Categories
Game Thread

2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks @ Wizards (OG’s Road B2B Opener, which is not a thing)

The Knicks head to Washington to kick the Wizards’ ass!

Let’s go, Knicks!

183 replies on “2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks @ Wizards (OG’s Road B2B Opener, which is not a thing)”

Cronin will take full responsibility if we lose this one…

I will take full responsibility for their beatdown of the Wizards!

So what do you do if you’re the Wiz GM? Not a lot of great options, I guess your most valuable asset is Kuzma and he kinda sucks.

They may be in the worst situation of any team in the NBA.

I must admit that I underestimated the immediate impact of the trade. I think I had evaluated OG fairly as he is exactly what I expected.

However, despite shitting on RJ consistently for a long time I don’t think I fully grasped the enormity of his negative impact. RJ’s absence seems to have unlocked a ton of benefits for other players including iHart, DDV, and Grimes. If Deuce has actually leveled up enough to blunt the impact of losing Quickley, this is maybe the rare trade that helps both teams to a similar extent.

As I’ve said before, it’s not just the results but the way we’ve come by them. Our defense has looked legitimately formidable and last night was not just the best win of the season, but the most convincing — we didn’t need outlier shooting to blow them out and both their best players got theirs — we just looked like the better team.

That said, this is the trappiest trap game that ever trap gamed, and the Knicksiest thing we could do is follow up the best win of the season with the worst loss. Here’s hoping that this is for real and we put together a nice strong run that has me eating crow for the rest of the year!

Respect for facing the music Pags, not everyone does. You’re not the only one to have maybe underestimated the addition by subtraction re: RJ. I think I did too.

In retrospect, it seems obvious that a guy who takes a lot of shots at well-below average efficiency and doesn’t do much else is an active detriment. Non-shot creators can still replicate or best the efficiency of a missing shot creator if that efficiency sucks.

I guess even a major skeptic like myself still had a nagging assumption there had to be something more to the RJ experience, but it’s looking like the numbers did in fact tell the full story.

McBride two great challenges at the rim, and some good scuttling downcourt for the Randle drop-off.

Holy shit McBride. We’ve focused so much on things IQ can do that he can’t but that tip jam was definitely not in IQ’s bag.

Too many guys on the team with braids and headbands now, we might need to make another move

The Nate vs. Deuce comparison is valid, they both were excellent football players…

Knicks can’t survive two minutes without Deuce. Need to find a better back up for him.

Deuce looking more and more confident and Grimes showing a quick trigger*, nice…

* but lazy passes…

This is confusing, pagliacci might have to change his handle to figaro or something…

They really should try to get OG some shots on offense.

And he gotta shoot it. He was open at the FT line and he didn’t took it.

This is a good game to get Randle’s confidence back, the Wizards don’t seem to have anyone who’s remotely interested in playing defense.

And he gotta shoot it. He was open at the FT line and he didn’t took it.

He’s been a little timid, sure, but he averaged like 6 or 7 3PAs with the Raptors and he hasn’t been getting them so far.

I don’t want to jinx this, but so far we just look like a different level of team compared to the Wizards.

How is that not a goaltend from iHart !?

It was supposed to be an alley-oop… But may have been a shot…

I don’t want to jinx this, but so far we just look like a different level of team compared to the Wizards.

The Wizards are so bad though. The Knicks aren’t even playing particularly well and they are up 20 halfway in the 2nd quarter.

I’m sure I’m the only one, but I’m getting a little annoyed with the way Randle and Brunson are playing in the half court. They are always looking for their own shot or just each other instead of moving the ball. We know they can go for 30 each, but that should not be the goal.

Man the Wiz are terrible – it’s like they were just thrown together and don’t know each other yet

This is insane how good the Knicks are looking right now. They’ll have their offensive droughts but the defense now looks like will be able to cover for those bad offensive stretches.

I’m really curious about the JB-Grimes-Hart-OG-Hartenstein lineup. Thibs won’t keep Randle in the bench for too long, but this lineup is such a defensive force.

Strat: “They are always looking for their own shot or just each other instead of moving the ball.”
Clyde’s Suit: “The pace and passing is just contagious!”

KB at its best! 😀

I’m sure I’m the only one, but I’m getting a little annoyed with the way Randle and Brunson are playing in the half court. They are always looking for their own shot or just each other instead of moving the ball. We know they can go for 30 each, but that should not be the goal.

Knicks have been getting scoring in recent games from lots of places, tho.
You need your best to be best…Randle has disappeared from time to time.
Dante, Hart, Hartenstein, McBride, OG, Grimes. Getting contribs all over.
I like the flow

That graphic beat me to it – one of the reasons all the recent negativity was so laughable is our schedule. Lots of back-to-backs, away games, games vs good teams like Boston, Milwaukee. We’ve barely played the dregs – Wizards, Hornets, Pistons, Blazers, Spurs.

The thing is it’s obvious to see that the other guys on the court want Randle and Brunson to dominate the offense and they look to play off of them.

Washington is bad but we’re making them look like a high school team.

Count me onboard the iHart > Mitch train. He seems to give us 90% of Mitch’s strengths without the severe offensive weaknesses. Per36:

10 pts
11 rebs
2.7 ast
3.3 stocks

On .638 TS%. Oh, and 1st in defensive EPM by a fair distance.

Looks like Thibs is starting to buy into him as a passer as well, so he might even be trending up into some sort of homeless man’s Jokic…

That graphic beat me to it – one of the reasons all the recent negativity was so laughable is our schedule. Lots of back-to-backs, away games, games vs good teams like Boston, Milwaukee.

Respectfully, there was legitimate reason for concern in our record vs. the better teams and the way we lost to them, often without competing and with no ability to hamper their offenses. Over the last 4 games we look radically different and our defense is just night and day.

I’ll wait to see Mitch playing with an all-defense guy (OG) to give my take on iHart vs Mitch.

I’m in Wizards hell. Living in DC area means I can’t watch msg.
The local announcers are just fluffing the Wizards, talking a little trash on fouls and overstating plays as their team is getting crushed.
Just a bad, bad team.

I’m not ready to pass judgment.
Mitch was having an historic season.
Knicks were winning games merely because of second and third chances.
There is more balance now, but that is more about OG and subtracting RJ.
Mitch still is a shooting liability.
Hartenstein is playing great. No doubt.

Apparently, Kuzma has been “magnificent…” according to the local announcers….

The clear obvious difference with Mitch and iHart is on the offensive end, there’s no really disputing that. However as good as iHart has played defensively he’s still nowhere near Mitch’s level on that end.

They’re different players who complement the rest of the team perfectly.

I’ll wait to see Mitch playing with an all-defense guy (OG) to give my take on iHart vs Mitch.

Def this, but we may end up really liking the passing iHart with the iso starters and the dunking Mitch with the passing bench players.

Clyde’s Suit: “The pace and passing is just contagious!”

The others are passing well and getting opportunities in transition, but once it settles into half court it’s too much Randle/Brunson dribble dribble dribble create a shot and shoot or pass it to the other to do the same. We need more ball and player movement etc… it doesn’t matter against scrubs like this, but we are not playing optimal offense with 3 guys standing around so much hoping for a kick out.

Yeah Frank O., I’m stuck with the Generals’ announcers and they’re like their team: terrible.

I like that every team that plays the Knicks says they need to find a way to match their physicality.

Pretty pathetic start to the 2nd half, hopefully they wake up quickly before this becomes an actual competitive game.

Anunoby looks a little lazy tonight on defense tonight and I suspect I know why.

The Knicks are really missing Mitch’s offensive rebounding. They need to trade for another big man.

How is it that after every miss the Wizards are getting 3 on 1’s fastbreaks??

How’d the wiz get back in it? We were kicking their asses so badly I switched to football

Dred they hit a bunch of fast break 3s to get back in it but once those attempts dried up it was back to normal.

Thoughts on the Bill Pidto / Clyde broadcast matchup? Seems not as much “play-by-play” and more like 2 color commentary guys. Still rather have Breen, but it’s better than Wally.

Pidto is pretty good, we’ve just been spoiled with Breen for so long and Kenny who’s great too.

The Wizards are just way too shit to make this a real trap game.

And the Knicks are just too good right now.

Feels greedy to complain when we’re up by 20, but we should be up by more than 20

We’re not blowing games to bad teams because we have Jalen Brunson and they don’t.

amazing to think back to third year 24 year old jalen brunson only get 16mpg in a seven game playoff series

Nice to see one bad night didn’t get into Randall’s head. Like to see OG pull the trigger on a few more shots. But it’s amazing how quickly this group has gelled. Feels like we are 1 or 2 more pieces away from being a deep post-season run threat.

Strong evidence for the theory that IQ/RJ usage will be absorbed by Brunson and Randle.

Pretty impressive for the Knicks to now be in the 4th seed considering they were barely in the playoffs picture earlier in the week…

Can’t play your only good center 40 min on the second night of a back to back against the Wizards of all teams.

How bad has Jericho been in practice that he can’t get any burn on a back to back game except in pure garbage time minutes?

Vote those all star ballots, folks.

And, yeah, I hope Thibs doesn’t break all the wheels on our shiny new apple cart.

Onward to 50 wins!

Schedule should be opening up for the Knicks soon. More home games, weaker opponents. Good chance to stabilize position in the standings.

Not even half the season has gone. It’s why saying stuff like “barely in the playoff picture” is silly.

Be interesting to see where Bontemps and ESPN have us in the Power Rankings next week. I expect a big jump!

“Pretty impressive for the Knicks to now be in the 4th seed considering they were barely in the playoffs picture earlier in the week…”

And Philly is starting to get banged up…let’s hope Utah hangs on tonight, they’d be only 2.5 games up…

Wally truly nauseates me.

Yeah, my only real complaint is that Sims should’ve played at least 10-12 minutes against the junior varsity. Gafford can’t dominate him, and there were a solid 18 minutes without Gaff on the court.

I’m glad iHart got 19 rebounds, but he goes down after stepping on someone’s foot in the last five minutes of a blowout and we’re in the shit.

Brooklyn Bridge Park is one of the city’s most underrated offerings. It’s right along the East River and the sunsets are incredible.

oh wow noble, that spot does look like a gem, i like how the southern portion of the park is close by those terminals…sort of like the east river park it has a freeway and water as it’s borders, helping to provide it’s own environment…

lingering on the telecast, for the post-game, thibs came out for a like 2 minutes, and left…

i can definitely see philly fading in the standings, dropping down to the 6th seed or so…embiid misses more time, they are going to drop fast…

their whole team is basically embiid and maxey, just a bunch of old mercs after that…

At this moment the Knicks are in 4th place in the Eastern Conference, 7.5 games behind the Celtics for top seed.

There’s a lot of season left.

Funny team statistics. It’s close across the board, like this was a nerve-wracking 5-point win. We had fewer turnovers, they had more fast break points, otherwise it was close. Weird.

Play in tourney has been pretty successful but sure looks like this season in the East it’s gonna be pretty unfair. There is a huge gap building between the Top 8 and 9 thru 10.

It kinda annoyed me that the Wizards made that buzzer beating 3 at the end because it will lower our defensive rating.

We got manhandled by the Magic, which kinda triggered this trade. I can’t wait to see how we do against them now. They’re the MLK
matinee game, so we won’t have to wait long.

21-12 edge in made free throws helped a lot. 19 of those came from Brandle.

Yes, that’s right, Brandle. Like Bennifer.

Bucks starters that don’t have Greek citizenship are currently a combined 8-28. Ouch.

finally got around to the 2cellos stuff…that is so awesome…i had absolutely no idea there was such a thing as an electric cello…nice…sad to see though they’ve stopped touring just last year…

watched some video performances, very cool euro vibe stuff…

Hah, the game’s write-up in the Wash Post sounds positively Knickerbloggian in its face-palming about missed opportunities. Sound familiar?

“Jalen Brunson (33 points) was available when Washington took Troy Brown Jr. in the 2018 draft. (Brown now resides in Minnesota, averaging 4.7 points for the Timberwolves.) Hartenstein, whose eight points and 19 rebounds Saturday provided the type of rim protection and rebounding that Washington sorely missed, cost the Knicks just $16 million over two years in 2022 free agency.

Josh Hart, who went to school in the Wizards’ backyard at Sidwell Friends, was available for scraps early in his career; his hometown team never bit. Julius Randle, who led all scorers with 39 points, was considered expendable until he got to New York. At the 2017 draft, Washington had traded away the 22nd pick. At No. 23, the Toronto Raptors scooped up two-way stalwart OG Anunoby, whom the Knicks traded for in late December.”

I like where your head is at, JK, but I feel like Brandle doesn’t give Brunson enough due. I mean, Julius gets his whole name, and Jalen gets two letters?

If we change it to Brundle, Jalen gets the b-r-u, Julius gets the d-l-e, and they both share the n. Perfectly equitable.

I just gave this way too much thought, didn’t I?

Yes, that’s right, Brandle. Like Bennifer.

🤣Excellent! Although I’d go with “Brundle” to give a bit more homage to Brunson. 😉

It sucks to ever wish good things for the Celts but it would be helpful for them to beat the Pacers again on Monday.

If we’re combining names why not combine the first and the last names.

Jalius Brundle

The Celtics manhandled the Pacers. If they can stay healthy, they will be a very tough out in the playoffs.

Nobody beats the Wiz! (Except for everybody).

(The perk of a 4pm game is that I can’t watch it even if I want to… in fact, I don’t think I’ve seen the Wizards play, like, ever. Not since they were the Bullets. I still don’t know what Bradley Beal looks like.)

I’m optimistic but I’d say slow your roll a bit Brian! I honestly don’t care what the final win total is, I just want to finish in the 4/5 seed again. Of course if they can make a run at 50 wins who knows maybe the 3 seed could come into play but for now I’ll settle for again being in the 4/5 matchup.

Anyway, it’s Julien. Julien Brundle. Shaken not stirred.

Perfect. Now, is there a “write in” option on the NBA All Star voting form?

Comments are closed.