Knicks Morning News (2023.03.21)

Once again the Knicks’ weren’t ready for an inferior opponent, they sank in a hole, they didn’t quit (they never do) and were able to climb back and take the lead in the 4th but then collapsed in the clutch, disappointing the home crowd.

Iso dominated the (starters’) offense and defense was lousy except for a brief Hart Foundation fueled stretch.
It was a bad loss and Randle’s career night was just lipstick on a pig, clouding the analysis of a very poor team performance.

Reverse those two awful home losses and the Knicks are 1 game back of the Cavs, instead they’re down 3 (with 9 to go) and now basically the attention shift only on defending the 5th spot.

Next game is wednesday in Miami and it’s HUGE. I’m confident they’ll be better prepared. And I hope this “it didn’t matter, they’re only bad games” do not come back to haunt us…

Thoughts:

– Terrible defensive game, we were a step late on closeout, were unable to stop their basic PnR, were shredded in transition, just a lackadaisical effort.

– We can’t claim that Prince was out of his mind when one of our player just raised his career high (already in the 40s) by 11 points.
The difference? Randle’s shots were mostly isos and high-difficult, Prince’s shots were basically catch&shoot open threes (so “better-quality” shots).

– Yes, we can say that Conley right push shot was lucky, that Reid running sky hook was lucky and so on, but Randle unintentionally banked a three, and aside from that the Wolves drive and kick sliced our listless defense all night long, they took a TON of open shots.

– When will we learn how to play a decent fastbreak? We botched not one but two consecutive 3-on-1 because Barrett and Randle didn’t know what they must do.

Stats Of The Game:
51-83 (61.4%). Wolves shooting %. Our defense helped a lot.
68-54. Minnesota’s advantage in PiP. I’m in disbelief.

Funny Fact Of The Game:
3. Austin’s Rivers minutes.
0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -3 0. Austin Rivers’ statline.

Grades

Randle A
I’m sad for him that this was a wasted effort.
Great and efficient offensive performance, crazy shots, molten hot moments, his offensive talent in full display (and we know he has tons of it).
But now I’m gonna get myself lot of enemies.
Because we lost. So I don’t give a damn.
On offense we couldn’t have been in this game without him.
On defense, a crush test dummy would’ve done a better job (matador D, slow and/or missed rotations).
Add his low assists (1) and rebounds (4) numbers, including the Wolves’ last offensive board that closed the game, plus his 4 turnovers and this looks like… I don’t know, is “empty calories on steroids” too negative?*
Then sue me**. 🙂

Brunson B
23 points, 10:2 AST/TO so a good game? No, an average one and he was abused on defense all night long (the refs had some to say about this).

Barrett C
7 points in the first 4 minutes, then he disappeared or did mostly bad things (4 TOs) having totally lost his rhythm.
Don’t let me start about his defense or lack of reflexes.

Grimes C-
One shot (And he hit it!)? 2.2 USG% (!!)?
The first victim of Randle’s shooting bulimia, invisible in the 1st half, a shade better in the second.

Robinson C-
Uh! One missed shot (4.7 USG%), a couple of blocks, some rebounds but 2 unusual turnovers and Gobert drove him to big men summer camp.

Quickley B-
First he saved us, he was at the center of the comeback, then he shot us off the game. Plus he made 2 stupid fouls on three pointers.

Hart B
His coast-to-coasts, passing and steals/deflections were huge, alas he had a bad turnover and his missed layup with 3 minutes left was our last chance to stop the Wolves momentum (we were up by 3 and he was fouled!).

Hartenstein B-
Far from perfect but Plus/Minus’s lying, he was there during our best stretches.

Toppin C
Couple of baskets, no three pointers, no defense too (from now on to me he’s “Emmentaler”)

Thibs C
You know my personal rules: if a team isn’t ready for a game the blame fall on the coach.
Many players didn’t help him, but it’s really strange that a “defense and motivations” coach like Thibs could let his team fall so flat two “easy” games in a row.

* I know he hit a lot of meaningful shots, at the same time something rings dissonant to me, like Grimes’ only shots or RJ’s 8… I don’t know, I feel like the offense didn’t “naturally flow”.

** For the record, I have more or less the same position about Bernard’s 60 points Christmas game, with the caveat that the current team is WAY better than the one Bernard carried (Sparrow, P.Cummings, D.Walker, J.Bailey, Orr, Cavenall, E.L. Wilkins, Bannister, B.Carter, Tucker… ouch!) so King was “forced” to dominate the offense.