Knicks Morning News (2023.05.07)

The simple fact is that we choked. Sure, we aren’t a good 3pt shooting team, but we shot better this year than Miami, and they are missing their best 3pt shooter. We’ve seen the case made many times that the defense’s effect on 3p% is minimal, and the main effect is on the number of attempts. Well, they let us shoot all day with their zone, presumably at a better shot quality than is typical. 8-for-40 combined with our trend throughout these playoffs is more than variance. Our guys choke. Every single one of them is scared and doesn’t have the mental make-up to compete against a team that isn’t equally so. We win that game if we shoot our season average of 35%. I’d say we might regress to the mean next game but we won’t, because it’s not variance. We choke.

I’m now convinced of the following:
-Randle can never be a main piece on a championship team. He is the worst playoff performing “star” in the league right now and perhaps of all time. Not only does he choke, he actually makes others worse.
-RJ put together a few decent games (or halves I should say). This is variance/fool’s gold. The success of Rose’s offseason hinges on jettisoning those two for at least something of colorable value.
-It was a mistake not to make a consolidating trade, whether for Spida or not. Our role players are outclassed by a literal gang of replacement-level scrubs. This indicates they are eminently replaceable, and any perception that they have value should be taken advantage of.
-Brunson is good, but ultimately he is a league average starting PG. He just doesn’t have the talent to be the best player on a contender.
-Thibs is a fatally flawed coach that is incapable of long-term strategy, and really even short-term tactics unless his counterpart self-destructs. Time and again we’ll see overinflated and meaningless regular season performance followed by us having the worst playoff offense in the league. The failure to make ANY adjustment thus far in this series shows he is just not fit to be a head coach in the league.
-E was right about nearly everything. This is purgatory. Our pathways to improve are much narrower than they seem and it’s very unlikely that this window between superteam dominance will last much longer.
-The Heat are not that fucking good! They had negative SRS!
-Their injury issues weren’t that bad! Butler played 64 games, typical of a star in this era. Bam played 75. Brunson only played 68 for us. That’s a bullshit narrative.
-Spo is an excellent coach but it didn’t take “genius” to cripple our gimmick offense. “Run a 2-3 zone and let our shooters choke” really was most of it.
-hEaT cUlTuRe seems to consist of expertly working refs so that Bam gets away with an illegal screen every play and Lowry/Butler selling every 50-50 call. We should get a culture like that. Not a peep from Thibs about Game 4 officiating, another indicator that he’s out of his depth.

I should’ve known better than to check on comments here today….

Not to be cheeky but what did you expect? Was this not… the worst loss of the season?

So let me get this straight. Since we might lose in the second round and are ONLY one of the best 8 teams in the league we should trade our all-star, RJ and all of our role players and possibly fire our coach.

Losing in the second round is much closer to a “will definitely” than a “might” at this point. We’ve been easily destroyed in 10 of 12 quarters. Do you really think there’s a realistic chance we win 3 of the next 4?

If we were really one of the 8 best teams in the league we’d have looked at least somewhat competitive against the 19th best by SRS. We have not. Yes, big changes are needed. Most here have been on board with trading RJ, even acknowledging it might cost assets to do so. As for Randle, “All-Star” is a regular season thing. In the playoffs he’s better identified by his career .435 TS% or -2.3 BPM, i.e. one of the worst players in the league.

So that leave who? Brunson and Hart? Install a whole new crew of players and a new coach and we should easily be able to win a championship?

Brunson, Hart, Mitch, iHart, and whoever we can get in a consolidation trade for Randle, RJ, and a group of guys who has done nothing but shit their pants in this postseason, yes. Add in a coach that doesn’t mismanage our roster and turn into a deer in the headlights every postseason and we might be able to avoid getting completely embarrassed by an 8th seed with negative SRS.

We both know that easily winning the championship isn’t on the table either way, you’re better than this straw man stuff.

I’m not going to change my opinion on the season, even if we lose to Miami in 5. But people already trashing the team might want to wait for game 4, our team isn’t dead yet.

Is Thibs going to find adjustments with one day off that he couldn’t find with three? Are we going to bust Miami’s zone with even less shooting now that Quickley is hurt? The most likely outcome is that we run it back with a team that is even more hobbled, scared, demoralized, and mentally defeated. I’d like to agree with you, but give me a reason.

Only on this blog can the Knicks be criticized about their offense during a playoff series where the Knicks without homecourt advantage won 4-1 while outscoring the other team by 44 pts in the 4 wins.

Why are we required to ignore the fact that our offense underperformed? Credit is due where it’s due — we played fantastic defense for that entire series, and Thibs ably exploited a poor coach in Bickerstaff. Cleveland’s offense fell off by over 10 points vs. their regular season mark, and near 10 points vs. our average opponent’s Ortg.

That’s why we won. Why is recognizing that so controversial?

For the record I’m not E, nor do I have any relationship with him. I did have an account on this blog about 10 years ago and made a lot of negative predictions about the Knicks and our future. In my defense, most of them turned out to be dead right.

But I annoyed a lot of people back then and to be honest, I wasn’t in a great place mentally. I guess I’m still not. My son is six weeks old now and I love him more than life itself, but part of me feels like I’m being erased. I feel as though I’ll never have a hobby again, or a break. There’s just too much to do, for him and for my wife and to keep all the plates spinning at work. The one treat I reserved just for me was watching this playoff run.

I’ve expected too much from this team, I know. I really thought we might beat Miami and have a run at the ECF. Even if we lost an old fashioned 90’s rock fight in 7, I’d have accepted it. The way we’re losing though, it just hopeless, and it brings 30 years of my Knick fan PTSD right up. I’ve been using this place to vent, and I’m sorry for that. You’ve all been so kind and accepting, so I’ll try to keep it measured and positive. Here’s hoping we somehow pull out Game 4.