. Have him screen and roll, post up mismatches, etc. Without personnel changes I don’t see a better way to generate offense from the bench. See if he can be Dayton Obi against other bench units. Maybe pair these minutes with the aforementioned potential Rose minutes.

Also in the hindsight department, boy, would like to see our record if we dumped Cam and kept Burks.

Noble, I’ll just argue the opposite. We’re losing because Deuce is playing 5-10 minutes a game now, instead of 15-25. Inexplicable. Look no further.

(To be partly serious, I do think that the more Deuce plays, the more comfortable he becomes taking the shots he should. I agree right now he’s looking tentative, as he did last year when he played 3 minutes a game in the corner waiting to see if a pass came to him [as would I in a similar situation]).

The issue remains the same, when games get tough teams like Philly have players like Embiid and Harden who can consistently change a game, and we don’t. They have superstars and we have good players. But that is all stuff we already knew about this team and it is what it is.

Yeah, I mean the Knicks aren’t a top 4 the conference team. So when the other team shoots 18-39 from 3 we’re going to lose.

Let’s step back for a moment and contemplate that the proposition was that priors and premises should be materially tweaked because the Knicks injected Miles McBride, Jericho Sims, and Quentin Grimes into their rotation.

I mean … um … yeah.

Well, we were on an eight game winning streak until Grimes sprained his ankle.

I think he is good and Sims is at worst a useful third big.

Deuce is an amazing guy to bring in to play SS in the ninth inning.

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