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2023-24 Game Thread – Knicks @ Bucks – In-Season Tournament Opener (I guess, kind of a thing?)

The Knicks head to Milwaukee for the kickoff of the NBA’s bizarre new in-season tournament (I don’t even have a problem with the tournament, per se, as I think it’s more silly than it is actively bad, but…well, it’s pretty darn silly, especially the special court designs for tourney games), sadly still without RJ Barrett, whose knee continues to give him problems (hopefully it is nothing too serious).

Damian Lillard has played four games with the Bucks.

In those four games, he has scored:

39 points in a Bucks win (where he hit the game-winning shot)
6 points in a Bucks loss
25 points in a Bucks win
15 points in a Bucks loss

So, well, I think we can probably safely say that there is at least a chance that as Dame goes, so, too, goes the Bucks.

Hopefully he scores 2 points tonight.

Let’s go, Knicks, and go win this whole fucking silly tournament!

209 replies on “2023-24 Game Thread – Knicks @ Bucks – In-Season Tournament Opener (I guess, kind of a thing?)”

Let’s go Knicks!

OK. Can someone explain this insane tournament to me? What do the players get? How do they figure out the matchups? Does this impact the real playoffs (other than wins and losses)?

Every player on the team that wins the tournament gets $500,000. The runners-up players all get $250,000. The rest of the players on the Final Four teams get $100,000. The remaining Elite Eight teams’ players all get $50,000 each.

There are three groups in each conference based on last year’s standings (the Knicks and the Bucks are in the same bracket as the best team in the East and the 5th best team in the East). The four teams in the group will play each other once (everyone gets two home games and two road games). The winners of each of the brackets will advance to the Final 8, as well as the best team that didn’t win their bracket.

Okay, so those last eight teams then just do a normal bracket (with the losers playing each other while the winners play each other), and while they’re playing, the eliminated teams all play each other twice (in other words, only 80 of the 82 games have been scheduled, with the remaining two games decided based on who makes the Elite Eight and who doesn’t). The Championship Game won’t count for the overall standings (it’ll be an extra “83rd” game).

And no, no impact on the playoffs outside of wins and losses. In fact, I guess it seems to suggest that the best thing for a team, playoff standings-wise, is to do just well enough to NOT make the Elite Eight, right?

By Post Author

So it’s just money.

It would seem if 8 teams move on they would all have 3 more games to play.

Math not adding up.

On the schedule there are 4 games for the Knicks. 2 home 2 away.

I think you are correct, the two teams in the mid season tournament play 83 games total.

And the games are not consecutive? Meaning tonight is tournament but then we play a normal schedule until we play the Wizards on Nov 17 which is tournament game #2? And how, if the Knicks don’t advance, does the league decide who they’ll play when the 8 other teams advance?

I believe the teams in the groups who don’t advance will play each other again that week to finish the schedule. Each team will get a home and away game that week.

Yeah, thanks, Al, I misread two home and two away as two games, one home, one away. So for tournament purposes, this game is huge.

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Yeah, the eliminated teams just play each other, I guess just randomly assigned matchups?

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I’m all for trying new things to enhance the game, but I have no interest in this tournament stuff.

Best part of this tourney might be LL Cool J re-recording “Momma Said Knock You Out” to promote it.

It is truly very stoopid. I mean, yeah, they might play harder for an extra $500K in their accounts, but if they can play harder, they should be already doing that for the bank they’re already pulling in.

OK. This tourney thing is over for me already. I have no interest.

Randle can’t hit a shot or guard Giannis. That’s more important.

Guys, this game is a big deal. Don’t you see the court?!?!

(It actually looks worse than the Knicks one somehow)

Wouldn’t Randle’s ankle thank him if he’d take the good looks from 3P instead of pump fake and go (or was it spin?) to the basket?

Yeah, as soon as Randle went to the bench we start running and gunning like Doug Moe’s Nuggets in the 80’s…

rough start but pretty good since then. Fair to say the Bucks have downgraded their coaching at this point

Six combined shots for Giannis and Dame. Stick with that very smart strategy, Milwaukee, please.

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Randle getting fouled and clocking Portis in the head is kind of a two for one special

The game has changed but I’m a bit nostalgic about the time when those threes in transition meant an immediate benching…

Randle sometimes dribbles like he’s never seen a basketball before.

Thibs needs a timeout to say, “Don’t leave guys wide open, K?”

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Don’t think our game plan included stopping the notorious sharpshooters Crowder and Beauchamp.

Obi plus-14 as the Pacers crush the Cavs…

The Cavs with Allen and Garland no less… too funny

If you’re worried about our defense I don’t think Evan Fournier is the guy who is going to fix that

Deuce is one of our zero usage All-Stars, gotta get that guy some run. If you don’t have at least three single digit usage guys on the floor at the same time you’re doing it wrong

Well the good news is we can expect a monster year from Randle next season

Although it’ll probably be for another team

Too many non-offensive guys on the court. We are struggling with open shots so far this year. Hopefully that turns around soon.

They seem to shooting even worse than last season. I didn’t think that could happen but it is.

I’m no Fournier fan, but we have no other scorers on our bench. If Quickley isn’t feeling it, we’re screwed in those minutes.

The Knicks lead the NBA in FT% during the 2000-01 season, of course having Allan Houston and Glen Rice on the team helped that a bit.

Obi now at the perfectly cromulent 0 given that the Cavs are now one point down.

Basically doing an 8 man rotation. Kind of crazy for this time of the year.

Can’t say that Hart is so valuable that you use a challenge to protect Hart.

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Despite averaging a career high in minutes per game Obi’s usage rate is at a career low.

It just feels like another regular season game to me. And maybe our schedule is so weird at the beginning of the season because of having to make all the in season tournament games work. So far, I’m not a fan.

Obi’s gonna lose has starting job by game 15. Nesmith and Jalen Smith are both playing well behind him.

If only WE had a decent backup PF or two…

Welp, looks like we ran out of time to trade Randle while his value remained non-negative. We might have the worst offensive team of the last 50 years now, with minimal room for internal improvement and a “war chest” of third-tier picks that will be comfortably outbid by any of the actual asset-rich teams the next time a superstar is on the market.

It’s still obvious to me that we should tear this down and cash in on our few mildly valuable assets, even if the return would be lower now because we waited too long to do so. I’m curious how much longer this has to go on before anyone other than E starts agreeing with me.

It’s just so painfully obvious that trying to to compete in this league without so much as a top 30 NBA player is futile!

I assume Griffin is here to coach defense, since the Bucks don’t seem to have any plays on offense.

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It’s so hard to watch this dumpster fire of an offense. I’m not sure who is worse so far this season Randle or Thibs. It seems like Thibs is utterly clueless as to what the problem is with his trash lineups.

It is weird to say with most of our roster back but their chemistry seems off this year.

So, the problem with Hart taking open three pointers is….

And also, the first Sumner goes to Marjon I think

So Randle is actively tanking his trade value so he won’t have to leave NY, right? I mean that’s the only reason I can think of for why he sucks every other year.

They are very lucky to be down just six and with the ball to start the fourth. They could totally steal this so long as Griffin sticks with these bizarre rotations.

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Is it just me or DDV makes a lot of silly, undisciplined plays? Curious to see how he and Thibs relationship develops. Not a bad player by any means obviously, but mistake prone is not a trait Thibs tends to appreciate.

Brunson doesn’t deserve to lose this game…

Bud has some flaws, but the new Bucks are unwatchable… they need time to integrate Dame and change identity, Holiday was the glue of that team…

Yeah this version of the Bucks will get their asses kicked by Boston come playoff time.

Yeah, it’s definitely very fair to note that Dame was acquired right before the season, so it’s tough. But ooph.

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So Randle is actively tanking his trade value so he won’t have to leave NY, right? I mean that’s the only reason I can think of for why he sucks every other year.

There’s no reason to make excuses for him anymore.

1. Low basketball IQ
2. Mentally and emotionally weak
3. Inconsistent effort on defense
4. No indication in on/off that he actually makes the team much better despite the boxscore stats
5. Disappears in the playoffs
6. Terrible fit with Mitch, Brunson, RJ and some of our solid bench role players

It’s time to stop torturing ourselves with this guy. He’s a losing player. Just trade him. In fact, if management and Thibs can’t see the bad fit and everything else by now, they should be tossed too. We’ll never ever ever have a contender as long as this guy is major piece on the team.

He’s also unwatchable.

Them continuing to guard Brunson with man-to-man is high-larious. Thanks, Griffin!

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Knicks 24% from three.

Bucks 58% from three.

Basically the same number of threes.

I mean if Giannis is gonna make 3’s…..

You want him taking threes, but not wide open threes.

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Is it just me or DDV makes a lot of silly, undisciplined plays?

It’s just the wild layup attempts as far as I can tell. And he might make those at a high enough clip to make them decent because layups are still the highest % shot

They should be doubling IQ with Brunson out of the game. Griffin has not impressed me tonight.

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Apparently God has reevaluated his stance on Gianni’s’ three point shooting

He realized he fucked up giving Wemby way too much and needs to rebalance the league

That pass from DDV really set IQ up for the block. Like a hospital pass.

I think Giannis has a decent runway as an All NBA player….

Does anybody else not feel great about the $80M extension for Josh Hart that kicks in next season?

They know Brunson is going to be calling his number every time and they’re just…letting him. So stupid.

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I’m watching the Bucks game right now. They are shockingly underwhelming. They should be winning by a lot against the team they are playing, who basically only has one guy they need to guard and he’s working really, really hard to score all their points. Weird game.

Hart 8reb/4ast/3stls/1blk is a hell of a line if you don’t scroll over far enough to see his point total

Does anybody else not feel great about the $80M extension for Josh Hart that kicks in next season?

I think it’s not fully guaranteed, at least.

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JK47, at least we also gave up a first round pick for Hart when we could have signed him outright. Oh, and he also exacerbates our main weakness, an area in which we legitimately appear to be the worst team in the league…

Iso-Portis. This is insane! What is Milwaukee doing on offense?!

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The fact that they could easily steal this game from Milwaukee is in-sane. Almost unbelievable.

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This game being this close is just weird. But almost all the games this year have been similarly weird.

This game being this close is just weird. But almost all the games this year have been similarly weird.

That six minute stretch of no field goals by Milwaukee was mostly them just running the stupidest plays ever. Giannis is basically a blockhead tonight and yet they continue to run the offense through him.

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I would like to credit the ref, but there’s no way he saw it touch Lillard’s hand.

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As a former defensive rebounder, come to the ducking ball guards

Bizarre game all around

Knicks could be 6-0 if Randle was a below average player so far instead of the worst player in the league

It’s extremely funny to me that Lillard loses his mind there screaming for the review when it’s off him

Milwaukee is doing everything they possibly can to give us this game and we just won’t take it

Does anybody else not feel great about the $80M extension for Josh Hart that kicks in next season?

He’ll be fine in a lineup with some scoring. He’ll gets his rebounds, steals, hustle plays etc.. and add value. But you can’t have him in a lineup where we need him to score the way our pinhead coach has been using him since RJ got hurt.

Again, working a new player into the team right before the season is a lot, but, well, come the fuck on, right? And Griffin was specifically the guy Giannis wanted and, like, why?!

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Ooph, Clyde couldn’t remember Lillard’s name. That’s rough.

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Everyone surprised by this, I say the only reason the Knicks aren’t dominating this game is because of the Bucks 3pt shooting.

Brunson needs to be more selfish.

The problem is that he’s had to play a ton of minutes, so I don’t think he has quite the spring in his step that he would normally have with more rest.

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It’s actually not bad holding the bucks to 108 points, but our offense just wasn’t good enough

One day we’ll finally pull the trigger on a trade to get a Lillard type player…..

It’s like the Bucks were in a fog until the Knicks took the lead. Then, bam bam…

the bucks offense needs some work but that always needed a lot of work… but it’s nice to have dame bail you out in crunch time while they figure it out….

whatever’s wrong with randle.. it’s not some silly thing like lift…. he’s driving and drawing a lot of attention… should be obvious by now… lopez playing volleyball out there against randle….

Pidto called Griffin the “victorious head coach” and it sounded like “notorious head coach,” and I was, like, huh?

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Yes the Knicks are not very good cause they blew a 2pt lead with 1 min left at Milwaukee.

the bucks offense needs some work but that always needed a lot of work… but it’s nice to have dame bail you out in crunch time while they figure it out….

Yeah, but the fact that they didn’t just let Lillard ball out when they couldn’t score for six minutes was so ill-advised.

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I mean we are not. But we arent terrible. Feels like a 42 win team right now.

Both teams played hard.

What a gut wrenching loss. Bucks did not play well, not really impressed by them at all. They took and made terrible threes which I guess is how you win these days. Refs also have a ton of calls for Lillard. You breathe on him, it’s a foul.

But the Knicks have to get out of this awful shooting slump. They won’t win till then. Ugh this one was there for us.

yea.. they’re definitely not on the same page on a number of plays…. happened a handful of times… an underrated thing was that stotts who handled their offense resigned when the dame trade went through… so they’re offense looking like shit right now probably has a lot to do with that….

This team is going to have a very difficult time making the playoffs in the tougher East unless there are significant changes. Brunson is still solid and we have some high quality young role players, but Randle is empty stats on his way to another down year and mental breakdown and Thibs has no idea what he’s doing lineup wise or how to put together a coherent offense beyond ISO. This team is a mess.

Yes the Knicks are not very good cause they blew a 2pt lead with 1 min left at Milwaukee.

Milwaukee played like a pile of steaming dog shit and still beat us. We’re not good right now, that much should be obvious

We’ve played 5 playoff teams, 2 teams favored to win a title, and 2 back to backs in 6 games

Yes 2-4 is a catastrophe. Fire everyone!

The Bucks shot 51% from 3 and nearly lost to a team that shot half that. We’ll be fine if Randle stops playing like dogshit

Bucks shot 20 for 39 from 3pt range, Knicks dominated almost every other facet of the game but hard to make up being a minus 30 from the 3pt line.

yea.. they’re definitely not on the same page on a number of plays…. happened a handful of times… an underrated thing was that stotts who handled their offense resigned when the dame trade went through… so they’re offense looking like shit right now probably has a lot to do with that….

Excellent point. Okay, Griffin, I’ll give you some more leeway, as the Bucks definitely competed like crazy on defense. Although, depending on why Stotts left, I guess I might have to still blame Griffin a bit.

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“The Bucks shot 51% from 3”

I mean isn’t it somewhat our responsibility to stop them from shooting 51% from 3? Nah prolly not

I will say this about this team: there have been some games when they could have quit, and they played their way back into those games even if they ended up losing. So that’s encouraging.

Here’s a hot take, if RJ plays these past 2 games Knicks win both games.

Not that RJ would necessarily play well, but that would probably mean fewer shots for Randle and fewer bad lineup decisions from Thibs. I’m not even sure that’s much of a hot take.

The few minutes I saw of the Bucks/Knicks game was garbage, but the Warriors/Thunder game is giving me November Madness for this tournament thingy.

i mean 6 games is 6 games…. but what’s going on with randle is beyond some sort of normal variation….

The reason we’ve been bad so far is Julius Randle. Juuuuust about everything else is going according to expectations or better. He’s been downright terrible.

Unfortunately given his track record, it’s hardly a guarantee he stops being terrible. What would it cost to get the Toppin guy from Indiana?

We are pretty obviously a poor shooting team, and Thibs knows this and tries to compensate for that with rebounding and defense.

But I think we had a hard time with their hot-shooting bigs drawing our bigs out of the paint.

Okay, since everyone is hot-taking, here’s mine. I think we should have lost most if not all of these four games by 20 if not 40 points. We were in them all to the end, which I find bizarre. Someone said we could be 6-0 right now under slightly different circumstances, and I agree.

We struggled early because everyone struggled (except RJ LOL). Now most players are PROgressing toward their mean, but RJ is out and Randle is still mastiff poo.

My position is that come 20 games, Randle is back to All-NBA. I do not think this is the every-other-year meltdown, it’s him coming back from an injury, exacerbated somewhat by Randle also being a weirdo.

The fact that we’ve almost beaten everyone so far despite our deep suckitude (we just shot 25% from three, they shot 51%!!!), including (to repeat d-mar) having played 5 playoff teams, 2 teams favored to win a title, and 2 back to backs in 6 games, to me is pretty fucking impressive.

So yeah, I’m upping my 46 wins to 47. Fuck you.

I don’t get all the excuse making about how great opponents are shooting or how bad we are shooting. We are a terrible shooting team! Our offense is literally predicated on bad shooters taking bad shots in hopes that the best offensive rebounder in the league will recover enough of them for us to squeak by. We play offense in basketball like Homer Simpson plays offense in boxing!

The playoffs exposed that you can just pack the paint and play zone and we’ll reliably crumble. Opponents’ shooting will range from terrible to fantastic, while ours will range from terrible to okay. When those are the parameters, stretches like we’ve had are not outliers that we can just disregard. They are part of the expectation.

At this point I believe we are between the 20th and 25 best team in the league. I’m revising my prediction ~35 wins and the 11th pick in the draft. And that’s purgatorial.

Imagine if pagliacci was a Grizzlies fan right now.

I’d be fine. That team is much better than the Knicks even without Morant, who is better than any Knicks player in my lifetime.

It’s not any one game that gets me, it’s the 25 years of hopelessness.

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