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2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks @ Celtics (Knicks in Boston Opener, also not a thing))

The Knicks get a chance to avenge their opening night loss against the Celtics in Boston.

The Knicks have had a tough opening 10 games, schedule-wise (well, not the last two, but you know what I mean), so the fact that they have a chance to be 6-4 is pretty awesome, and definitely a major boon to those brilliant people who said that the Knicks will win 53 games this season.

You know what I fucking hate? These sports sites that try to hide boring news through misleading headlines. “Boston Celtics center to miss Knicks game,” and it’s fucking Neemias Queta. The world would lose nothing if those sites ceased to exist, and yet Google fucking promotes the shit out of them. So gross.

Let’s go, Knicks!

168 replies on “2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks @ Celtics (Knicks in Boston Opener, also not a thing))”

Ugh, RJ out with a migraine. Takes a lot of the juice out of this one.

Guess that’s a good sign! But ugh.

Fournier is listed as questionable for Monday’s game against the Celtics due to personal reasons.

His potential absence Monday won’t affect how Thibodeau distributes the minutes among his wing players.

lol

Bummer about RJ but our bench is still better than Boston’s. Maybe Thibs will throw Fournier out there. Doesn’t he have a history of over performing at TD Garden? 😉

TNFH please stop with the revisionist history. You’ve been as down on RJ as anyone on this site. That you weren’t in favor of pure salary-dumping him hardly paints you as an optimist. If you are saying you weren’t out on him in the sense that you were out on Kevin Knox, sure. But saying that your ceiling was “not a primary scorer” is hardly aligned with your feelings about his likely outcome, which was something kin to “not actively detrimental.”

Which is fine! His stats certainly merited such pessimism. But at least admit that you consider how RJ is currently playing a “very pleasant surprise.”

I’m sorry you’re embarrassed that you blew it on something I said yet again. You can always search the archives if you want to be sure next time!

How’s “letting Mitch walk for nothing would be fine, actually” holding up?

“Bummer about RJ but our bench is still better than Boston’s. Maybe Thibs will throw Fournier out there. Doesn’t he have a history of over performing at TD Garden? 😉”

It sure would be nice is Thibs would be open-minded enough to consider that. Alas…

Suffering the cognitive dissonance of being really bummed that RJ is out. Last year I’d be saying it’s our best chance to win. But now I feel like we’re down a real weapon against a damn good team. Was looking forward to the measuring stick on this one, and now there’s no measures on the stick.

As the only poster who bought RJ stock before the season, I have to say…

Does anyone want to buy my RJ stock? I’d like to sell while it’s up 300%.

“How’s “letting Mitch walk for nothing would be fine, actually” holding up?”

If you liked my idea of replacing him with Walker Kessler, actually pretty well! I liked Jalen Duren too. Anyway, at least I didn’t waste a whole season whining about the possibility of losing him for nothing, which didn’t happen! He was not traded at the deadline, as you wanted to, and he signed for a better deal than you thought possible! Yay Leon!

that is concerning…migraines are no small health issue…

they’re like a major thing…i’ve known some folks familiar with them…

i hope he gets well and makes whatever adjustments he needs too…

Walker Kessler is the starting center on the team with the 30th ranked defense. I don’t love the idea.

ESPN had the Player to watch as RJ, now that he is out, the player to watch is Jalen Brunson.

Just thought you’d all like to know.

I thought the line was pretty high this morning (celtics were 9.5 point favorites) maybe the betting sites knew RJ was sick

looked like tatum took like 20 steps on that one basket through our defense…

this is some pretty high level basketball stuff at the moment…

hopefully out first unit can play them close to equal, and we can win the bench battle…

“Walker Kessler is the starting center on the team with the 30th ranked defense. I don’t love the idea.”

Mitchell Robinson played the 7th most minutes on a team that went 17-65. He then played the 3rd most minutes on a team that went 21-45.

I love Mitch but I think we could have survived losing him just fine.

I love Mitch but I think we could have survived losing him just fine.

I am happy to be on the record vehemently disagreeing that we’d be no worse for wear with Walker Kessler in Mitch’s place this year!

Mitchell Robinson played the 7th most minutes on a team that went 17-65

That’s not a lot of minutes.

He then played the 3rd most minutes on a team that went 21-45.

That was 1,412 minutes.

I don’t want to interrupt the Walker Kessler thread on JazzBlogger, but this Celtics Knicks game is pretty competitive!

I don’t know about Z-Man and TNFH, who don’t seem to be aware there’s a game on, but I’m exhausted and it’s only the first quarter.

“That was 1,412 minutes.”

In a 66 game season. He might have played more if he wasn’t constantly in foul trouble. Anyway, no one said that Walker Kessler is better than Mitch…only that he’d be a great Plan B if Mitch decided not to give up the many millions you assumed he would be offered to re-sign as a UFA on a bargain contract.

Does anyone want to buy my RJ stock? I’d like to sell while it’s up 300%.

Can I sell short on that 3p%. 😉

One dude gets a headache and all of the sudden DDV is a pretty damn essential part of the rotation. Seems worth noting.

The other thing we forget is that Barrett is also our second-tallest person on the bench mob, much of the time. Celtics don’t have a great bench, but they’re long.

By far the worst quarter of the season by IQ. Knicks might not have enough scoring without RJ to beat the Celtics.

Honestly we can’t play much better than that. Shots just stoped falling in the last 2 minutes.

This is a pretty good team. The Celtics are fantastic this year, and we’re playing them even despite being down our best player.

(jk)

I’m stuck watching the game on NBA TV which is unfortunately showing the Celtics broadcast.

The offense has been sloppy and annoying, but can’t complain about the effort on defense (outside of some Randle moments)

That iHart 3 is the kind of shot that’s been going in against us my entire life. Disorienting to see us hit one.

I’m getting the Celtics broadcast and overall I’m not a fan of their calling, but they just had Adam Silver join them and did a reasonable interview.

Big Hart was going to be a stretch big when we signed him out of LA, maybe he just took a year off

I’m totally going with 40-32 as the final score of this game. Fuck the rest of it. We beat them to 40.

I’m totally going with 51-43 as the final score of the game. Fuck the rest of it. We beat them to 50.

They are burning our attack on the offensive boards by leaking out. That’s the defensive trade off for trying to get extra possessions.

It was all going so well, then 3 bad shots in a row with defensive lapses and it’s all tied up again. Pretty good half specially since we’re playing without RJ, but really have to clean up those mistakes if you want to beat a team like the Celtics.

100% chance of C’s carrying momentum into 2nd half and we’ll be down 15 by end 3q.

I’m glad the Celtics are kind of dumb. Julius gaffes aside, I think we’re a smarter team, and it can add up. Tatum is super-talented, but makes a lot of poor decisions.

Knicks miss RJ, he’d get his shot blocked left and right but he’d never get scared of taking it to the rim.

GRIMES!!!

nothing annoys me more than when a Boston team is legitimately very fucking good, and this Celtics team is really going to be annoying.

Randle is really brutal to watch…three guys open…and he’s fucking dribbling with his head down

Yeah but don’t forget Porzingis is Mr November we probably won’t even see him next year

celtics are good on defense… but this offense is going to be tough to watch all season… incredibly hard attempts even when they go in….

The offense wasn’t ugly yesterday. May have more to do with playing the best defense in the East.

I checked Bref because I thought Sam Hauser was having a career game but damn this MF has really good numbers.

Jason Tatum did not grow two inches to become 6’10”, Wally, you idiot.

Randle passes up more open 5 footers than anyone I’ve ever seen. It’s like he doesn’t realize he is open. You can see sometimes how the game is just too fast for him when the competition is super high and the stakes are super high. It’s a bummer.

I can’t wait to laugh at this Celtics team when they choke miserably in the playoffs like they always do, but for now, they’re just really annoyingly strong.

Can’t win when IQ plays this bad and we don’t have Barrett, so it’s fine. On to the next game.

Z-Man holds more onto this Tatum prediction like the Celtics hold on to their one championship in the last ~40 years, both treat it like their own dynasties.

Considering we are missing one of our top 3 players and are on the second game of a b2b with travel and playing the best team in the east on the road, you can stomach a competitive loss.

Celtics really are whiny bitches, especially Porzingis and Tatum.

Can’t wait to see them flame out in the playoffs again.

“Z-Man holds more onto this Tatum prediction like the Celtics hold on to their one championship in the last ~40 years, both treat it like their own dynasties.”

Dude, I was one of the ones who signed on to the Tatum will be a bust camp. If you are going to be an asshole, at least be accurate! (I kid, Bruno, glad to have you back.)

Jayson Tatum…voted the most likely to be a bust in the 2017 draft by the KB hive mind.

Don’t remember it that way at all. Just that some people thought he was too much of a high usage chucker, which he kind of was. Comparisons were to Carmelo Anthony, not to Anthony Bennett.

i should have just stopped watching when we got to 40 points first…

i guess that 9.5 point spread wasn’t such a bad call after all…

“Dude, I was one of the ones who signed on to the Tatum will be a bust camp. If you are going to be an asshole, at least be accurate.”

It was just a joke man, you have to agree you do bring it up A LOT for something that happened 6 years ago.

The Knicks often go as Quickley goes. Rough night for him.

I can’t watch Randle without antacids handy.

KP is a not only better than he used to be, he seems to have matured as a player. He’s much more relaxed and confident.

I think I might enjoy a Celtics vs T-Wolves game where Tatum and Antman go back and forth. Antman is starting to look freaky good. Even though I hate that Gobert and KAT combo, that team looks really good to me. The defense is excellent and Antman can hoop.

“It was just a joke man, you have to agree you do bring it up A LOT for something that happened 6 years ago.”

Yeah, right, it was a joke, ha-ha. I actually don’t know what the fuck you are talking about…can’t remember the last time I brought it up…but even so, it was probably the single most egregious miss of the KB hive-mind era, so I don’t think bringing it up is all that big of a deal, especially since I was on the losing side of that one.

But welcome back, asshole! (Haha, just a joke!)

Jesus christ, that is a lot, thanks for reminding me of the reason why I was gone for the entire offseason lol.

“Jesus christ, that is a lot, thanks for reminding me of the reason why I was gone for the entire offseason lol.”

I truly hope that there was a better reason than that…

Z-Man, you can be pretty acidic. Especially late in the eve…

Here, something to cheer you up:

“When you’re in the mix, you feel like you’re involved,” Toppin says. “It feels like they need you out there offensively and defensively—you’re not just sitting there in the corner, waiting for a shot.”

Well, missed it. But I did succeed in jinxing IQ apparently. My bad.

Seems like it was competitive until it wasn’t.

BBA, I know, right? But this article (The Ringer, on Haliburton, sob) makes him seem like a perfect fit. Here, another quote:

Obi Toppin, leak-out artist extraordinaire, has predictably become one of Haliburton’s favorite targets. The former Knick had been eyeing the Pacers for more than a year, and strategizing with his agent about how he might be able to get to Indiana. A trade granted his wish. It was a perfect opportunity for the Pacers to supercharge their frontcourt with one of the league’s most sensational open-floor talents. “It’d be hard for me to imagine that you couldn’t take a guy like Obi Toppin and turn him into a world-class track athlete,” Carlisle says. “Or triple jump? Can you even imagine?”

Guess I was right to turn this one off at halftime after we clusterfucked 7 points away in a matter of seconds.

The Celtics being good actually annoys me much more than us possibly being mediocre. Fuck the Wizards and Blazers for allowing this to happen!

Raven, fair enough, I probably should have let it go. Fuck the Celtics.

As to Obi, seems like he hid his deep resentment pretty well during his time here and it is now leaking out. It would probably be more appropriate and meaningful if he backed up his comments with a level of play that indicated he only needed to be liberated from Thibs Jail to show out. Sadly, thus far he’s playing 5.6 mpg more and averaging fewer points per 36 on lower usage than he did here, and is posting a career-low BPM because despite them needing him out there offensively and defensively, he’s not producing. I think he was glued to the bench for the entire 4th quarter vs. Philly.

At some point he needs to stop making excuses and just worry about playing better before Carlisle decides to go in another direction.

Agree with that one, Z-Man. And fuck the Celtics.

A one-eye test I had this evening. I watched the first half and Julius seemed really switched on. Then I was being somewhat distracted in the third, but every time I looked up he was doing something brain dead — standing still next to his man when someone was getting double-teamed, losing the ball — I made a joke about his half-time meds, but damn it felt that way. I know IQ shat the bed shooting-wise, and Jason Tatum needs to be torn to pieces by weasels, but it felt like our slide downhill was being spearheaded by Big Jules losing focus.

the only time i watched the pacers this year, i saw obi, hands on knees, standing in the corner… if he is happy, all the best to him

watching the kings/cavs…

i do really enjoy having jalen brunson as our point guard…i think he is a championship level player, i think he can drag a few other folks along with him…

having said that – god damn but there are a lot of really good point guards playing right now…

de’aaron fox is a franchise leader…

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