[news.google.com] — Friday, April 14, 2023 7:22:38 AM
RJ Barrett’s Shot at Redemption The Knicks Wall
[news.google.com] — Friday, April 14, 2023 7:07:50 AM
MSG Networks taps LTN for sports broadcasting Digital TV Europe
[news.google.com] — Friday, April 14, 2023 6:25:52 AM
Cleveland Cavaliers vs. New York Knicks playoff preview Axios
[news.google.com] — Friday, April 14, 2023 5:47:49 AM
Isaac Okoro will be ready for Game 1 vs. Knicks Hoops Hype
[news.google.com] — Friday, April 14, 2023 5:02:00 AM
Will Cavs be their ‘best version’ in the playoffs vs. the Knicks? Prediction time ? Terry Pluto cleveland.com
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 10:36:00 PM
‘Key factor’ Derrick Rose giving Knicks teammates playoff advice New York Post
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 8:06:17 PM
Old Friends. New Team. Same Knicks Championship Dream. The New York Times
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 7:37:00 PM
Knicks’ Obi Toppin, Josh Hart will have bigger roles if Julius Randle can’t play in Game 1 New York Post
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 6:39:28 PM
Cavaliers’ Isaac Okoro likely to return for Knicks series ESPN
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 6:29:56 PM
Cavs hope Isaac Okoro can help slow Knicks guard Jalen Brunson Akron Beacon Journal
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 4:51:48 PM
ESPN NBA analyst sees a close Cleveland Cavaliers-New York … Akron Beacon Journal
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 4:33:23 PM
Caris LeVert says playoff-ready Cavs have the best bench in the NBA The News-Herald
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 4:21:49 PM
House Three Thirty to host Cavs vs. Knicks NBA Playoffs watch party Akron Beacon Journal
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 3:30:00 PM
New York Knicks Player Limited In Practice Ahead Of Playoffs Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 3:00:00 PM
New York Knicks’ R.J. Barrett Recalls Valuable NBA Playoff Lessons Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 2:33:00 PM
2023 NBA First Round Playoffs Series Predictions & Best Bets Pickswise
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 1:10:18 PM
Knicks’ Playoff Run is Part of New York Sports Serendipity Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 12:47:00 PM
NBA Rumors: New York Knicks and Miami Heat could emerge as strong contenders for Damian Lillard Sportskeeda
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 12:19:24 PM
Islanders join Rangers, Devils, Knicks, Nets in playoffs to mark rare feat for New York-area sports teams CBS Sports
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 11:43:00 AM
Party like it’s 1994: Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, Devils all in playoffs for 1st time in 29 years AMNY
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 11:36:30 AM
Remembering Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton’s Historic Rookie Season Biography.com
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 11:17:35 AM
Knicks-Cavs preview: Jalen Brunson vs. Donovan Mitchell, Julius Randle predicament and more The AthleticWill Cavs be their ‘best version’ in the playoffs vs. the Knicks? Prediction time ? Terry Pluto cleveland.comJohnnie Bryant may be Knicks’ secret weapon in matchup vs. Donovan Mitchell New York Post
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 11:12:25 AM
New York Knicks vs. Cleveland Cavaliers picks, predictions: Who … The Arizona Republic
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 9:30:04 AM
Knicks’ Josh Hart Loves Matchup With Donovan Mitchell Sports Illustrated
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 9:06:52 AM
Projecting Landing Spots for Knicks’ Top Free Agents Bleacher Report
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 8:20:00 AM
The transactions, tweaks and triumphs that lifted the Knicks to this … New York Post
[news.google.com] — Thursday, April 13, 2023 8:00:52 AM
The Knicks Are So Much More Fun Without Stars New York Magazine
60 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.04.14)”
The weird part of being the 6th best offense ever, if that’s correct, is that we benefited relatively less from the 3pt revolution. All the teams ahead of us on offense this year are top-6 in efg%. The two teams behind us are also top-6 in efg%. As we know, the Knicks are kinda terrible at putting the ball in the basket, ranking 19th.
The teams ahead of us are also bottom-10 in ORB% while we’re 2nd.
There must be a “Randle-Report” today, right?
Knicks are required to submit an injury report tonight.
I’m guessing it will say questionable and give us no information.
Yes Max by 5pm today. But I am not sure it will tell us anything as I assume they will list him as questionable to keep all options open and keep the Cav’s guessing.
Edit: EB beat me to it by being more succinct!
Thanks guys! 🙂
On the Cavs’ side it looks like Okoro will play…
Lol, I might’ve beat you but the 5pm deadline is a good tidbit
I am betting some smart stat person will come along with some sort of re-scaling mechanism.
this has been around forever, but for some reason a lot of the public sites don’t show it easily. here’s one that has it from 2000-01. the 03-04 mavs are still best at +9.3 (ortg calculations mildly vary). this year’s knicks at +3/100 rank 123rd of the 686 seasons covered. the kings this year are merely 60/686 at +4.5/100, not even one of the two best relative kings’ offenses of the last 23 years.
https://www.pbpstats.com/relative-off-def-efficiency/nba
Dropped this at the end of the last thread, reposting here, in partial response to EB’s strange stats discussion re the Knicks:
The other mind-boggling stat is how good we are at not turning the ball over. Which seems totally counterintuitive, based on watching the games. Which I guess might be because we don’t often get beat in the patented jump-the-passing-lane type plays, but instead periodically jump-pass the ball directly to the other team so egregiously that it feels like it poisons whole stretches of the game.
Probably also helps that we don’t really pass that much — what are we, ranked 28th in assists? Which also seems wrong, as the team seemed to share the ball so well this year, but again, the dangers of the eye test.
Strange season. But fun…
Apparently the key to having an all-time great offense is just having Steve Nash, 5 of the top 6 spots. Not even a Mike D’Antoni thing with two coming on Dallas.
Quite a few Thibs teams are at the top on the defensive side.
Since my umarell card officially activated yesterday, I’m going to take the liberty of scoffing at criteria used for the “best offense ever” discussion. Point differential, smoint differential…the dynastic teams with several all-time greats had the best offenses in that they scored enough points against the best defenses of their day to win several championships. The Magic-Kareem-Worthy Lakers. The Bird-Parish-McHale Celts. The Duncan-Parker-Ginobili-Kawhi Spurs. The Curry-Durant-Klay Warriors.
I can’t even entertain the thought of teams like the Doncic Mavs or Nash Suns or Harden Rockets being part of the discussions of all-time great offenses. They were second-rate gimmicky compilers compared to the teams mentioned above.
“Point differential, smoint differential.”
C’mon, Z-man. Everyone knows that should be “schmoint.” Don’t you speak sarcastic Yiddish?
Thanks PT, I figured that was out there – those numbers make much more sense.
“C’mon, Z-man. Everyone knows that should be “schmoint.” Don’t you speak sarcastic Yiddish?”
Yiddish smiddish…
Tied with Dallas for 29th actually. The NBA tracks a ton of stuff, though they make it difficult to find on their site, and they have a bunch of passing statistics: https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/passing?dir=A&sort=PASSES_MADE
I don’t know what all of these stats mean but we’re bottom 10 in total passes and worse in the other stats. We have a weird offense for sure, makes me a bit worried about the playoffs.
I guess the main question for us is: how sustainable is our near league-best offensive rebounding? I think we can count on our shooters to put up the mediocre eFG% they have all year, and to not turn the ball over a lot, and to get to the line a reasonable amount. But can we dominate the boards, especially the offensive boards, against the Cavs? I think the series will hinge on the answer to that question. Clearly the Cavs are going to focus a lot of attention on boxing our rebounders out, so if we lose that battle, we might run into problems with PPP.
“I don’t know what all of these stats mean but we’re bottom 10 in total passes and worse in the other stats. We have a weird offense for sure, makes me a bit worried about the playoffs.”
I actually kind of like how our bizarro elite offense translates to the playoffs, though there may well be historical numbers that blow up my whole thesis.
High level shotmaking can be finnicky. Even the most efficient scorers can go cold for a series, or at least a few games in one. If Jayson Tatum gets cold the margin of error for the Celtics drastically tightens up.
I’d be curious to see how elite turnover prevention, offensive rebounding, and free throw drawing/shooting compares to efficient shotmaking in terms of volatility. I could see the other 3 factors holding up more consistently.
Re: Low Assist Offense.
This is intentional. Limiting unecessary lateral passes reduces turnover risk and improves floor spacing which positively effects both transition defense and offensive rebounding.
In this ofense, every pass is based on ball carriers defensive read and decision making. This can be very tricky during playoffs when defenses are locked in and funnel offenses towards their weaknes.
You can bet that Cavs will continually try to funnel us towards RJ corner threes and then force him to drive in the paint to make passing decision or finish over their rim protectors.
This will also force our two primary scorers to take lower percentage shots from spots and/or pressure that they usually woudn’t take.
There are many ways in which net negative players are the difference between going fishing and advancing in the playoffs and this is why I’m 100% confident that RJ will be sitting next to Obi when the series is being decided in the 4th quarter.
Thibs has been doing this for the last couple of months and why an efficient IQ and Grim3s are the X-factor.
I guess the main question for us is: how sustainable is our near league-best offensive rebounding?
and
I’d be curious to see how… offensive rebounding… compares to efficient shotmaking in terms of volatility.
I did not see the last Pacer game but Mitch had 12 offensive rebounds (the Pacers had 8 as a team) and seven blocks with only 2 fouls. That is an unsustainable Mitch-like stat, but darn if it doesn’t focus the Cav’s on containing Mitch. If I were the Cav’s coaches I would be keying in on preventing offensive rebounds (which might entail trying to get Mitch to foul) as much as anything else.
If we do win the offensive board battle (and rebounding battle overall), I guess we’ll find out if E’s claim that rebounds are a regular season “moneyball” stat that real good teams don’t care about is true.
“If we do win the offensive board battle (and rebounding battle overall), I guess we’ll find out if E’s claim that rebounds are a regular season “moneyball” stat that real good teams don’t care about is true.”
It is a decent test, but we should at least state E’s claim correctly. It’s not that rebounds are a stat good teams don’t care about. That’s not it.
But everyone here has mentioned now that the Knicks get their offense in different ways from the vast majority of good teams. E’s claim is that some of this is due to the fact that in the long, twilight slog of an association regular season, the other teams aren’t going to put in much if any extra effort to prepare — instead opting to spend their finite practice and prep work on shutting down normal offenses — and therefore the Knicks get a “moneyball” advantage.
In the playoffs, of course, teams *will* spend practice and prep time trying to shut down Knick-specific things. We’ll see how that goes for the Cavs. It went very well for the Hawks two springs ago. But that’s why they play the games and that’s why we watch intently.
In terms of TNFH’s musings, relatively talent deficient teams *want* the components of their offense to be volatile. The higher the volatility, the greater the chance to surprise and overachieve to the upside.
“the other teams aren’t going to put in much if any extra effort to prepare — instead opting to spend their finite practice and prep work on shutting down normal offenses — and therefore the Knicks get a “moneyball” advantage.”
This seems like a dubious idea at best.
Even if playoff teams are going to try harder to neutralize our rebounding and offensive rebounding advantage, how is that any different than us trying harder to neutralize whatever advantage another team has over us?
And if a team hasn’t focused on offensive rebounding all season, are they going to suddenly be a good offensive rebounding team in the playoffs. This is like saying “teams try harder on defense.” Of course they do and maybe an average or poor defensive team can improve their defense in the playoffs by trying harder. But if they haven’t tried hard and set that defensive tone all season, they aren’t going to all of a sudden be a good defensive team.
And teams that have better offenses in the regular season because they shoot better…aren’t they going to potentially shoot worse in the playoffs because everyone is trying harder on defense?
To me, E’s claim was just an attempt to negate something positive about our team and Thibs and to explain away our wins as meaningless. The same way Josh Hart is a “merc” or that we were “chasing the 5th seed”
May be a little late to the party about cyber’s suggestion that a certain poster has a new moniker…but I was sceptical even given the most recent post defending the certain poster’s position…until he used the word “association”. That said, very good points made by E in his post.
“In terms of TNFH’s musings, relatively talent deficient teams *want* the components of their offense to be volatile. The higher the volatility, the greater the chance to surprise and overachieve to the upside.”
We’re talking specifically about the Knicks’ ability to carryover their *3rd ranked* offense to the playoffs.
When you have the 3rd ranked offense, you do not want its components to be volatile because merely maintaining your regular season pace would be a massive win.
“In the playoffs, of course, teams *will* spend practice and prep time trying to shut down Knick-specific things. We’ll see how that goes for the Cavs. It went very well for the Hawks two springs ago.”
E, do you have any, like, actual evidence for your statements about how teams prepare during the regular season vs. postseason, beyond the obvious things?
For example, you keep bringing up what happened in the ATL series as some sort of justification for the POV that the Hawks threw a different wrinkle at the Knicks than they did during the regular season.
Yet I happened to be at the game on April 21, 2021 where the Knicks beat the Hawks in OT. The Hawks were toying with us that game late into the 3rd quarter and it seemed like a sure-fire horrible loss…until Trae Young sprained his ankle. Even so, it took OT for us to win that game. Even with Randle going off in that game, we had no answer for the Hawks’ offense. And that’s why I was far less optimistic against the Hawks than lots of folks….I saw first hand that with both teams at their best, ATL was simply the better team. Randle being ice-cold in the playoffs while taking the same shots he made in that game only greased the skids. We lost that series because we had no answer for Trae Young in crunch time. And the same thing happened to the Sixers in the next series. Randle played terribly, but had the same looks he had during the regular season…they just didn’t go down, which is more about Randle and less about ATL’s game planning.
I think your assumption that during the regular season, coaching staffs don’t account for things like rebounding to the same degree that they do in the playoffs is ludicrous. What do you think coaches do with their time?
Obviously when you have only one team to worry about for two weeks, you have extra time to prepare and adjust…and when things aren’t working, to adjust again. But do you seriously think that ATL didn’t figure out how to defend Randle until the playoffs?
“E, do you have any, like, actual evidence for your statements about how teams prepare during the regular season vs. postseason, beyond the obvious things?”
A calendar, a watch, an NBA schedule, and reality.
Please tell me the claim here isn’t that NBA teams *don’t* prepare more team-specific intensely in the playoffs than they do the regular season. If that’s the claim, the re-litigation window is, I’m afraid, closed.
“When you have the 3rd ranked offense, you do not want its components to be volatile because merely maintaining your regular season pace would be a massive win.”
But when you’re talent deficient and 80-1 to win the chip, you absolutely want volatility in your inputs and outputs.
Holding regular season serve for the Knicks is a first-round loss. I think we all want more than that.
On his pod yesterday, Zach Lowe praised the Knicks — and said we have a good chance of winning if Randle is healthy — while also admitting to being completely flummoxed by how good our offense has been in a way that seems to defy math.
E pretty much said outright he was going to make that his moniker a few threads ago.
If the Cavs beat us it’s because they’re #2 in SRS with the best defense and 9th best offense.
“But when you’re talent deficient and 80-1 to win the chip, you absolutely want volatility in your inputs and outputs.”
Total cop out. If the Knicks maintain their offensive rating in the playoffs, that would bode very well for them.
You can just say you didn’t understand the original comment!
Imagine being at the helm of 15 elite major league athletes on a 10 day five game road trip. It’s January and your group is functioning well.
On Day 6 they get to New York and play the Knicks the next day. They’re naturally getting a bit tired and starting to want to get home. Your choice is to either (a) allow them some R & R and to enjoy New York as per the typical road trip schedule you’ve set and then talk thorough some Knick-specific things for the typical 15 minutes at morning shootaround and then on the whiteboard, pregame; or (b) deviate completely from custom and summon them for a special Knick-centric three-hour film study to try to counter the Knicks’ … special … tendencies. And then change your defense significantly, such that you then have to get them back to the standard defense the next game while you’re still on the road — another time sinkhole.
Once you view things this way, Lowe’s Dilemma becomes a bit less mysterious.
“Total cop out. If the Knicks maintain their offensive rating in the playoffs, that would bode very well for them.”
Huh?
If the Knicks maintain their regular season form, it projects to a first-round loss. Even if they maintain their regular season offensive rating. This, again, is not complicated. The need for re-litigation of such a simple axiom seems a bit attenuated.
For the Knicks to win, they’re going to have to improve on their regular season form relative to the Cavs, and hope the “moneyball” effect isn’t a thing. The latter of course is basically subsumed into the former.
Again, not complicated.
“If the Knicks maintain their regular season form, it projects to a first-round loss. Even if they maintain their regular season offensive rating.”
If the Knicks post an offensive rating of 117.8 or better in the first-round, I’ll go on the record and predict a win.
Do you want the other side of that?
The good thing is that E is reliably wrong in 90% of his positions, so you can just ignore him.
To a question above, rebounding is one of the least volatile stats from college through the pros through the playoffs, which is why WoW overvalued it in the early days of the analytical revolution. It made Owen’s crush David Lee seem better than he was…but not because he couldn’t rebound consistently, but because other elements have turned out to be more important.
For these Knicks, O boards are crucial, along with lower TOs, and any reasonably observant person (hello!) has been saying that for months. I’m not worried about the boards (except vs Steven Adams), but I am worried about the TOs. We’ve seen more vulnerability there.
“Do you want the other side of that?”
If you think the Knicks are being undervalued by the oddsmakers, there is a very deep and efficient marketplace for you to take advantage of your insights. I’d turn my eyes to that.
The Knicks have to outperform regular season form relative to the Cavs to win the series. The Cavs are second in the NBA in net rating. These are uncontroversial factoids and observations and I’ll leave them at that. That’s why they play the games and that’s why we watch.
April is prime time for daffodils, tulips, and apparently, trolls.
E, come on, TNFH is saying that maintaining our offensive rating is a good thing because teams step up defensively in the playoffs. Or do you disagree?
Btw I think we certainly should be underdogs going into this series. What is annoyingly predictable is that Mr. Troll will use a loss in this series to justify a host of blathering hot takes about the present and future.
Maybe I’m just a homer but I feel like it’s a coin-flip. Last 60 games our records are identical – and we’re not the same team we were at the start of the year. We went 3-1 against them in the regular season (I know, same vs the Hawks two years ago). They have home court but aren’t good on the road – we are (ofc… we’re not great at home either).
No doubt they are a very strong team and I wouldn’t go so far as to say we “should” beat them … but I think this Knicks team absolutely *can* beat them.
We need IQ, Grimes, and the 2Hart Crew to stay hot, RJ to stay on the bench in the 4th, Brunson to be fully fit, and Randle to not implode (I would be shocked if he didn’t play – this isn’t Zion we’re talking about).
If all of those things happen – why not? Could even give Milwaukee a real series…
Can’t wait for tomorrow!
I agree that we should be underdogs and I think that is where the really good coaches show their playoff chops…I want to see how Thibs shows here…it may not be just roster config that is a result if things go south…but the FO may take a refined look at whether Tommy is the right guy to get us to the next level…its not like he’s going up against Pop in this series…
I just wish Randle was fully healthy so that doesn’t cloud decision making if that happens…of course, if we roll them…then it’s moot…
Mavs’ investigation is done:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/36188127/mavericks-hit-750k-fine-resting-players-key-game
Only a fine, despite this official motivations:
“violated the NBA’s player resting policy and demonstrated through actions and public statements the organization’s desire to lose the game”
“The Dallas Mavericks’ decision to restrict key players from fully participating in an elimination game last Friday against Chicago undermined the integrity of our sport,”
“The Mavericks’ actions failed our fans and our league.”
So a team can game the system, undermine the integrity of the game, lose games on purpose, fail fans and league…
And the penalty is chump change?
Seems like a slap on the wrist.
Too nice a day here in NYC to worry about “volatility”
E is ducking my question because he didn’t understand the point I made and is too embarrassed to just say that
Here it’s been shitty all day, so i’m very worried about volatility. 😛 😀
I’m rooting for OKC tonight, although i can’t watch it because it’s very late here. But what i wanted to say is that if they make the playoffs, since 2010 they’ve missed the playoffs exactly 3 times (2015, 2021, 2022) and in 2015 they were 9th in the west with a record of 45-37 (!!!). So although Presti sometimes is compared to Hinkie, he almost never tanks. And in these 2 most recent seasons he tanked and in 2 years managed to add Josh Giddey (21), Jalen Williams (22) and Chet (21) to Shai (25) forming one of the better young cores in the league. Well, if Chet’s career isn’t derailed by injuries, as a lot of people fear it will. I think he has done a very good job.
I think we are underdogs but I think our team is probably a little better (if Randle is healthy) than our record. We spent the first 1/4 of the season figuring out the rotation and probably left some games on the table. We also leveled up when we acquired Josh Hart and IQ, Grimes and IHart have all gotten better as the season has progressed. Pretty sure if we started the season with HART on the squad and IQ/Grimes playing the way they’ve been playing, we easily win over 50 games.
So much will depend on Randle’s health. If nothing else, I hope he is healthy so we can get a real sense of whether this team can win a playoff series with him as one of the main dudes. I believe we can but it would be nice to have an answer either way. If not, then we probably should pivot towards trading him and let Obi take his spot in the starting line-up.
Mavs get fined the amount of money Mark Cuban has in his couch cushions, and Miles Bridges gets a 30-game suspension with 20 of them considered time served, so he’s only going to miss 10 games next season.
Great news all around.
So he served 20 games while being a free agent?
Maybe I can get a NBA pension then, I’m a free agent too!
Adam Silver’s NBA is a fucking joke.
NBA teams leading in rebounds regular season vs. post season
21/22 – Grizzlies – 49.2 (45.8 post season)
20/21 – Bucks – 48.1 (49 post season)
19/20 – Bucks – 51.7 (46.7 post season)
18/19 – Bucks – 49.7 (51.9 post season)
17/18 – 76ers – 47.4 (49.5 post season)
16/17 – Thunder 46.6 (43.6) – Bulls were right behind the Thunder in the regular season and then rebounded slightly higher in the post season
15/16 – Thunder – 48.6 (46.9 post season)
So looking at this, your hypothesis seems murky at best. Some of these teams were lower in the post season, some rebounded higher.
“Jalen Williams (22)”
Cough …
cough.
NBA is in a tough spot with Cuban because literally 5 teams per year do the exact same thing but even worse — they don’t just throw 2 games, they throw 20 games or even entire seasons. I’m sure we were all hoping the league would just gift us the pick, but that was never realistic and would probably bring a lawsuit from Dallas that would get very ugly (imagine discovery on that lawsuit?!). My guess is Cuban and Silver got together and decided on a TOUGH (I am not serious) financial penalty that would convince no one that the league cares about this.
Of course, the issue is that regardless of play-ins and flattened odds, there is still too much incentive to lose games to increase lottery odds. I’ve posted 100x about my Secret Plan to Fix the Lottery but no one seems to like it. But… it seems in NHL circles there has been a movement to do something similar: the “Gold Plan”. Would encourage you guys to look at this….
https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/shane-doan-tanking-gold-plan-nhl-lottery-draft/
IMHO, not even the existence of my least favorite athlete ever (Kyrie Irving) is worse than fans (and management!) rooting for their teams to lose and getting pissed at Tim Hardaway Jr or whoever because they hit a shot to win a game during a tank.
YOU HAVE TO INCENTIVIZE WINNING
Re: the Knicks/Cavs series — this is going to be great. I am probably expecting the Knicks to lose, but I think it’s probably only something like a 55-60% chance of that. So excited to see how Quickley, Grimes, and even RJ respond to playoff pressure, and to see Brunson destroy Mitchell again (the chess match as to how CLE will keep Garland and Mitchell from defending Brunson will be so interesting).
Yeah that fine was BS but not surprising. I thought what Cuban did was egregious but also not actually different than what a bunch of other teams do, it was just he did it in one important game.
Hopefully now karma will punish the Mavs and they’ll fall to 11.
Walker, is karma the same thing as ball don’t lie? I think so. The 11 would be so sweet!
*** Mavs get fined the amount of money Mark Cuban has in his couch cushions***
It’s the 3rd largest fine ever handed down by the league, behind only Donald Sterling and the tampering T-Wolves.
If this doesn’t work, nothing will.
https://knickerblogger.net/2023/04/14/knicks-vs-cavaliers-round-1-preview/
“It’s the 3rd largest fine ever handed down by the league, behind only Donald Sterling and the tampering T-Wolves.”
is that inflation adjusted?
Whether the Knicks offense will hold up in the playoffs is a great question. I’ve long had the theory that most offenses do get worse in the playoffs except that read and react offenses like the Triangle don’t, or at least deteriorate less in the playoffs. Phil Jackson’s teams always seemed to come through in the playoffs (and often break our hearts). Steve Kerr’s offensive system seems to do this too, and now Mike Brown’s Kings offense is spectacular. I think it may be that system offenses do better because a lot of playoff defensive preparation involves working on adjusting matchups by how you handle pick and rolls and other offensive schemes that help get good matchups for the offense. But if the offense you are preparing for is designed to pass the ball and make cuts to get players free, adjusting matchups doesn’t work as well.
So where does the Knicks current offense fit in this train of thought? I don’t really know, but suspect it’s somewhere in the middle. I’m really not sure you can defensively adjust for a rebounding edge, but maybe you can. But certainly having Randle or Brunson drive and kick out to a middling but open shooter on the perimeter should still work close to as well as it does now. But I’m worried. The Cavs are a team that has a good defense in the middle and that could mess with our rebounding. On the other hand, if attacking them in the middle turns out to be a decoy for open threes and short floaters, they could get very frustrated with how resilient our offense seems to be.
Maybe it’s a large fine, but if the tenth pick were available for that price, teams would be lining up to buy it.
Ay-yep.
Fun article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/04/12/rudy-gobert-punch-timberwolves/
…