Knicks Morning News (2023.11.16)

I believe that win gives us the tiebreaker vs. ATL. Since it seemed like a pretty even matchup, that could be a big deal.

One critical hoop that got lost in the shuffle was that broken play drive by Josh Hart across the lane as the shot clock expired with 1:26 left to put us up 3.

Grimes being out is exactly why it’s good to have DDV is on the team. He’s a professional minutes-eating guard. I think starting him would be a great idea. He’s done it with good teams before.

Some observations from the Knicks’ B-R page:
-Once again, we are dead last in pace
-We are still dead last in 2pters made and 2pt%, but 10th in 2PTA
-We are dead last in FG% in the 0-3ft range
-We are 28th in FT%
-We are 9th in 3PTA and 7th in 3P%
-We are 26th in eFG% and 27th in TS%
-We are 2nd in ORBs and ORB%
-We are 15th in DRBs but 1st in DRB%
-In spite of last night, we are 6th in TOV%
-We are 27th in AST/Game (I would guess that a bit of of that is due to pace, but we are 25th in 2pters assisted and 22nd in 3pters assisted)
-We are 1st in corner 3’s attempted but 17th in % on those shots
-we are 9th in defensive TOV%, which is a huge improvement from last year. Most of that is from things other than blocks. I bet that Brunson’s crazy amount of offensive fouls drawn are a factor.

So,
1) we are just killing teams on the boards, and it isn’t just Mitch…he’s the best offensive rebounder in the league by far, but he’s only tied for 27th in DRB%…Julius is 10th and Josh Hart is 33rd. Those 3 guys are just dominating the defensive boards. iHart is doing a nice job on the offensive boards as well (15.1%, would be around 5th in the NBA if he qualified) but not so much on defensive boards.

2) there is obviously more juice to squeeze out of our rim attempts. That’s probably the most glaring outlier of the negative stats. Everything else seems pretty sustainable. Our FT% seems depressed as well, but not by all that much. Seems like a big part of the lousy eFG% and TS% is due to unsustainably bad rim % by Randle and Brunson, and even somewhat by lower usage guys like Mitch and Josh Hart.

3) If we continue at this 6-5 pace, that translates to 44.7 wins. Being that our SRS is currently 5th, seems like something in the high 40’s, or maybe even the low 50’s is pretty doable.

A couple of things about Mitch:
-At his current mpg, if he stays healthy, he’s on his way to a 2,430 minute season. His previous high is 1,848 in 2021-22 and he only had 1,591 last year. Hopefully he can stay healthy and keep giving us 30mpg.
-He is averaging a career low of 2.4 fouls per 36. That’s probably coming at the expense of some blocks, but he’s making up for that in steals.
-His dunks per game is down significantly. He only has 19 in 11 games, and a lot of those are on putbacks (his % of assisted FG’s is way down.) It seems that he’s doing very little rim-running per se, and that is probably a factor in Randle and others getting lots of shots blocked…they are forcing shots when Mitch is being left open by weak side shotblockers. Randle got blocked by Capela on one of those last night…not sure if it was Mitch that was left alone….but Randle did hit him with a nice long pass for a dunk. Anyway, hope that they figure out how to get Mitch more dunks.
-Mitch’s BPM is at a career low 0.9….even his DBPM is at a career low. Go figure.

“It’s taken a long time for people to look past his limitations.”

I think we can praise Mitch while not looking past his limitations. They are still there, and they are very real. They were dramatically exposed in the two Celtics games, where he averaged 3 points and 6 rebounds and was a total non-factor, if not a detriment. I get that a lot of that is due to the team’s overall lack of defensive length outside of Mitch, but his limitations can be exposed by teams with elite offensive C’s. He was pretty dramatically outplayed by Bam in last year’s playoffs. If we get to the second round, he’s almost certainly going to have to reckon with KP, Bam, Embiid, Giannis/Lopez, Myles Turner, or an improved Mobley/Allen combo. His limitations will definitely be targeted.

But beyond that, he definitely deserves all the praise he is getting. He’s playing at an elite level in multiple ways and we will win a lot of games because of his awesomeness at the things he does well.

“Re: Mitch’s limitations, it’s not showing up in the numbers yet but I get the impression Thibs is lightly trying to let him expand his offensive game a bit. We’ve seen a handful of post ups, plus the explosion of Randle/Mitch PNRs after years of not touching it. Will be fun to monitor going forward.”

I noticed that too, and with iHart as well.

“I straight up do not care about his limitations in any event.”

This is the very definition of being a stan. It’s a pretty telling statement, given how much you seem to care about other player’s limitations. Why not have the same standard for everyone?

“As far as going to battle against the elite centers of the NBA in the playoffs goes, I mean, no one can really stop those guys, but how many players would you take over Mitch if you have to go to war with them? He ragdolled Jarrett Allen last playoffs, and he ragdolled Clint Capela last night. How many other centers can do that?”

I would take Mitch over either Capela or Allen, and agree that he’s playing like a top-10 C in the NBA right now, and his level of play relative to his non-rookie scale salary is probably top 5. But let’s not get carried away. In the first Hawks game, Capela had the same 6-7-13 line that Mitch had, plus scored 13 points to Mitch’s 7. You also conspicuously left KP off of your elite C list. Did Mitch ragdoll him?

“Mitch is the only active player in the NBA to have broken one of Wilt’s records. So there. Who cares if it was probably due in large measure to his limitations. Numbers don’t lie.”

Okay, you got me there…

““Massive” is in quotes here, does that mean it’s a direct quote from me? If so, can you link me to where I said it? Or are we doing the whole “I’d rather argue against something I’m pretending you said” thing…again?”

Dude, stop with the equivocating, you know what inferences you made then about the multiple offers, just own them.

“Can’t we all just be in love with this new and much improved Mitch while not relitigating arguments of the past? Please?

The way I see it people were right to be concerned that we didn’t resign Mitch earlier and might lose him for nothing. Other people were also right to think it was wise not to resign him after coming back from a fairly severe foot injury. And people were also right to think that if we lost that version of Mitch for nothing, that we could reasonably replace most of that production for cheap (IHart would be a pretty good starting center). But I don’t think anyone saw him improving so much to this point, right? So let’s drop it. Everyone was right!”

Wiser than most as usual, swifty. With the caveat that no player on this team should be immune from criticism for the things he does poorly, nor credited with winning games singlehandedly when they score 6 points.

“It’s like Brunson being bad on defense. We don’t generally talk about that much either but we all know he gives back a lot there, even with all the drawn charges.”

Actually I bring it up quite often. As recently as this week, when we were discussing the limitations his defense places on acquiring a player like Spida. Brunson’s defensive flaws are part of the reason why we lost to Miami….he was targeted time and time again.

Flaws matter, whether in your PG, C, SG, SF or PF. The further you get in the playoffs, the more they matter. Whether Mitch or Brunson or Randle or Hart or RJ, when your flaws are exposed, it puts pressure on other players to make up for them. That Miami was able to leave Hart open from 3 is no different than the Celtics being able to pull Mitch out of the paint. That Mitch is a massive liability in a late-game foul shooting situation puts pressure on other players to fill his role when he gets subbed out for that reason.

My point is that his flaws should be just as criticized as Brunson’s or Randle’s or RJ’s or Hart’s or IQ’s because they represent a hole that needs to be accounted for and patched up by other players. This lopsided immunity bestowed upon Mitch is not consistent with thoughtful analysis.

“looks like it’s nap time for the grown-ass toddlers”

Mitch is not perfect. Deal with it.

“Z-Man – You have been a staunch defender of RJ, holding the line against types like me for a while.”

Respectfully, Owen, this is not really true. Mostly, all I have said about RJ is that he was only “X” years old and he shouldn’t be written off, as you and others seemed to be doing. I said that his issues were mostly about consistency and decision-making rather than innate inability. I think his overall stats have sucked for 4 years and never disputed that they did. I thought his contract was a fair gamble on potential and was consistent with GM perceptions around the league. The only “stannish” thing I have said about him is that Thibs probably saw things in him that we didn’t, particularly on D. But he is a flawed player for sure, even at the level he’s played at this year or during the playoffs last year, and folks should have at it unless and until those flaws are corrected.

Good response, KBA.

If you ask the question: which starting bigs would make the Knicks better right now if they replaced Mitch straight up, I think Mitch is somewhere around #10-12, with the caveat that he’s probably #2 behind only Gobert in low-usage interior bigs, and a degree or two above the likes of Capela, Looney, Poeltl and Allen.

I think you have to have KAT in there since he’s been a C for most of his career. Giannis is as much of a C as AD is. Sabonis is tricky because of where he likes to operate, he’d be more of a replacement for Randle. Ignoring his injury-proneness, Turner is all about how much you value floor spacing and being able to go to a 5-out configuration.

Dollar for dollar, Mitch is obviously much closer to the top of the list.

“We saw that teams that looked better and sexier than us on paper like Cleveland or Atlanta became our bitches w/o much trying so it’s not always predictable.”

Interesting way of putting it. When the Cavs acquired Spida, much was made about how they leapfrogged us in the rebuilding process after we started roughly in the same place when LeBron flew the coop. Seems like that percieved gap has closed a bit? Too early to tell for sure, but they seem like they have a ceiling lower than conference champs…let alone NBA champs…and they are way closer to being all in than we are.

With the Hawks, are they all that much better positioned than us, if that? What is their path to a finals appearance, given that they traded lots of stuff for DeJounte?

Does anyone see the Heat as a legit contender right now? And if not, what is their path to getting there, besided the unprecedented brilliance of Eric Spoelstra?

This is a very interesting GSW-OKC game…

Klay not looking good…

Isaiah Joe is 7-7 from 3…