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2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Pacers – The Melania Game

As in, “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?”

Boy, she was an uncool lady.

But hey, 48 wins is close to 49, so go get it, fellas!

Let’s go, Knicks!

74 replies on “2022-23 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Pacers – The Melania Game”

I don’t really think Cuban did anything wrong. He’s just doing what the system incentivizes him to do.

The real question is how does a sports league devise a system where half the teams are incentivized to lose? And how does it keep it that way year after year? What an absurd way to structure a league. Basketball is way different than other sports when it comes to drafting; stars are more important because there are so few players (minus franchise QBs; they’re important too).

It’s not rocket science. Drastically flatten the lottery odds (can even include playoff teams in the lottery), have a competition for picks, or something. The fact that fans have to root for their team to lose to compete is a big part of why the NBA regular season is a mediocre entertainment product.

The league should be embarrassed. Not fixing this is costing them lots of fan interest ($$) too.

nothing better than when the whole war comes down to the last battle. a couple of hours from now we will know forever whether josh hart (44, nyk mins only) and deuce (45) managed to finish the year with more stocks than rj (45). unfortunately, rj is already locked into 2nd for highest minutes per stock in the nba; he cannot catch OAKAAK doug mcdermott barring several dozen OTs.

Some kind of relegation for the lottery teams.

Since we can’t send them to the G-league (or can we?), maybe do something like deny them the playoffs for the next year or two regardless of record. Then owners have to decide if they really want Wemby or if they are one or two trades away from a championship.

The Mavs threw a game. Lost on purpose.

That’s some Shoeless Joe Jackson Black Sox shit

Sorry to break up the Mavs hate/debate, but Obi with a drive into the middle and a soft and-one.

RJ been practicing those off the backboard passes to Mitch for dunks.

Yay, Barrett gets his first blocked shot out of the way.

Although he’s been playing excellent quiet background so far. He’s not so bad when playing against scrubs and not touching the ball…

IQ to iHart for the dunk was beautiful.

Fun spin move to the hoop for a layup by Obi.

I feel like I’m going to call out all fun Obi drives, since so many folks say he’s not competent at those sorts of things.

Obi with a rebound!

(I’ll call out both of those, too…)

the ihart “push shot/floater” loses efficacy outside of 8 feet or so…

IHart and Obi both have three assists already, which is… odd…

And Obi already has 4 rebounds. So there.

And 14 points already. In the first.

you get a basket. you get a basket. everybody gets a basket. 😉

Half-court three-pointer by George Hill to end the quarter.

Clyde: “What the hill is going on?”

Pepper, it was signature rj series. Great drive for a layup, good defense on the other end, THEN a stupid fade away air ball layup.

Mitch seems like he’s eight inches taller than anyone on the Pacers.

In the cruel unsportsmanlike logic that this League rewards, the Pacers need strongly to lose this game…

Quickley needs one more made field goal to finish with a nice shiny .580 TS%. Hope he gets it and then gets pulled, MLB batting title style.

Absolutely meaningless obviously, but RJ’s course of action after that offensive rebound summarizes the RJ experience pretty well.

MISTER .580 THOUGH!!!!!

It would be fitting if RJ’s last shot attempt of the season was blocked.

Finishing with a better road record than home record is pretty ridiculous.

The dream is dead. IQ, no judgment, but you should chase personal milestones a little harder.

Replacing Randle’s offense doesn’t seem to be a huge issue. I guess it’s his defense relative to Obi that’s the issue.

(Slight troll – but I would definitely have taken the over on my Obi bet)

Last time the Knicks were a 5th seed they won 47 games and swept Cleveland in the 1st rd. Would be awesome if history repeated itself!

My question right now is this with RJ’s future with the team: if he’s not going to be the type of player that furthers his secondary/tertiary skills (more consistent passing off his drives, defensive metrics), then what would his eFG or TS% need to be to justify him being a part of this team’s future? And even if, say, could be a consistent .580 TS% guy, would that be enough to overcome his other shortcomings for this team to get to the next level? (Con’t…)

Cuban is daring Adam Silver to punish him.

I just took a look at that boxscore and, I mean, what other rational or logical conclusion could anyone come to other than that?

We want the Lakers to win to avoid Utah tying the Mavs, lowering the likelihood the pick conveys

Couldn’t catch the game. Anyone with a quick recap to help me know what happened?

Utah will lose and Silver won’t punish Cuban, because the rules allow it and it’d be hypocrisy to do it. But we all know the conspiracy theories about the draft (the frozen envelope, Cavs getting three 1st rd picks in 4 years), so i think Silver will make sure that one team behind the Mavs will jump to the top4. And it’ll be epic. I want to see Cuban’s face when that happens.

Oh, shit. Rudy Gobert just punched his own teammate during a timeout

Whaaat?? 😮

When it’s the last day of a lost season and Kevin Knox plays 30 mins and it’s the 4th quarter and you’re losing by 50 points and you still get a DNP-CD you are Cam Reddish.

Slight troll – but I would definitely have taken the over on my Obi bet

To be fair i think not a lot of folks saw your bet, but i did and… i win! 😉

Finishing with a better road record than home record is pretty ridiculous.

It might, but since we’re the 5th seed i think it bodes well for us.

I never would have thought Kyle would be a guy who gets punched. Although given how slow he moves?

Utah lost, so Dallas won’t catch them. They’ll be 10th for the draft, and there’s 20.4% chances that a team behind them jumps to the top4 while they don’t.

***Donnie, Cam has a back injury. (But is also bad at basketball.)***

Oh, good to know (I checked out in the Blazers back when the Blazers checked out on the Blazers)

Brooklyn’s Mikal Bridges kept his ironman streak alive Sunday, starting his 83rd game of the season before committing a foul and immediately checking out of the game after four seconds.
Bridges was playing only to keep alive his streak of never missing a game in college or the pros. The game Sunday was his 392nd straight in the NBA and completed his longest regular-season yet.

So, Warriors play the Kings; Clips play the Suns; Wolves play the Lakers; Pelicans play the Thunder; Raps play the Bulls; Heat play the Hawks. Is that what was determined today?

Just ran the Tankathon simulator twice now that all the lottery seeds have been finalized. The first time, Dallas jumped all the way up to the top spot. The second, Chicago jumped them and we got the 11th pick.

The lottery teams aren’t finalized until after the play-in resolves, correct?

[edit: oh, with regard to Dallas’ spot you mean? Like, regardless of the play-in, 4 teams will have fewer ping pong balls than the Mavs no matter what, is that right?]

Aaaaaaaaand Jaden McDaniels punches wall on the way to the locker room, fractures hand.

If it wasn’t clear by now, I’ve taken back everything I’ve said about the Wolves making a championship move with the Gobert trade. What a dumpster fire.

People scoffed when I said 6th seed Dallas might end up not making the playoffs and tanking, but here we are. I’m hoping 3 things to happen; someone jumps ahead of Dallas, Silver throws the book at Cuban, and Wembanyama ends up out west. At least we have a reason to watch the lottery other than the Knicks suck. Even if we get the 11th pick, I don’t see anyone that would be available who I am confident would be able to crack the rotation next year.

Watching other NBA teams implode like this does not make me wistful for the old Knicks.

For people who like to stay up late watching offense, there’s going to be a lot of it along the I-80 corridor next week.

I think that seals the Gobert trade as worse than the Kyrie trade. Weird.

Kinda thought Silver would’ve wanted Wemby going to Dallas before this debacle. They don’t want Luka missing the playoffs, and quite frankly before now I didn’t either.

But hey, 20% isn’t a terrible shot at the 11 pick. Better odds than I ever would’ve guessed.

Just a random tidbit on Kyle Anderson since he got brought up. It seems like China is working on bring him to play for Chinese national team. Apparently there is a little bit of ancestry on the grandparent’s side.

Detroit never gets any love, but they are the team that needs Wembanyama the most.

Imagine the Detroit Pistons and the Detroit Lions resurging right around the same time. Legendary.

47 wins and you gotta think if we’d had this rotation with hart from the get go we’d easily surpass 50. What a great season!

Now into the great unknown. Cleveland is going to be tough but I also feel confident we’re better prepared than we were two years ago. I just want a hard fought series where we win at least 2 games. But I think we got a shot.

Ideal world we win the first round and the mavs pick falls to us.

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