[NBA.com] – Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:59:57 GMT
Nikola Jokic, Jalen Brunson named NBA Players of the Week
[New York Post] – Mon, 15 Apr 2024 07:12:00 GMT
Donte DiVincenzo’s special Knicks season gets heartwarming twist with recent birth of son
[Bleacher Report] – Tue, 16 Apr 2024 01:49:48 GMT
- Knicks Rumors: Jalen Brunson Open to Contract Extension, Doesn’t Care About Money
- Knicks facing pivotal Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle extension decisions
- NBA Source Reveals Knicks Could Hand Jalen Brunson Max Extension This Summer
- Knicks Notes: Brunson, Randle, Anunoby, Bogdanovic, Seeding
- I mean, obviously that’s a thing that you want to have, security, said Brunson who, even
[Sports Illustrated] – Mon, 15 Apr 2024 18:45:25 GMT
Grayson Allen Deal Seals Executive of the Year Case for New York Knicks’ Leon Rose
[Posting and Toasting] – Mon, 15 Apr 2024 23:11:37 GMT
Jalen Brunson named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week
[Daily Knicks] – Mon, 15 Apr 2024 16:46:03 GMT
RJ Barrett’s comment about OG Anunoby proves Knicks-Raptors trade was right move
[Basketball Network] – Mon, 15 Apr 2024 12:43:00 GMT
“This is the lowest I’ve felt since I’ve been here” – Larry Bird after being humbled by the New York Knicks
[Heavy.com] – Tue, 16 Apr 2024 01:07:00 GMT
Team USA Picks Jalen Brunsons Rival Over Knicks Star
189 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.04.16)”
Holy shit: Pablo Torre dug up the Knicks’ infamous LeBron James recruitment video, which opens with Gandolfini and Falco playing Tony and Carmela again three years after Sopranos ended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t72kT7h08EA&t=1900s
He watches it with Jason Concepcion and Rob Perez and… the video is a lot.
Geez. Wish I had 45 free minutes to watch that. Thanks for posting it, Alan.
A good chunk of it is the three of them commenting on the video. The video itself is only about 10 minutes, I think. So if you scrub through the YouTube, you can see all the relevant parts without the commentary in much less time.
Poor David Chase just had his perfect ending ruined.
Wow the cameo appearances aged hysterically unwell. I won’t spoil it bc it’s so delightful when the next one shows up. But I will say I’m halfway through it and at this rate I’m expecting Bill Cosby and Jeffrey Epstein to be next.
Even at the time, several of them were incredibly poor choices, given their history of racist behavior and LeBron’s social activism and awareness of the world around him.
Wow. That actually made me not like New York.
It really makes me appreciate Leon Rose, though. All you guys who love him because he’s taken us so far, you’re absolutely right. We are light years away from those days, and kudos to Leon (and Thibs) for taking us this far. There’s no way in hell we get Jalen Brunson without them and I am grateful for that.
… and if he refuses the offer he can’t refuse, we can show him the scene of a young Vito Corleone liquidating Don Fanucci!!
Like why would Lebron care what Rudy Giuliani thought
The whole thing was a typical Dolan clunkfest, but let’s not pour it on too thick now. (I typically don’t take my entertainers as per se having some unique awareness of the world that more educated and intelligent people have — never have, never will. Others’ mileage may vary.)
It doesn’t take some unique awareness. It just takes being alive in the world. Some of these guys had been very publicly racist. It was not a state secret.
Should the Lakers tank tonight?
Maybe, but that doesn’t really have much to do with how much LeBron understands the world around him.
Entertainers need to be de-pedestal-ized. While I enjoyed Kings of the Garden very much, and it was very good, one can’t help but have that as one of their primary takeaways. It shouldn’t be the case that so many are encouraged to be entertainers or to see entertainment as their only way out. Very disheartening. We need up-to-date Harry Edwards types to speak the truth
In many ways, we’re complicit — though others bear much more fault.
When can we expect the full Rolling Stone review? It’ll give you ample opportunity to wax poetic on the Knicks!
(NOTE: While this may come across in raw text in an eat-your-vegetables sense, it’s not intended that way. It’s simple matter-of-fact reality.)
EB, I have already pitched my editors! But I don’t know if they will feel it’s too off-brand.
I didn’t watch the whole thing. What I saw was corny and stupid, but the real problem with it was that James was leaving the Cavs because at that time he was desperate to win his first title. He wasn’t leaving for money, the big city, glamour, to play in a place like MSG, to be around movie stars and entertainers etc…
The focus of everything should have been on the basketball plan and how to get from where they were to serious title contention quickly. The rest sells itself if that’s what you want.
LeBron the basketball player is pretty smart and aware, and there was no way whatsoever that he was gonna be conned or swayed in 2010 at that stage in his career by that celebrity bullshit. Most likely it was a negative and he’s probably had some good laughs over it.
I agree, Strat. In the weeks leading up to The Decision, my thought was that the main person talking should have been D’Antoni, and he should have been pitching LeBron on how perfect the Seven Seconds or Less offense would be for him, especially if the team flanked him with shooters like Gallinari.
Like Jason Concepcion says to Pablo, if you look at the timeline in hindsight, it’s pretty clear that LeBron was always planning to go to Miami to team up with Bosh and Wade. But I also believe that he loves playing at MSG, and if they had pitched him a hardcore basketball plan and left all the nonsense aside, they might have had a shot.
But even then, not likely. It’s hard to beat Pat Riley dumping a sack of his own championship rings onto a table, you know?
that would be a fun article I hope they agree
ESPN’s report of Daigneault winning COTY (as he should) is kind of confusing. Are they saying Thibs received no votes? They way they worded was as if only Daigneault and 3 other coaches got votes.
I thought Chris Finch should have won, he took basically the same team that didn’t work last season and figured out how to make it go.
LeBron was never coming here. My guess is that he had been plotting the Miami thing for a while, and that he was just going through the motions. He played Dolan and NYC for laughs.
And who could blame him?
That said, no matter how great his legacy is, it would have been greater had he come here. I doubt that it means all that much to him, but most of what those pandering idiots said was true. NYC is the greatest city in the world to be a celebrity, and winning a single championship with the Knicks would have meant more to his legacy than all the others combined.
Thibs should not have been seriously considered. Too many other deserving candidates to reward an old crow who already had 2 CoTYs. Not to mention that his team only slightly exceeded expectations, mostly due to Leon’s craftiness in acquiring IHart, DDV, and OG. He’s done an excellent job, especially in dispelling the silly notion that he can’t coach offense.
I have gotten approval! Many more thoughts — specifically on The Sopranos stuff — coming later today.
Everybody knows James Dolan is one of the world’s most unlikable doucheclowns. Even Guitar Jimmy himself seems to have finally realized that everybody hates him, and he just mostly stays on the sidelines, doesn’t bother anybody, and keeps his mouth shut for the most part.
This is Leon Rose’s greatest accomplishment. He managed to accomplish what Phil Jackson could not: he got James Dolan to mostly go away. We hardly ever talk about Guitar J around here anymore. They should put a Leon Rose statue in front of the Garden for that achievement alone.
Leon should be a dark horse candidate for Executive of the Year, but my vote would surely go to Brad Stevens.
The thing I admire most about Leon is that he keeps his cards close to his vest and his mouth shut, and lets his work product do the talking. It can be annoying given how entitled NY fans are for clickbait, but compared to his predecessors, it is a very refreshing change.
Dolan’s teams are currently a #2 seed in the NBA playoffs and the President’s Cup winner in the NHL, which is pretty amazing considering what a fuck up he is.
The Sphere is taking all of Dolan’s attention.
Z-man, I think there’s a middle ground between showboating and completely hiding from the press/fans the way Leon does it. But if he’s going to refuse to explain any of his plans, at least those plans are working out incredibly well so far. Better that than a bumbler who constantly talks to the media.
Just got around to actually watching parts of the video… oh my God!
They put a Jay-Z song in there! The one where Jay-Z just calls himself a god the whole time. How stupid can you be? At least Dolan didn’t put one of his own songs on there.
And the “celebrities” they got… Dolan really Should Have Known.
This is from some Twitter account called Knicks Nation.
any news on Mitch…is he hurt or was it just that 2nd half of the game he was out?
Alan, true but that leaves one open to unnecessary criticism based on an intent vs. results. In other words, if you secretly want a certain outcome and it doesn’t happen, you have nothing to explain. It may not be what we, as fans, want, but it is savvy. Think about how much individual moves were bashed early on by not committing to a full rebuild, and yet here we are. By keeping his mouth shut, he avoided going on the record with Answers that would only inflame the dialogue during the intervening three years.
But he’s also not gloating about any success the team has had, that’s also a refreshing change.
The way I look at it, Z-man, is that sports teams are on some level meant to be a public trust, even though they are privately held. Part of that trust is communicating with your fans, and explaining what you’re doing. If a beloved player gets traded away, the fans have a right to some kind of comment from the front office, even if it’s couched in double talk. It sucks that Leon refuses to say anything, ever. And I say that not as a journalist, but entirely from my POV as a fan of this team.
Dolan has that weirdo obsession/rivalry with the media and doesn’t want his people talking to them, and so Leon doesn’t. Chris Drury doesn’t really, either.
Is what it is. But what it is, is virtually all Dolan. I’ll take their essential silence over Isiah glibly trying to spin his bullshit. Best of all would be them occasionally talking, to be sure.
Yeah, I do agree that the silence with the media and weirdness communicating about injuries is an organization (i.e. Dolan) thing more than a current manage (i.e. Leon) thing. And given how they communicate about injuries when they have to speak about it, we might be better served not having to listen to Leon explain a plan he will never detail in full.
It’s the most amazing for people who know what the “president’s cup” is. Is it the NHL in-season tournament award?
its actually the Presidents Trophy…team with best regular season record…the Stanley Cup is the hardware for winning the championship/playoffs..
What rubs me the wrong way about Leon’s vow of silence is Thibs and the players are often unfairly left to discuss uncomfortable subjects that are more in the purview of the front office. This has happened a bunch of times with regards to trades, injuries, and other stuff.
That said, it’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things. The Knicks have been consistently operating as a smart NBA franchise for multiple years now, and it’s equal parts awesome and disorienting.
It’s a shockingly compelling question, but I still think you can’t mess around with the potential to find yourself in a single elimination game against Steph Curry.
Here’s my longer take on The Sopranos aspect of the video:
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/newly-discovered-video-tony-soprano-lebron-james-edie-falco-1235005289/
I don’t mind a lot of the silence on the part of Knick’s management. Fans always want a definite answer even if there is no definite answer. For example, when will Mitch return to the court? If you say you expect it around a particular date, fans will interpret as the date, not as just a rough estimate. Some will make wagers based on that information. Then when Mitch doesn’t return on that exact date, even if it’s for a good and unpredictable reason, fans can complain they were misled. The team has to say something, but I can understand if they are as vague as they can be while still meeting league requirements.
Lev Akabas @LevAkabas
Two-thirds of NBA teams have had a 50-win pace season within the past five years The Washington Wizards have not had one since 1979 pic.twitter.com/TeVjRwraGz
Damn
Speaking of Mitch…
Should a Wizards fan exist, their best response to that bleak stat is probably that the team had 49 wins in 2016-17 and finished with the 4 seed.
Those bits of info beg the question: is there a less consequential NBA team? Their last top-5 pick was Otto Porter in 2013.
Honestly, Alan, I don’t really agree with your take on the public trust aspect. I think the front offices job in general is to put the best product in front of the fans as possible, with some grace during rebuilding periods. When there is some kind of a crisis, yes, they should have some kind of a statement. But in the routine scheme of things, I don’t think they owe anything to the fans in that regard, and I will greatly prefer hearing nothing then hearing spin. Just do your job well.
Perhaps the best example of this was the Cam Reddish tenure. There was nary a peep from Leon as to why they traded for him, nor about how much he should be playing, nor about why he was included in a subsequent trade.
Most of us, here, recognized it, as being a blunder from the very beginning, yet by not commenting on it, it just kind of dissipated without any fanfare. No one knows who advocated for the trade, or how anyone felt about the way tibs, handled, reddish, or how anyone felt at the time he was jettisoned. It just went away. And that’s kind of what silence does, so long as the owner doesn’t stir the pot.
I love this team
Pretty much irrelevant at this point given the Knicks’ now-possession of a tentpole superstar, but Cam Reddish had and has more upside and a higher potential ceiling than Quentin Grimes.
Bucks down to only -118 to win the Pacers series. Pacers only get you even odds, +100.
What does Cam have to do with Grimes?
Cam only has more potential than Grimes because he hasn’t reached it. Grimes, for all his warts, has still played more good NBA basketball than Cam Reddish.
Thus, my previous, highly-“controversial,” pre-tentpole-era comment that I’d rather roll the dice on Cam Reddish than Quentin Grimes.
Glad we have consensus about it now though.
(NOTE: This isn’t “bait,” or anything of the sort. I’m moving on.)
Cam Reddish just put up his 5th consecutive shitty season, and it may, somehow, someway, have been his shittiest of them all considering his usage was microscopic and he still couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean from the beach. There is no “upside” there and his next contract might not come from an NBA team.
I’m gonna tell you one thing, and I’m not afraid to say this: that thing over in Jersey was nothing more than a glorified crew.
My conception of James Gandolfini and Edie Falco as a man just fuckin’ plummeted
I remember once when everyone was telling me that their heavily protected pick was “likely to be a first” I did a 40 year look back to see how times they picked outside the top 10 and I think it was like 6 times. They really are the worst.
They’re paying Poole $100M over the next three years and you can only assume that it was not done to make him a tank commander. That’s how you know they’re inept.
Washington was outscored by 11.5 points per 100 possession when he was on the floor this year. That’s worse than when he was off the floor!
They would have been better off trying to retool on the fly around Beal and Porzingis. The East really isn’t that great, and they’re now a million billion miles away.
Give that a longer shot and then tear to studs, if necessary. They didn’t get squat for those guys in any event.
Typically great/wonky Katz story about how OG’s constant off-ball cutting has helped to unlock the offense:
https://theathletic.com/5417952/2024/04/16/og-anunoby-cuts-knicks-nba-playoffs/
Despite shooting less than 40.0 percent from the field in the pros when the league average is 47.5 percent this season, Reddish has now appeared in the starting lineup for about half of the games he has played in the NBA. He has gotten a shot to prove himself.
#upshide
Agh! I did it! I’m a perch!
@TNFH, re: “Tom Thibodeau has seen this viral video. Mitchell Robinson showed it to him, and he said he thinks Mitch made it. https://t.co/LxOPgIdvpn— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) April 16, 2024″
Absolutely fucking hilarious. Thanks for posting that!
wizards should be relegated to the G league…
Relegation’s awesome, I wish we had it in the US. Especially in baseball, which already has all the levels set up.
Anyone seen the new TV miniseries, Shogun? There is an early scene where a Samurai embarrasses his lord by speaking out of turn and offers to commit seppuku in response. So great is his shame that he even insists on ending his entire family line, which involves killing his infant child as well, all on a point of pride that seems completely meaningless to the viewer. Even his own Lord thinks it’s pointless, but has to go along because it’s feudal Japan, and that’s a big part of what they do there.
It reminded me a lot of our decision to keep our best guys in to win on Sunday. Does Thibs want to lose with HCA three playoffs in a row?
One thing that occurred to me while looking at the play-in schedule is that in a way, it kind of screws the top seeds in each conference. They will only have one off day to prepare for their opponents, while the 2-6 seeds will have at least 2 and up to 6. It’s a minor quibble, but still…
Thibs was very L’État, c’est moi in his personal speechifying on behalf of “our organization” and its interests.
Someone brought up the idea of having the play-in, then letting the top 4 seeds pick their opponents in order. That would add drama and probably eliminate tanking the last couple of games.
My guess is that in the East, assuming MIA and PHI were the 7th and 8th seeds, would look like this:
BOS-ORL
NYK-IND
MIL-MIA
CLE-PHI
I can’t imagine Milwaukee or Cleveland tanking like they did, or any stigma on the Knicks for playing to win. Plus the added drama of “pitching around” a given team could add drama to the first round. Of course, this suggests even more strongly that the Knicks made a bad decision on forfeiting their right to pick IND, which I am somewhat ambivalent on but think the gripe has validity.
Shogun is absolutely amazing. That and Ripley are the best things out there right now.
Seriously, Ripley is INCREDIBLE. I was skeptical because I was always kind of “meh” on the 90’s Talented Mr. Ripley movie but this thing is next level – beautifully shot, impeccably acted, and the pacing is deliberately slow in a way that builds up the tension so well.
Just realizing this was discussed a few days ago.
But yes, Shogun is CRAZY good.
z-man, I love that idea if only because it would then be so hilarious if the 1 seed lost to the team they hand picked to play.
“z-man, I love that idea if only because it would then be so hilarious if the 1 seed lost to the team they hand picked to play.”
It would be, especially with how fired up the selected team would be to rub it in their face! But my guess is that you would see fewer upsets. For example, if any team is gonna upset Boston, it ain’t Orlando….far more likely to be MIA or PHI. OKC would definitely have a difficult choice!
I brought it up but no one followed it, so technically it was discussed. I’m glad someone else enjoyed it as much as me. It was so jarring, at first. It was like they didn’t just take the color out of the original, but all the life. Dickie was so drab and lifeless, I thought there was no way it would work. But it did.
The Thibs video should be played on the scoreboard before the start of every home playoff game.
I’ll say this for Jordan Poole-he may be better than Cam Reddish
Shogun is very fun. Cosmo Jarvis and Tadanobu Asano are both delightful weird guys
Re: Ripley
Swifty and Hubie, I’ve 2 episodes left to watch and so far it’s been very good, one of the best tv-series of the year.
Have you ever seen Wim Wenders’ “The American Friend”, starring Dennis Hopper as Ripley?
(Highsmith wrote 5 books centered on Ripley, the TV series is based on the first, the Wenders’ movie on the 3rd).
Terry Rozier is out for Heat-Sixers. Miami ducking the Knicks??
Between rewarding losers with higher draft picks and attaching “stigmas” to teams that play to win, sometimes sport in the “home of the braves “is very funny.
Where’s meritocracy when you need it*? 🙂
Let’s implement relegations and get rid of the the losers once and for all, make them earn their place in the Gotha.
* I applaud Tim Bontemps for his rant on Windhorst’ podcast.
Blake Griffin retired?
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/knicks-donte-divincenzo-ineligible-for-most-improved-player-under-new-criteria-after-missing-only-one-game/
This is nuts: DDV played 81 games this season, but is considered ineligible for postseason awards because 17 of those games don’t count. He wasn’t going to win Most Improved over Maxey or Sengun, but this illustrates how the new eligbility rules pretty badly need tweaking.
I don’t. I guess we can hang a moral victory banner in the Garden after the first-round exit we’ve earned for failing to take rational action in our strategic interest in our best season in a decade.
Rozier is now out for the Heat tomorrow, making it even more likely that we’ll face the league’s 2nd super team, whose net rating with Embiid is higher than the Warriors’ average from 2015-2017.
These rules are rigid and dumb, especially for 6MOY. Why shouldn’t it just be a total number of minutes?
I love Ripley: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/ripley-review-andrew-scott-netflix-1234996614/
And I love Shogun: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/shogun-review-hulu-miniseries-1234974289/
I’ll be doing a Shogun post-mortem next week, I think, but I will say right now that this week’s episode is spectacular.
And I wrote a bit more about Ripley, with spoilers, in last week’s newsletter: https://alansepinwall.substack.com/p/sympathizer-sympa-sympathizer-youre
I am always happy to talk about TV with y’all.
Max, I have such mixed feelings. I was really pissed that Cuban so transparently tanked for the #10 seed last year with virtually no repercussions, yet totally understood why he did it. It was understandable why CLE and MIL did what they seemingly did. I also get why Thibs and the Knicks wanted no part of that strategy.
The best course of action is to modify the system so that it either promotes winning every single game, or at least de-incentivizes tanking of any game. In other words, make it so that having the best record possible is at best always rewarded and at worst never penalized.
And that’s why I like the “drawing your opponent” scenario (again, someone else’s idea, not mine!) it highly incentivizes finishing in the top-4 in your conference beyond home court in the first round, and we already see how the play-in has made jockeying for the 5th and 6th positions more competitive. It also makes the prep for a given opponent time issue that I brought up above moot, since no team would “officially” know their first round matchup before the play-in occurred.
If the Bucks had to win to get a choice rather than lose to avoid a choice made for them, I bet they would have played the final game a lot harder than they did.
And for fans who paid top dollar for a ticket to the final Knicks game, how awesome was it that they saw two teams giving their all rather than one team winning by 40 while both teams rested their regulars?
That the Cavs lost to Charlotte’s scrubs while both teams rested starters is a disgrace.
“This is nuts: DDV played 81 games this season, but is considered ineligible for postseason awards because 17 of those games don’t count.”
[insert vomit emoji]
The long-established ethical code of the association is perfectly fine with tanking for draft advantage and in situations like Sunday. No serious grounds exist to dispute this.
Thibs’s “code” is one that exists entirely in his imagination and one that he should not have been permitted to implement or follow (*) These are not little leaguers and the association is not little league.
He’s made his contending team’s path to a championship significantly harder. Full stop. There is no defense for it and the beer muscle defenses like “competitors compete” are properly the butt of joke and ridicule.
(*) While also recognizing that there was really no way to stop him in the middle of it. Cuban could order Kidd to tank the last six games; OTOH, there was no tactical way to even have accomplished that with Thibs short of calling down in the middle of the game and telling him to rest his starters or he’d be fired, which itself would probably violate The Code.
No, they just get stronger the more people who go down.
Yeah Z-Man, it would be a step in the right direction.
Speaking about sunday, from what I heard/watched Milwaukee tried but they were a disaster (Dame played very badly) and the Magic were hungrier.
On the other hand Cleveland went full-coward, they were up by 10 during the 4th and then put a 4-backup centers lineup in.
Max Strus, who comes from a “different” culture, was incensed and responded to the media questions accordingly.
I hope the Magic beat them and Bickerstaff gets fired.
Except he guaranteed us home court advantage in the second round.
The aura of Embiid or the Heat aside, there is no difference record wise between the Cavs, Pacers, Magic, Heat or 76’ers. The idea that the Magic or Pacers (or Cavs) are far weaker than the Heat or 76ers is dubious at best and based mostly on feelings.
Hahahahaha. The Sixers are a super team! Omg I’ve heard it all.
Pags I order you to commit seppuku when we’re done with these bums.
Lots of beer muscles re the Sixers. It’s fandom, so understandable.
Still dumb af by Thibs. It’s basically being forced to throw down with the bouncers because the dipshit friend you happened to be stuck with at the bar got wasted and threw his beer on them.
Guys, we’re probably going to play Philadelphia then Indiana. The other path was Indiana then Philadelphia. Give it a rest.
Alan already posted it, but the Katz story on OG really is great: https://theathletic.com/5417952/2024/04/16/og-anunoby-cuts-knicks-nba-playoffs/
Helps you understand why his impact numbers are right there with anyone else’s. So, so happy we have this dude and he can have my elbow if he wants.
I’m even less sympathetic to the idea that we should’ve tanked game 82 than I was yesterday. Anyone absolutely certain our opponent will even be Philly should go get rich, because they’re only -210 to beat Miami. Favorites for sure, but hardly “mortal locks such that we should give up HCA throughout the playoffs to avoid them.”
We made the decision a team that has higher ambitions than winning their first-round series would make. I haven’t seen a remotely compelling objection to that.
Indiana would be a better first round opponent than Miami, as well. Not really even close.
The “one game home court delta” doesn’t come close to offsetting the “Indiana/Philly delta” paired with the “the 2 seed, missing its best player for most or all of the series, might not have even made the second round.”
It was a complete blunder.
If Thibs was dumb, then Donovan was lobotomized. What the fuck was he doing by pushing his starters like it was game 7 and risking a tweaked ankle when there was absolutely nothing in it for his team? If he wanted to get them some game time, fine, but he could have pulled everyone after 20 minutes or so.
Yet I admire what he did, and what Thibs did. Maybe some kid was at his/her first game because the tickets were more available than most, and he/she got to see the actual stars take home a thrilling overtime win.
This is a huge mischaracterization of what we’d be giving up. The ONLY HCA we would have as 2 seed that we would not have as a 3 seed is if we encountered the Bucks in round 2.
The Bucks are very likely to be eliminated by the Pacers considering that Giannis is hurt/limited and the Pacers have destroyed them all year. The Bucks are also a favorable opponent for us as Brunson has averaged close to 40ppg against them. We’d have a very good shot at beating the Bucks without HCA and we’d have had HCA anyway against whoever upsets them.
This slight chance at an extra HCA is a very minor benefit that we’ll never enjoy, because we purchased it at the extremely high cost of very likely sacrificing our chances to advance past round 1. We are completely outmatched against the healthy Sixers, and you can bet they’ll put in a herculean effort to win tomorrow and avoid Boston.
I guess I’ll check in with Team Seppuku after we’ve lost game 1 to the Sixers, and then again when we’re down 3-1, and then again when we’re watching the Sixers beat up on Indy on their way to the ECF berth many of us have coveted. I’m curious to see if anyone’s commitment to Thibsian Bushido wavers.
The Pacers are now even money to win that series.
I don’t. Shitty coaches working for conference rivals is a good thing!
I agree! Unfortunately, dumb actions taken by other teams don’t make our dumb actions any smarter, or more defensible.
I thought Joel Embiid sucked in the playoffs. He has still never made it to the conference finals and he’s been around for a while now.
They’re beatable.
Then we would have had no chance of making it past the second round. So what’s the big deal?
It’s not like Miami winning is much relief. The combination of their equity to beat us + their equity to injure our guys with dirty play makes our overall outlook not much better than it’d be against the Sixers. OG might get an injury just from shaking Adebayo’s hand when they introduce the starting lineups.
We beat a completely healthy Sixers team by 38 points in Philadelphia but now we’re completely outmatched by them.
Obviously we suck and can only maybe beat the Pacers. Might as well rip the band aid off.
Embiid has been a lot better this year than years prior. He has hit an all-time high in scoring volume with negligible loss in efficiency and increased his assist rate almost 50% without a substantial increase in turnovers.
He also has a legitimately great coach on the bench instead of a borderline saboteur, tons of great defensive and shooting support, and Kyle Lowry for a dash of Heat Culture/Brunson injury equity. We are fucked.
“We beat a completely healthy Sixers team by 38 points in Philadelphia but now we’re completely outmatched by them.”
True that we beat them by 36 when they had Embiid, but we also had Randle and Grimes for that game. Randle had an incredibly bad game (8/7/5 on 1-for-11 shooting), but Grimes had 19 and 8 rebounds on 6-of-13 shooting (4-of-9 from 3-point range). Just pointing out that our team has substantially changed since then, too.
We would likely beat any of the Cavs, Pacers, Bucks, Magic, or Heat (if Adebayo fails to take out enough guys). That’s 5/6 of the reasonably possible opponents. We committed laser-guided Seppuku to ensure we got the hardest (or most dangerous).
We beat Denver by a similar margin in a game that didn’t mean anything. Are we favored against them?
How about if we swap Randle & Grimes for Bojan & Bricks?
Also, Sixers were not completely healthy. Embiid looked and played like shit in that game (-29) and missed multiple games right after.
Randle was 1-11 with 6 turnovers in that game.
What I don’t get is if the Sixers are this juggernaut that we can’t beat, then if Thibs had tanked all he would have done is change the round they beat us from the 1st to the 2nd. You’re acting like he cost us a title. At worst, he cost us a round. Who cares?
I think the Pacers could be a problem for the Knicks. Orlando less so, but they gave us problems this year and Miami is Miami. No use getting all worked up about Philly when they might not even beat the Heat. Embiid could fuck up his knee again and they could be home for the summer on Saturday
You can’t have a fair conversation about Cam Reddish’s development or play without acknowledging the fact that he’s often hurt going all the way back to college. This year may have been his most injury riddled season even though none of it was serious. You just aren’t going to get better or play at your best unless you get healthy and sustain it for awhile. Once KP more or less got healthy and could sustain it for awhile, he was able to focus on his development and his game took off. There’s no guarantee the same would be true for Cam. If anything, the knucklehead factor soured me on him a little as time went by, but I still think he was “talented”. But talent will only get you so far if you are hurt, can’t or don’t work hard, or have a bad attitude.
Their only weakness is Embiid’s durability. Forcing them to get through a tough first-round series gives him a chance to break down.
It’s also possible the Bucks would beat them.
I also enjoy seeing us win playoff series and value that intrinsically. Would you rather we’d played the Heat first round last year and missed out on our only series win in the last decade?
Philly should tank to dodge us. I bet they lose in the play-in to the Chicago Bulls.
Cam Reddish sucks. Simple as
Cam Reddish Syndrome should be added to the next version of the DSM
I am not unsympathetic to the opinion that Thibs should have pulled the starters, although having experienced the Grandeur of Ndour, we probably would have won anyway on a Sims jumper. Hell, it took an unlikely miss from DeRozan to get a win a it was!
In any case, it’s done. Whining about it isn’t going to change anything, and now that everyone knows where everyone else stands on the issue, my guess is that the vast majority of posters would be happy to move on. We will play whoever wins the MIA-PHI game, and it would be nice to focus on that.
What kind of super team can’t beat the bucks without Giannis?
Which is, of course, a huge advantage we would want over the Bucks such that tanking to try to play the Pacers, who I will repeat closed the season quite strongly, instead of the winner of the play-in game is quite far from clearly beneficial.
In any event, Hubert is right. You guys shouldn’t be remotely worked up over any of this shit if we have no chance against the Sixers. If that’s the case I’m glad Thibs saved me some second-round playoff ticket money. Thanks coach!
A lot of people enjoyed seeing us win 50 and value that intrinsically.
Then I put the question to you again. Would you have preferred us winning 50 last season and going straight to a first-round exit to us winning 47 and beating the Cavs in 5?
Dying on the Cam Reddish hill is hilarious I have to admit.
Dying on ridiculous hills is a big part of what we do around here.
Scary Terry isn’t playing tomorrow, which could be a plus for either the Heat or the Sixers depending on which of his erratic versions would have shown up.
We won a first round series against Boston in 2013 and then lost to the Pacers in the next round.
Does anybody give a shit about having won that series against Boston in 2013? I don’t. I really kind of didn’t at the time. We won a playoff series last year. It was satisfying. It’s not one of my most cherished sports memories of all time, but it was nice.
Were we all really going to be buying commemorative plates to memorialize our first round victory over the 2024 Indiana Pacers if we had tanked the 82nd game? Somehow I don’t think I’d have given much of a shit about that.
It’s actually kind of sad, really, to think it’s some kind of accomplishment to tank your way into a matchup against a weaker opponent, beat that opponent, then lose in the next round to the opponent you avoided by tanking. I just can’t see myself feeling satisfied at that. I’d rather just lose to them outright in the first round.
I can’t believe the play-in game is not until tomorrow. This is way too much time with nothing to really talk about.
Why do you think I started us off with the LeBron/Sopranos video, Brian? I thought we’d get at least half a day out of just that.
I also enjoy seeing us win playoff series and value that intrinsically.
our shooting is trash. we can’t hit the rim. it’s over. we’re getting mauled. we won’t win a single quarter. no way hartenstein stays after this beat down. dolan’s moving the team to the sphere. jalen just twitched. it’s parkinson’s. there was our one lucky quarter of the series. this little run is just going to enrage them. they gave us a pity game, like a special ed team. they’ve taken all our best punches. here they come. losing a 3-1 lead is going to hurt more than getting swept. we just put our entire gameplan on tape. daquan jeffries is going to be exhausted. most pyrrhic victory since pearl harbor. let’s go again.
Thank you for that, ptmilo. Even I wouldn’t have thought of that Parkinson’s angle, that’s good stuff!
If we do make it to up 3-1 I’ll switch to Team Seppuku, promise.
In order to “die on a hill” doesn’t there need to be (1) a hill; and (2) a death?
Perhaps not since the term “ruff rydah” was unironically flung arounda decade or so ago has there been a better example of OK Boomer/David Eckstein was great in the clutch/Old Man Yells at Cloud than, “The Knicks honored the game by playing to win Game 82, even if it gave them a way tougher first round.”
What does Cam Reddish have to do with us winning 50 games, E?
Cam Reddish sucks. Enough with that scrub. He’s never going to be a successful NBA player.
Ask Z-Man about Cam. He (Z) was the one who brought him (Cam) up. It’s his hill, not mine.
But in any event we now have real association basketball that matters, so all is roses.
I mean, people can enjoy a playoff win or they can be frustrated we didn’t get to the finals, it’s a matter of taste. I enjoyed the shit out of the season we lost to the Pacers. I didn’t take a lot of satisfaction out of scraping by a team in the first round that year we should have handled easily. Losing to the Pacers was a really frustrating loss because I thought we had a real shot to go to the finals that year, and I at least wanted to see if we could play Miami like we had in the regular season. And the way it ended was also really stupid.
Losing to the Heat last year sucked, but beating the Cavs the way the Knicks did was awesome. That team exceeded my expectations, I enjoyed the year a lot. Miami was roughly at our level and they made more plays than us. We weren’t winning a title anyhow.
In 2020-21, I felt a bit blindsided by losing to the Hawks in round 1 after we reverse-tanked to avoid the feared top-3 teams to secure home court. I definitely would preferred to have lost to the Bucks or Sixers, but was relieved that we avoided the humiliation of losing to the vaunted Nets.
In 2022-23, it was great to win that first round series to get off the 10-year schneid, and yet it still sucked to lose. But at least we didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of losing to the Celts, and got to see them knocked off by the same team that beat us. Moral victory!
And now that we have broken that streak, moral victories don’t mean as much after a glorious 50-win season. In that sense, I’d rather find out if Philly or Miami is better than us than risk a horrific loss to Indiana. But if DeRozan had hit that jumper and we lost, of if Thibs pulled the starters and we lost, I’d be fine with that too.
Nothing short of a finals appearance is going to leave me giving a shit about how this season ends, and we are going to have to play our asses off against good, well-coached teams to get there. I don’t really know what the easiest road to the finals will turn out to be. For the Heat last year, it was to lose game 1 in the play-in, then come within a quarter of being eliminated in game 2 to secure the 8th seed, then to knock off the #1 seed in 5, then the #4 seed in 6, then the #2 seed in 7. In other words, finishing 2, 3, or 4 probably won’t determine whether these playoffs end on a high note or not.
Philly is not an all-time great juggernaut. Neither is Miami. Or Indiana. To paraphrase General Grant, we need to stop worrying about what they are going to do to us and start thinking about what we are going to do to them.
I watched that whole piece – the video and the commentary, which was right on. So many bad choices! I laughed often, but afterward, it hit me that I was only able to laugh because today is so much different. Thank the Lord. Dolan may be a musician, but he’s tone-deaf – what a disaster of a pitch. Just embarrassing.
So it was worth a shot, Alan. It worked for me! (Also, I miss Gandolfini)
“Ask Z-Man about Cam. He (Z) was the one who brought him (Cam) up. It’s his hill, not mine.”
I brought him up in the context of Leon being closed-mouthed about his moves in general. Regardless of the reasons for it, or whether Cam has potential or not, the move turned out to be a complete waste for the Knicks, i.e. Leon fucked up. You and your itchy trigger finger chose to spin that into a referendum on Cam, so don’t blame me for that.
“…#5 seed in 6…”
Pro basketball and hockey have been playoff sports for me for decades. I mean, I like the regular seasons in those sports and watch and attend a bunch of games, and pay generally close attention and enjoy them — but in terms of regular season and playoffs, it’s like 1 to 50. Not remotely close.
Mileages can of course vary.
You really picked the wrong basketball team
Kind of fun watching Zion against LeBron.
The Hill: Saying Cam Reddish is a promising player
Dying on it: Still pretending he was a promising player after much evidence to the contrary
The Lakers have so many random dudes, I didn’t even know Jaxon Hayes was on their team.
Definitely want the Pels to win going away, because 1) LA, and 2) Cdiggy.
Oddly enough, no Cam so far…
Lebron’s incredible
Cam has an ankle injury (shocker!)
I never understood the whole “the Lakers should tank” thing. There’s a real chance you lose that final game! Even if you think the Lakers are a favorite, it is what, a 65% win probability? The drop off from the Nuggets to OKC – if a drop off at all, even accounting for matchups – in no way closes that gap.
I still prefer our roster to the Cavs 😉
Lebron is carving up the Pellies
Lebron was plaing in the NBA before Dyson Daniels could walk
Wait, aren’t the Lakers supposed to tank so that they can avoid the Nuggets?
nm, marechal has is covered…
I don’t think anyone is pushing the narrative that losing in the 2nd round is so much better than the 1st. You are building a straw man with that argument.
It’s not about which round we lose in. Losing in the 2nd round wouldn’t be much better than losing in the 1st other than getting to watch more Knicks which is more fun than less Knicks.
But each difficult series we are in increases the chance we are eliminated. It’s not that I believe that Philly will beat us same with a healthy Bucks team. I don’t. I think we have a very good chance against both of them but things still need to break our way to win either series. With Boston, we probably also need a bit of luck but I don’t think that is impossible either, we are a very good team.
But, by adding extra difficult matchups it lowers our margin of error. Why make the road harder if we don’t need to. I am not suggesting we should have pulled a Cleveland and tanked the game I am merely suggesting we should have pulled Brunson and OG once the Cavs lost and the Pacers won and then accepted whatever result that might have brought.
Zion isn’t the generational superstar we were promised, but he’s still damn good when he’s healthy and not fat
Not for nothing but everyone complaining the Knicks should’ve lost Sunday to make the 1st rd easier are soft as fuck.
Maybe LeBron is actually tanking?
Zion- a guy who doesn’t need a jumper to dominate
And now he’s injured…
Jose Alvarado is making NY proud…
I think Zion fucked up his hammy again
It’s just way too easy to picture a scenario in which we lose a tough series to the Bucks in the second round and lament that we couldn’t beat the damn Bulls in game 82 for me to take this shit seriously. There’s no clear case for one option over the other, so if you think the win had any intangible benefits whatsoever (I do, for the record), it’s fine or better than fine.
Maybe another part of his leg, but he’s into the locker room. what a bummer
God damn it I jinxed him
Choosing to make your life harder for no reason isn’t tough it’s just stupid.
It’s sports, it’s athletic competition. Choosing the so called easier path by purposely losing is soft and pathetic.
Zion in the locker room and Brandon Ingram on the bench. . .Pelicans need to blow it up
Brunson would destroy Alvarado.
An Alvarado-McConnell death match would be awesome…
Maybe the Pels are tanking…
They should trade Ingram for sure before they give him a max contract
If the warriors beat them…Greene might get canned
I sometimes ponder an alternate history where we get the number 1 pick and Zion
I honestly don’t think we’d be any better off today.
Yankees looking like it’s 2023, Game 1 Saturday can’t get here soon enough.
“I sometimes ponder an alternate history where we get the number 1 pick and Zion
I honestly don’t think we’d be any better off today.”
Not unless we traded him straight up for OG…
I am not suggesting losing on purpose. I am suggesting sitting down our recently injured forward, our center on a minutes restriction, and our superstar guard who doesn’t know how to not put his body on the line on every play once it was clear that winning the game no longer mattered. That isn’t tanking and it isn’t losing on purpose it’s looking at the bigger picture and being smart. Should Brunson play 40 minutes in a preseason game or a scrimmage. Context and stakes matter. Once the game had no stakes we needed to sit our stars to make sure nothing happened to them. The fact losing would be beneficial is just gravy.
they have the best record in baseball
I have much tougher standards for the Yankees than the Knicks!
Knicks Game 1 Saturday at 6pm.
Lakers Nuggets get the 8:30pm ABC slot.
Mets won again.
Woot!
Rangers v caps…Sunday at noon…big weekend at msg
Capitals had a pretty big negative goal differential, would hope Rangers can have a relatively easy 1st rd although in hockey no playoff series is usually easy.
Mets’ bullpen was 2nd in MLB in WAR before tonight’s game and they pitched 4 scoreless innings tonight with 9 strikeouts, 1 walk and 1 hit allowed. On paper they don’t seem to be an elite bullpen but they have been racking up the strikeouts and keeping the ball in the yard.
9-3 now since the 0-5 start. I’m as surprised as anybody.
“I am not suggesting losing on purpose. I am suggesting sitting down our recently injured forward, our center on a minutes restriction, and our superstar guard who doesn’t know how to not put his body on the line on every play once it was clear that winning the game no longer mattered.”
I’m torn between the opinions on this matter, but this take is quite flawed.
Last year, Thibs rested everyone once they had the 5 seed locked up and there was no longer a chance to advance or fall. THAT’S a situation where winning the game “no longer mattered.”
In this case, winning actually mattered very significantly. You and others feel that it mattered, but in a counterproductive way, so it was better to do whatever was necessary to virtually ensure that it lead to a desired loss. Alas, Thibs felt it mattered in an actually productive way (and the fact that TNFH, DRed, JK, and others not known for being Thibs stans strongly agree with him in this case should give you at least some pause.)
I think you are sugarcoating your take about sitting a couple of players down and just letting the chips fall where they may. When the 3rd seed meant IND, you wanted Thibs to essentially throw the game. You can’t sanitize this take. And in my opinion, you don’t have to! It’s a legitimate tactic! Respected teams and coaches do it!
But beyond the debatable strategic advantage/disadvantage, some feel that it sets a bad tone, or is an offense to the basketball gods and invites some sort of bad karma. There’s some personal preference baked in there, but when the +/- is so close, it deserves some latitude. As does your take. This is pretty close to being a 50-50 ball.
Refs and league want warriors…
And we did it with … checks notes … Reed Garrett and Jorge Lopez.
No Ottavino, no Diaz, no Raley.
Word is that our new pitching lab is paying dividends in this regard….
Hard not to root for the Kings here…
Keon had freon in his veins…
Alex len is definitely in the running for worst longest tenured player in the league
My guess is that a Klay Donut doesn’t taste very good…
bye bye warriors…
makes me think either the hawks or heat might also win tomorrow…
I’ll guess the kings make it past the pels also to face off with the thunder…
So what do the Warriors do, just run it back next year?
Hard to feel an ounce of sympathy for their fans, they had a long stretch of basketball nirvana
Ding dong the witch is dead
I feel like if any of the 2-10 seeded teams in the east played in the west, they maybe wouldn’t even make the playoffs.
Z-Man – You are right. The results did matter, what I should have said is that winning the game had no benefit.
Also, I think there is a difference to not trying to win ant all costs and actively throwing a game. I don’t think you should play purposely counter productive lineups or make bad coaching decisions or encourage players to purposely miss shots. But simply resting a couple of your best players when winning does not benefit you in any way is fine. In fact like you said it is very common.
That is the difference, I was not suggesting we put an all center lineup out there like Cleveland did or bench a young player on a tear because he is making too many shots like Dallas last year. I’m just suggesting sit your vets and take your foot off the gas a bit. And then if the 2nd stringers win. Fine. You didn’t risk injury and you didn’t make a mockery of the game.
What if after the other games were decided we were locked into the 2nd seed win or lose, would sitting Brunson and OG be okay then or do they need to play all the way to the end when the results truly make no difference?
Can you only not try when winning and losing has no effect or is it okay when winning simply has no benefit? I don’t see a moral difference.