[NBA.com] – Tue, 12 Mar 2024 22:40:01 GMT
Philadelphia 76ers vs New York Knicks Mar 12, 2024 Box Scores
[ESPN] – Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:49:00 GMT
- OG Anunoby lifts Knicks to blowout win over 76ers in return
- Knicks’ Josh Hart settles for 19 rebounds in impressive triple-double
- 3 observations after Knicks crush Sixers, easily secure season series
- NBA Best Bets for Tuesday 3/12/24
- OG Anunoby returns, Josh Hart posts triple-double as Knicks roll past 76ers
[CBS Sports] – Wed, 13 Mar 2024 04:06:00 GMT
Knicks achieve defensive feat unmatched in past decade as NBA’s scoring drought persists
[ESPN] – Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:49:00 GMT
- Knicks’ OG Anunoby, 76ers’ Tyrese Maxey return for Tuesday matchup
- New York Notes: Anunoby, Randle, Johnson, Thomas
- Knicks’ OG Anunoby pleased he underwent elbow surgery as team prepares for postseason
- OG Anunoby injury update: Knicks forward expected to return Tuesday vs. 76ers, per report
- OG Anunoby makes Knicks return versus 76ers
[Sports Illustrated] – Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:23:00 GMT
Knicks’ Trade With Pistons Receives Some Criticism One Month Later
[Bleacher Report] – Tue, 12 Mar 2024 23:37:30 GMT
- Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau Provides Julius Randle Update amid Shoulder Injury Rehab
- Ian Begley: Julius Randle’s ‘conditioning is
- $1.28 Million Loss Adds to Injured Julius Randle’s Misery, Knicks Receive Major NBA Blessing
- Insider Reveals Concerning Update on Knicks Star Julius Randle
- Julius Randle Misses $1.28M Bonus Due to Injury
[Posting and Toasting] – Tue, 12 Mar 2024 19:00:00 GMT
- Where the Knicks lie in the Eastern Conference standings
- Hurting Knicks face key three-game stretch with playoff implications
- With 20 games left, depleted Knicks in standings dogfight: Were going to get guys back soon
- How Knicks Can Solve Their Biggest Questions as Playoffs Approach
- Knicks haven’t missed many opportunities, despite missing regulars
[sny.tv] – Wed, 13 Mar 2024 01:55:37 GMT
OG Anunoby’s return revitalizes Knicks en route to 106-79 rout over 76ers
[Heavy.com] – Tue, 12 Mar 2024 19:28:01 GMT
Kyle Lowry Makes Bold Claim About Knicks Star Jalen Brunson
98 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.03.13)”
Well, I tried, Bogey. You can’t say I didn’t try.
Funny how a single player can change the dynamic of a team on both sides of the ball…
At one point, with a little less than 4 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter, the Knicks had 27 assists on 32 made baskets… and it was glorious (at the end it was 32 on 40, still very good).
Are you ready for Bogey’s 25-points Portland special? š
Itās not just that he came back. He came back and Thibs deployed him correctly.
There was a lot of consternation here before the game bc it seemed possible OG would line up next to Precious at PF. He didnāt do that, so kudos to him.
Not only did it open up the starting lineup but it made Precious pretty useful as a C in the second unit.
After last night, I think it’s fair to judge JHart as sui generis rather than a sub-optimal shooting wing. Kudos to Thibs for replacing Sims with Precious and what was he thinking when he reinserted JB for a minute as the clock wound down in the fourth quarter.
The Lakers are trolling Doogie:
Funny how a single player can change the dynamic of a team on both sides of the ballā¦
as awkward as OG can be with the ball in his hands, we’ve taken only 24.5% of our shots from the mid-range (2pa over 4 ft out) in 1049 non-garbage time possessions with him on the floor. league average is 30.8% and league-lowest is the Cavs at 24.9%. Without OG, we are at 31.5%.
LOL Yes, I saw that about the four typographical errors on Kobe’s statue, Hubie, but this is the first time I saw what they actually were. The misspelling of “decicion” (twice) makes me think that maybe the author was of Spanish descent (where “c”s are often used instead of “s”s), but then again they spelled Jose Calderon’s name incorrectly, too.
Lest we forget that Calderon was our starting point guard for the better part of two separate seasons during 2014-2016!
While I completely understand the thought behind it, I’mma continue to counsel against turning Josh Hart into “David Eckstein,” particularly when the Knicks now have a top-15/16 player (*) and are in a position to make some springtime noise.
Their peer competitors are not doing this.
It remains the case that wings TS’ing .522 on usage under 14, at .324 from downtown, are a perpetual clear and present danger to the team’s functioning and ceiling at starters’ minutes. And we’ve already seen how that works last spring in the Miami series.
But good win last night, good to get an important piece back in the squad.
(*) I don’t have time to even back of the envelope this today, but you have to go back to Ewing to find a top 15 Knick. (I assume he was, but others will have to do the work if so inclined.) Melo wasn’t. Bernard was, but that lasted literally less than a calendar year.
If Ewing wasn’t (he likely was), you have to go the way back to Clyde.
The quality of shots that Brunson got yesterday was so much better than in February. Itās hard to argue that it is not related to the spacing that OG provides. This is why looking purely at his usage is misleading, as he opens things up for others. Itās probably not a coincidence that he has the highest offensive rating on the team.
Melo was a Top 15 player during the Mike Woodson years.
Bernard was, but that lasted literally less than a calendar year.
If we are willing to ignore time limits, we had some guy…last name escapes me, sanity or vanity…. for a couple of weeks in February 2012 who was definitely top 15.
DDV/J-Hart/OG/I-Hart are a real force on defense, they thrive on deflections and wreak havoc in the passing lanes.
With them on the floor even JB can be useful with timely double-teams (see yesterday’s steal).
Or you can put Deuce in and unleash the Hell’s Hounds against any playoffs bench (J-Hart will not be a starter with Julius healthy).
Going on there are two big “ifs”,
one is about Julius and Mitch being back,
the other regards the chance that the Detroit Zombies suddenly remember how to play basketball,
but at full strenght the tactical flexibility of this roster is really something…
(some will question if Thibs is the right coach for so much bench depth, but I’m not gonna start this discussion, at least not now š )
Thibs is great, Max, when he gets the first decision right. Because he is going to stick with that decision through hell and high water.
Thank god he abandoned the two center lineup with OG back. If he’d gotten that wrong, we’d probably be stuck with it til Randle came back and replaced Precious. And as great as OG is, if he’d replaced Hart instead of Precious I highly doubt it would have opened things up very much.
What Thibs did last night was perfect.
Just to be clear,
I wasn’t necessarily suggesting (or implying) that Thibs can’t handle such an abundance, I was just putting my hands forward to pre-empt the usual objections… š
And you’re too nice Hubie, I’d never reward a kid for tying his shoes… š (where’s that part of your post gone?)
Definitely. He finished 3rd in the 2012-13 MVP vote.
I just hope that we can rely on Thibs to stick with the decision that he made last night (not two centers). I think that he will, as it clearly worked.
Pretty good minutes from the bench last night, Precious gives them another option that might not exactly be good on offense but is probably good enough for a bench unit.
If the Detroit debacle goes down as one of Rose’s worst decisions, the OG wonderfulness might likely go down as one of his best. And I daresay that getting OG has more “good” to it than getting rid of Grimes and Fournier for the Killer Bs has “bad.” (And I say that as someone who hated the Detroit trade.)
Every game I see the Sixers play without Joel I think they should take away the games played requirement and give him MVP and DPOY
I agree.
It was way more important that the OG trade work out well because we were giving up two key players for one.
Giving up Grimes and two 2nd rounders for what so far looks like a couple of washed up players that will occasionally have a hot night shooting is more significant than let’s say rolling out a 1st round pick and giving up a hair of value, but it’s not damaging enough to kill the plans to use excess picks and assets to add another higher quality player (ahem Mikal Bridges).
Tobias Harris is such a complete non factor for them, supposedly Sixer fans despise him and his $180 MM contract
This is what everyone youāve been arguing with for the last month has been suggesting. All it took was replacing one of the two centers with a shooter and voila! Total transformation. Probably was worth a try in February.
If we could have flipped those two dreadful home losses to Atlanta and Philadelphia weād be just 1.5 games out of 2nd.
Yeah my friends from Philly really hate him. I feel bad for the guy, he’s a perfectly adequate rotation wing and it’s not his fault someone was dumb enough to pay him 40 million for that.
I totally agree that OG/Hart is the way to go over OG/Precious, but am I crazy or did Hubert and I spend a while arguing about that a few weeks ago?
Hart comes with his warts. If he was a knockdown shooter…I mean, he’d be a max player. It’s still blatantly obvious that he brings desperately needed things to the team that few if any other players do. I remain 100% okay, even happy, with giving up the 23rd pick in the 2023 draft for him, as well as giving him ~9% of the cap.
OG and Grimes are pretty equivalent 3 point shooters and our offense didn’t look like this with Quentin, OG is doing something else
Noble, I was one of the people suggesting Thibs should at least think about keeping Precious in the lineup, since it would allow OG to stay at wing and have more options in terms of defense. But of course, Hart can defend multiple positions, too, and it’s hard to argue with last night’s results, even against an Embiid-less squad.
“It was way more important that the OG trade work out well because we were giving up two key players for one.”
Well, we kind of viewed Precious as a throw-in at the time, but I believe that he has become quite an important rotation piece for us! So the trade was really two players for two players. Let’s call it OG for Quick and Precious for RJ: we did pretty well!
“I remain 100% okay, even happy, with giving up the 23rd pick in the 2023 draft for him (Hart), as well as giving him ~9% of the cap.”
This. So much this. I love Hart. He has off nights, of course, but most players do. But when he is hyper-focused as he was last night, he is indeed one of a kind, IMHO.
What are other good teams not doing, exactly? Giving a lot of minutes to low-usage players with shooting concerns who bring other things to the table?
What about Kyle Anderson, Dyson Daniels, Jarred Vanderbilt, Josh Okogie, Patrick Beverly, and Terance Mann? The Knicks did not invent the idea that even players with shooting concerns can contribute to winning if they do other things well.
We did. In my defense, I recall Hart had a BPM of around -1.0 when I backed Precious. Heās played himself all the way up to 0.0. If you saw that coming, I applaud your prescience. I certainly did not, and I backed the wrong horse.
Quentin didnāt shoot enough, though, and he played with RJ Barrett.
Yāall keep selling Donte short. The Brunson/Donte baseline is significantly higher than Brunson/Grimes or Brunson/Barrett.
It takes all three of Brunson/Donte/OG to form Voltron. We know Brunson and Donte canāt do it without OG. And I highly doubt OG could transform this offense with Burks at the 2 instead of Donte. But with those three together, itās liftoff.
TNFH somehow managed to miss the āstartersā minutesā element in what I said about Josh. (And with T-Mann, managed to also miss the ālow true shooting percentage element.)
Until recently, Hart had been compiling complete outlier, fall-off-cliff efficiency numbers this year. He has never been an inefficient player throughout his career, until this year. What weāre seeing recently is more like how he usually plays. He has a 101 career TS+ and is at 90 this year.
The real, canonical Josh Hart that has played a ton of NBA minutes gives you around average efficiency on low usage, with solid secondary skills like rebounding and positional defense. In short, a useful player.
this is literally what I’m saying, not that the offense needed some generic shooter
I always felt the Power Rangers were a rip-off of Voltron.
Yeah, we kinda tried to tell the Hart-skeptics that we weren’t vouching for his numbers this year, but believed they’d eventually look more like the ones on the back of his basketball card.
For whatever reason it was considered unbelievable that the 10,525 minutes he played prior to this season had any meaning. However it’s looking like they did.
Dmar: Tobias Harris is such a complete non factor for them, supposedly Sixer fans despise him and his $180 MM contract
Sounds like Steph is probably going to be ready for Monday (they are saying he could play on Saturday), which means this roadtrip is pretty tough.
From Zach and Shams this morning in The Athletic:
” Is Anunoby really worth a 33-point scoring swing? No, thatās a little too simplified. But ā¦ almost? We canāt ignore how good the Knicks have been with him playing.
The Knicks were plus-28 with Anunoby on the floor and are plus-280 in his 15 team games this season. They outscore opponents by a ridiculous 25.8 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor but have a net rating of minus-3.6 points when he sits.”
We should do a comparison of the Knicks players to the Voltron lions.
Am I the only one who thinks that the vehicle Voltron looks cooler than the lion one?
https://lionsandpilotsandbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/vv_power_sys_0010.png
As a little kid I watched the Voltron lions version. He-Man was my favorite cartoon but Voltron, Transformers and Thundercats weren’t too far behind.
I agree with DRed and others that OG is much more multifaceted than your usual 3-and-D player on offense. What makes him more impactful than someone standard-issue like Grimes on that end is:
1. his absolutely elite shooting from the corners. He’s one of the best and highest volume corner 3 takers in the NBA. Grimes is much more volatile. OG picks his spots in a way that never looks forced.
2. his ability to put the ball on the floor. He’s not going to wow anyone with his handle, but he can get to the rim on a straight drive or hit a fallaway jumper in the midrange, which significantly opens up his options when the ball swings to him. Grimes and other 3-and-D guys usually have very little of this.
3. His athleticism in transition. He knows how to stream ahead or trail for the dunk. Again, Grimes was not a dunker.
4. This is maybe the most important thing to me: his constant cutting. Lots of three and d players just park themselves in the corner and wait for a kick out. OG scrambles opposing defenses (much as elite movement shooters like Curry do) with cuts all over the floor. This in turn makes it way easier for JB and others to go to work even when OG doesn’t get the ball on the possession. This also synergies with Donte, who constantly cuts as well (they love running double handoffs with JB, Donte, and OG, for example.)
There might have been consternation with some here, but Thibs showed no inclination to use Precious as more than a bit player before the injury avalanche. In his first 10 games before IHart’s tendon tweak he was playing around 12m/g. After that the next 3 he played in the low 20’s sharing the center with Sims. Once I Hart mostly came back with limited minutes AND Randle and OG BOTH went down 1/27, Precious was forced into 30-40+ minutes in both the 4-5 roll.
Likewise, Thibs, hardly gave Sims a second of time til Mitch broke his leg. He had 12 DNP/CD in the first 21 games. Then he gave him back up minutes with I Hart. Then besides Mitch, I Hart was limited, OG and Randle were out and he was already riding p
Precious 40m/g. Sims had to play.
The instant Thibs got OG back, he could reasonably play OG and J Hart up front with I Hart, Precious could log 24min at back-up 5 and a few at 4 and Sims went back into cold storage. I can’t imagine he ever considered starting Precious at the 4 and benching J Hart from the starting line-up. Clearly he believes playing a front line of Bogey, I Hart/Precious and J Hart is untenable defensively for any extended minutes. I do expect to see some Bogey/OG/I Hart/DDV/Brunson line-ups soon.
OG on offense is also always looking to set screens and picks.
Another aspect of OG’s game that can’t be overstated, even though very simple, it’s just his size.
He’s tall and strong as hell, so he can turn a play that would be an average layup for a smaller player like Hart or Divo into a dunk, or turn a semi-contested jumper into a better one by simply being taller. It’s not the sexiest or most modern argument but sometimes in basketball just being taller and stronger than your opponent pays off massively.
This Gerrit Cole news sucks. Realistically heās been so insanely durable we were gonna have to pay the piper eventually, but why’d it have to be this season with Soto and all?
Well hopefully the cautious optimistic reports of returning in June is correct so they should be able to hold the fort until then and I guess you could say they’ll have a fresher Cole come September and October.
Now go sign Snell!
It’s true, Bruno. He’s 6’7″ and 230 lbs. He looks (and moves) like a wing, but that’s a build that’s not that off from Battlestar Randle (6’8″, 250).
And Bearable Being, your description of OG is very much what some of us were hoping Grimes would turn into, albeit in a smaller version. Unfortunately there were only occasional glimmers, so we went from a very questionable ‘maybe down the road’ to an immediate reality. But again, as Bruno points out, not just a better but also a bigger version.
But it’s not Tommy John, so it could be worse.
It’s also not not Tommy John. Schroedinger’s Tommy.
While all this is true, he is a basketball player in the truest sense of the word. He is a plus, plus defender and a capable offensive player because he is elite from the corner and more than adequate in most ways. You can see the way the team plays with him on the floor, he is a player that is greater than the sum of his parts. He reminds me of a bigger, longer Dave DeBusschere. Quiet, not flashy, but makes his team better. By alot!
I was sorry to see IQ go, Barrett, not so much, but OG seems to be a legit two way championship caliber piece and those are expensive.
Honestly, every time a pitcher has some kind of UCL injury I assume Tommy John is eminent even if they’re dicey about that initially. I would sign up for Cole just being able to pitch in the second half in a heartbeat.
Grimes was actually a better shooter from the corner than OG coming into the year, and still has a higher career %, but Grimes’s 35.5% from the corner this year is abominable for a shooter.
OG is also infinitely better cutting, defending off-ball, protecting the rim, and generating TOs than Grimes.
*imminent, lawyer brain kicked in. Leave me alone Droodie.
This report from Jon Heyman isn’t quite so optimistic from one hour ago…
https://nypost.com/2024/03/13/sports/gerrit-cole-out-at-least-1-to-2-months-yankees-ace-visits-noted-surgeon/
One hypothesis is that defenses figured out the right depth to sag off Grimes without conceding the 3 or the closeout blowby. He can’t do much of anything in that situation.
But it was probably more RJs atrocious spacing and inability to do anything he’s currently doing very well in Toronto. Too many lefties…
I do like Precious as a backup C. He’s undersized but Thibs may have unlocked something with him there. He’s able to get to where he needs to be quickly and uses his athleticism to block/contest shots.
Really wish he figured out how to shoot so we could use him more as a PF/wing defender.
That hasnāt happened, though. His FG%, TS%, eFG%, and FTr are as bad as theyāve been all year.
What did happen was the injury avalanche made him the teamās secondary ballhandler and rebounder. Thatās been great for his bpm, but if heās not handling the ball his numbers are bad, and if he is handling the ball something is probably wrong.
Anunoby plays aggressively on both ends, but with high basketball IQ. He’s not quite as good as Scottie Pippen, but he reminds me of Pippen in some ways. I used to HATE playing against Pippen, who seemed to constantly be making some heartbreakingly annoying disruptive play against us.
This is just arguing about selective end or starting points. You can say Josh Hart has shot much better over the last 5 games, or you can say Josh Hart’s shooting has been pretty good since the ASB, or you can say Josh Hart shot like shit in February and they’re all correct. It’s probably more likely he shoots better than he was at his nadir this season going forward based on his career, but he might be hurt or his shot might be off or he might have lost something. We’ll have to see, but we don’t like doing that around here.
Hart is shooting 34.8% from 3 since the start of Feb. That’s the important stat to watch, the rest are most likely affected by his increased usage and playing with 2 Cs. It’s too volatile to conclude anything but we care more about his shooting than anything. It’s worth noting that it’s almost exactly his career average.
We could read it as improvement if his other numbers stayed steady during that run; I haven’t checked most of them.
Are you suggesting we should do that? I’m using his numbers for the entire season.
Noble predicted that Hart’s numbers would “eventually look more like the ones on the back of his basketball card” and is taking a victory lap because he thinks that has happened. I was pointing that it has not.
@BenRitholtzNBA
These are incredible stats.
Josh Hart is very good at transition offense, and he definitely should be handling the ball there. His defensive rebounding leads sometimes to easy buckets, and he gets some assists in that kind of situations too. Obviously, he shouldn’t be your main ballhandler, but he plays his role.
Josh career ts% is like 57. Here’s are his full month numbers this year
55
56
49
49
Since the ASB his TS is 53% I think what Noble is saying is that Hart has been shooting better lately, and is likely to keep shooting better going forward then he was when he was shooting way below his career norms. Which might turn out to be wrong but is a reasonable thing to expect. Of course his overall season numbers are bad, he was atrocious for 2 months.
sometimes…i don’t have the stats but he appears to lead the league in the “fast break…leave your feet too early and turn and pass it back…either to a teammate or a defender” category…maybe it is not so often and I just seem to watch when he does do that…but I don’t regard him as a great ballhandler…he is good in open court where he has one or two guys back who aren’t great defenders and can generally get a lay up given he has the ability to shield the ball with his body…
Fair enough, but that it is still better than no fastbreak, and we dont have many other players that generate those opportunities.
“Waiting around” for a guy who’s laid consistent brick since Game 1 Miami last spring seems quite risky.
He’s a rotation guy, no question. Starters’ minutes wing? Not so much.
Iām with Pepper here. I think itās more fair to say that āwhen Josh Hart is good, his transition game is clicking.ā Last night a perfect example. He was brilliant.
But when you say āJosh Hart is very good at transition offense, and he definitely should be handling the ball thereā, you lose me, and the numbers donāt back you.
All those low FG% games, the high turnover games, thatās a big part of the Josh Hart transition game, too. And frankly we get quite a lot of those games.
The effort is always there but the efficacy comes and goes. Itās great when it comes, though. A good Josh Hart game is as fun as it gets.
May change my handle to “The Eminent Tommy John.”
Josh has turned the ball over more than 3 times twice this season. He’s just shot the ball poorly this year.
Mitch flew with the team to Portland. Potentially meaningful.
It’s the Knicks, so Dolan’s Razor applies, but … what if Mitch and Julius were both back for the playoffs? I try not to think about it…
Heās averaging over 2 TOV/game since moving into the starting lineup. Heās had 3 or more turnovers 6 times during that stretch, including one 6 TOV game.
OG, Mitch, and Randle all back for the playoffs at 100% with fresh legs is my dream scenario.
his tov% this year is 14.0 (just edging out one Julius Randle at 14.1) for 156th out of 188 in the association..
if you think 2 or 3 turnovers are a lot, that’s your perogative, I’ll just let you guys whine about Josh more.
Yeah, I’m not whining about Josh Hart, DRed. You guys are just embellishing his statistics and getting corrected.
Love these small samples from Macri
https://x.com/jcmacrinba/status/1767970675430666280?s=46&t=0wqff4cNt-sCGcDs-uMExw
I can already see Patty Mills hitting a couple of annoying shots in the playoffs. It’s inevitable. Hopefully not against the Knicks.
Raptors-Pistons! It’s a Knicks reunion! And they’re all playing badly (except RJ, Evil Donte, and Taj, who aren’t playing at all).
Actually Quick’s not doing so bad.
RIP Karl Wallinger, frontman for World Party and the Waterboys.
Incredible talent, wrote and played all the instruments on the first World Party album Private Revolution.
that first World Party album was awesome…so was This is the Sea (waterboys)…i got that album in some work secret santa exchange…owe that dude for turning me on to that band…
whose whining…just posting some stats in response to your comment…..y
Geez.
Really could use a Denver win tonight. The Heat face Detroit twice afterwards.
its easy to smoke you out…
It’s kind of insane that even after 5-6 weeks of lackluster play due to all the injuries, the Knicks are 2nd in the East in SRS and Net Rating (and 7th in the NBA). #13 offense (just 0.3 ORTG behind #10) and #8 defense. This team, if healthy, would be a real contender if Boston wasn’t so far ahead of everyone else.
Big win by Chicago at Indiana.
Pacers after a huge road win over OKC lose to the Bulls at home in OT
Fuck emā¦
Those last two games the Knicks have against the Bulls, which might really decide seeding, will not be easy. They’ve been playing pretty well.
I don’t know how I did not notice this before, but Luka is averaging 34.6/9.1/9.9 on 0.624 TS% this season. What an insane line.
Fournier can’t even get playing time with the Pistons, yikes
“Pacers after a huge road win over OKC lose to the Bulls at home in OT
Fuck emā¦”
I’m sure that some genius on PacerBlogger is livid that Carlisle didn’t play Obi enough minutes…
people talk about sixers without embid…without curry the warriors are a lottery team…
I was wrong, Josh Hart is averaging 1.6 TOV per 36 minutes this season. I apologize to the Knickerblogger community for embellishing his statistics.
Very proud of myself for not saying anything about Josh Hart all day!!
well done director, very subtle use of humor…well done indeed…