After a big win against the Suns, the Knicks have a chance to have a big back-to-back win against the Clippers.
Maybe Brunson can go for 60 tonight!
Let’s go, Knicks!
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After a big win against the Suns, the Knicks have a chance to have a big back-to-back win against the Clippers.
Maybe Brunson can go for 60 tonight!
Let’s go, Knicks!
87 replies on “2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks @ Clippers (West Coast Good Team Road Trip Back-to-Back Opener, which is sort of a thing)”
So sorry, everyone, I just never hit “publish” earlier tonight! My apologies!
Ugly game. Hurts to lose Hart like that but hey, let’s see some other guys fill the void. It’s not like IQ, Grimes, RJ, or DDV are overtaxed.
Looks like it’s gonna be a long night. It’s jaw dropping how easily everyone can score on us. Knicks gave up 77 points at the half, 30 free throws, plus they are getting crushed on the boards, just name it. Good offense keeping us close but Clips ain’t Suns; they will pick up their intensity at the end.
Who was it that used to repeatedly say we could get 80% of Mitch’s production for a fraction of the price??
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that our defense went from one of the best to god awful when he went down. Nothing to see here.
I disagreed on the Mitch issue, but I believe the position was not “We can replace Mitch with anyone and get 80% of the production at a fraction of the price,” but that they could draft someone who would get 80% of the production at inherently a fraction of the price (since it would be a rookie contract). I don’t agree with that position, but it is way different from saying that they could replace 80% of Mitch with, say, Sims.
That said, yes, Mitch is very very important to this team’s defense.
It’s not just Mitch. It’s a lot of things. They don’t pressure the ball, they get beat off the dribble easily and never recover, they get easily confused on pick and rolls and leave opponents open, and so on and so forth.
It breaks my heart that we are in a league where defense is such a foreign concept that a team can score 144 points and it seems normal. Nobody will ever be able to explain to me that LeBron genuinely broke Kareem’s scoring record, when players can throw up 50 or 60 or 70 points on a regular basis. It’s a track meet these days.
The NBA averaged more points per game in Kareem’s rookie year than they did this season. The league scored a lot in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Yeah but Kareem went to college and LeBron did not. That gave LeBron some extra years to rack up points.
Road back to backs are hard
If you look at the top 10 all time scoring leaders, 8 out of the 10 had the option of foregoing at least 3 years of college to enter the NBA. When Kareem and Wilt were drafted the rule was you had to be 4 years removed from high school (Kareem spent 4 years at ULCA, Wilt spent 3 years at Kansas and 1 year with the Globetrotters). Yet another reason why it is always difficult to compare players across eras, but it is hard to deny LeBron’s number 1 spot given that he is currently occupying it while playing at an all-NBA level and has still played less games than Kareem.
I love the olden days and players but LeBron’s accomplishments are legit in every way, including the all-time scoring record.
😱
Yeah, 2nd game of a back-to-back on the road, 3 time zones away, against one of the hottest teams in the league… that’s not a good recipe for success.
That said, we really don’t have a guy who can credibly guard the best big wings like Kawhi and George. Idk where you can find a guy like that (cough *draft* cough).
If PG13, Kawhi, Harden and Westbrook all stay healthy, the Clips are going to be a very tough out in a very competitive WC. It is to our benefit that we caught them at the right time at MSG. We are now 2-2 against the Suns and Clips, which is as good as one could have expected going into the season.
Seems like the West is once again very much superior to the East beyond the top 3 teams. Any win against the Nuggets, Wolves, Suns, Clips, Lakers, Kings or Thunder will be hard-earned. The Mavs, Pels, Dubs, and Rockets are no slouches either. And when the Griz get Ja and Smart back, they will probably turn it around at least somewhat. That’s why that Jazz loss was so painful. The Suns win makes up for it a little bit, but Mitch’s absence was very acutely felt in that game. It makes the Lakers game that much more important.
Objectively, I’d be pleasantly surprised if we are still over .500 on January 2.
Pull up basketball reference’s all time rankings for league pace and scoring average and you’ll see that LeBron played the majority of his prime in the slowest, lowest scoring era since the 1950s.
Per NBA.com, the Knicks have a 131.3 DRTG over the last 6 games which is 6 points worse than the next team (Wizards).
– 30th in opp efg%
– 29th in opp tov%
– 25th in opp Oreb%
– 13th in opp fta rate
On the bright side, opponents probably won’t keep shooting 43.6% from 3 against us. It won’t fix our defense but it’ll help.
Mitch played the first 1.5 games of that stretch & Grimes started the first one.
“I disagreed on the Mitch issue, but I believe the position was not “We can replace Mitch with anyone and get 80% of the production at a fraction of the price,” but that they could draft someone who would get 80% of the production at inherently a fraction of the price (since it would be a rookie contract). I don’t agree with that position, but it is way different from saying that they could replace 80% of Mitch with, say, Sims.
That said, yes, Mitch is very very important to this team’s defense.”
This is pretty much my position. I agree that Mitch is very important to our team and is on a value contract. However, I think that Mitch also has glaring flaws that are a liability against teams that have excellent players at the C position, e.g. BOS, PHI, MIL, MIA.
Last night, iHart had 12 points on 5-7 shooting, 10 rebounds (6 ORebs) 2 assists and 3 blocks in 30 minutes. Is that not 80% of Mitch? iHart is making $9.2M this year. Mitch is making $15.6M. That’s about 60% of what Mitch is making. And he cost nothing to acquire.
If Mitch’s injury was season-ending and then he required another surgery that would keep him out for next year as well, and we wound up in the lottery after losing in the play-in, what are the chances there’d be a Dereck Lively-type available in the draft? Or a Walker Kessler? Or a Mark Williams ? Or a Jarrett Allen (22)? Or a Nic Claxton (31)? Or an Ivica Zunac (32)? Or a Goga Bitadze(18)?
More generally, I don’t think this team as currently constructed can Mitch its way into the NBA finals unless we acquire two massive upgrades at SG and SF. Since those types are much harder to find than a role-playing C, I’m concerned that Mitch’s positive effect is actually counterproductive in that it masks the urgency to upgrade those positions. It’s Mitch that makes our defense passable or even good despite our relatively small roster.
I’m not trying to go all Reese on this point, as I’m fine with the team as constructed right now and think that there are ways to get much better either with Mitch or without him. But I do share his concerns about the coach’s infatuation with Mitch-type C’s possibly having negative implications in the contender-building realm. It’s more of a “the way of today’s NBA” thing than a knock on Mitch. The need for elite rim protection at the cost of non-point-blank scoring ain’t what it used to be.
I also think Brunson and Randle have glaring flaws at their respective positions…all three of them are in the bottom half of the top-10 at best. However, replacing 80% their role/production on the cheap is a lot more challenging than replacing Mitch’s, either via draft, trade, or free agency, at least in my opinion.
I understand that there are counterarguments here, it’s more of subjective opinion than trying to convince anyone otherwise. Frankly, I don’t know if there’s a right answer here, as much as lots of variations of wrong answers.
Yeah, I mean we’re completely hopeless against teams that employ a stretch 5, and we have no ability to give a different look on offense either because the only kind of center Thibs will play and that Leon will acquire is a Mitch-style center.
It’d be one thing if that led to an elite defense, but generally Thibs’ Knicks teams have been middle-of-the-pack in terms of defensive rating. We use Mitch to paper over the defensive deficiencies of Brunson/RJ/Randle, then when we face a stretch big even that doesn’t work anymore.
Mitch is fine against stretch Cs. The problem is that everything else collapses defensively when Mitch isn’t at the rim.
Among Wilt’s records that will never be broken, how about the numbers he put up in 1962 in a back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back?
1/17/62: 62 and 23 (53:00)
1/18/62: 54 and 31 (48:00)
1/19/62: 53 and 21 (48:00)
1/20/62: 44 and 28 (48:00)
1/21/62: 62 ans 23 (53:00)
So in 5 days, he played 250 of a possible 250 minutes, scored 275 points and grabbed 126 rebounds.
Even though they were all home games in Philly, I believe that Wilt lived in NYC and would generally drive back and forth to home games, although maybe he stayed in Philly for this stretch, who knows?
“Mitch is fine against stretch Cs. The problem is that everything else collapses defensively when Mitch isn’t at the rim.”
The Clips are a very long, handsy team that is especially effective against an offense like ours. If it weren’t for DDV going nuclear from 3 in the first 30 minutes, this would have been a blowout much earlier than it was. I don’t think they even broke a sweat in beating us. I doubt that Mitch would have made much difference beyond making it a closer loss.
rough stretch of the season…scheduling doesn’t seem to have been too kind to us so far this season…
i imagine we’re gonna have a tough time dealing with AD and LeBron when we play the lakers…
Couldn’t watch the game, just looked at the box — RJ has a perfectly middle-of-the-road box score except he was -30, which is pretty spectacular without going 3-16 or something. Just in the game during the wrong times, or was he an actual -30?
Yeah there seems to be this idea that bc Mitch isn’t a stretch 5 himself that is what we can’t beat teams with stretch 5’s. But the issue isn’t our offense against those teams. It’s our defense. When Mitch is drawn out of the paint, Brunson, Insert SG and RJ can’t keep the guards and wings out of the paint and Randle ain’t fast enough to help. So the issues aren’t bc of Mitch. It’s because of Brunson and RJ specifically.
Brunson is the golden child for right reasons but we should all acknowledge the limits he has defensively. If we had an elite defensive SH and Wing it would be better but the point of attack is exposed when kitch is drawn out of the paint. That’s isn’t in him.
It’s not Mitch’s fault but either way we still can’t defend opponents with stretch 5’s so something has to give. It’s hard to see this team ever being a top defensive team with this core personnel.
The heavy reliance on rim-protecting bigs means we can never throw another look at a team either. Would be swell to have a stretch 5 of our own, or to run some small ball lineups at the opposition, but we just never do that because Thibs always needs that rim protecting big in there.
you cannot really replace Mitch sufficiently through the draft.. maybe the box score stuff will come but that’s really only half the story… defense is the hardest thing for a center to do.. it’s almost like playing qb in the nfl… there’s so many things to pay attention to protect the rim in the nba but more importantly how to play the pnr…
you don’t see the kind of ball action you see anywhere.. not in australia.. spain.. the gleague or college… and you certainly don’t see it at the speed at it’s done in the nba… so there’s a lot of things a big needs to get down in order to play defense at an elite level… which is what mitch is good at….
jericho sims is as generic a big man as you can get and if you look at just bpm and the box score he kind of gives you 80% of mitch… but the real story is that he actually only gives you about 25% … and our defense plummeting without him is one reason why… but that our genius coach decides that sims should be playing against other people’s starters… is probably a bigger part of it…
you need talent at the position…. and that talent needs to learn the ropes of defense at the pro level… it’s one of the hardest skills to develop in the nba….
you have limited resources in the nba… and you pick your weapons of choice to go with…. you can’t really have answers to everything everywhere unless you have players that can answer everything everywhere…. and that’s why those guys are really really hard to get…
in order to get offensive guys that can do well.. the flip side is that they don’t play defense well… then you have a big that helps cover that and that works well enough against approximately half the league depending on how well your offense guys offense.. and defensive guys defend…
you could replace mitch with whoever and wouldn’t solve our issues… we need more talent.. period… which is why investing so much into guys that don’t matter will doom you….
To me, it’s not about blame. It’s about where do we go from here?
It seems like Brunson is the face of the franchise right now. Can anyone imagine a scenario where he is traded? I can’t. He is the closest thing to an untouchable player we have right now.
Then comes Julius. Where are you going to find a replacement for his role/production at $30M AAV or less? If you aren’t tanking, you’re kind of stuck with him because any move off of him is going to create a short-term void.
So if you are stuck with those two guys, neither of whom is really a franchise-level player, then what?
Well, then comes Mitch. If he is also sort of untouchable, then the question becomes: how can you build a contender around a Brunson-Randle-Mitch core? Is it even possible?
I think it is, but you would have to restrict the pursuit to long, two-way wings who can score at all 3 levels. Like the two we played against last night.
Which means that either every other player on the roster needs to be on the trading block, or that the answer is somewhere in the draft. And even then, it’s not a guarantee that Mitch’s and Brunson’s and Randle’s combined flaws won’t create a hard ceiling.
It’s a tough needle to thread for sure. Honestly, everyone and everything should be on the table, but it’s hard to see any scenario that has Randle or Brunson going out as a realistic possibility.
Mitch is the biggest reason we beat the Cavs. We don’t win that series with 80% of him. And winning that single series, I was told, validated everything Leon has ever done and proved the haters wrong forever. Seems like that makes Mitch pretty critical.
This sounds right. IQ, Grimes, RJ, and all our available picks should be on the table for a top 10 player. Who qualifies as a target?
I dunno, by the time a draft pick matures to become top 10, Randle and maybe Brunson will be on the downside of their careers. The window is 2-3 years.
Thanks EB, that’s really interesting.
Yeah, I’m not in favor of the 80% Mitch theorem. Watching Mitch’s evolution from a three-point-blocking, foul-out pogo stick to a calm and focused defensive destroyer that cause ball handlers to reverse direction and back out in fear has been impressive and illuminating. It took Mitch years to figure it out, even with unworldly athletic abilities. And he’s still super-quick, as seen by his second jump and pass deflection rates.
So I’m with djphan on this one. You don’t find 80% of what Mitch has become easily. I like iHart and he does a number of things that Mitch can’t do, but even with that his overall impact on the game isn’t at Mitch’s level.
As for Sims, I seem to remember a pogo stick center who was always out of position just a few years ago… not to suggest he’ll be as good as Mitch in a few years, but there is that similarity and one should recognize that center is a bitch of a position to learn — even Wemby is frequently saved from real embarrassment only because he can touch Mars when he reaches up.
Chet had 9 blocks last night. That guy is really something
“I dunno, by the time a draft pick matures to become top 10, Randle and maybe Brunson will be on the downside of their careers. The window is 2-3 years.”
I agree with this point, which means that we really need to add a big wing soon to have any shot at being a serious contender. The only two names I can think of are OG and Grant. I think Grant is available and we should make a strong offer of picks, Fournier, and salary filler. If that fails, the next option is to clear cap space for a shot at OG. He is a CAA client, so we should know exactly what it will take to sign him. A sign and trade involving RJ and picks works for me also.
The two year outlook on this team is a little scary when you consider both Randle and Brunson are up for new contracts after next year. I love Jalen Brunson but his next contract will be a doozy.
It’s easy to forget, but Sims is already the same age as Mitch & Hartenstein. He also lacks the pure size of those two. So you have to wonder if he’ll ever figure it out.
Sims might be great in a pure switch scheme or with heavy trapping, but he’d still need to get to decent in drop.
Even 80% of Mitch on defense would be a catastrophe.
And for every Walker Kessler picked there’s a James Wiseman who flops. Are we really going to hinge our entire season on a guy who has played zero NBA minutes?
Money is less important than talent. We’re already over the cap and not particularly close to the 2nd apron anyway.
We don’t really need 2-way wings, we need elite defensive perimeter players, our offense is humming right now.
I’ll pitch Alex Caruso again who is likely on the block and if we want to make a run this year, we should get him. He’s old and another small guard, but he’s miles ahead of Grimes, RJ, Donte, and Hart on defense and matches up better with big wings than any of those.
Only reason not to get him, and it’s a very good one, is that Caruso is an all-in move.
It sounds like the Bulls don’t want to trade Caruso after all, which probably just means they have a high price (2 firsts).
He would help a lot, but I think we’d still need at least one forward who can defend as well, unless you think Grimes can handle the SF spot.
Maybe we can trade with the Milwaukee Bucks for Bobby Portis.
In all seriousness, not to wish ill against others, but I hope both the Atlanta Hawks and Toronto Raptors sink to the bottom of the standings.
And, they then begin to offload/unload/re-build/re-tool/whatevertheheck and we can take advantage and pick up some forwards.
Maybe the press can stop talking about Tommy Cutlets for one day
I used to hold to the notion of wanting to hang on to our own draft picks, emotionally invest in their success.
However:
– Julius
– Jalen
– Josh
– Isaiah
– Donte
are all starting to make me feel a whole lot less attached to our home grown players.
I mean it’s nice when it happens.
Try to get the best players available – sans them being a dick or social deviant.
Better yet, folks who know how to play basketball, and can get rebounds, play defense.
Fuck the draft. Shop in the late teens or early twenties.
I’m following your lead E – I’m voting for a full mercenary roster. I believe now.
What I really want is for the Brooklyn Nets to start failing, so we could have a shot at Mikal Bridges.
That’s a pipe dream there though. They have a good organization.
Starting Cs for so far non-tanking teams:
EAST
BOS: KP (Horford)
MIL: Lopez (Giannis, Portis)
PHI: Embiid
CLE: Allen (Mobley)
IND: Myles
ATL: Capela
ORL: Bitadze (Carter)
BKN: Claxton
TOR: Poeltl
WEST
MIN: Gobert (KAT, Naz)
OKC: Chet
DEN: Jokic
LAC: Zubac
GSW: Looney
DAL: Lively
LAL: AD
SAC: Sabonis
NOP: Jonas
HOU: Sengun
PHX: Nurkic
Notables on tanking teams: Wemby, Duren, Kessler, Williams, Ayton, Vuc
Injured: RWIII, Adams
In my opinion, of these 33 players, there are less than ten that would significantly hurt our team if they played Mitch’s minutes. There are more than ten that would significantly help.
I think it’s fair to say that most of the guys who would significantly help are either max(e.g. Jokic, Embiid) or very well paid (e.g. Sabonis, KP) players. The problem is, when we play those guys who outplay or at least neutralize Mitch, the flaws of our other players are exposed, especially those of Randle, Brunson and RJ, but to a lesser degree, Hart, IQ, DDV and Grimes. And that’s a lot of teams…including most playoff-level teams and all of the ones who get to the conference finals.
Championship Mitch needs to be paired with offensive savants like Doncic or Curry or Harden, or on a team with some “guys” like LAC, PHX, or BOS. That’s true for any elite low-usage role player at any position. What I’m saying is that you don’t build around a guy like Mitch. You build a team around stars and then find the best role players you can afterwards.
The only players we have right now that even resemble stars are Brunson and Randle. If Mitch is as great as some of you think he is, then maybe some team would give up a strong return for him….say, a Dejounte Murray-type return. If you can’t find a taker at that price, given that Mitch is locked up for two more years on a dirt-cheap contract, then what does that say about his value around the league?
To me, it would say that other teams feel that he’d be nice to have, but that they’re just fine with what they have because he wouldn’t make enough of a difference to pay a premium for, if it would make any difference at all.
He’s sort of like Randle in that way…on his current deal, he’s worth more to us than he would be to other teams, so it’s kind of not worth trading him. But keeping him kind of limits you in other ways.
Taking in to account both ends of the court – I wonder if cam and mikal are a better duo than jalen and julius?
I’m just thinking of the recent “all-ins” by the Nets, the failures, and then they keep landing on their feet…really well…
Yesterday during the day there wasn’t a peep on this site after Brunson’s masterpiece…
‘And for every Walker Kessler picked there’s a James Wiseman who flops. Are we really going to hinge our entire season on a guy who has played zero NBA minutes?”
I think this is a better case against picking a raw C that high in the draft than it is against picking a more reliable player later on…but sure, it isn’t an ideal way to go. Just a feasible one if you want to do something inherently risky, where your backup plan would be someone like iHart.
What I was going to say yesterday after Brunson’s masterpiece and the nice road win by the Knicks was that in addition to it being a nice win by the Knicks, we would also be liberated from another tedious day of RJ trutherism.
Mitch is a niche-type player, much like Randle. A decent team can deploy him smartly, get decent numbers out of him, and even win some games. But his limitations and niche-ness make it extremely tough to truly contend with him.
The better course is to not stick with niche, but instead convert to normal.
Last year Mitch was 7th in defensive EPM among centers who played 15+ MPG. This year he’s 8th.
80/20 theory is finito. Our defense crumbles without the guy and our offense is heavily reliant on his offensive rebounding.
There’s not much to say about his offensive limitations other than they are obviously not ideal, but plenty of recent finals teams, even champions, have employed very low usage centers. You make up for it by employing high-usage, high-efficiency players at the other positions.
I suppose you could frame that as some kind of concession to Mitch that he’s not worth…but you tend to need those players anyway, Mitch or no Mitch. It’s not like our need for high-usage, high-efficiency players would be obviated if we had a center who was more versatile than Mitch, but our defense would almost certainly be worse and unless the theoretical replacement was a real offensive maestro our offense may well be too.
It’s not just the usage. He gets in the way, and draws defenders who also get in the way.
You can’t win this way. Which is why no team that wins does it this way.
Modernize and normalize.
I would say pretty confidently that the people who try to claim RJ doesn’t stink are the real “RJ Truthers.”
Year five in the league, 90 eFG+ and 95 TS+ with his usual Allan Houston-level secondary stats, yet you’re supposed to squint at all of this and see “improved defense” or something, or else you’re an RJ Truther.
Mmm hmm. Yep, sure. This is like trying to “prove” the earth is round to a flat earther.
Yeah, our lack of offense is killing us right now.
You just can’t win in the NBA unless you beat the NBA Ortg record by more than 10pts, which is what we’d have needed to do for a positive net Rtg over the last 6 games.
Our 4th ranked offense over that time span just isn’t cutting it.
Everything that is being said here today is just another way of saying “we don’t have a superstar or better yet two.”
This isn’t a bad team but there are only so many ways you can rearrange these particular deck chairs. We are not going to get much better than we are without a superstar. You can improve around the margins but we still need that chrome and leather.
if OG Anunoby is not available, another option could be Brandon Ingram. He already said he’s not going to sign an extension. If he’s not committed to New Orleans, then the Knicks look at him also. A package centered around RJ (which would reunite RJ and Zion) and one of our surplus SGs plus draft asset (s) could get the job done. That upgrades SF, solves the wing length issue and also adds another serious scorer.
“Last year Mitch was 7th in defensive EPM among centers who played 15+ MPG. This year he’s 8th.”
According to dunksandthrees.com, Mitch has a Defensive EPM of 2.2. Isaiah Hartenstein is at 2.4. Mitch was the 20th player listed as a C in total EPM at +1.2…iHart was 21st at +1.1.
So if EPM is to be our trusted stat du jour, it confirms that we have a player on the roster that is 92% of Mitch at 60% of his salary.
No one is disputing that Mitch is a top-10 defensive C. The problem is that he is ranked #42 in Offensive EPM among players listed as C’s. He is an objectively terrible offensive player. He can’t dribble, pass, or score more than 3 feet from the basket, including from 15 feet away on the FT stripe. No amount of offensive rebounding makes up for that. Every advanced metric confirms that he has been a detrimental offensive player this year.
“…but plenty of recent finals teams, even champions, have employed very low usage centers. You make up for it by employing high-usage, high-efficiency players at the other positions.”
First, this is an overstatement. The two C’s in last year’s finals were Bam and Jokic. The year before it was Draymond (Looney played 20mpg) and Horford. The year before that it was Lopez and Ayton. The year before that it was Bam and AD. And every year the league is moving away from that being a thing. As the league stands right now, unless your low-usage big is literally a Rudy Gobert clone, you ain’t getting to the finals. If you want to fantasize that Mitch is anywhere near Gobert as a defensive (let alon offensive) player, go right ahead. And even Gobert wouldn’t help much if it weren’t for KAT and Ant-Man plus a bunch of long wings…see: Utah Jazz 2016-2022.
Second, if your argument is that you can get to the finals with Mitch as your 30-ish mpg C, so long as you have an all-time great player like Steph or LeBron or Durant plus another top-75 of all time player on your team, sure. I said as much earlier today. But unless and until you get those players, your focus should be on either getting them, or building a balanced roster with secondary stars at multiple positions, a strong bench, and that can adapt to multiple playing styles…big, small, fast, slow, paint, perimeter. Given where we are right now, the second route seems more feasible, and in my opinion, is not one that Mitch is best suited for.
As usual, this level of vagueness contributes nothing. We take the 5th most corner 3s in the league–the quintessential “modern” shot. Mitch is not preventing us from “modernizing” anything.
If this is just a convoluted way of saying we should get a stretch 5, I am once again asking you to actually identify said stretch 5 and explain how Mitch prevents us from acquiring said stretch 5.
Here is the list of centers who have taken even 20 threes this year. Which one of these guys am I to believe we could’ve and should’ve gotten, but for the presence of Mitchell Robinson?
Why don’t we get a C who defends like Mitch but also passes and shoots 3s? Basketball team construction is super easy guys!!!
You need either excellent perimeter defense or excellent interior defense (of course it’s always nice to have a bit of both)
If you have players like Brunson, Randle, RJ and DDV on the perimeter, you need a guy like Mitch to clean up the mess. We don’t have Mitch there right now, so we are getting our asses kicked.
However, if you substitute OG for RJ, Grimes for DDV, Mitch is not as critical. If you also add a defensive minded PF for Randle, a C like Mitch is less essential.
We know we need an upgrade at wing (preferably with length). That’s at least one opportunity to upgrade the perimeter defense from RJ.
Grimes is still here.
I’m not sure who we could substitute for Randle, but if you put a more 3&D type PF there, then you also have to upgrade the other wing with a high level scorer that can defend.
The point is Mitch is critical on this team because of who we have on the perimeter. That does not mean we can’t improve the perimeter defense with a few moves and make a player like Mitch less essential. I think Thibs would be fine with that, but you need a much better perimeter defense first.
Finding good players is the most important thing, but putting the right pieces together is also critical.
Good offensive player and Stretch 5 are not synonymous. How about “can hit an open 10-15 footer?” Or can score in the post? Or can dribble and pass?
Myles Turner was the player that would have opened up space for RJ, Randle and Brunson and also defended the paint. That’s why I was constantly talking about him when the spacing issues were even worse prior to Brunson. That’s also why his name also came up in the press about NY being interested. That ship sailed when Indiana broke up the awkward Turner and Sabonis combo.
We can keep hoping Embiid wants out, but I don’t see it. I said from about game 2-3 that Maxey is a solid second option for him and the 76ers were still tough and I was right. Is have the 76ers at a big price to win it all as one of my bets. I can’t see Embiid being anxious to leave.
The Knicks offense is 9th in FT rate, 13th in 3pt rate, 6th in turnover rate and 1st in offensive reb rate. They actually have a pretty modern, efficient offense that after the early season struggles is up to 8th in offensive efficiency after finishing 3rd last season
I hate watching them play horrific defense but I’ve come to accept that the Knicks despite the conventional widsom of having Thibs as their coach are a team that wins because they have a very good offense who can play good defense at times.
Once again, Mitch’s injury is not the problem. He is not a messiah. With him healthy and playing well, some of the mess might have been cleaned but far not all of it. Several times we played poor defense but still won and nobody raised the issue. During the last 15 games (not the last three that Mitch has been out), Knicks are still ranked 25th in defensive efficiency. During the last 10 games, we ranked 29th, and during the last 5 we ranked dead last.
There was a period last year where Mitch was out and the defense suffered. This should be no shock.
But keep in mind, the team improved last year when we put Grimes on the court. That helped the perimeter D over Fournier. Grimes has been struggling on offense this year because the trifecta of ball dribblers (RJ, Brunson, and Randle) keep taking turns going ISO. That can theoretically be tweaked so Grimes can be back with the starters. IMO we were looking for more punch in the starting lineup with DDV over Grimes, but with Mitch out we may have to go back to Grimes or maybe try Hart. IMO, right now have to solidify the perimeter defense more than we have to worry about being Grimes or Hart being low usage.
It’s tough to have a really good perimeter defense when you have Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson as the 1-2 components on your team.
All the low-usage basket hanging guys they’ve put around them are there to be necessary Band-Aids.
So they’re not really the top-level superstars you need and they aren’t very good defensively, to put it charitably. Doesn’t mean they aren’t good players, even all-stars, and/or likeable players for those whose tastes run their direction.
To be fair a big part of the Knicks defensive issues recently is 4 of the past 6 games were at Milwaukee, Boston, Phoenix and the Clippers. Utah is also not exactly an easy place to play altitude wise so this recent stretch has been pretty brutal schedule wise and obviously not having Mitch these past 4 games hasn’t helped either.
But still they’re not going to continue to be the worst defense in the NBA without Mitch and I would assume over the next month we’ll start seeing some better performances on defense for the simple fact they’ll be home alot more while facing much easier opponents.
None of this is wrong but this is what I’m talking about when I’m saying there’s only so much you can rearrange the deck chairs. If we had these same flaws but also had like Luka Doncic instead of RJ Barrett we wouldn’t really be sweating the flaws all that much.
But the past 15 games & past 10 include the last 6.
We had the 9th best defense in the 10 games before Milwaukee, so it wasn’t really a problem till now.
Randle doing his isos and forays on a team with Luka would be …. interesting.
Why don’t we just get a bunch of top-10 players in the league? Man, E is on a roll with his team building insights.
This correct though it does not take away the argument that it’s not all about Mitch. Point of attack, communication, multiple efforts, Randle falling asleep every other possession, people often blowing by our perimeter guys as if the are not there, and so on. Don’t even get me started about PnR defense.
Exactly.
Imo Brunson is pretty close to a 1a on offense and is definitely a #2 player on a championship team. He’s also playing PG. He’s not going anywhere.
That’s one reason I keep talking about moving Randle.
We have spacing issues on offense because of the Randle/RJ/Mitch combo and defensive issues related to consistent effort and perimeter defense because of the Brunson/RJ/Randle combo.
The common names are RJ and Randle.
IMO, one has to be replaced.
My preference is Randle because he’s older, more volatile emotionally, less proven in the playoffs, and imo less impactful than his points, rebounds and assists imply.
Somehow these obvious basketball issues translate into irrational Randle hate when the issue is hit FIT. We have some good players that don’t fit and weaknesses that have to get plugged.
I would either go back to Grimes again or try Hart and give a good talking to Brunson, Randle, and RJ about ball movement and trying to get those guys involved. That’s all short term stuff trying to mitigate the damage while the schedule is tough and Mitch is out.
Longer terms we are still talking about upgrading a wing position with OG Anunoby, Brandon Ingram or someone else that comes up at another position. We have to be patient there.
(Of course my first choice would be putting Quickley in the starting lineup for now, but I’ve given up on Thibs when it comes to Quickley. I think he has impact on both sides and Thibs is thinking something else.)
Only on this website would people say Julius Randle represents “empty calories” and RJ Barrett, who can’t throw the ball into the basket and also has Allan Houston’s secondary stats, is not in fact the “empty calories” player.
If Randle is empty calories, RJ is a rice cake.
RJ’s the third option after two iso-happy players and has to deal with a chronically mosh pit lane. Plus he doesn’t crumble in the playoffs.
What’s worse is that Quick is averaging only 21mpg in the last 6. He’s trending the wrong way!!
RJ doesn’t crumble in the playoffs. Unfortunately he plays as shitty in the playoffs as he does in the regular season. Which is, to say, shitty.
Probably somebody else’s fault though.
this is all just talking about arbitrary endpoints… the defense was going to regress before then… and has in the exact way the numbers were showing… we are not causing nearly as many turnovers as we are.. it just so happened to coincide with defensive rebounding issues and issues protecting the rim with mitch out…
along with some hot shooting and bad matchups it’s a confluence of events both unlucky and our own deficiencies that were masked early on… the same will occur for our offense likely just as soon as our defense gets on the other side of the luck curve…. we are not a top 10 offense much like how we were never a top 5 defense…
Championship Mitch is D’Andre Jordan alongside Chris Paul, that makes sense. But since the Knicks don’t have a savant, championship Mitch is just Mitch.
If you take current Mitch and put him on Golden State Warriors from 2015-2123, I believe that he would have 4 rings. They employed 4 savants. But, not for nothing, Kevin Looney has averaged $3.5 million a year during that span, which, if my math is correct, is 20% of what current Mitch makes. I’m not going to do a deep dive into what percentage of current Mitch’s production Looney manages. But the fact is, Looney doing the Mitch stuff for cheap is what allowed him to play with the savants in the first place.
FGA/36:
Brunson: 19.1
Barrett: 18.7
Randle: 18.1
E, if you have access to this website you necessarily also have access to google.
Forget getting others involved I say Brunson should shoot more!
looney hasn’t avg’ed more than 25mpg in his entire career… he’s more comparable to ihart both in role and production….
the warriors center was.. aside from the tail end of bogut’s career… always draymond green… and who also happened to be their primary distributor setting up all their shooters along with fantastic defense… his role and signficance and scarcity is probably almost twice as valuable as whatever mitch provides…
I have a question for you stat guys. Where do you go to get your matchup information on individual players and stats on how they perform in back to backs, etc….?
I’m using the endpoints established by the previous post, they were absolutely necessary.
So it regressed the way we thought, but also a bunch of other ways. That’s actually pretty different than your claim the defense would only regress a bit.
NBA.com has a lot of this info it’s just a terrible website to navigate.
But that’s probably the role of “Championship Mitch”, which is who we were talking about.
I admit I haven’t watched a whole lot of Robinson. I don’t understand why he doesn’t get 5 or 6 lobs a game like Chandler and D’Andre and Jarret Allen and a whole bunch of other tall but otherwise offensively limited players. Not sure if it’s a Mitch thing or a coaching/PG thing, and maybe it’s more of a blessing than a curse. Cause if he scored 8-10 more easy points a game, he’d get paid like Jordan and Chandler, who both commanded 20%-25% of the cap. And then suddenly 80/20 would mean a whole different thing.
Our best way to move forward is maximizing Brunson, who, offensively, is the closest thing we have to a top-10 player. And he’s pretty close! Some might say a top-20 player, and, IMO, he has room to improve his game.
Like BBA says, he should be taking even more shots, and we should build a lineup that suits him.
Quick makes sense as his 2-guard because 1. He can shoot 2. He can take over a lot of the distributing and 3. He plays great defense. Only problem is he’s too short.
Grimes maybe makes more sense because he should have more distributing potential but is bigger and a better POA defender.
But the main problem is RJ, who is duplicative of Randle in many ways except Randle is just a better all around scorer. So instead of RJ, we really need a big, lockdown 3&D wing, which is why people have been clamoring for OG.
And sadly, there just isn’t another available guy that fits that description. Maybe Thybulle? But then you might as well just start Grimes at SF.
Oh I know! Maybe Cam Red—oops nevermind.