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2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks @ Hawks – Time to Finish the First Half With a Major Statement Game

As you have no doubt noticed, even as the Nets are freefalling from the #5 seed, the back end of the Eastern Conference suddenly looks feisty as fuck. The Hawks are two back of the Knicks in the loss column, the Wizards are three games back in the loss column and the Raptors and Bulls are four games back in the loss column. That is annoying.

So if the Knicks could just defeat the Hawks in Atlanta tonight to finish out a pretty darn fun first half, I would really appreciate it.

Then Mitch can get back, and the Knicks defense can stop sucking, and then they can really go on a run in the second half. That #5 seed is very much in play!

Let’s go, Knicks!

248 replies on “2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks @ Hawks – Time to Finish the First Half With a Major Statement Game”

That made me chuckle Raven.

I don’t know what Wally said but I imagine it was a spirted defense of RJ’s Kobe assists.

Speaking of RJ, this is where his season turns. He breaks out and shows me we were right to take him over DeAndre Hunter. I can feel it in the air tonight.

Oh right, no Clyde. Damn.

Well, it is what it is. At least Rebecca and Wally can have some quality time.

Owen, I was going to say Barrett break-out game, but I chickened out. Glad I did, he’s had a fumble layup and a bunch of clankers. And so far, every time he has touched the ball he’s shot it. Passing is passe.

…and the sixth time he touches the ball he passes it!

For a Randle three, as well.

“RJ awake in the 1st quarter is nice to see”

Awake RJ still can’t shoot and still shoots too much. Elite tank commander.

He made a beautiful move and then almost got stripped/fumbled it. But he recovered and scored.

I come to you at the turning of the tide!!!

Not sure why I am trying to Cronin this. RJ has to be in the unjinxable zone so I think its paradoxically a safe bet.

I just love that it’s the Thibsian complaint, to a T. All kinds of lessons one can learn from playing like crap and missing tons of shots. Barrett’s lesson is “Let’s do it harder!”

He ha a steal and a fast break bucket since you negative nabobs started nattering.

It’s happening. I can feel it. The unicorn. The good complete RJ game.

Man, Randle is percolating

I’m with you, Owen. It’s the RJ game. Usually he doesn’t even wake up in the 1st half, so it’s a big improvement.

RJ looks like he took his cement shoes off. I’ll take him looking like the athlete he was billed as even if he’s missing shots.

Pretty loose reffing tonight, but that favors us probably. We’re playing well!

Also, Trae looks so much worse this season generally. What’s wrong with him? Can he not figure out how to play with Murray?

Please don’t say anything bad about the Hawks or their players while the game is going… 😉

What’s the line on the game going to OT? And why do I think it’s still a good bet regardless?

Bojan can’t contain RJ, other than that block on the three point line

Wow, what a block by IHart

RJ having a shot blocked – check.

Edit: But he recovered well and made the next basket.

Josh Hart is setting expectations a little high. Great pass from Randle too

Oh hell no. That is not how you end a quarter

In the first half of the season I never would’ve imagined that Hart could jump, never mind make that kind of block. So glad that IHart’s bad play seemed injury related

Okay, maybe we don’t need Mitch

Hahaha. 2nd unit is doing well against this Hawks, we don’t need the starters. 😀

That RJ airball off the Jart o-board was pretty disheartening.

But great three from Obi

OBI!!!! Holly shit. Great defense and then that second three, wow

A clank and an airball in what, 5 seconds?

Maybe the RJ game is not today, after all. 😛

I’m not even thinking about the blown leads. Being up 20 on the hawks on the road is great feeling

RJs shot isn’t falling but he’s looking more explosive attacking and has made some better reads.

Still a at least one possession with too many dribbles going nowhere and messed up the pass on the Hart cut.

Cyber, just thinking about it jinxed us… 😉

Looks like it. Next step, containing my thoughts about the other team. 😀

look for a six yr old on a lap behind our bench

Was Matt Harting hiding a six year old so his on-line identity wasn’t revealed?

With all the Trae fouling, we might see Deuce before the final three minutes…

Brunson is great. Obi missed the 3P and Brunson passed to him again for the alleyoop right away.

Brunson’s touch is truly uncanny

We are making them look like trash.

Oh man RJ. Wow. That looked like a rogue balloon

I’ve decided not to make fun of RJ the rest of the game, so

Brunson’s shot just dies on the rim. It’s so soft it’s like it deflates and falls into the cylinder.

“Elite defender” 6’5 dejounte Murray getting torched by the (generously) 6’1 in shoes Jalen Brunson

Okay, what’s going to be the terrible end-of-half play this time?

Edit: Just the usual Randle miss. Of course, now he’s trying to get a post-half T from the ref… that would be different.

That Hawks half was a “the coach is a dead man walking” half

One of the, if not the, best first half of the season?

Brunson is an unreal player, I’ll riot if he doesn’t get in the all star game as an alternate.

I think Grimes is having his best defensive game in awhile. Does need to hit those threes though.

Very low energy from the Hawks. Vibes seem super bad. Seemed to be al little bit of a lid on our hoop for them too. I will take it.

I agree about RJ. Played a good half outside of the three point shooting but that was almost indescribably bad. He looked like an artillery piece test firing to find the range. At least all of Grimes’ misses lately seem close.

Grimes always seems to me like he’s rushing shots, it feels like he has a quick release but sometimes he barely sets his feet straight or squares his body before he launches it.

RJ’s first half was better than his recent ones,
but I find amusing that he leads the team in minutes and shots attempts…

I started watching early in the second quarter. For some reason I am getting the hawks feed. It’s nothing special but it is kind of nice to hear the other team’s announcers talk about how they aren’t stopping our offense and thinking what they can do to start stopping us.

The best part was they had some discussion between Dominique Wilkins and Vince Carter about dunks and being in the slam dunk contest. It was a shame the sound is weak. I couldn’t make out all of it.

“RJ getting ON again. I think he’s playing a lot better than in the last few games.”

“RJ has been good except for badly missing all his 3 point attempts”

We are at the stage where we have to grade RJ on a curve just to not feel upset about how bad he is.

We are one player away from being a VERY good team right now and that one player is a replacement for RJ. I’d be more than willing to be patient with RJ if we were still terrible or he was coming off the bench and we were giving him more time to develop. But this is ridiculous. I’m not sure he’s a rotation player on a very good team. He’s surely not a starter.

I mean going 0-6 from 3 is something that happens sometimes even to pretty good shooters, but RJ missed some of those shots by like 5′.

We need JHart. Not to replace any particular player

but to bring some energy that’s lacking.

Dejounte has some Russ in him from what I can tell in the bad shot department. Not really that familiar with his game.

But yeah, we dont look good

Randle’s cooled off (5-13), Grimes is missing everything, RJ’s RJing so Brunson’s basically playing alone…

RJ leads the team in shots so far.

I can’t take this bullshit anymore.

I know what’s wrong with RJ, but WTF is wrong with Thibs?

“RJ’s Struggling a little bit shooting from outside”

We need to call him Understatement Wally

I’ve compared RJ to Starks with how much they drive me nuts in terms of hating them 1 minute then immediately loving them. I actually think RJ is more like Gerald Wilkins for me in that regard.

Wally’s slam dunk commentary better than his in game commentary

Although if I am being fair, I think Wally is improving

I think Thibs is trying to go as far as he can before going to the Hart Foundation plus IQ to close the game…

I’ve compared RJ to Starks with how much they drive me nuts in terms of hating them 1 minute then immediately loving them. I actually think RJ is more like Gerald Wilkins for me in that regard.

The comparison to Starks made me think: if RJ showed Starks’ level of effort and heart defensively, what would the outlook on him be?

Speaking of ‘heart’, awesome strategic technical by Hart!

Knicks shot selection in the 2nd half has been less than ideal and you can’t really blame it on RJ.

“ Speaking of ‘heart’, awesome strategic technical by Hart!”

Yes. The Hawks announcers were very upset they lost the fast break

Atlanta has Dominique Wilkins, Vince carter and some other guy commentating

They are no Breen & Clyde, but they are pretty fair

“Looked like a clean block by Okongwu”

He clearly got him down low, broke the verticality rule.

We are 12-38 from three and shooting significantly better than them.

Hart has been playing incredibly well. Both of them really.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been instantly attached to a player like it’s happened with Josh Hart.

Hartenstein having a real impact once again.

RJ closing in on 20. Some tough takes from him.

Ah yes, 17 points on a crisp .447 TS%. A classic RJ line, almost perfect in its imperfection.

You have to admit, his consistency has been impressive. Now all he has to figure out is how not to play shitty basketball.

Wally says Brunson “is only scratching the surface of what he is capable of” !? 😮 If Brunson can be even better than this, we have a superstar.

RJ is 6/10 inside the arc. There’s a lot of variance in 3pt shooting, so there’s that. By variance I mean sometimes he misses by 1 foot sometimes he misses by two feet.

But actually the inside the arc is worth more than the 3pt shooting.

Great win tonight and it looks like we’ll be the 6 seed heading into the ASB 🙂

It’s a good time to be a Knicks fan!

Pagliacci, I came here to be be nice to RJ tonight. He took the ball strong to the hoop and drew some spectacular fouls. Not sure if that’s progress but I will take it. Maybe he didn’t win his grudge match with Hunter but hey, he didn’t go 5-20.

Time for some Pokerface. Have to see this show Alan has no opinion about.

this had a feeling like it was getting away with us for a minute but nice job by the boys of rallying back to get to the break on a high note

I mean, seriously, this is a team of try-hards. IQ stealing the in bounds up 21…wow. It does feel like a good culture.

Great wire to wire win especially considering not all the players did well (cough cough)….

The Hawks looks shellshocked. They need a new coach.

BTW that was like beating them 2 games because I believe we now own the tiebreaker with them. Great way to go into the break!

Looking at the way the Hawks played tonight should make you appreciate that Thibs is a pretty good coach.

For all the talk about egos and pouting lately, Brunson, RJ and Randle seemed to be ok great spirits at the post game interview.

I think the RJ situation feels so frustrating because everything else is going so well, and it’s so clear that if he progresses we might have a special team. I’m still willing to wait for him to figure it out and I thought he played better today.

Also, I generally don’t have it in me to relitigate old fights, but I really feel like going for an “I told you so” on Nate McMillan. He’s a mediocre as hell coach who has worn out his welcome at every franchise he’s been to and its happened once again with the Hawks, to the surprise of some people here I expect…

This team is building confidence and chemistry,
I really think we’re one and a half player away (a starting “3” and a bench forward) from making “real” waves…

Great Dub. There were moments when they took their foot off the throat, but they never let them back on their feet.

What was happening during Jalen’s post game interview? I could kind of hear it from the other room but when I tried to rewind I couldn’t play it…

Owen, my apologies. We may as well look for positive signs, and I do concede they aren’t totally nonexistent.

I guess the real issue with RJ is the way he’s used. Why couldn’t we use him like OKC used a young James Harden? Maybe Hart makes that politically possible if he continues his stellar play…

I think the RJ situation feels so frustrating because everything else is going so well, and it’s so clear that if he progresses we might have a special team. I’m still willing to wait for him to figure it out and I thought he played better today.

Yeah, this is where i’m at too.

Pags, my feelings about RJ are what they are but I don’t mind role playing something else for a night. Maybe he turns it around.

Yeah I’m gonna say RJ was alright tonight. Obviously we want better shooting but he took it to the rim. Those two fouls he drew and then OBI and hart hit those corner threes. I felt like that all came right when the hawks were clawing back into it and that sealed it for us.

I’ve said it before. I don’t need RJ to shoot well as long as he plays hard and unselfish and I think he did that for the most part tonight.

“Bruno, what do you mean by mediocre? (I kid, I kid!)”

I gotta say I feel pretty good right now about the aftermath of “mediocregate” 🙂

Allan Houston did have two 50 pt games in a season!

And one 39 pt, one 37 pt and one 36 pt games in the same season. Really close, so i’m now feeling better for picking him as one of the answers for the trivia question.

To be fair, it was more about the Hawks’ talent than about their coaching, but sure, take the W!

I felt RJ played VERY selfishly to start the game, while shooting horribly. I mean, he didn’t pass once the first five times he touched the ball. If I’d been playing with him in a gym pickup game, I might’ve slapped the ball out of his hands.

I agree he started to play more within the team as the game wore on. Those drives for fouls were pretty important. The vindictive part of me is glad he didn’t get 20, though.

I hope he spends the next week in the gym, shooting. And passing.

The thing about this game is that it was a true team win. Every player had a positive +/-. Every player made meaningful contributions on both ends and had shining moments. And when things got dicey, The Rock of Villanova took over and settled things down.

It’s hard not to be right chuffed by this one. Can anyone tell me the last time we beat a decent, full strength team wire to wire, holding a lead until the end? I can’t remember.

I watched the Hawks feed, which turned out to be a fantastic move as I understand Wally worked the MSG feed. Hearing them whinge about Randle’s physicality all night was rather delightful. They raved about Brunson, with a subtext of jealousy I’m sure I didn’t imagine. Our centers also drew praise.

It’s been tough to reconcile Hartenstein’s shitty play this season with his 4.5 BPM over 1200+ minutes last year, which seems pretty hard to fake. He does look qualitatively different of late, and much closer to Mitch quality.

Josh Hart’s first three games have been Linsanity level good. Have to admit, I’m stunned at the immediate impact:
23.5/7.3/3.7 per-36 including tonight
80% TS (lol)
2.3 steals/36, visibly excellent defense
BPM likely still at GOAT levels.

It’s a pretty convincing young Jimmy Butler impersonation so far. Obviously the mean will be regressed to, but the non-scoring side looks eminently sustainable.

It’s pretty clear he’s the best SF on this team and should start over RJ. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if the above trends were to hold, and we were to simply start our best five players ( Brunson/Quickley/Hart/Randle/Mitch), I’m beginning to wonder if we might actually be surprisingly good! Like, win a playoff series good. Am I nuts?

I thought RJ played as well as he could on a night where he couldn’t get an open 3 to go down.

Yeah, the absolute lack of passing bothers me a lot. This isn’t really a great passing team, but it’s exacerbated by RJ just bull rushing to the rim every time he gets the ball. It’s obviously good that he wants to go to the rim often but if you can’t draw fouls consistently, and you won’t kick out to a shooter ever, it becomes predictable and loses a lot of the value. It’s just hard to imagine a version of RJ that is a positive impactful player if he doesn’t figure this part of the game out.

“It’s hard not to be right chuffed by this one. Can anyone tell me the last time we beat a decent, full strength team wire to wire, holding a lead until the end? I can’t remember.”

I looked up chuffed in the urban dictionary and it seemed like there was a definition that fit how I felt after any random Knicks game this season….

The difficult thing about imagining a playoff series win for this team is that at the end of the day, we don’t really have a tier 1 level superstar who can score consistently against the best defenders in the league over a 7 game series. Brunson has been this guy over this stretch in 2023, and he has done it in in the playoffs for Dallas, so I think there’s real reason for optimism, but we have to see whether this holds up long term.

Pagliacci, I agree about the Jealousy. The Hawks announcers didn’t just like his play. They also commented that acquiring him was a steal for the Knicks and how could Dallas let him go.

“I do need RJ to shoot well”

That makes two of us.

We are not tanking, debating tanking, or strictly developing young players anymore.

We are a GOOD team that’s battling for playoff positioning trying to become a VERY GODD team. Sure we have more youthful upside to develop and plenty of dry powder to make another move in the offseason. But we want to make some noise NOW. Grading RJ on a curve or looking for “green shoots” in his game is no longer satisfactory. He has to put up now or not play as much. Right now on offense he can get to the basket and draw fouls when he has a good matchup, but can’t do much else. He has to stay within his skillset. He can’t be throwing up tough shots from outside or ever be even close to leading the team in shots on any night. That makes no sense.

I’m tired of this nonsense every game.

Brunson showed last season that he can absolutely score at will in the playoffs and basically lead a team by himself to a playoff series win.

Randle we shall see but I don’t think it’s really fair to judge Randle based off of one series when the second best player on that team two years ago was old man D Rose. Brunson absolutely will relieve so much pressure off Randle come playoff time and our supporting cast this year is better than that cast.

I like our chances in the first round depending on who we face. But if we face Cleveland, Miami or the nets, I think we could win a series.

I’m not sure Hartenstein’s better play should be any kind of surprise.

When it was reported he was having an Achilles issue and then he verified it, you sort of knew that was at least one factor in his play even if the Knicks weren’t using him in the most effective way for his personal stat line. Then recently he said he was finally feeling healthy. He’s playing way better since then. He’s moving better, looks more athletic, and is at least making some shots. So I think we are seeing the real I-Hart now. He’s a solid backup.

I think Randle will do alright scoring in a playoff series. Having Brunson to draw attention will help and also I think he’s a better passer out of double teams than he used to be. Also, because of Brunson, he won’t have to score and force the issue all the time. He can pick his spots. That said, the East is very good this year. Any playoff series will be tough.

“They also commented that acquiring him was a steal for the Knicks and how could Dallas let him go.”

It’s tough to snag a good free agent, especially when the team is not that good. But it’s really tough to snag a free agent that turns out to be better than expectations at what now appears to be an attractive salary. That’s an ultimate move. We got a young, “ready to go” player, on an attractive contract, and we didn’t have to give up loads of assets to get him. Sure we had to make a couple of minor moves to clear space, but how much could we theoretically get for him now? Not much beats that.

Just want to point out that Deuce averaged 72 assists per 36 in this game…

“I made one…you missed it…you’re slipping in retirement”

you chuffed me there…

ha, i saw chuffed and kind of thought chafed…but, it’s actually kind of the opposite in meaning…

trying to think of synonyms for chuffed…jacked, pumped, sails full of wind, excited, buoyed, uplifted…hmmmm, chuffed…

i don’t know…

Purgatory sucks!

bidiong, where have you been? we’ve already established purgatory ain’t such a bad thing…sorta like living in california, but not really close to the ocean…

purgatory is dry skin, not burning or incessantly itching skin…

ah, stoked, yes, stoke works very well…chuff would just make me think huff…huffing seems like fairly insane behavior…

yeah, not really feeling chuff or chuffed or whatever much at all…

hmmmm, may just have to bring a red marker out on the rest of the pagliacci post…

full disclosure, i had to copy and paste: pagliacci

you could give me a thousand tries to spell that and i’d be hard pressed to get it right once…

sadly when i think of clowns these days my mind goes mostly to pennywise (another killa clown)…hmmmm, i do have a really nice melancholy looking clown lladro in the hallway…i like that…

Best record at the break since 2012

the record and possible playoff performance seems solid right now with: brunson, quik, i hart, jhart, to a lesser extent grimes, lesser lesser extent deuce, sims, evian, rose…

anything positive from RJ seems like found money at this point…same as obi, but just cuz he won’t get many minutes…obi will never average more than 15 minutes a game as long as he is a knick…

i think our season rides on really good, well rested julius showing up to play…i can’t say i’m a 100% confident in that, more like 67% sure that’ll happen…

i’m becoming even less confident that mitch will stay healthy a whole season…maybe dress him in bubble wrap until after the all-star break every season…

julius and mitch though seem to be the keys…

In the realm of quirky schedules, anyone look at the Cavs’ post ASB schedule? They have @MIAx2, @CHAx2, @BKNx2, and @ORLx2. Consecutive road games against 4 teams in 21 games? That’s nuts!

I know ATL was our preferred playoff matchup in 2020-21 and that didn’t work out so well, but I like our chances against both CLE and MIA. Not so much vs. PHI, MIL or BOS.

I thought John Collins got hit with Randle’s head. It was some some other Hawk who got hit with an elbow and needed stitches before he returned to the game.

Randle is hostile and volatile. It must hurt to play against him. Or with him.

I watch all the little things that Hart does and you can see why guys like Bill Russell and Dennis Rodman are so underrated. Not that I’m comparing their games, greatness or accomplishments. Just that relentless pursuit of plays that win possessions combined with superior athleticism, each in their own way. I don’t know if you can teach that.

I may be caught up in irrational exuberance but I am beginning to get goosebumps about this team.

As far as Josh Hart goes, sure I think we paid too much. But I spent too much on my date last night, too, and I have no regrets about that.

I do kinda want her to wake up and leave, though.

The difficult thing about imagining a playoff series win for this team is that at the end of the day, we don’t really have a tier 1 level superstar who can score consistently against the best defenders in the league over a 7 game series. Brunson has been this guy over this stretch in 2023, and he has done it in in the playoffs for Dallas, so I think there’s real reason for optimism, but we have to see whether this holds up long term.

Sound assessment by Bruno, as always. I don’t need a playoff series victory to be satisfied, though. I just want to not be demoralized like I was after the Hawks series.

We didn’t pay too much for this version of Josh Hart. I am not sure that’s even possible.

Hart has 9 threes in his first three games as a Knick and 8 in his last 12 for the Blazers. It’s Pretty dramatic how they were misutilizing him

I don’t know the Blazers play at all, but is it possible that the threes he took there were last second shots or that he was defended more closely when he was a Blazers starter than he is now? Because when I look at his threes for the Knicks they are often very open because he’s getting a pass from someone who is well guarded.

Portland fans after the trade were saying he was flat out refusing to shoot threes, and that he lost his confidence in his shot completely.

That’s the kind of thing a simple change of scenery can solve, or it might be an issue that returns as soon as we hit a couple of roadblocks on the way. That said, even if he doesn’t take this many 3s I still think he’s a very valuable defender and slasher / hustle guy.

Daily Bot enjoys teasing me 😀

No one has ever shot 64% from 3 in a season so I’m reasonably sure J-Hart will go down a bit 😉 , but at the same time he should be able to take better/more confident shots and if he can hover around 36% -38% we’ll be fine… (Grimes is shooting 34.8%)

I don’t understand why going to a new team would restore your confidence in your shot.

My god, that Villanova Connection no-look pass from Brunson to JHart for an easy 3 made my heart burst with joy.

I don’t understand why going to a new team would restore your confidence in your shot.

So you’ve never watched basketball, LOL.

How many times have you seen shitty Knicks teams play bad defense to start a game, leave open scrubs who hit a few threes and now they go off the whole game and hit shots they shouldn’t hit later in the game. CONFIDENCE.

Or when Randle hesitated for half a second last year and in the playoffs because he was in his head and he’d miss open 3’s. LACK OF CONFIDENCE.

There could also be some built in on the court chemistry with him and Brunson from their Nova days. Brunson hit him for wide open three last night at one point.

He’s also going from 5th option a starter to leader of the bench. So facing weaker opponents but also, confidence he can lead the bench team.

He’s also obvioulsy super excited to be here because its NYC, he’s super tight with Brunson, Thibs really wanted him back in Minny and we’re a better team than Portland.

K-Love got bought out, maybe going to the Heat. This helps us against the Cavs—they no longer have a 3rd big, so if one of Mobley or Allen is injured or stinks it up in the first round, they really don’t have an alternative.

“I just want to not be demoralized like I was after the Hawks series.”

100% this.

Its interesting to compare our trajectory with the Hawks. They clicked at the right time, absolutely murdered us (after we owned them in the regular season), had the magical ECS run, and have been pretty uh… purgatorial?… ever since.

All the smart money was on their ascendance being real, Trae being a legit superstar, the Doncic draft day trade not being an absolute farce after all… It’s amazing how quickly things can change.

And there’s no team in the NBA that would rather make the ATL trade for Murray over signing Brunson. I doubt that would have been the case 6 months ago.

No morning news or Max recap because this thread is too good to leave? Haha.

Tuned in at the half, was happy to see we were up, but then watched about as bad a three minutes as I’ve seen us play this year. Then (somehow) iHart came in and made me happy. Seems like a different guy of late.

From the box, seems like the good stuff was spread around nicely. Even Obi scored (!). Minutes were balanced. Maybe Brunson could use a rest. Might be a blessing that he’s not in the All Star Game (this year).

Won’t say “we’re actually good” yet for fear of the jinx. 11 more wins to go. But I did not expect to prefer our roster to the Hawks so soon after they crushed us in the playoffs. 😉

Not that it’s my preferred matchup, but I could imagine the Knicks beating the Sixers. Which would be extra sweet as I imagine Philly would enter Three Mile Island style meltdown for the franchise.

Not sure what happened to the News Thread….

No, I don’t think Hart’s play is sustainable. I was alluding to the fact that it’s impossible to overpay for a 13 bpm player. Obviously he is going to regress but it’s been a lot of fun.

I also don’t know what was going on in Portland. It sounded like he had been squeezed out of shots and touches by being the low man on the totem pole. I don’t really know what the deal was but obviously he looks a lot more comfortable now.

It’s incredible how he asserts himself rebounding in the paint at his height. Visually, he seems to be bristling with energy on the court. It’s like the absolute inverse of Cam Reddish. He kind of takes me back to Renaldo Balkman who, though rangier, had a similar kind of motor and energy but considerably less skill and savvy.

Anyway, we should brace for the bad Josh Hart game that is coming but he is currently tied with Tyson for my favorite signing of the last 20 years.

Sam Vecenie in his last mock draft has us getting Connecticut’s 6’5″ Jordan Hawkins (at #18), citing good shooting, high-level competitiveness and solid defense as plus, decision-making and passing as minus.

I don’t follow college BB and a lot of things can change before the draft, but I’m eager to know what our draftnicks think of him.

Thank you!

No morning news or Max recap because this thread is too good to leave? Haha.

Recap’s been ready for hours but it’s probably going to finish in the drawer of the stories never told… 😀

Recap’s been ready for hours but it’s probably going to finish in the drawer of the stories never told… 😀

But then no one can start their day.

KnickerBloggerGods, permission for Max to double post, if nec.? Haha.

a lot more needs to be said about brunson… he’s basically been linsanity for the entire first half and has really taken his play to a whole other level….

and while i was highlighting guys with great floaters awhile back.. i forgot about brunson who’s been really good from that range for most of his career…. and the reason he’s good is the incredible body control on those shots which makes it so consistent…. dejounte murray is a good defender and he was eviscerating him last night unlike anything i’ve seen that didn’t involve the cheesey foulbaiting like how trae does it…

it’s a travesty that he didn’t make the allstar game….

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