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46 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2023.05.08)”
Haven’t been around Knickerblogger much in last few days because of work, hope I am not rehashing what others have said.
I am feeling a little bit like 2021 in the Atlanta series, where it is pretty clear that one team is better than the other. The Heat are basically doing to us what we did to Cleveland – basically daring our bad shooters to beat them. Unfortunately we have pretty much all bad shooters.
I’m joining the drumbeat of people who think Thibs is a little over-obsessed with Josh Hart, who no doubt is an amazing player but just does not work in the starting lineup. You can’t have an unwilling and not great shooter (Hart) with 2 over-willing and not great shooters (Randle/Barrett) at the same time. The Heat are absolutely just daring the Knicks to pass it to him, and even when they do, he doesn’t want to shoot it. I really do not understand why Thibs is messing with the rotation that was so good in the regular season.
The other thing – Brunson is deliberately driving into the drop coverage. Miami is doing a good job in terms of mixing up blitzing + drop, but Brunson needs to pull the trigger on a pull-up 3 if/when Miami goes into drop. He made a lot of progress this year in pull-up 3’s — has to trust it now. That shot will in many cases be the best shot we can manage.
Regarding IQ – might not the worst thing for him to take a few days and get his head together. I am hoping we get McBride on the floor. We need some of his tenacity to get the pace up.
Interesting stat from Cleaning the Glass
in the playoffs this year, the usual starting lineup (Brunson/Grimes/Barrett/Randle/Mitch) has only played 60 possessions together. Its offensive rating is in the ZEROth percentile, and its defensive rating in the 100th percentile, for a net + 2.7.
I felt after game 2 that the most important game of the series from the perspective of where we stand as a team is game 4. This is the first true “must win” situation we have faced. Game 2 didn’t really count for me because Butler was out, but nevertheless while we nearly lost that game we (largely meaning Brunson and Hart) stepped up when it counted. We didn’t face a must-win game at all in the Cavs series.
I have confidence that our team will put out a better effort tonight. But Miami smells blood in the water and they know if they win this game they can coast to the finish line. And we are clearly more banged up than them.
What is becoming crystal clear to me is that there is no substitute for playoff experience. Miami just seems way more comfortable out there than we do.
Beyond that, I think it’s fair to ask whether they have the three best players in the series. Butler is BY FAR the best player, he toyed with our defense like all-time greats do, not a hint of anxiety or stress. Bam destroyed us like a max player is supposed to. And this healthy version of Kyle Lowry looks pretty close to the player he was in Toronto. He has been brutalizing us on both ends in 28mpg. Is Brunson better than him when you take defense into account?
If you look at the four factors for this series, Miami has only shot a little better than we have (eFG 490 to 481), but they are getting to the line much more and turning it over less. We either have to get to the line or make some fucking shots or it’s going to be time to start planning vacations.
The Knicks got shot bc they didn’t show up for a playoff game. They didn’t compete at all. Fans are always going to be angry about that.
Sweeping generalizations are uncalled for, though. We could very easily turn the table today. But if it happens again…
i think this is backwards… nobody gameplans around the supporting cast first… defensive gameplans start and finish around the guys who get the ball the most… and if they’re getting neutralized it makes the other guys shoot tougher shots… and generally yes it’s a crapshoot whether they actually hit those or not…
this is not just some problem for the knicks…. has there been any role player this playoffs that have been consistently great and impactful? when you’re shooting 6x a game over 40 minutes that’s a really tough thing… usually you have someone come up big for a game or two… but it’s the stars doing the heavy lifting mostly every game…. even highly touted ‘playoff tested’ and highly paid role players like tobias harris… or champions like klay thompson haven’t been there… and this is a recurring theme… role players will not be consistent in the playoffs by the very nature of their role….
this is why everyone wants stars… and this is why usage is so valuable… when you depend on others to make shots you’re not going to see a lot of them when teams crank up the intensity because only the guys that create their shots in this difficult environment can take them…. and the ones that you do see are going to be a lot tougher…
there will be games where role players do need to come up big… hart has done that on occasion…. so has strus on miami… but the guys shouldering the load are going to be brunson.. randle. and to an extent RJ… and you sink or swim largely on their backs… because if they don’t get going they don’t create the space needed to make everyone else’s job easier… and that’s even more important when you rely on iso’ing every possession…
The thing that’s a bit frustrating is that we have lineups, especially when IQ is healthy, that should provide solid spacing.
Brunson
IQ (or now Deuce instead)
Grimes
Randle/Obi/Josh Hart
Mitch/Isiah/Randle
The amount we went to lineups that included Barrett, Hart, and Randle in game 3 was disappointing because it failed to show much of an adjustment between Games 2 and 3. That played right into Miami’s hands. We lucked out in Game 2 with Hart’s clutch 3s but Game 3 showed what happens when those shots don’t fall.
One way back into this series would have involved IQ playing well, as he did for much of the season. Key player for us. Unfortunately he suffered a serious injury playing in garbage time of a blowout loss.
#The Knicks got shot bc they didn’t show up for a playoff game. They didn’t compete at all. Fans are always going to be angry about that.#
The first fan in the world who would riot for not competing is me but on Saturday i felt that it wasn’t worth it…
Maybe it was the beers…
😉
Losing the first game with Miami was just as much a problem as losing the third game, maybe more so
@djphan,
I didn’t mean to imply that opposing teams plan for the supporting cast first. Rather, it’s simply that the looks the supporting cast have been getting haven’t been going down, which then encourages the Heat—in real time—to sag off, pack the paint, and blitz our stars. And, since it keeps working, it’s now their gameplan until we start hitting from outside.
I agree that stars do the majority of the lifting in the playoffs, but my claim is that our stars would look a lot less pressed if our supporting cast hit, like, any of their shots. We’re getting negative production from depth spots 5-9 in this series, which makes it pretty much impossible to win barring insane performance from one or more of our scorers. Again, not all of this is variance, but I still think this series would look very different if we shot 30% rather than 20% from 3 as a team in games 1 and 3.
I rewatched the 1st half of the game …as painful as that was, and a couple things stood out. The MVP of the first half in my eyes was not Butler but Max Strus. On the defensive end he constantly doubled off Hart to force tough shots from Brunson and the rest of the Knicks. Randle and RJ tried taking on Butler and Bam one-on-one, and turning the ball over or taking poor shots. Randle played extremely passive defense the whole game … waiting for Bam to attack before defending, lazy closeouts, letting guys dribble by him for layups without attempting to jump or putting them on the floor. I’m not yet ready to say the Heat are the better team, I think we are fairly evenly matched, but we are being outcoached.
Start Grimes – bring Hart of the bench: Everyone’s saying it -it’s obvious. We can’t have Josh Hart’s man doubling off Brunson with no repercussions. Butler keeps getting switched on to RJ anyway off picks and Hart is not a Butler stopper. Dust off Fournier for a few mins and see if he at least opens up the floor for drivers, even if he doesn’t shoot or misses.
PASS the ball — everyone had blinders on going into the lane, and that includes Randle, RJ and Brunson. If the defense collapse we need to trust guys to take and make the open shot even if they miss the first couple.
Hold EVERYONE accountable for defense — if Julius refuses to play defense, sit him on the bench.
Stop attacking Butler and Bam primarily. Hunt their weaker defenders – who’s Love guarding, or really anyone not named Butler or Bam.
If we do all the above and lose I can live with it. If we lose because of not doing the above …
the heat.. and for that matter the cavs.. haven’t had to blitz anyone… randle and brunson are not shooting over multiple people…. they havne’t had to pick up their dribble cause of aggressive double teams… both teams have been doing just fine manning up on them and that’s the problem..
and while brunson’s been effective at times creating that micro separation for himself to get off a shot in floater range… it’s not resulting in many kickouts or hockey passes… a lot of times it’s just him doing his thing for an entire possession and not involving anyone else… and that’s by design for both the defense and sadly our offense…
to the extent that the heat are sagging is just the nature of the zone they employ…. and when they dont employ zone there’s not much sagging… and yes hart and company need to hit open 3s… but game 3 was a lot more than not hitting those shots… if we hit 36% of our 3s… we still lose and we still are waaaay below our reg season ortg… the heat only scored 105 pts… that’s normally a pretty low bar to overcome….
And will we still be playing by then?
I hope we shake things up and (re)start Grimes. I also hope McBride gets burn, if for no other reason than to throw a new look at Miami. He is disruptive on defense and he doesn’t lack confidence. If he can knock down some three’s and generate some steals for us, that could be huge.
The team just seems to lack confidence right now and that affects the shooting for everyone.
So big tonight. If we win it is all good. IF we lose, time to start posting about what Leon needs to do in the off season.
Weird question, but is anyone else able to listen to ESPN 98.7 this morning? Alexa won’t play it for me, and when I try to play it live on the ESPN web site nothing happens there, either. This has been going on since very early this morning. Lots of technical difficulties with lots of different things today. It’s one of those days when nothing is working correctly.
Just read on NBA.com an interesting fact about the Knicks offense during the series vs Miami: Of all the games during the 2nd rd the Knicks have taken the highest rate of catch and shoot 3pters, 2nd highest rate of corner 3pters and 3rd highest rate of wide open 3pters. The offense as ugly as it has looked at times is generating the type of 3pters you want they’re just not hitting them.
Bigger problem has been Knicks are severely losing the turnover and FT battle which they usually excel at.
Grimes being put back into the starting lineup being a near 100% consensus among Knicks fans is awesome and Thibs will probably still not do it until game 5.
The 4th quarter of game two was the only quarter in the series where it felt like we had the advantage and coincidentally had Grimes playing with the starters.
We’re only 1 game down. We can swing this series with a win tonight. Need to play smarter and with more hustle. Hopefully Grimes is back in the starting lineup and the Knicks realize there’s more than Bam & Butler you can drive the ball at.
Yeah, the Knicks are clearly fucked, but it’s pretty weird how down everyone is after three games, one of which the Knicks won!
I get it, the Heat have outclassed the Knicks in 11 out of the 12 quarters played so far (maaaaybe 9, if you give the Knicks Q1 of Game 1 and Q3 of Game 2). But guess what? It really doesn’t matter! It only matters if the Heat kick their ass again tonight. The Suns looked dead in the water after Game 2, they’re now tied after Game 4. The Sixers looked dead in the water after Game 3, they’re now tied after Game 4.
Game 4 will tell the tale, not the games before it. This overall doom and gloom is way premature.
Today’s Emotional Weather Report:
– low expectations for a “positive” team performance
– lingering hope for victory
Outcast:
– high probability for sadness, perhaps a bit of anger, later in the day
Lord help me, I put money on the Knicks ML at +160. I refuse to believe we’re five point dogs away to the Miami fucking Heat!
Nice weather report, Geo. And nice summary, Brian. I think the head hanging (and banging) is more about the feel of that last game, which was pretty dismal start to finish. It wasn’t a hard fought game that our boys just couldn’t quite pull out at the end. Most of the horrible things we live in fear of (overmedicated Randle, moronic RJ, the gang who couldn’t shoot straight) came back to haunt us.
But as you say, it’s always a new day…
The problem is we don’t have a good offense.
What we have is a “extra possessions” offense.
We try to get extra possessions by hitting the offensive boards hard and keeping turnovers low. If we execute well that makes up for the lack of good outside shooting.
Teams can adjust to some of that and certain matchups will be worse than others.
But it’s not like this is some novel approach.
This is straight out of Phil’s book where not only did he try to hit the offensive boards hard, he tried to take shots that would improve the probability of getting an offensive rebound and/or getting fouled.
So it’s FG%, probability of getting fouled, probability of getting the OREB, probability of scoring off the OREB, probability of getting fouled on the put back vs. probability of doing the same things shooting a 3. If done properly, Phil claimed the math was much closer and less volatile in the playoffs under pressure than just bombing away 3s all night. Of course, we can’t shoot 3s so it’s not like we even have a choice. That’s what makes it more difficult. They can really pack the paint, get rebounds, and force us to do things we are not good at.
And for the records, I say no Fournier and no Rose please. The few times we’ve seen them, they’ve been rustier than a nail from the Edmund Fitzgerald. Just clanging iron. And you want to talk about hunting Duncan Robinson on D…
Prediction: the Knicks will play hard tonight, and win a close game. #gambling_substitution
True, but Phil’s coaching prime was long before the association fully figured out the math of the 3 pointer and fully aligned their personnel and strategy to exploit it.
Completely different era and set of underlying premises.
I would say one key difference between our offense this year and the offenses Phil Jackson built here is this year our offense ranked 3rd and in the Phil Jackson years our offenses ranked 29th, 24th, and 18th.
Then again, the personnel on this team is much better. Phil Jackson really did Phil Jackson dirty by acquiring so many bums.
I’m not going to get into the Phil Jackson debates, or relitigate the regular season Knickerblogger follies, but the “Moneyball” question re the offense very much remains in play.
Let’s reconvene on it after the playoffs. Right now, I’m hoping the Knicks offense becomes the best in the league and they win the championship.
folks were dooming after game 2 of the cavs series too…. things can change very quickly… whether it’s thru luck… some guy rediscovering their stroke (ahem randle)…. or someone going cold at the wrong time (ahem butler)… or unfortunately these days, someone getting hurt…
but what’s clear is that the offense needs to wakeup… we just haven’t this entire playoffs and we’re finally in a series where being bad offensively kind of matters…
The other thing to remember is, of course, that we’re quite literally doomed. And I mean literally — we’re really not slated to win a chip this year, and since only one team gets to do that, we are destined to get our asses whupped by someone, at some point.
I admit it’s unfortunate that it might be Miami (I can’t decide if getting whupped by the Celtics is better [ECF!!!] or worse (Celtics…]). Best case would be the Sixers, as we could also watch the Maxey twins play against each other (assuming IQ gets better). And make fun of Doc.
Well, BEST case would be Denver, as then we’d get to watch Jokic pick us apart, which would be exquisitely painfully beautiful to watch.
But doomed we are.
Grimes’ buddy complaining about his usage on social media. Ruh roh.
I’ll point out that the most lopsided of the four factors last game was ft/fga (it’s made free throws, not just attempts). The Heat took 9 more fts than us and hit 90%. Good for 12pts of the 19pt defecit.
When you lose the ft battle that horribly you’re going to look horrible.
Of course, we lost the other 3 factors too but at least the margins were relatively slim.
After the refs helped us a little in game 2, we all knew we’d lose the FT battle in game 3. I just hope that today they can be what a ref should be – impartial.
+1
Fair officiating and 35% from 3 and it’s a different series. Not impossible.
And ideally we win the TO battle, but that’s partly officiating, too. A lot of our TOs were offensive fouls.
from the conspiracy theory angle…league wants this to go 7 ….the refs should get the memo to “approach” this one differently…i.e, 2-2 going back to NYC is preferable…
I’ve been praying to the God of 3Ps, but without success. 😛
Things I’m telling myself today:
-If we had shot way above our 3pt expectation thus far, I certainly wouldn’t expect that to continue.
-Therefore, it’s not rational to believe we’ll shoot way below forever given reasonable shot quality.
-We have to regress to the mean at some point and my choking narrative is just feelings.
-I never gave into feelings when I was a poker player. Why should I now?
the market can be irrational longer than you can stay solvent… and in the nba you likely will never survive being cold for any significant amount of time… just ask the cavs….
I’d ask the Cavs, but sadly they all committed seppuku while watching game 3 of the Heat vs Knicks.
Quick being out is a bit of a dagger. We need shooting. You never know when he’s going to get hot and change a game. Tonight could have been the night. This could get really ugly with Quick out and so many other key players at less than 100%.
Start Grimes, turn the Deuce loose, we’ll be fine
Deuce should be good in this series. We’re playing guys who can’t score anyway. Might as well play one who can defend like he can.
Grimes back in the starting lineup.
@NY_KnicksPR
Starters for Game 4: Brunson, Grimes, Barrett, Randle, Robinson