[Yahoo Sports] – Tue, 07 May 2024 06:46:57 GMT
- NBA playoffs: Officials admit they flubbed critical kick-ball call in controversial final minute of Pacers-Knicks
- Pacers react to ‘controversial’ late calls in Knicks’ Game 1 win, Myles Turner expects ‘glaring’ L2M report
- NBA Has a Consistency Problem with How Playoff Games Are Being Officiated
- Pacers respond to questionable calls by refs in Game 1 loss to Knicks
- Joel Embiid, NBA world react to refereeing in Knicks-Pacers Game 1
[ESPN] – Tue, 07 May 2024 02:37:00 GMT
- Jalen Brunson notches 4th straight 40-point game, Knicks win
- Knicks 121-117 Pacers (May 6, 2024) Final Score
- NBA playoffs: Jalen Brunson scores 43 points, Knicks outlast Pacers for 121117 win in Game 1
- Jalen Brunson, ‘Nova trio power Knicks’ Game 1 win to survive late Pacers scare
- Game recap: Pacers fall to Knicks in Game 1 of NBA playoffs series
[Yahoo Sports] – Mon, 06 May 2024 23:09:25 GMT
- Heat’s Pat Riley unhappy with Jimmy Butler’s remarks on Celtics and Knicks, implies he needs to play more
- Did Pat Riley send a clear, present message to Jimmy Butler?
- How will Miami Heat handle Jimmy Butlers extension request?
- Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau Reacts to Jimmy Butler’s Video, Jokes He’d ‘Beat Him to a Pulp’
- Pat Riley: Jimmy Butler extension to depend on availability
[New York Post] – Tue, 07 May 2024 01:43:00 GMT
Yankees stars, Knicks greats come out for Game 1 vs. Pacers at the Garden
[The Athletic] – Tue, 07 May 2024 09:05:13 GMT
- Mondays NBA playoffs scores, takeaways: Knicks slip by in MSG; Nuggets fall in 2-0 hole
- Wolves stagger Nuggets again as Edwards, Towns spark Game 2 rout
- NBA playoffs scores, takeaways: Timberwolves demolish Nuggets in Game 2 road win over Nuggets
- Minnesota’s defense has Denver shook, Timberwolves take 2-0 series lead
- Timberwolves 106, Nuggets 80: Swarming defense has Wolves up 2-0 on Nuggets
[New York Post] – Tue, 07 May 2024 01:45:00 GMT
- Ex-Knick Obi Toppin pulls off electrifying Pacers dunk to stun MSG
- Obi Toppin’s Emphatic Between-the-Legs Dunk vs. Knicks Left NBA Fans in Awe
- Central Notes: Toppin, Pacers, Allen, Pistons
- Obi Toppin throws down spectacular dunk in Pacers vs. Knicks series
- Knicks face Obi Toppin in 2nd round vs. Pacers
[CBS Sports] – Mon, 06 May 2024 15:25:00 GMT
- 2024 NBA playoff predictions: Expert picks for second round, with Knicks, Celtics favored to move on
- NBA Playoffs Thread: Pacers vs. Knicks, Wolves vs. Nuggets
- Series previews: What to expect in semifinals of 2024 NBA playoffs
- NBA playoff bracket: Second round updated schedule, games today
- NBA playoffs: Predictions for each second-round series and Game 7 of Cavaliers-Magic
[New York Post] – Tue, 07 May 2024 04:56:00 GMT
- Knicks’ Josh Hart delivers another stellar 48-minute effort: ‘Dudes crazy’
- Josh Hart might never sub out of a game, and it’s all his fault
- Josh Hart Posts 24 | Highlights and Live Video from Bleacher Report
- “It was a passing thought, I let it pass” – Tom Thibodeau hilariously reflects on possibility of subbing Josh Hart out
- Carmelo Anthony’s Viral Post On X After Knicks-76ers Series
[Sports Illustrated] – Mon, 06 May 2024 22:04:34 GMT
Jalen Brunson Gets NYC Nike Billboard With Spot-on Message
[New York Post] – Mon, 06 May 2024 18:13:00 GMT
- Knicks may have to expand rotation against Pacers after exhausting minutes in first round
- Knicks Notes: Rotation, Hart, Thibodeau, DiVincenzo
- Should Tom Thibodeau expand the Knicks rotation in the series vs Indiana?
- The decimation of the Knicks bench could give the Pacers the opening they need
- Thibodeau making enough adjustments to beat Pacers
[Yahoo Sports] – Tue, 07 May 2024 10:26:55 GMT
Indiana Pacers 117 – New York Knicks 121: Final score, results, recap, box score, stats
[New York Post] – Mon, 06 May 2024 18:00:00 GMT
Knicks would be making a ‘real mistake’ if they don’t keep Tom Thibodeau: Stan Van Gundy
[The Athletic] – Mon, 06 May 2024 08:31:10 GMT
NBA Playoffs expert picks, odds for Monday: Pacers at Knicks, Timberwolves at Nuggets
[Newsday] – Tue, 07 May 2024 05:40:34 GMT
NY Knicks take game 1 121-117 against the Indiana Pacers
[IndyStar] – Tue, 07 May 2024 08:37:01 GMT
Pacers center Myles Turner discusses what led to the Pacers’ Game 1 loss to the Knicks.
[New York Post] – Tue, 07 May 2024 00:51:00 GMT
- Isaiah Hartenstein hits wild half-court shot at buzzer to give Knicks life before halftime
- Pacers-Knicks: Isaiah Hartenstein drains half-court shot to end first half
- Knicks’ Hartenstein beats halftime buzzer with deep heave
- TNT cameras catch Tyrese Haliburton in state of shock after Isaiah Hartensteins miracle shot in Pacers v…
- Nate Duncan: Per @DanFeldmanNBA research that
[CBS Sports] – Mon, 06 May 2024 14:44:00 GMT
2024 NBA playoffs: Ranking every first-round series with Knicks vs. 76ers instant classic at No. 1
[ESPN] – Mon, 06 May 2024 21:00:00 GMT
The birth of the Nova Knicks
[New York Post] – Tue, 07 May 2024 00:43:00 GMT
- These Knicks don’t fit a conventional second-round mold
- The Knicks Are the Contender the NBA Didn’t See Coming
- Knicks fans rejuvenated after years of misfortune
- The unyielding spirit of the New York Knicks
- Jalen Brunson’s Knicks weren’t charmed from the start, but they keep finding answers in the playoffs
[New York Post] – Mon, 06 May 2024 20:25:00 GMT
- Spike Lee is over his Knicks-Pacers Reggie Miller rivalry: ‘It’s all love’
- Reggie Miller expects villain’s welcome from Knicks fans: ‘Boogeyman is coming back to town’
- Reggie Miller trolls Knicks fans ahead of calling Pacers series: ‘The Boogeyman is coming back to town’
- Reggie Miller to call Game 2 of Knicks-Pacers playoff series for TNT
- And while the Knicks tormentor probably won’t get a warm greeting from the crowd, Miller’s most
[New York Post] – Mon, 06 May 2024 20:41:00 GMT
- 76ers facing ‘a lot of change’ this offseason after playoff loss to Knicks
- Clippers want to keep Paul George, James Harden with Kawhi Leonard
- Joel Embiid and the Burden of Dominance
- With a ‘lot of change’ coming, 5 takeaways on Morey’s end-of-season press conference
- Sixers’ Morey Vows To Shake Up Roster In “Big” Offseason
203 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.05.07)”
Something beautiful about baseball’s greatest closer, Mariano, cheering Knick’s greatest closer, Jalen. There are no words to describe how clutch he is.
We did not shoot well from 3, and a certain point we stopped doing it almost entirely. Ordinarily, the math of that would kill us. But Brunson and Hart defy math, logic, rest, etc.
Meanwhile, the hustlebunny comedy stylings of Josh Hart:
A win is a win and more so in the playoffs.
Brunson is now a superstar (and he starts to get whistled accordingly, the “status calls” are a thing I honestly always despised in the NBA), Donte woke up in the second half and J-Hart was simply magnificent.
Just like the Philly series, to me this would have been a sweep or at worst a genteman sweep with Julius and Bojan in tow.
That said I think we should not be satisfied with the way we played, we can’t rest on our laurels because there’s a lot of things we need to improve so that we can finally get the elusive 15-points relaxed win we seek so much…
First things first: the refs were terrible, but they were terrible both ways. The Pacers took the short straw and I understand why their fans are pissed, on the other side we’re not accustomed to “beneficial calls” (Brunson “marginal contact” call was ridiculous) and anyway things will even out in Indy.
L2M will add spices to the controversies and restoke the fire until next game which, thank heaven, will come soon.
Two things stand out in my Worry-Meter:
1. Bench Points: Indiana 46 NY 3
I didn’t like at all watching McConnell and Obi put up 30 points in 41 combined minutes and slicing us like celery sticks for pinzimonio.
I know our rotation is maimed by Julius and Bogey injuries and the Deuce-Precious-Mitch were abysmal but we need to do something.
Try Shake, put a laser sighting in Deuce’s eyes, I don’t know.
2. Indiana took a lot of good and open shots, their offense was smooth for most of the game.
We had to work very hard and our offense often bogged down.
Changin subject, I’m astonished by the Wolves. Without Gobert they smashed the Nuggets, the second half was basically a practice scrimmage.
Denver shares a thing with us, a non-existent bench, but there’s a big difference because they choosed to do so, while we’re paying for bad luck.
Josh Hart has a future in the entertainment business 🙂
We lost a playoff game on a shot 38 feet from the basket. That area needs to be defended. Turner was about to step into a wide open three.
He bloody tripped him! He stuck out his knee and tripped him. What the hell are people talking about here?
Bullshit. Kevin Garnett and Bam Adebayo are about the only two people who can get away with that kind of screen. And we’re all furious when they do. Miles Turner ain’t getting away with that.
The Pacers certainly looked like the better team last night and if those calls don’t go against them the Pacers probably win. Pascal, Turner, TJ etc looked like they could get buckets at will, whereas our points were really hard fought, mostly late in the shot clock.
I gotta give them credit – they didn’t whine after the game like Philly. Miles Turner especially gets a lot of respect for his post game. They probably feel pretty good actually – they lost game 1 to Milwaukie as well.
FWIW everyone at the garden (not exactly impartial, I know) thought it was a foul immediately and started to shout before the whistle was blown. When shown on the screen the whole crowd cheered instantly when we saw how blatantly obvious it was that would stand.
I don’t know what they were saying on TV and in the media but it seems to have massively influenced the way people perceive the incident. You show that play without commentary or narrative and there’s no question.
That’s an illegal 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. Again I ask: what the fuck are people talking about here? Miles Turner was trying to cheat and people crying because he didn’t get away with it.
My nitpicks
We shot 11-23 for 48% for 3. But it sure felt that way early on.
Agree, it was a trip that gave them a big advantage. I suppose folks are saying this because he sold it. But even if he didn’t sell, it would have left Turner wide open.
Josh Hart has a future in the entertainment business *if he learns how to use the word “like” less often. He is hilarious tho.
Question: the non-kick overturn deflected into a kick that was small, but he pretty clearly moved his foot to influence the direction of the ball.
I should change my twitter handle to Hustlebunny Fella. Any Fella’s out there? If you know, you know.
We all admitted Maxey got fouled. None of us would have been mad if they called it. That’s home court advantage, though. Three days later Joel Embiid committed a flagrant 2 and most of us begrudgingly accepted the fact that no ref is ever gonna make that call.
This got nothing to do with that, though, cuz Miles Turner blatantly tried to cheat and he got caught. I cannot fathom why people are upset about this.
Thanks for the quotes, Alan. Josh Hart is hilarious… and probably had problems with the wife after that! 😀
Please, all. Myles Turner, not Miles Turner.
Brunson is really on some kind of streak right now. I think the game felt bad because so much of what Brunson does on offense feels unsustainable. But at the end of the day, we had a 126.7 offensive rating last night even with some really egregious turnovers and an overall disappointing effort on the offensive glass even though no one really had an outlier offensive performance in terms of shooting. But without a doubt, I felt like we played the Pacers’ game rather than what we might want, and I imagine we all feel like we stole one last night (even though we might very well have gotten a stop on that Turner illegal screen play).
I wish I had some insight into how fatigued the players are feeling. There are more breaks in playoff games — I found some site (thehoopsgeek.com) that said that the duration of playoff games is about 13 minutes longer per game than regular season games. So that’s a fair amount of rest built in. But with all the full court pressure and faster pace, we can’t help but wonder how long we can keep this up. Need Deuce to be better and justify playing him 20 minutes so that Donte and maybe even Josh Hart can get a few minutes of rest.
Hubert – the issue with the Turner call isn’t because it’s not a foul (it is a foul) – it’s because both teams set screens like that 10 times/game.
But Donte falling down really does put the onus on the ref to call something — because if he doesn’t, it’s a huge advantage to the Pacers playing 5 on 4 at least for the few seconds it takes for Donte to get back into the play. Either way, one fan base is going to be upset.
Great game, great win! 🧡💙
I agree that the foot call was wrong and if Divo didn’t sell the moving screen foul there’d be no way the ref would call it. But there were other bad calls that favored Indy. Either way, i think we got a friendly whistle, so if it goes the other way in one of the next games, we shouldn’t complain.
Now, let’s focus on winning game 2. That’ll be huge!
And as I write “faster pace” – it occurred to me to check what the actual pace was last night — and it was 95.5 according to B-R.
Our pace in the regular season -> 95.1.
Indy’s pace in the regular season -> 101.7
I guess it was not really a faster pace than usual for us, but the Philly series was mostly played around a pace of 90 so it just felt faster.
the thing that would piss us off the most if the tables were turned is that on the possession @ just under 1min, where they wrongly called a kick ball and nixed a fast break the other way, nesmith also got hit with an uncalled moving screen from…donte.
Didn’t understand the challenge there either, it was a blatant illegal screen.
The kick ball call was the give back for the previously blown out of bounds and for the waste of the challenge on the blatant kick ball the one before that.
But the refs also didn’t make Hali only score 6 pts.
Seems like Rick was content to run the same defense the sixers ran in game 1/2 on JB which I think is the game right there.
On the positive note, I’m not sure if Brunson was always this good at drawing fouls but it’s definitely a key part of his game now.
And some of Hart’s rebounds in traffic over taller dudes were positively Rodman-esque – and this against a team that appeared to be actively fighting for those balls.
I dunno what the stats say but to my eyes the Knicks seemed to get (badly) outscored on points in the paint – getting Hartenstein or OG more involved seems kinda urgent, unless Brunson can somehow sustain what he’s doing…
The screen was a foul, but a rarely called one. That said, Donte was also called for a moving screen in the fourth quarter that was similarly iffy.
Edit: it was actually the third quarter, but look at this. So weak.
https://x.com/communistjim/status/1787766870294053306?s=46&t=4zH_tT7IhY4rnjeSDHverg
Milosh Turnover.
The screen was a foul, but a rarely called one. That said, Donte was also called for a moving screen in the fourth quarter that was similarly iffy.
he didn’t but i’m guessing you mean the play where we are on defense up 113-109 and divo got called for running over nesmith’s screen. i agree that was a flop by nesmith.
edit: saw your edit. agree that was extremely similar
Unlike the wins over Philly where even though they were all close Knicks at points during the games seemed to be in total control last night they flat out stole the game. 1st quarter they looked good and early during the 3rd quarter but for the most part Indiana seemed in control until latter half of 4th quarter. But Indiana throughout the season has had a habit of blowing games and not executing down the stretch and it showed last night.
Knicks need to clean up their defensive rotations and get something from Deuce off the bench but still feel comfortable with my Knicks in 6 pick. I’m sure sometime during the game tomorrow though my frustrations will make me want to change that pick…
Pacers outscored Knicks in the paint 64-58. Knicks outscored Pacers in fastbreak pts 20-18.
Everyone’s saying that but it’s just not true.
Those kinds of screens are the sole domain of inveterate cheats like Kevin Garnett and Bam Adebayo.
What made it egregious was the sudden last second extension of his knee into Donte’s legs. That’s even a penalty in hockey!
If that kinda screen happened 10 times a game the media would be showing you an example of it happening last night and not getting called. They’re not, though. They’re peddling that weak-ass Donte screen on the play before because that’s all they got.
The Knicks need to get the turnovers a little more under control. Indiana is a low turnover team, but 14-7 will not do.
The rebounding was a bit odd to me, but the Knicks were much better on the second half.
I’m not super confident that we will figure out how to guard that P&R, but they can win if they fix the other stuff that they have mostly avoided during the season. The bench minutes are a problem, they need to figure out how to guard TJ.
The team needs to find Mitch as much treatment as possible between games. Indy is gonna be a real challenge for him if he’s hobbled. A healthy center tandem of Mitch and Hartenstein should cause all kinds of problems for Indy, as well as an active Achiuwa. I also wonder if Thibs should throw Burks or even Milton out there for 5-10 minutes to spread the floor and give our Nova trio a little more of a rest. Indy’s a tough team to face with the pace that they play at
I think what you’re noticing Al is that out best 5 was better than their best 5 but for the 8-12 minutes where players need to sit the Pacers kicked our ass.
Thibs has to find a combination that works and I don’t think it involves Mitch getting heavy minutes. They play a lot of centerless basketball in their 2nd unit and that’s no country for Mitch.
I also don’t think it’s smart to make our starters chase TJ McConnell and Obi Toppin. This isn’t like the Sixers where if you pushed the starters they got to dominate against the Embiid-less Sixers.
We just need to patch together a bench unit that doesn’t get blown out. I think a combination of Deuce, Precious, and either Burks or Milton could do the job in this series.
If we turn the ball over less, we should be fine on offense because Indy’s defense is very soft. Brunson’s 40 felt less taxing than when he did it against Philly. I mean he only made one three which shows me he can get to the paint at will.
We do need to shore up our D. The pick and roll defense was pretty bad and Siakam got too many easy buckets for my liking. And please for the love of God make TJ shoot jump shots! No layups
Had to listen to the game on radio during a road trip but got home for the last 5 minutes or so. The radio guy was so-so, and Monica is good but sometimes too giddy for my taste.
If I were a Pacer fan, no doubt I’d feel like they were jobbed out of an opportunity to win that game, just like I felt that the Sixers had a right to feel like they were jobbed out of Game 2. Hali’s strip of Brunson and the non-kick ball were both blatantly obvious blown calls that would have lead to fast break baskets.
The screen was clearly illegal but no more obvious than the ball that hit Nembhard’s heel and cost the Knicks a challenge, so it could have been (erroneously) not called. I don’t think Turner’s screen was all that blatant or dirty, just a clearly illegal screen that is sometimes not called but usually is. Same with that foul on Brunson before the ball was inbounded, obvious foul that is often not called.
At the end of the day, we had the lead fair and square because we made big shots in crunch time, none bigger than DDV’s 3. Brunson’s three FTs were also huge. The Pacers blew a 9-point lead and have no one to blame but themselves.
they have to clean up the pnr defense and get someone to kneecap TJ McConnell
The way that Minny is destructing Denver is mind-blowing. It seemed more like Denver is in some sort of malaise than the TWolves were scoring at will. They were bad all game, scoring 20-15-25-20 across the four quarters.
My assumption all along has been that the only team that could keep the Celtics from winning it all (other than the Knicks, of course!) was the Nuggets. But is Minny capable of beating them?
If that happens, I will have to eat some crow on the Gobert trade, didn’t think that would result in a championship-level team.
We got extremely lucky last night to get that win and not just because of the controversial calls.
We turned the ball over way too much and their bench destroyed us. If we’re only going to play 7 players, we better hope to god we sweep this team or win it in 5 because if this goes to 6 or 7, they’re going to tired our dudes out.
Same time, we have to feel good about winning that game while not playing the best we can.
Cut down on the turnovers and play our style. Do better on the boards. The offensive rebounds on our end not only give us extra chances to score but also will break their will and slow down the game because they extend possessions for us.
But we need something from the bench. McBride HAS to step up and we gotta figure out a way to get Mitch and Precious involved.
Speaking of Mitch. He is lumbering right now and I just don’t know if we should be leaning on him so much in this series. This seems like a perfect opportunity to bust our Precious at the 5.
Not ready to say burks needs burn but maybe he does?
More than anything, though, last night really drove it home for me. Leon DOES NOT need to make some huge move this summer.
Resign Hart, OG and Precious. Get Randle and, to a lesser extent, Mitch, fully healthy.
Use your draft picks to draft some young talent to fill out the end of the bench. Fully healthy our team can compete for a title but we need some reinforcements. I don’t actually blame Thibs for the situation we’re in right now because being down Randle leaves a huge hole in the rotation. It’s not just the points and rebounds, although Randle would punish the shit out of Indiana. But it’s also the 40 minutes he would be playing a night. Hart has been absolutely incredible, no doubt, but having him start instead of come off the bench leaves us incredibly thin on the bench. Even more so with Bojan being down.
So make those picks Leon! We have 2 late first round picks and I believe at least one second rounder. Perfect place to get those slightly older, more NBA ready, type players that get passed over because they aren’t freshman and they don’t have some insane athletic potential. We need to restock the bench with some young talent that we can develop while the team competes.
Then use whatever mid level or bi annual or whatever we have to get a veteran stop gap PG (someone like Lowry but hopefully a few years younger?).
Everything went out the window once Randle was out for the season. But man it would be nice if Thibs had a few guys furhter down the bench that he trusted to throw out there.
The Knicks still had an offensive rating over 120 yesterday (I think it was 124?), so the offense was fine even with the turnovers and lack of ORBs. Some of it was the 3pt shooting, though the volume wasn’t that great, the Pacers are good at suppressing it. The Pacers foul a lot, so the offense is likely to continue to be fine. They just need to fix the defense.
And yes, if you had Randle playing 38 minutes a night or Bogey playing 20, all of a sudden the rotation looks fine. It’s a shitty situation, and building redundancies is important, but what can you do.
yes, but the turnovers gave Indy a lot of easy buckets, which is their game. Even when we scored they were pushing the ball up court super fast. They’re going to do that so we HAVE to limit the turnovers because we can’t give them 10 to 20 points off of turnovers every night.
Still, super fun game. Josh Hart is fucking awesome.
Swifty, I sort of disagree. With the moves and non-moves you describe, we are very solid, but I also think we need to consider that there is lots of room for improvement. You kinda have to assume improvement from the other teams and allow for some attrition due to injury. We got a bit lucky that Embiid, Giannis and Butler all went down, and that Cleveland and Orlando haven’t quite gelled yet. Indiana can still make moves for a key player or two.
So while it’s true that Leon doesn’t have to make any moves for us to keep the Garden rocking into late-May, there’s still work to do to be a “favored” title contener. But the floor of this team when healthy for the next few years seems to be tough second-round out. That’s amazing!
All we need to do better is make TJ shoot 2 jumpers instead of layups and OG to not try to create off the dribble. OG is a 3 and slasher only.
We got lucky that those players went down but we have Randle down too. Those teams also have a 2nd All-Star just like the Knicks, too bad they can’t deal with losing one of their best players like the Knicks have.
Obi shouldn’t have done the between the legs dunk. The basketball gods didn’t like that and acted accordingly.
Once the ref blew the whistle on the illegal screen, which happened quickly in real time, there was no way they could overturn the call. By the letter of the rule it was an illegal screen. They can’t come out and say “under further review this is the kind of call officials don’t usually make at the end of games because you gotta let ‘em play. Ruling on the court is overturned, Indiana’s ball.”
I think it’s wonderful that we’ve earned these whistles, by the way. And we did earn them.
How many times have we been on the other end of this shit?
All throughout the Miami series last year we were lamenting how many moving screens Bam got away with, how Brunson never got calls, how you couldn’t even breathe on Jimmy Butler without it being a foul.
Back in 2013 Melo was getting hacked on nearly every drive. Kevin Garnett was pulling shoulders out of their sockets with impunity. Roy Hibbert could kick you in the nuts as long as his arms were vertical.
How about 2011, Melo’s 42 pt game in Boston. Remember Toney Douglas getting tripped by Garnett to free up Ray Allen for the winning shot?
What we’re seeing right now is respect, and we fucking earned it.
We’re doing all of this while missing a 3 time all-star, 2 time all NBA player who averages 25 and 10 a game.
And a reminder – Brunson, Jokic, Butler…all second round picks. Hart and DDV late first round picks. IQ and Maxey late first round picks.
Talent abounds in the NBA later in the draft, even in the second round. And we seem to thrive picking later in the draft. Maybe we can draft that next player who’s been overlooked and will thrive in the Thibs culture and we can upgrade that way. It happens literally every year.
They also need to practice inbounding the ball. They are so bad at it.
The thing that made me so anxious last night was that Indiana was making almost exclusively easy shots for long stretches. The Knicks weren’t getting beat by a team getting hot from 3 or getting lucky bounces, or Maxey contorting himself to score over defenders, it was a constant stream of wide open shots coming from very simple actions, so many layups. This has to change, we can’t rely on Brunson scoring 40+ every single game or lucky breaks on ref calls because we know refereeing is not consistent and can change fast.
On Minnesota / Denver, I’m fully convinced by the Wolves. Their defense is on a different level, even without Gobert, they frustrated Jamal Murray into throwing multiple tantrums that could have legitimately seen him ejected from the game (which might have helped them given how awful he was all night). It was the first time I’ve seen a Jokic-led team feel so unable to generate easy baskets. The Gobert trade will always be talked about, but we can’t praise enough the DLo trade that brought them Mike Conley and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, they’ve been brilliant.
You sure about that?
“We got lucky that those players went down but we have Randle down too. Those teams also have a 2nd All-Star just like the Knicks, too bad they can’t deal with losing one of their best players like the Knicks have.”
Randle is a lot of things but he isn’t Embiid, Giannis or Jimmy. And the argument can be made that he isn’t a great fit for this team.
I’m expecting that Embiid will go into a massive rehab-conditioning program and that Morey is going to work some magic this off-season.
I’m expecting that Orlando is going to add a scorer or two and that their young players are going to build on this experience.
I’m expecting that Milwaukee is going to re-tool, possibly by using Dame as a trade chip.
I’m expecting that Boston is not done tinkering yet and will fortify their bench.
I’m expecting that Cleveland has more moves to make, possibly by dealing Garland.
Regardless of what I think or expect, the larger point is that I don’t think Leon sees this team as a finished product at all. My guess is that Randle and Mitch are going to be shopped and that the draft picks are burning a hole in Leon’s pocket.
I’m not so sure.
Here are the tiers as I see them:
Tier 1: Boston, Minnesota, Denver
Tier 2: Oklahoma City
Tier 3: New York, Dallas,
Tier 4: Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Indiana, some of the other west teams
I think when we start playing up we might feel the need for a 1B and it’s still debatable if Randle is that guy.
“We’re doing all of this while missing a 3 time all-star, 2 time all NBA player who averages 25 and 10 a game.”
Julius compiles lots of stats, but is not a high-IQ player imo. I don’t think he makes anyone better, and his stats would come at the expense of others. He’s prone to being a loose cannon that can cost you in big games, whereas the Villanova boys are cool as cucumbers under enormous pressure. Will Julius defer to them in crunch time? In other words, I think we are probably better with him than without, but not by nearly as much as your statement would imply.
But that is a soft opinion, and I guess that if we run it back, we’ll get lots to look at during the first half of next season. In any case, it’s kind of cool to be debating whether we should keep or trade a player of his magnitude as a way to improve the team, especially in the aftermath of being defined as the most detrimental player on worst contract in the NBA who should be dumped at the first opportunity less than two years ago.
The main thing we miss from Julius is simply his minutes. Add in 40 minutes of that guy and you don’t have to do this kamikaze uber-Thibs “everybody in the five man rotation plays the whole game” thing. The other thing we miss is his shot creation. He’s one of two players on the roster who can actually create an unassisted basket. Maybe three if you count Bogey.
I do.
Leon got him Precious, Burks, and Milton to be used in precisely this situation. I know those guys aren’t great but you know who else isn’t great? The guys occupying the 7th, 8th, and 9th spot on Indiana’s depth chart.
Indiana’s counterparts are Obi Toppin (a castoff whose flaws y’all have widely documented), Ben Sheppard (a rookie with a -3.4 bpm), and Isaiah Jackson (a force on the boards but otherwise negative). And yet Carlisle not only consistently puts these guys on the floor but he puts them in a position to succeed.
To paraphrase my friend Noble: categorical support of Thibs’ dungeon cannot be a serious position.
This was the main thing +Deuce sucking. Indy could play their fast transition game, and we couldn’t keep up for stretches b/c of personnel and minutes. Once we slowed things down in crunch time, we did better. Even the challenges might have helped Brunson’s stamina.
Most of the turnovers were brain mistakes from Brunson and Hart, so they can/will fix that. Then the chaos of TJ and the endless running will be stopped.
Mitch will also benefit with more time to set up for boards. He had basically an 0-fer night for him. He doesn’t need to be huffing/puffing up and down the court on that leg.
The think I wonder about Randle is whether he can fully accept that this is Brunson’s team. It was Randle’s team for nearly 4 years, and now it clearly isn’t…and even beyond that, it’s the Villanova Boys’ team, and he’s on the outside looking in. I am bearish on Julius buying into that to the degree that he should. But again, it’s more of a wondering than a firm opinion.
Leon did his job.
We’re not in this mess bc we rostered Jefferies and Toppin instead of real players.
There are twelve legitimate rotation players on this team. Only 2 of them are hurt. But 3 of them are in the dungeon.
1 Brunson
2 Randle
3 OG
4 Hart
5 Donte
6 Hartenstein
7 Mitch
8 Deuce
9 Bojan
10 Precious
11 Burks
12 Milton
Dude, come on. Brunson has been on the team for 2 seasons now. Randle has accepted it. We saw this clearly last season and this season.
Randle loves being on this team. He loves his teammates and they love him and he is totally cool with it being Brunson’s team.
Knicks can win the championship and Hubert will still complain that Thibs didn’t play the bench enough.
Randle was arguably playing his best, least selfish basketball as a Knick in January after the OG trade. He’ll be just fine playing with this group. Will that be enough to win a championship is certainly up for debate and most likely isn’t enough so some changes and tough decisions will have to be made.
I think that it’s because you (and your 19,499 friends) are fans of the call, so the call can do no wrong. But it took the joy out of the game for most of the people that weren’t in the room. The fun of basketball is having the ball in the air, and having it either go through the hoop or not. The not fun of basketball is illegal screens 30 feet from the basket, and the refs know that. They just made a mistake, it happens. But it was a mistake.
Al, I didn’t complain about Thibs at all against Philly (and believe me there were times). But we lost the bench war 46-3!!! That’s as bad as it gets. Carlisle pulled Thibs pants down last night and spanked him.
All we need is for our bench to lose 30-15. Thibs has to be able to figure out how to make that happen.
Why is the Pacers bench outplaying the Knicks bench Carlisle pulling down Thibs pants but the Knicks starters destroying the Pacers starters not Thibs pulling down Carlisle’s pants?
Yeah but our starters outscored theirs 118-71.
I get that our guys are going to get tired, and that having a six man rotation limits your ability to try out different looks, but Thibs probably feels that minutes 38-44 of DDV are better than minutes 1-6 of Shake Milton, and that minutes 42-48 of Josh Hart are better than minutes 5-11 of Precious Achiuwa.
In the long run maybe this hurts you, but down the stretch of these games our starters, who should be exhausted, seem to outlast the more rested starters of our opponents. Maybe “no bench” is the new market inefficiency.
I’m more concerned after last night’s win. We shot 11 for 23 from 3 and Haliburton was terrible and we still struggled to win. I know Haliburton hasn’t been himself since the injury, but he’s not going to be that bad every night. We are going to have to get more from somebody. OG, Deuce, I-Hart, Precious or Burks is going to have to step up big time.
I agree with this sentiment, but it comes with a caveat. Fully healthy, bringing back Hartenstein, Anunoby, and Achiuwa somehow, while using our back to back picks in the first to fill the roster with young talent at guard and combo forward- this team can absolutely contend for a title. I can live with losing Achiuwa if we draft a combo forward at least 6’8″ who can give us minutes to spell Randle and Anunoby some. But that doesn’t mean that I’d be against Leon using some future picks to upgrade at SG and PF if it’s there. But yeah..I have faith in this squad fully healthy.
+1 on Donnie’s opinion that the refs made the game kind of ugly down the stretch (and I’m on the winning side!). It was a buzz kill for the “sport.”
BUT — I’m much more concerned about stretches on D where it seems Jalen gets switched onto Turner et al, and they just drop the ball over his head into the hoop.
Thibs needs to sort some of that defensive stuff before calling on Shake Milton IMO. The offense is there.
Kudos to the T-Wolves for building a team that a lot of people questioned (myself included). It worked out great, especially with AntMan developing into a real star. The T-Wolves are a very good team and Denver has a couple of players playing hurt. Denver better get healthy by Friday and wake up or this is going to be over quickly.
“They also need to practice inbounding the ball. They are so bad at it.”
This. Plus not constantly giving the ball to the Pacers with unforced brain farts. And breaking the legs of that little effing marine cadet.
Deuce making a bucket would be nice, too.
Our best five isn’t better than their best 5 because of Thibs.
But during the period of time where the coaches had to make in-game lineup choices, they dominated us because of the quality of each coaches decisions.
I hate the narrative that the Knicks are getting all the calls. It’s bullshit. NBA referees blow calls all game. If you are going to complain about the refs, at least look at the entire game and all the blown calls before deciding if one team was advantaged. Don’t pick the single late call that impacted your team negatively.
Also, let’s take a step back before we get into debates about Randle, Thibs rotation, etc.
Let’s just appreciate it the fact that we won the first game of the second round series!
We’ve been to the second round exactly three times since 2001. And the last 2 times we lost the first game and ultimately the series.
Whoever wins game 1 has a much bigger chance of winning the series.
We didn’t even play our best game and we still won and we’re now up 1-0 IN THE SECOND ROUND.
I mean, shit. This is pretty good stuff.
I think that’s part of the deal with Hart and DDV. They are so active and aggressive at times they sometimes put themselves into bad spots. It’s painful to watch when it happens at a critical time, but it’s great when their aggressiveness and energy turns into a winning play.
When the moving screen was called, I first thought it was a bad call. It didn’t appear that he moved horizontally into DDV, at least not enough to be noticed/called.
However, it did look like he moved forward/vertically into him, noticeably, and maybe that was the angle the ref who made the call was seeing it from?
I though the egregious call against Indiana was the kicked ball one. How the hell did none of the refs see what really happened on that?
And we almost lost because of how terrible Thibs’ decisions were!!!
If Coach Finstock could kindly pull his pants up and figure out how to get 6 minutes of reasonable play from a deep rotation of NBA players, maybe we can stop depending on our star to be Teen Wolf every night just to win another one-possession game.
3 points off the bench is hard to do
Me neither. But it has to be the right move.
+1 on this year being amazing.
Also, I don’t think Divo is getting enough credit for last night’s win (or I’m not reading the thread closely).
Divo’s line is magnificent : 44 minutes, 25pts, 10-17, 5-9 from three, 3 boards, 1 assist, 2 blocks (!), and his Italian soccer acting may have won us the game. Keep in mind also that he almost fouled out and thus easily could have been off the floor for the last 2-3 minutes. Tip of the cap.
PS — Divo also did not attempt a single free throw despite going to the hoop on the regular, so … refs?
“3 points off the bench is hard to do”‘
3 points off the bench is *not* difficult to do. But it *is* difficult to win with.
Funny… I thought we won the game last night and Denver was the team that got dominated at home?
You really believe in a game where we won by the skin on our teeth, the optimal solution was Shake Milton and Burks? I honestly don’t get the criticism.
Thibs DOES have a lot of work to do on breaking the full court pressure and our D was not great, but Jesus, man Hali had a terrible night and Thibs gets no credit for that plan? When Brunson struggled 2 games vs Philly it was brilliant scheme from Nurse, but when Hali scores 6 bloody points, he just had an off night? Is that how we keep score?
Don’t you think minutes 38-44 of Pascal Siakim are better than 1-6 of Obi Toppin? Or 6 extra minutes of Halliburton is better than 6 minutes of Ben Sheppard? Of course it is. And by the same margin. But Carlisle figured it out.
It helped, of course, that Thibs made it so easy for him by running Mitch out there as if we were still playing Philadelphia. FFS you can’t even adjust to the presence of new team?!
“Indiana has every right to be upset about a late kicked ball violation that never touched a Pacer foot”
Coming back to this (quote from Macri). I swear the replay showed a hand knocking the ball away, and the ball bouncing off a Pacer’s foot straight to Siakam.
If that’s actually true, is it a kick ball? If so, then the refs blew the call but actually inadvertently got it right!
I know that Zarba later said it was a blown call, but he’s also a moron.
Thoughts? dmar, a ruling?
Burks isn’t healthy, his shoulder is fucked up. Maybe shake should get some minutes. If you want to see what happens when we play precious with another big I can direct you to a bunch of threads where Hubert melts down about the lack of scoring
Coming back to this (quote from Macri). I swear the replay showed a hand knocking the ball away, and the ball bouncing off a Pacer’s foot straight to Siakam.
no it just went straight to nembhard never hit a foot
I have no notes on last night. Just a great win.
I have been on this board for way too fucking long and I am so happy we finally get to have this team to talk about.
I will say we should give deuce more time out there
“but when Hali scores 6 bloody points, he just had an off night?”
Hali is struggling mightily with back problems. He’s clearly been playing hurt for half the season and is nowhere near what he was. We’re very lucky in that regard (as is Indiana for our having no Julius…).
And yeah, big props to Donte for 25 on 10-17. But how about this:
24 on 9-13, also 13 rebounds, 8 assists, and 3 steals?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Josh Hart.
Hahaha. Yes. Josh, for sure, but *everyone knows he’s rocking it.
A little love for our redheaded stepchild 😉
+1 to Deuce figuring it out, but he looked … confused?
I think one poor decision for which Thibs should be criticized was playing a guard-guard-Hart-Precious-Mitch lineup. That should never happen. I think you can find 4 minutes of Precious at the 4, but you need three shooters there. Figure out how to play him with Brunson/Deuce/Donte or OG. This helps rest Hart even!
I feel like the thing that is the most challenging with the Pacers is not so much their transition or their pace per se, it’s how early they start their actions on offense. This means that the defensive possessions are really long. You can play excellent defense on one or two actions, and they still have 5-6 seconds left in which they can find a shooter. This happened multiple times yesterday. And it’s hard to avoid, because it requires unrelenting concentration for long stretches.
Deuce hasn’t been great, but I do wonder if getting him more time on a full court press of the Pacers’ guards would slow them down a bit more.
Straw men of all straw men.
Precisely! Point to all those threads. That’s how many times have we seen how ineffective the strategy Thibs chose last night is.
And yet he chose it anyway, at the worst possible time, against a center less Pacers team that was so grateful for his ineptituide.
That is the precise moment Thibs got his pants pulled down. Deuce-Hart-OG-Precious-Mitch. An absolutely indefensible choice by Thibs that directly began the Pacers mid-half dominance.
Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere already. I’m in the midwest and thinking about going to Indy for Game 4 on Sunday. Anyone else in the same boat? Would love to not have to go solo.
If you told me Jalen would outscore Hali by 37 points, I would have expected an easy win. Indy are a good team, well coached, and don’t whine. I predicted Knicks in six, now moving it to seven, because I cannot see them losing an elimination game at home.
Everyone knows Hali has been injured the last half of the season, but in his last 30 games to find a game where he scored less than six you must go to 3/1 where he played 22 minutes and scored 5, 30 games ago. His last 4 playoff games he scored 17, 16, 24 and 18 and had 4 days of rest since his last game. I’m guessing the defensive scheme had something to do with the 2/3rd decrease in his scoring from recent games.
I just don’t get the kvetching about minutes allocation when the options are Burks, Milton. A case can be made for Precious. I’m sure if Precious and OG went to Thibs and told him after years of practicing with Siakam in Toronto, that Precious can stuff him in practice, Thibs would try him. Maybe they told him the opposite?
The old coaching saw is, “In the playoffs, you play 8 and trust 7.” Thibs due to the absences of Bogey and Randle is playing 7 and trusting 61/2.
And winning….
I tend to agree with the idea that we do not need to do anything crazy to get to inner circle contender status. Assuming we get full strength Randle and Bogdanovic back, a healthy 2024-25 Knicks team has Josh Hart as the 30 min/game 6th man and starts all-NBA first team Jalen Brunson, Klay Thompson 2.0 Donte, most versatile 3-D player in the league OG Anunoby, all-NBA second team Julius Randle, and Draymond-lite in Hartenstein. Then also has Deuce, Bogdanovic, and Mitch which (with Hart) has a chance to be literally the best 2nd unit in the league assuming Randle or Brunson is heading the 2nd unit.
The best part is that this isn’t even theoretical – that roster (with Grimes instead of Bogey) already ran roughshod over the TWolves, Nuggets, full-strength Sixers in January. It can play big with C+Randle+OG frontcourt, it can play small with OG at the 4 and Brunson/DDV/Hart. It has a ton of shooting between Brunson/DDV/OG/Bogdanovic/Deuce, is an elite rebounding team at both ends.
What we do need is a little bit more potential outside that top 9 – we have practice players in roster spots 11-14 that have really no discernible upside (maybe Jacob Toppin?). I think we should try and make one first round pick, maybe the 2nd, and try to trade the other 1st into the future somehow.
Everything is different now that Jalen Brunson has hit his 100th-percentile outcome, DDV basically his 95th-percentile outcome, and Josh Hart is the Terminator. We have to find the parts that fit best and no longer need to go star-hunting just because it’s a star.
(Ummmm.. Randle+Bogdanovic+ a pick or two for Durant… who says no?)
biggest concerns from game one solely in terms of how they seem to bode:
1- we never looked like we had a comfortable switch regime against their constant spain pnrs and bunched pnrs. so many times we seemed confused on the veer switch and often ended up with guaranteed buckets like jalen on turner or late contested threes. if they are smart they will force jalen into these actions even when he tries to avoid by switching onto nesmith.
2. although siakam didn’t have a huge game he looked better on og than i’d hoped. i think og guards him well on the perimeter but got too smalled a few times inside. this is not something we want to have to double against this team and i don’t think we will, so hopefully og can be a little tougher down low should they try to empty set him more.
3. we don’t seem to have a guy who can stay in front of tj. it’s a shame that deuce can’t do it, but grimes was always our best guy if the goal was just to stay in front of someone quick. where are trent tucker and charlie ward when you need them. i hope deuce can do a bit better here.
4. mitch still looks pretty rough. their choice to let jalen go and stay on their shooters did seem to help them keep our centers off the glass. i’ll keep saying it but teams are ignoring his roll so absurdly bc we simply do not throw it to him. jalen did throw one last night that was so open thibs could have finished it. we need to throw this pass even with mitch’s finishing so far below his standard.
most encouraged:
1. hali still doesn’t look like tafka hali, except on defense.
2. nesmith and nembhard are fiesty as hell but not feisty enough to impede josh hart from josh harting on the offensive glass, even when they weren’t in rotation.
overall i thought it was a bit of an inauspicious game one, except that winning is very auspicious.
pt, quite right, I must be imagining things or am thinking of an earlier play, as the one that happened late was nothing like I’m picturing. But I’m too frightened to watch more, just watched the last three minutes to see that play and I almost had a heart attack, again.
If Mitch is capable of playing, how does this help. It doesn’t help rest the guys that are playing >42 minutes?
I was hoping that come playoff time the annoying minutes complaints would finally stop but…
“Dude, come on. Brunson has been on the team for 2 seasons now. Randle has accepted it. We saw this clearly last season and this season.”
In one of those seasons, Randle was clearly still something of a 1-1A and he didn’t defer all that much at all, particularly in the playoffs. This season he got hurt and the team did just fine without him and played a better brand of offense. Brunson, Hart, OG and DDV have all combined to “replace” his production without much of a drop-off.
If he is, as JK47, mostly needed to be an innings-eater who takes pressure off of Brunson and the guys playing big minutes, then that actually makes the case that he is the guy who you should consider moving for an upgrade.
“Randle was arguably playing his best, least selfish basketball as a Knick in January after the OG trade. He’ll be just fine playing with this group.”
It’s not about whether Randle “loves his team” or not. It’s about whether he will defer to the better player or the better play in the playoffs when it counts. Not to sound like E, but I agree with him that it’s easy to be all jolly and deferential during the regular season. basketball often comes down to a few key possessions. The Randle I remember is the guy who demands the ball on every crunch time possession. I’ll believe that Randle will be happy deferring those possessions to Brunson, or actually will defer, when I see it.
Hmm, the threads from February beg to differ.
not once did I believe that the Brunson signing would lead to a serious think over when he’ll have his number retired at MSG
FWIW Randle is a mercurial freak compared to Brunson who is about as cool as they come. As such, Randle will enjoy not having to carry the burden of consistent and sober leadership (Remember the thumbs down and all that? He does).
So, yes, Julius will absolutely, happily defer when necessary, let it be “Brunson’s team” whatever, especially after Jalen’s demonstrated success this season.
Even if we are bounced by Indy, the “story” of this season is safely written that Brunson put up historic numbers, and Randle would have helped us win more games. That’s a good story.
Plus Jalen is AMAYZING at complimenting his teammates. He is gonna sing Randle’s praises better than Julius or anyone else ever could.
Now if Randle were Melo, Jalensanity would be traded in the off-season. Hahaha.
“The not fun of basketball is illegal screens 30 feet from the basket, and the refs know that. They just made a mistake, it happens. But it was a mistake.”
The not fun part of this blog is where people post absurd comments, like “the refs should make calls based on what’s fun and not fun for the fans, rather than the rules in the rule book.
That was a textbook definition of an illegal screen. Not making the call would have given the offensive players a huge, undeserved advantage on a critical play. Turner didn’t just slightly shift his weight. He stepped out. It was blatant and obvious. In fact, it’s the entire reason why that rule should exist. Defenders should be allowed to defend within the rules and DDV should be allowed to chase someone over a screen without being obstructed by a guy sticking his leg out at the last second.
The fact that some refs swallow the whistle in the last minute is irrelevant. When you purposely set an illegal screen, or don’t know the difference, you deserve what you get.
“Hmm, the threads from February beg to differ.”
What about the threads from March, April and May?
Knicks were 29-17 after defeating Miami the game Randle got injured. They finished the season 21-15 and were 16-15 until the 5 game winning streak to end the season.
Admittedly many of those losses also came without OG. But if Randle doesn’t get hurt you would have to reasonably assume the Knicks win between 52-54 games, although again OG getting hurt and missing plenty of games as well makes it hard to properly analyze.
It allows OG or Hart or both to rest if Thibs plays Brunson/Deuce/Donte(OG)/Precious/Center. And at least you get 3 shooters on the floor.
The Brunson minutes are more related to him being the engine as opposed to not having someone who can back him up. The Hart/OG minutes are because they have no backup large wing. Precious could help in the PF role. I wouldn’t go to him for too many minutes, but I think you can buy a few minutes of rest every half.
This had nothing to do with minutes.
Is it really too much to expect Thibs to notice Joel Embiid isn’t there any more? Can he please just adjust to that?
This Villanova thing is the comedy gift that just keeps on giving. Love it, and them, so much.
yeah…this bothered me as well…but not sure who in the nba can do a great job on siakam in the paint…he’s a nice player…go tall on him and he quicks around it…go small..he posts…probably gonna have to live with it…
on mitch…he is like 50% mitch now…which is like having a plumlee or such in there…his only benefits now are setting picks or getting boards that come right to him…he doesn’t appear to be much of a shot blocking detterent…nesmith jammed one in his mug …real mitch would have done something there…
Apparently Randle tried to beat the odds on avoiding surgery specifically because he enjoyed playing with the apex version of this team so much. Has been reported by Katz and others. Not worried about his attitude at all, though this of course doesn’t mean we shouldn’t upgrade the position if possible.
Look, it’s admittedly an uphill battle advocating for the likes of Aleg Bronx and Shake Milton. Of course those guys are worse than the guys they’d be relieving. My admittedly untestable hypothesis is that over the course of a long playoff run, an average of something like 40 minutes for Brunson and 8 minutes of Shake, for example, will be more productive than 48 minutes of Brunson.
I just don’t think the very concept of giving your best players rest is wholly unfounded, and it seems possible our end-of-game clown car routine is related to the whole “insane amount of minutes” thing. With Burks and Shake specifically, I actually think there’s a chance their extremely limited, but existent shot creation could get us out of some of the offensive ruts we’ve run into.
Then again, I’m aware our offensive numbers last night were stellar. I mean, if you think Brunson can give us 43 points on 26 shots all the time then yeah, this is a nonissue. Maybe he can! The guy is absolutely amazing, I’ve run out of words to describe it. Still, I’m inclined to think we’re asking too much of him, and everyone else at that.
Calling the illegal screen is a bang-bang play. Official has to make that call in real time. Not an easy call.
It was reviewable, and wasn’t overturned, because it was a foul. The slow motion replay showed that it was a foul. Maybe that’s a bad break that the official blew the whistle in the first place, and maybe in this situation that foul isn’t always called, but it was a foul.
I’m not very sympathetic to the “usually that textbook foul isn’t called in that situation” argument.
Lost in the shuffle is how enormous OG’s plays down the stretch were in securing the win.
Knicks were 29-17 after defeating Miami the game Randle got injured. They finished the season 21-15 and were 16-15 until the 5 game winning streak to end the season.
you’re just not going to learn anything parsing win loss record at this level. for example, if you take out the games where the knicks had neither center available (ihart/mitch) or brunson sat, they were 21-9 post randle injury. there is enormous evidence over large samples that randle has had nowhere near the effect of a typical all nba player or even all star on the knicks’ net rating at any point since he’s been here. still, i don’t think anyone would dispute that we’d be way better off with him healthy right now.
OG was fine on Siakam. He had 19 points in 18 true shots, you live with that from their #2 (#1?) option every day.
It’s mind-boggling to me that Hali had just 1 FG attempt from inside the arc. In 36 minutes!
Isaiah Jackson grabbed 25% of rebounds available when he was on the floor (career 15%). Obi grabbed 20% (career 10%). I’d bet on those things reverting to the mean even with a diminished Mitch.
How about Josh Hart’s numbers?
24 pts (new career high in the playoffs)
13 reb
8 ast
FG% .692
“Not worried about his attitude at all”
Maybe I’m not being clear. It’s not his attitude I’m worried about. It’s his “well-intended” decision-making in big moments, which is in part based on an inflated sense of self, or having something to prove, or whatever.
Julius is a good guy. He’s not the brooding malcontent that some here accused him of being. I just don’t think of him as a particularly heady or self-aware player. I would like nothing more than for him to come back strong and for the team to wreck shit up on the strength of his game. But I’m definitely not in the “Leon doesn’t need to do anything big because Julius is coming back” camp. And I’m pretty sure that none of Brunson, OG, Hart or DDV are going anywhere, and iHart and Precious are unavailable as trade bait. Seems to me that the arrows are all pointing towards Julius and Mitch, and to a much lesser degree, Deuce, Bojan, and Burks.
speaking of which here’s a hard trivia question. of players who debuted since 1996 when on/off data is widely available, 90 have made at least one all nba team. only 6 of the 90 have negative career on/off spreads. obviously randle is one (and there are many reasons for this include a slow start and herky jerky season to season variation, i am not trying to call randle trash here). can you name the others?
“I was hoping that come playoff time the annoying minutes complaints would finally stop but…”
As Noble just said, “Still, I’m inclined to think we’re asking too much of him, and everyone else at that.”
It’s really quite unprecedented. The minutes thing is like watching a car drifting at high speeds around sharp corners in the rain. Amazing, but a real feeling of dread about the whole thing possibly ending badly.
Wednesday I will raise a very large martini to Thibs being right and most everyone else being wrong.
1) LaVine has to be one
2) DeRozan, He sucked early on.
3) Wiggins, it’s dumb he made the team anyway
My stab at it without cheating: LaVine, Al Jefferson, Monta Ellis, Vucevic, and Andrew Bynum.
I open with Victor Oladipo
Andre Drummond made an All-NBA team once.
Full disclosure I am guessing off the list of All-NBA players but not looking up their career on/off (I don’t actually know how to).
Agent Zero?
Antawn Jamison seems like the type of guy who should be on that list
I’mma throw Andrew Bynum into the mix. Their best lineups were usually small.
I suspect all those years Antonio McDyess was a reserve in Detroit killed his +/-
Advanced stats hate Jaylen Brown, so maybe him?
Oof, poor Vin Baker made an All-NBA team in 1998.
Hmm…. was Mase a minus player for his career? He did spell Ewing a lot.
My six are:
Vin Baker
Victor Oladipo
Andrew Bynum
Larry Johnson
Andre Drummond
Antonio McDyess
I think Mo Williams made an all-star team and he’s in the lowest tier of all-star players. I’d think playing so much with LeBron would boost him out of the category though.
So my 6:
1) DeRozan
2) LaVine
3) Antawn Jamison
4) Wiggins
5) Jaylen Brown
6) Mo Williams
damn those are some nice guesses, already got 4 of 5. will give the answer now so i don’t forget to check back
bynum -0.4
jaylen brown -0.9
derozan -1.8
boozer -2.1
al jefferson -2.3
randle -2.5
drose and amar’e just barely miss the cut at 0.1. reminder rules are debut no earlier than 1996 and make all nba so guys like vin baker and zach lavine don’t qualify.
“(Ummmm.. Randle+Bogdanovic+ a pick or two for Durant… who says no?)”
Me. Very much me. Don’t want Durant.
Wow, my brain turned off and I read all-star, not all-nba.
Lol, we immediately went after all 3 Chicago “stars”
Some guys can just handle more minutes than others. Josh Hart seems to be one of those guys who can do it pretty much every night. He’s been at it for months and if anything he seems less fatigued than ever.
Beyond that, I would love to see a stat that measures how much “down time” there is in a typical game compared to the ’90s. Seems like TV time-outs are longer, and coach’s challenges and ref reviews make for additional rest time. DDV mentioned how he appreciates that Thibs seems to call time-outs in a way that maximizes in-game rest.
Damn, Arenas’ on-off numbers were much better than I expected…
Fun stats on the ‘Nova Corps last night, who combined for:
92 points on 33/56 shooting including 7/14 from 3
22 rebounds
15 assists
7 stocks
The average ‘Nova player was basically prime LeBron for us last night:
30.7 points
7.3 rebounds
5 assists
2.3 stocks
Unfortunately this looks to be about the minimum we need from them to win…
There’s no doubt in my mind that the Knicks would be better off with Randle now. They need the extra body and they need the scoring.
But let’s alter the question slightly.
Would the Knick be better off if Randle was playing close to 40 minutes per game and J Hart was reduced to around 30 off the bench and DDV was reduced a bit?
oops that was my whole list.
Except Oladipo. What was his on/off number?
Without peeking, can anyone guess Josh Hart’s on-off numbers for the playoffs?
Wanted to listen to the Lowe Podcast but it’s titled “Knicks’ controversial win” and he started off by calling us “bank robbers” so he can go fuck himself.
I agree with Strat. This is getting ridiculous. The media’s acting like home teams getting 50/50 calls just started happening.
There are off numbers?
I’m going to go out on a crazy limb and say Burks is going to play at some point in this series and hit some big shots.
A fun conspiracy theory I could talk myself into kinda, sorta believing is that Jamal Murray is getting himself suspended on purpose as part of a face saving agreement with Malone.
I laughed.
Hart has only been off the court for 10 minutes total in these seven games.
it’s funny, now that we’re starting to play well knick haters on TV are coming out from everywhere…
forget RJ, SVG – Sam Mitchell was freaking out for real on NBAtv last night cuz we won…
as Rough put it so well: so sad, too bad…
that’s so crazy he can say that so effortlessly…that’s some kind of love right there…
continuity and cohesion are winning us games, in the playoffs…amazing…
didn’t notice earlier, but just saw Murray tossed a towel at the ref before throwing the heating pad…
so sad, too bad for the nuggets…
Very difficult to say how Randle’s return might impact team dynamics, Hart’s minutes, etc. No doubt that Hart makes all the plays that are the difference between winning and losing games that come down to 1-2 possessions.
That said – like Daryl Morey has said – great teams don’t win close games — they don’t HAVE close games. In January when we had everyone (except Mitch), we had a +246 point differential over 16 games –> ie. a +15.4 point differential, basically the greatest team of all time.
In January we beat Minnesota by 6 with Randle scoring 39
Chicago by 16
Philly at Philly by 36
Denver by 38
Miami by 16
And per CTG the starting lineup was a +17.7 net rating.
With that 16 game sample in mind, it is really hard to say this team is better off without Randle. Certainly in these playoffs we would be much better off. And while i think the size issue isn’t a huge deal in the east, we would definitely need Randle playing against Minnesota and their gigantic frontcourt.
I know counting numbers are not everything but as great as Hart has been he’s still rebounding and scoring less than what Randle typically averages in a regular season game.
Of course there is the psychological factor of a Hart offensive rebound which I’m sure is demoralizing to the opponent. And he has some absolutely insane energy plays, one man fast breaks for points, etc. We’d certainly lose some of that crazy energy if he was playing less.
But think about how many offensive possessions last night and in the Philly series were a grind where we didn’t score or if we did, it was after exerting maximum effort to do so. Randle would be getting some easy ass buckets. He’d also be getting Embiid, Turner, Siakim, etc…into foul trouble.
These have been very exciting playoff games and the team has performed admirably. But I have to believe at least some of these games wouldn’t be so close with a fully healthy Randle (and Mitch) on the team.
“Hart has only been off the court for 10 minutes total in these seven games.”
15 (there was an OT game) but who’s counting?
The answer is -46.6.
It’s not just that Randle would be getting the buckets, he also creates pretty good looks for his teammates. Brunson’s spot up opportunities have basically been inexistent since Randle got injured.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the Knicks would be better off with Randle now. They need the extra body and they need the scoring.
But let’s alter the question slightly.
Would the Knick be better off if Randle was playing close to 40 minutes per game and J Hart was reduced to around 30 off the bench and DDV was reduced a bit?”
I don’t think anyone believes (except maybe for E) that we are better off without Randle.
But that isn’t what we’re debating, is is?
It’s whether Leon should make a major move this offseason or stand pat.
And with the assumption that if a major move is made, there are only limited options for players being sent out, assuming that Brunson, OG, Hart and DDV aren’t going anywhere.
So responses should be framed in that context. In other words, would the team be improved by dealing Randle plus players and picks for another player or players.
It’s certainly reasonable to feel that Randle is too valuable to this team to be traded. I believe that it is also reasonable to feel that keeping Randle rather than trading him for a better “fit” lowers the theoretical ceiling of this team as is.
It’s sort of the same question as to whether we should have just stuck with IQ and RJ or traded for OG. There are good arguments on both sides.
But no, the team is not better off without Randle AND with no commensurate replacement for Randle. There’s no reason to argue about that.
Brunson became a true tentpole sometime in January — discussed in real time with the “he’s Isiah and these are the 1989 Pistons, not the 2004 Pistons” remarks — and then confirmed it when Randle busted up his shoulder. He’s making that status abundantly clear and unequivocal now.
That changed everything about the franchise and its outlook, unsurprisingly given the importance of a tentpole.
Minnesota has jumped up all the way to +290 to win it all, and they’re without question legitimate contenders now. They’ve decimated Phoenix and Denver in six straight playoff games.
Knicks at +950. Celtics all the way down to +100 — less than even money with the vig.
Isiah is a poor comp, he barely averaged 20 ppg in his playoff career. This is more of a 2006 Wade kind of carry job.
Whatever happens this year, we know we have a superstar in his prime going forward. I keep doubting Brunson will keep scoring 40+ and he has proven me wrong every time so far. There’s a real core around him, with OG re-signing, the hustle bunnies, Deuce and Mitch, and I still believe Randle can be a part of this once he returns, and even if he can’t we’re in good position to involve him in a trade. Randle deserves the chance to work it out and get healthy, so there’s no hurry to do anything until we know how this team looks with him next season.
I really want the ECF, this team should be better than the Pacers and this is a winnable series. Then whatever happens against Boston is irrelevant.
Unless we win
I had missed this after the Obi dunk, but it’s the most perfect Obi thing – having his team give up a 3 on the other end because he failed to execute his defensive assignment.
https://x.com/DJAceNBA/status/1787933609531183519
Well, that was abrupt.
I was adding a hypothetical point.
I think we’d be better with Randle, but only if he was coming off the bench and playing 20-25 minutes a night.
I don’t think we would have gotten out of the first round if Randle was playing 40+ minutes a night and we reduced J Hart by 10-15 minutes a game and reduced DDV’s some also.
IMO J Hart has been the clear cut second best player on the team in the playoffs and was a big part of several wins.
Randle scores way better than J Hart, but J Hart does many other things better and J Hart has been scoring enough in the playoffs.
You can argue that Randle would make it easier on Brunson. I’d agree with that 100% over the course of an 82 game season. But in these playoffs Brunson has simply upped his usage and remained efficient. He has replaced a good chunk of Randle’s lost scoring effectively….at least so far.
I honestly think that we’d better WITH Randle long term and in these playoffs, however specifically in these playoffs, if Randle was starting, playing 40+ minutes, and J Hart was coming off the bench in a reduced role we’d already be home fishing.
As to what we should do, I’d probably draft one player and try to fill out the bench better (maybe using the other pick in a trade). After I got to see what the team looked like when heathy I may or may not make a bigger move at the deadline depending on what was available and how the team was playing. I would try to upgrade DDV and move him to the bench as 6th man scorer. If something can be done this off season that’s too good to pass up, I’d try to move some combo of Bojan (filler), Mitch and Randle but that might require replacing what we need post trade with other moves.
Mitch is out tomorrow.
Just saw that, BBA. I think Precious at the 5 is a lot better than Precious at the 4. But now we’re really down to just 7 guys, barring an unlikely un-dungeoning of Alvin Bouillabaisse.
I don’t feel one bit of angst about the generous calls we got last night. This team worked like dogs the entire regular season to win homecourt advantage while other teams tanked and sat their stars to gain beneficial matchups and game the postseason. We earned the homecourt advantage that confers us generous officiating down the stretch. We earned it in blood, sweat and bruises. I hope the message is that teams which play hard in the regular season get beneficial 50/50 homecourt calls in the playoffs for putting in that extra regular season work.
Fuck yes, ras
Agreed, ras. My only angst is that the sport is refereed in such a biased manner. It’s unfortunate, but I guess that’s the hand we’re dealt.
On the other hand, it sometimes feels like this place is positively geriatric with the level of short-term memory loss. Anyone who thinks that this team with a healthy Randle isn’t significantly better than this team without him has a recency bias that would make a hamster feel ashamed.
You can argue how much better. I land roughly in the fuckton more.
Just play Burks. His shoulder should be better by now.
“Just play Burks. His shoulder should be better by now.”
But will we be able to tell the difference?
You want to play well too? Very demanding. 😉
A part of me definitely wants to see the Knicks getting even more favorable calls next game to watch the world burn, it’s more fun being the villain.
But the biggest issue is the league compensating this one, like they did in game 3 calling every single touch on Embiid a foul. That’s what I’m most scared of right now. Hopefully the NBA actually hates Rick Carlisle and that won’t happen.
Sucks about Mitch but he has been gimpy to the extreme for a bunch of games
“On the other hand, it sometimes feels like this place is positively geriatric with the level of short-term memory loss. Anyone who thinks that this team with a healthy Randle isn’t significantly better than this team without him has a recency bias that would make a hamster feel ashamed.”
Kind of a dickish way of putting it, especially given how poorly Randle has played in every playoff series he has played for us thus far and how extremely badly the KB hive mind (whatever that is) wanted to dump him prior to last season. Seems like there’s at least enough evidence to tolerate some ambiguity.
Bummer about Knicks. Fuck Embiid.
My autocorrect somehow replaces Mitch for Knicks.
I see it the other way around.
Anyone that thinks Randle contributes a lot to winning based on his boxscore stats despite years of evidence to the contrary has not been paying attention to the reality of how well the team has done without him.
He was replaced in the starting lineup by a very undersized Josh Hart, who half the time is afraid to shoot, and the team still hasn’t missed a beat !!!
Randle does some things well, but he’s a liability in other ways that aren’t captured by the boxscore.
Josh Hart gives us most of the boards and play making, plays at a faster pace, plays better defense, and gives us way more critical hustle plays. So all you have to do get the other players to up their usage a bit to replace some of Randle’s scoring and you have a better starting team. Brunson has done that along with a little help from others.
Where we are missing Randle is that by putting Hart in the starting lineup we weakened an already weak bench. The injuries to Mitch and Bojan added to the problem along with Burks being useless so far. But if we had a solid deep bench right now we could count on for more consistent scoring, we wouldn’t miss Randle AT ALL. IMO we would probably be better because Josh Hart adds more wins than Julius Randle. He just does it in a different way that leaves us needing more scoring and depth on the bench.
Precious is probably better than this hobbled version of Mitch anyway. We should start getting used to the idea of Presh as the backup big
Non-Brunson Knicks have a .561 TS% in these playoffs, which doesn’t look so bad until you consider the fact that no one besides Bojan has even an 18% usage. It’s a figure you’d think Randle could improve on if we had him. Our eFG% in the playoffs is 10/16 and our DRB% is 9/16, so there are some pretty clear areas Randle would help. Even our free throw rate, which is already 6/16 solely due to Brunson, would benefit. One question is how much Randle’s defensive deficiencies would be counterbalanced by our improved DRB%.
It’s definitely true that Hart has been incredible and having Randle might’ve led to fewer minutes for him, but based on Thibs’ use of Hart last playoffs I’m pretty sure he’d still be playing plenty.
Whoa, now Knicks announce Mitch will be re-evaluated in 6-8 weeks.
damn mitch. hate it for you.
That’s not good. I hope he can be ok for next season.
aw, that really sucks for Mitch
poor guy….at least he can take the next 5 months to get right…
Fuck Embiid.
(I don’t know if this can be tied back to Embiid, but the point stands regardless)
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40102830/nba-confirms-key-illegal-screen-call-pacers-myles-turner
Funny thing is the L2M report had two blown calls in our favor and two blown calls against us
Having Embiid dive at his ankle surely didn’t help
That really really stinks while being totally unsurprising….
Who needs backups anyway
Not surprising. Mitch has been injury prone his entire career.
Just watching him the last 3 games I wondered if the medical staff made a mistake clearing him after he got reinjured in the Philly series. He did not look good.
It’s game 7 of the finals. The Knicks starting lineup consists of Jalen Brunson and Charlie Brown, Jr. Brunson is looking for his 8th straight 85pt game. Charlie Brown, Jr. has yet to score.
Not gonna lie, though: I thought we should have stayed with Precious at the 5 after game 4 and am a little relieved this choice has been made for us since we weren’t going to make it.
And the Knicks win.
That is very bad news. Did anyone say what Mitch’s injury is?
This makes me both want to and worry about drafting Edey.
“This makes me both want to and worry about drafting Edey.”
I don’t think it’s worth worrying about anyone drafted at #24 and/or #25 unless you are rebuilding from scratch. It’s essentially a crap shoot.
WTF
My biggest worry is likely coming true. And that is Hartenstein playing 35 or so minutes a night on a tender Achilles, because I don’t think he’s right either. Oh well..we still have Sims who might match up well with his quickness as well if he’s needed. I really need Thibs to expand his rotation by 1 for this series before someone turns an ankle or something. The guys are already spread pretty thin with these playoff minutes distribution
Mitch was good against Embiid, Hartenstein was the problem.
I’m not convinced we win that series if we need to rely on OG & Precious to guard Embiid for a full game.
If the TWolves can finish off the Nuggets, there won’t be any playoff Cs who you really need Mitch’s strength against. Obviously, he’d still be incredibly useful if healthy and this sucks.
Mitch had one good game in these playoffs, game 1 vs. the Sixers. In the rest of the games he valiantly hobbled around but was largely ineffective. It hurts to lose him for good, but in truth we lost him after game 1.
This is getting ridiculous. Hope our 7 guys are ready for a marathon.
Celtics looking championship ready
I’d maybe be more focused on these other calls at the end that led up to the Turner illegal screen, but I was watching the 4th quarter on my phone in my car while my daughter was in her music lesson. She came out with, like, 3 minutes left, and we had to get on the freeway, so I handed the phone to her and said “tell me what’s happening”. She proceeds to do the worst play-by-play commentary you’ve ever heard.
“The black guy passes it to the other black guy, oof, that’s a rough one bud.”
What happened?
“He, uh, did that. Now it’s… er… he misses.”
Which team?
“Um, yellow I think? Oh, he hits the 3, but misses.”
What?!
“Somebody scores.”
Who?
“A little guy with braids. Broom Son?”
What’s the score?
“Um… [squinting] fifteen to one hundred and fifteen? Uh, oh, wait… buckets.”
Somebody scored? White team or yellow team?
“A red-headed dude.”
Finally, something I can follow. But it doesn’t last long. Cars are honking at me now while I crane my head toward the phone in her lap.
“Boy kicked it.”
Like, literally? Or is that a teen phrase for something I don’t know?
“Pffff, I don’t know.”
You don’t know if you’re speaking literally of teen-figuratively?
“I don’t know if he kicked it. No one does.”
At this point I hit a red light on PCH and grab the phone from her just in time to see that the Knicks are up 3 with 12 seconds left. It’s a long light, so I explain to her that the yellow team can tie it if they score here. It’s gonna be exciting. It may even be so exciting that it makes a basketball fan out of her.
Then the light turned green and before I had my foot on the gas (er, electricity, or whatever you call the accelerator pedal in a Tesla) the game was over.
“Fun times.” [starts watching tik tok].
So, I do think that I speak for Casual Fan Nation when I say that the Turner foul call was no fun. (Unlike the thrilling, if baffling, 2 minutes that preceded it)
Weird that the Carolina Hurricanes are getting the Pacers’ makeup calls.
That is a good point. Honestly, I doubt he’ll be available at 24 or 25. The shame is that Thibs could be good coach for Edey. Thibs likes using a true center, and, per Hartenstein, is good at coaching centers. Hartenstein said he learned a lot about defense from Thibs. And I trust Thibs to find ways to use Edey productively.
That’s a great story Donny.
Have you considered blaming Miles Turner for setting an illegal screen?
Nope. I thought it was incidental. We disagree. That’s fine. You’re biased for the Knicks, I’m biased for… something else. You see it as a sport, I see it as a game. You want your team to win, I want my family to be entertained. You think the ends justify the means, I think the means are the end. You like the destination, I like the journey. You like Smashing Pumpkins, I prefer the pumpkins to smash you. Let’s play 7!
I’m excited to see what happens if two of our remaining 6 rotation players get hurt. Does Thibs play 4-on-5 the whole game?
The replay officials had a long look at the play in slow motion and decided it was indeed a foul. By the letter of the law it was a foul. The L2M report came out and that also confirmed it was a foul. At this point it shouldn’t even be controversial.
Overturning it would have been some fucked up shit, because that would have been saying that the rules don’t really matter at the end of the game, just the entertainment factor.