Knicks Morning News (2023.03.28)

Last night, Luka played like a guy who really wants to get into the play-in. The road is a tough one, though, starting tomorrow night in Philly. Embiid ducked Jokic and will be rested for that game.

I’m guessing that DAL will have to get to 40 wins to be outside the top 10. That would mean going 3-3. In the best case scenario, one of those wins would come on Saturday in Miami. Of course, that’s April Fool’s Day.

I remember last year when both IQ and Obi went off at the end of the season. I thought at that time that what IQ was doing (triple-double kind of stuff) seemed more real that what Obi was doing. That seems to have played out as expected.

At the very least, IQ has probably lifted his value in the trade market to unprotected (or maybe top-5 protected?) first round pick status. He’s definitely top-10 in a 2020 redraft. That’s pretty fucking awesome!

“Alan, to add to ptmilo’s answer, if the Mavs made the play-in there would be five teams with a worse record than them in the west”

This is not actually true. There could theoretically be a 3 or 4-way tie record-wise for the last play-in spot, and the Mavs could get in on the basis of tiebreakers. Then if they lost, the tiebreakers wouldn’t count any more and the final order would be based on the outcome of the lottery and coin flips. At least that’s the way I interpret the rules…

Thing is, IQ has a craftiness similar to Brunson where he can get to an array of shots that he feels comfortable taking. And he will probably add to that in every offseason. He is now taking 12% of his shots at the rim and hitting nearly 70% of them. That in and of itself is a massive leap in terms of his shot and efficiency profile.

The place he definitely needs to make a further leap is from 3, where 36% is not great for a guy who takes half of his shots from there. If he can maintain his efficacy from inside 10 feet and hit 39% or so from 3 on slightly higher usage without changing his shot profile all that much, that’s an all-star level player that simply has to get 30+mpg whether he starts or not. But given his inconsistency and that we have Brunson, the 6th man/backup starting PG role is pretty ideal for now.

“I’m talking about the prototypical 6th man whose role is scorer off the bench that can really light it up and carry the 2nd unit, but not good enough to start on a very good team because of other deficiencies.”

IQ’s only deficiency right now is he is below league average from 3 and maybe a bit undersized against big 2’s. He’s a very good defender and passer, so pidgeonholing him into “scorer off the bench” seems overly limiting. He’s only 23 years old and is already doing “legit starter” things.

I truly don’t know what to make of Deuce’s offense. On the positive side, he’s doing more than just shooting 3’s…penetrating, making cuts (beautiful one last night) but on the other hand it doesn’t seem remotely reliable yet.

Man, I want to love Obi so much but every game he does something on defense that galls me, and what’s worse is that it happens when he’s locked in and trying! (unlike say Julius, who plays well on D when he’s locked in and trying).

As long as Brunson is healthy, imo Grimes should start over IQ.

I doubt that Thibs tinkers much with the 9-man rotation, beyond “situational” uses of Deuce (see: inserting Frank for defense on Trae in game 1 lol). Thibs rarely will vary from what he trusts, and what he trusts is based on what he has settled on (see: Payton starting lol).
So Obi will play his 8-12 minutes, Grimes will start, RJ, Hart, IQ and Grimes will have minutes adjusted (especially in crunchtime) by how the game/series is going, and Deuce will sit unless someone gets hurt. That’s what I’m expecting anyway!

That’s fine, but honestly, if I were any of the top 4 teams in the East, I’d rather play us than Toronto.

Here’s a great tidbit from the Fred Katz interview with Clyde re: Willis:

Willis used to go hunting with a bow and arrow and all that, and I remember (legendary broadcaster) Curt Gowdy used to have this hunting show. He was on there. So (Willis) was always asking me ‘Clyde, you want to go hunting you want to go hunting?’ I go, ‘Yeah, D-E-A-R hunting.’ I’m not going to sit in a tree all day waiting for some (animal) to walk by.