Categories
Game Thread

2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Bucks (Weird Back-to-Back Opener, which is not a thing)

The Knicks host the Milwaukee Bucks for the first of two straight day games against the Bucks at Madison Square Garden.

It is utterly bizarre scheduling.

But hey, you gotta figure they’ll win at least one of the two games this way, as, come on, they can’t lose every game they play against the Bucks! The odds are in their favor, and the Bucks, unlike the Knicks, aren’t as committed to winning every game, so I think they win at least one of these two games, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the Knicks somehow pull them both off!

Wouldn’t that be awesome? Really mess with the heads of the NBA mainstream media.

Let’s go, Knicks!

105 replies on “2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Bucks (Weird Back-to-Back Opener, which is not a thing)”

I have a good feeling about this game….I expect some pent-up frusrtation to be taken out on the Bucks and for them to hit less than 100% of their threes this time.

Damn, forgot it was a matinee. Didn’t get my Bucks shoot over 70% from 3 bet in

Watching on a delay, amused to hear Dennis Scott in the pregame referring to iHart as “Harkenstein.” Truly, a Markuh10 kind of pronunciation.

See, that long brick from 2 by RJ four seconds into the shot clock just can’t happen. I don’t mean to pick on him, but it kills momentum and gives the Bucks a better shot at the other end.

RJ fighting his teammate for a defensive rebound. I guess he wants to pad those rebounds since they’re down a bit this year. smh

We’ve had like 5 shots rim out, including two by Brunson. Meanwhile they are hitting heavily contested 3’s.

Not a good sign when you’re getting destroyed by Beasley and Portis. Dame and Giannis have barely broken a sweat.

We’re too small.

A team’s flaws don’t get exposed every night. They get exposed against the teams that can take advantage of them. The problem is when you get to the playoffs, there are more teams with the personnel needed to take advantage of you.

You have to build a team that’s not only good, but that won’t get exposed so easily by obvious weaknesses. We may be 16-11, but we need more length at wing/better perimeter D, a real backup PF in case Randle is hurt, and we have to address the C position if Mitch can’t come back. And we have to do all those things while getting better overall and not opening new weaknesses.

We’ve already discussed some of the names that can address some of these issues.

It would be nice if RJ’s shot had even a prayer of going in on a lucky bounce….he’s putting up cinderblock-sized bricks…

I love that RJ has enough moxie to keep shooting while being 1/7…the best time to get him off the team would have been yesterday.

I love that RJ has enough moxie to keep shooting while being 1/7…the best time to get him off the team would have been yesterday.

Look on the bright side. When he’s going badly he usually gets even more aggressive.

Well put Stat. My complaint is they should have addressed these issues in the offseason. Instead, we added another shooting guard, when we already had at least three good ones on the roster already.

Well put Stat. My complaint is they should have addressed these issues in the offseason.

I agree. I’ve also been complaining about a couple of those since the season started.

there is no weirder challenge user in the nba than thibs

What is Mike Budenholzer doing these days?

We can probably keep this within 10–15 points but there are no signs we can stop Milwaukee from scoring except to hope they miss open shots.

I can feel it happening already… when we finally get rid of RJ he’ll land on a contender, play passable for a year and we’ll have to be just as annoyed as Wolves fans were when everyone decided Wiggins was suddenly great.

RJ’s best hope is getting traded to the Miami Heat and seeing if Riley and Spoelstra can get through to him.

Whew…didn’t know this was an early start…just saw the score…glad I was unaware….

Oh…rj sucks…

The box score in no way reflects how horrifically RJ shot. i don’t think any of his misses were ever inside the cylinder.

I’m not sure how much of it has been random and how much has been our defense on 3s, but when a team hits 16 of 32 threes (vs 9 for 29 for us) and also gets the best of you on the boards you aren’t going to win.

Can’t believe I missed another horrible RJ game. I feel bereft.

Then again, I just have to wait two days and I’ll get me a late Xmas present…

I see Skap got his one minute of junk ball. Any first impressions?

If I counted correctly RJ took 5 of the Knicks’ last 6 shots.

moxie manifests itself in many ways..

I’m not sure how much of it has been random and how much has been our defense on 3s, but when a team hits 16 of 32 threes (vs 9 for 29 for us) and also gets the best of you on the boards you aren’t going to win.

Exactly! As bad as RJ played, and as poor as our offensive possessions were at times, we still scored enough points. Our problem was once again on the defensive end. Yes, it is tough to stop the Bucks multi-dimensional offense, but this is exactly what a good defense is called upon to do. If the Knicks want to be so called, they have to solve this issue! It is impossible to beat a team when you allow them to shoot 53% from the floor and 50% on 3s, many of which were wide open like in pregame practice, and also allow them to grab 13 more rebounds.

Horrible looking game, glad I didn’t watch, but even going even against the bucks on this home series would be a win. Let’s hope the Knicks give us a present for Christmas and that RJ gets a migraine unlike the trade deadline.

Exactly! As bad as RJ played, and as poor as our offensive possessions were at times, we still scored enough points.

We had a 107.8 ORtg, which is awful. RJ wasn’t the only problem, but he was a big one. The entire bench were duds, we got killed on the glass, and from 3.

But RJ going 1-10 before the 4Q is difficult to overlook and really it looked even worse than that. Garbage time really saved his stat line, which still ended up pretty garbage.

RJ and Randle both got a coupe of garbage time baskets when the Bucks had basically stopped defending.

We know what we need to close the gap.

We have the assets to do it.

It’s on Leon to get it done, if not now, then in the off season. But since I believe we need more than just one player to really get where we want, it would be nice to get one now and then finish it off in the off season. Otherwise, it’s going to feel like a throwaway season where we didn’t take a step forward.

We had a 107.8 ORtg, which is awful. RJ wasn’t the only problem, but he was a big one. The entire bench were duds, we got killed on the glass, and from 3.

But RJ going 1-10 before the 4Q is difficult to overlook and really it looked even worse than that. Garbage time really saved his stat line, which still ended up pretty garbage.

Offense comes and goes. Defense can be constant but ours is not. This is our problem. One might counter that we should just try to outscore the opponent. Alas, we are not this type of a team. We should just be content that we can score enough. We do that almost every night.

I agree about RJ. The only improvement our Sloth has shown in five years is his FT%. Last season, he had also started well, then got injured in Dallas, and was horrible the rest of the way. It’s the same this season. I don’t believe he can become a better player. He is who he is. The Knicks know it and are very willing to include him in any trade package. I’d trade him for a bag of chips. I’ve been saying this since last season.

oh yeah, managed to stay busy the whole morning, early afternoon…

getting ready now to sit down and grab a bite to eat…had the game on one of the tv’s. but didn’t get a chance to watch anything…

life is good…

i hope everyone else is having a good day and staying well…

as an aside, a few years back i noticed that in almost all my correspondence i would start off by either hoping or wishing folks were well…

i do the same thing in my speech…after a while i realized how few others engage in this type of behavior, which made me wonder why i felt so compelled to include it in my interactions…

i guess i just see being well as not such a sure thing…

“The musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted.”

-Review of Intravenous de Milo by Spinal Tap

That’s RJ.

Jalen Brunson kept leaving Beasley to help in the paint, sometimes it wasn’t clear who he was helping. He’s too slow and short to recover out to him. You can’t leave a shooter like Beasley alone in the corner like that. Not sure how much is Brunson vs scheme, but that needs to be fixed.

Middleton cooked RJ, but I don’t think RJ was terrible. He was fine, Middleton just had his step back falling all night.

Randle’s man defense against Giannis also looked okay, but that’s never really been Randle’s problem. The and-1 he caused on the open cut was pretty bad though. There was another play he failed to recognize what rotation to make and left someone open in the corner.

Dame is just really good regardless of who guards him. He did have a couple blowbys on Hart and RJ. But a lot of his game is just hitting ridiculous pull-up shots.

Donte & iHart had a couple miscommunications on defense letting Dame get wide open after a PnR and an off-ball screen. He only made 1 of them, but you can’t give him extra open looks.

I think our big problems are (1) Brunson is a terrible defender; (2) the defensive rebounding has gone to shit; and (3) playing OK defense against Giannis, Lillard, and Middleton is never going to cut it.

I tried to do RJ, and the top 2 comps were Kuminga and Simons… and a combo of those two does sound very RJ.

in what can only be consider a severe blow to both the algorithm and my very soul, i was (1) kyle lowry and, i swear to you, (2) frank ntilikina

All in saying is if every time Randle or Brunson drove into the basket and drew a double and then kicked it out to someone like OG, the game would be a lot closer.

So tired of watching RJ put up brick after brick after brick. Why the fuck do we give this dude a huge contract. He sucks. I’m so over waiting for him to arrive.

Doesn’t even need to be some elite defender. Just give me a three who can hit an open three pointer at a respectable clip.

Brunson and Randle may not be top ten dudes but I honestly believe against most teams those two are better than the best two players in the other team and against the elite duos they can at least hold their own. The rest of rotation is full of guys who will be good some nights and bad other nights but that’s most role players. The weakest link BY FAR is fucking RJ Barrett.

I got Tim Frazier, who, from what I can tell, played basketball for the Maine Red Claws. (I tried to answer the questions honestly, with 100 being LeBron and 0 being RJ. Guess I was never really NBA material, I can accept that. Promitheas Patras, here I come!)

The thing is offense and defense are related especially with three pointers. If RJ clanks open three after open three they lead to long rebounds which let the other team get easier points. Maybe not full on transition points but they can get buckets and threes when our defense isn’t set bc we’re running back. He hits more of his open threes it doesn’t just give us more points. It also forces them to inbound the ball and that gives us a few seconds to run back and get the defense set. This is why poor shooting (plus being out rebounded) turnovers are so deadly. It fucks up our defense too.

Here come the RJ truthers again, trying to convince everyone that it’s good to make shots. When will they learn?

Couldn’t watch the game but yeah its getting harder and harder to continue having patience with RJ.

Of course he’ll probably now go out on Christmas and score 25 on efficient shooting and sucker us into believing a hot streak is on the way…

Bacon played for Charlotte a few years ago. He’s not who you want to be compared to.

I’m Paul Millsap. Sounds about right.

That was really funny and not just because it’s true JK.

Missed it again. Seems godawful.

The bottom line is that the Bucks have an answer for everything we do, and we don’t have answers for their high-end stuff.

But hey, we knew that going into the season, didn’t we? The Bucks are a bad-ass team who might just win a chip. Same with Boston.

Meanwhile, the uppity Pacers are in a tailspin and are back to .500. The Hawks lost again, and the Raptors are a complete mess. I’m okay with losing all of our games to the Celts and Bucks for now…it’s everyone else I’m worried about.

This guy Ja Morant might be pretty good at basketball.

They dug themselves a much deeper hole than I expected due to injuries, but if they get Smart and Kennard back and get on a bit of roll, then get Clarke back and get into the play in, they are not going to be an easy out.

I’m okay with losing all of our games to the Celts and Bucks for now…

Same here. I’m OK with being one injury and/or one Jimmy Butler phenomenon from going to EC finals. We finish 4-5 and show we have staying power. This puts us in a position to get lucky next summer.

Brooklyn going into the lottery without having their draft pick is Knicksy thing to do. Think the key to getting Mikal and sending Brooklyn to rebuild is getting them their own picks back that Houston owns.
I think Ime Udoka would love IQ for Brooklyn’s 2024 unprotected 1st + 2nd RPs? Send Fournier, Brooklyn’s own two picks + 2024 Dallas, Knicks, Detroit and Washington protected picks to Brooklyn for Mikal Bridges.
Brooklyn gets to tank, their own picks back +two other 2024 FRPs and two other picks that sound great on an ESPN soundbite. Houston basically get to draft IQ.Leon delivers Mikal Bridges and sends Brooklyn into irrelevancy.

Merry Xmas.

my point g-man and donnie is that i don’t think everyone here is being entirely honest whilst filling out milo’s little character sorter thing…

shit, hold on, i just re-did the thing – says i’m steph curry now…

yeah, that sounds about right…

having a good parenting moment donnie 😊

letting the youngest play my fortnite account while i subject him to my music (just finished kool & the gang’s summer madness)…life is good…

on to jane says from the guitar center sessions recordings…I’m going away to Spain / When I get my money saved / I’m gonna start tomorrow / I’m gonna kick tomorrow / I’m gonna kick tomorrow

Sure you are Jane.

my point g-man and donnie is that i don’t think everyone here is being entirely honest whilst filling out milo’s little character sorter thing…

Hey, I’m proud to be Tim Frazier. I’ve always wanted to tour Europe.

I’m proud to be multiple all-star Paul Millsap despite being 5’10.

Comments are closed.