[ESPN] – Thu, 09 May 2024 02:48:00 GMT
- Jalen Brunson returns from injury, sparks Knicks to 2-0 lead over Pacers
- Knicks 130-121 Pacers (May 8, 2024) Final Score
- Jalen Brunson channels Willis Reed exactly 54 years later to save Knicks
- OG Anunoby injury update: Knicks forward’s status uncertain after Game 2 hamstring injury
- Wednesdays NBA playoffs score, takeaways: Knicks keep dropping; Pacers cant capitalize
[CBS Sports] – Thu, 09 May 2024 02:41:00 GMT
Knicks vs. Pacers score: Jalen Brunson’s return from injury sparks second-half rally in Game 2 win
[New York Post] – Thu, 09 May 2024 03:27:00 GMT
- Charles Barkley had some weird Knicks anger after their Game 2 win
- Charles Barkley Has Harsh Message For Winner Of Knicks-Pacers Series
- Charles Barkley blasts Knicks fans in hilarious rant after New York’s playoff win over Pacers: ‘Just ’cause y’
- Charles Barkley Tags Knicks ‘Overrated’ Despite Game 2 Win Against Adversity, In A Hilarious Rant: “Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread?”
- Resting & Watching Chicago MED: Charles Barkley Mocks Knicks Fans’ Worry Over Jalen Brunson’s Weird Injury Confusion
[The Ringer] – Wed, 08 May 2024 15:38:13 GMT
- The NBAs One-Man Band Era Is Here
- Patrick Ewing refuses to wade into fray after Charles Oakley’s ‘best’ Knick diss
- Jalen Brunson and the ruthless old-man game driving the New York Knicks’ playoff run
- Paul Pierce Apologizes to Knicks, Jalen Brunson
- Jalen Brunson has taken shot-making to new levels in playoffs
[New York Post] – Thu, 09 May 2024 05:29:09 GMT
- Josh Hart made sure Reggie Miller knew Garden fans were chanting ‘fk you’ at him
- Knicks fans chant ‘F–k you, Reggie’ to Miller
- Josh Hart ensures Reggie Miller hears Knicks fans’ ‘f— you’ chants at MSG as Pacers legend calls Game 2
- Reggie Miller warning to MSG fans: ‘The Boogeyman is coming’
- Ben Stiller Photobombs NBA Great Reggie Miller During TNT Interview At Knicks Game
[The New York Times] – Wed, 08 May 2024 07:00:42 GMT
- The Knicks Are Finally Good Again. And New York City Loves Them for It.
- The Knicks Are the Contender the NBA Didn’t See Coming
- Why the New York Knicks have won the hearts of Jewish New York and basketball lovers everywhere
- These Knicks don’t fit a conventional second-round mold
- Knicks Second Half Resiliency Has Proved To Be Difference
[CBS Sports] – Wed, 08 May 2024 22:23:01 GMT
- Knicks vs. Pacers: Rick Carlisle criticizes Obi Toppin’s brash Game 1 dunk, but not for reason you might think
- Pacers vs Knicks Player Props Tonight: Jalen Brunson & Obi Toppin (May 8)
- Obi Toppin’s Emphatic Between-the-Legs Dunk vs. Knicks Left NBA Fans in Awe
- Obi Toppin Finishes with 20 | Highlights and Live Video from Bleacher Report
- Pacers-Knicks Series Has Special Meaning for Toppin Family
[New York Post] – Thu, 09 May 2024 01:55:00 GMT
Knicks’ OG Anunoby exits Game 2 in third quarter in injury scare
[CBS Sports] – Wed, 08 May 2024 13:11:01 GMT
- 2024 NBA playoffs bracket, schedule, scores, games today: Knicks vs. Pacers Game 2 at Madison Square Garden
- 2024 NBA playoffs bracket, schedule, scores, results: Knicks go up 2-0 against Pacers
- Updated NBA playoff bracket: results, schedule, and full NBA postseason picture
- Series previews: What to expect in semifinals of 2024 NBA playoffs
- 2024 NBA Playoffs second round schedule: How to watch tonight’s games, where to stream and more
[New York Post] – Wed, 08 May 2024 16:59:00 GMT
Mitchell Robinson’s latest injury underscores Knicks’ Isaiah Hartenstein free agency dilemma
[Yahoo Sports] – Thu, 09 May 2024 00:09:00 GMT
Knicks’ Jalen Brunson finishes fifth in NBA MVP voting
[sny.tv] – Wed, 08 May 2024 13:28:01 GMT
- 3 adjustments Knicks must make against Pacers for Game 2 and beyond
- With injuries mounting, Knicks believe in ‘next-man-up’ mindset heading into Game 3
- Precious Achiuwa delivers for Knicks again in key depth role: ‘Next man’
- Knicks Notes: Hart, Rotation, Hartenstein, Brunson, DiVincenzo
- Adjustments Ahead of Game 2 Against The Pacers
[CNBC] – Wed, 08 May 2024 13:42:14 GMT
New York Knicks parent company to see strong earnings thanks to NBA playoff run, Bank of America says
[Daily Knicks] – Wed, 08 May 2024 12:00:01 GMT
Re-grading the legendary Knicks-Blazers trade that sent Josh Hart to New York
[New York Post] – Wed, 08 May 2024 11:45:00 GMT
Knicks, Rangers make MSG the capital of NBA, NHL playoffs
[Sporting News] – Wed, 08 May 2024 10:53:02 GMT
What is a Knickerbocker? Explaining the New York Knicks’ nickname origin and history
[Yahoo Sports] – Thu, 09 May 2024 08:02:41 GMT
Indiana Pacers 121 – New York Knicks 130: Final score, results, recap, box score, stats
[New York Post] – Thu, 09 May 2024 07:38:00 GMT
Myles Turner a non-factor in Pacers’ Game 2 loss to Knicks
339 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.05.09)”
@llcoolbp
Thank you man, you made me feel like if I was there, the sheer emotions of the night ooze from your words.
This series isn’t over, alas the OG cloud looms and I don’t know how long this run will last but at the end of the day I don’t care.
And I know it’ll be sad closing the book on this magical season but well, I don’t care of that too.
This team, these guys, this coach (and this FO) are giving us the kind of dream and memories we’ve forgotten for too long.
The dream to have year after year a chance, no matter how small, to win it all.
And they’re doing it “our” way, with the grittiness, the no back down, never quit, attitude that we love so much.
We know they’ll always give their 110%, that no drop of sweat will be spared.
But they add a grace and even-keeled touch to wins and losses that made them shine even more.
I FUCKING LOVE THIS TEAM
Back to the game:
– Surprise surprise, the defense collapsed much more than the offense when JB departed in the 1st half.
We learned that not only he leads the offense, but has some Jedi power that allows him to merge the minds of the lineup and move it like a single unit on defense.
Interesting.
– OG was having the game of his life and let’s all hope for the best (but you know, reality is a SOB).
I know I’m a little cruel here, but at this point there must be some kind of “fragility discount” in his next contract and Thibs should learn that he can’t play him over 40+ minutes for more than 3 games in a row.
– J-Hart wanted to be sure that Reggie got the MSG’s crowd message and that alone is worth a 1st round pick.
He does so many things during a game that some “have” to be dumb but the good ones make up for them 10 times more and you can’t help but forgive him.
Take your open shot Jason, we love you.
– Donte (who according to sources has a strong chance to play for the italian national team after the Paris Olympics) is confident, completely fearless and borderline reckless. He shares some moment of brain freeze with J-Hart, but has made some huge shots in this postseason…
– I’m biased towards I-Hart so I can’t say too many good things about him without sounding false.
All I can say is that my optimism about him re-signing here is growing every day.
– Deuce… I still love him and he’s a great guy to root for and a great contract to have, but Hobbit McConnell really is his kryptonite. We need him to find his shot (he’s off since the end of Game-5 vs Philly, except for a big bucket in Game-6).
– Precious, oh Precious…
Maybe you read his boxscore and think he had a nice game and to be fair he made something (or better “some things”) very useful.
He’s basically a one-dimensional player, he’s good at everything “physical”, he jump and runs and he’s a willing defender 1-on-1, just don’t ask him anything about Basketball-IQ.
But his attitude fit perfectly on this team because he always play at full speed and doesn’t spare effort, not a drop.
– Thibs… he’s a creature of habits and he’s ready to play a 4-men rotation, but his arsenal is so limited due to injuries that I think judging his in-game choices is a little unfair, I reserve the judgement for next year with the full roster.
Right now it’s preparation, videos and keeping the players focused and I think he’s doing a good job (yesterday’s start, before JB and OG issues, was really good).
– I think Carlisle took the brunt with the intent of avoid throwing his players under the bus, but it was really really really weak.
“There’s a bias against small market teams” after championships in Milwaukee and Denver in 2 of the last 3 years doesn’t look credible Rick…
And thanks for doing what we weren’t able to do for two games: stop McConnell and Obi.
– Hali and especially McConnell were much better after the game, they didn’t use the refs excuse, they know they crapped the bed. (Chances McCollum will become a coach? 115%? Anyway I’d like to have him running the second unit…)
Brian Sutterer is a sports medicine doc with a side hustle posting armchair diagnoses on Twitter and YouTube, which are often quite accurate. (I’m pretty sure he’s the guy who figured out a few months back that Brunson only had drop foot, and would be fine within a game or two, rather than the devastating non-contact injury we all assumed.) He posted this video about the OG and Brunson injuries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L56zusTjqV8
I’ll leave him to speculate at greater length as to the specific nature of each injury. But he thinks/hopes Brunson can just play through the discomfort. With OG, he at first starts to suggest that he might only miss a game or two, and then seems to pull himself back and be a bit more vague about duration. So we’ll see.
One of the beat writers likes to joke with me that only having five guys he’s willing to play is the ultimate Thibs fantasy. We are getting perilously close to that being a reality.
And you know what? I bet we can still win a game playing five if we have to. This team is magical.
Thanks, Alan, let’s hope it’s just one or two games without OG.
I can’t find words to describe how i feel about our team, so i’ll just say Thank you for letting us all dream again !! 🧡💙
I feel like i’m back in the 90s again, what a wonderful feeling! And Brunson is on his way to tie Ewing for my favorite Knick ever! 🙂
To celebrate this fantastic win, i thought about making a 10 comment quick read of the game thread, but you guys have so many great takes that i gave up. LOL
Anyone who missed the GT should go back and read it, it’s a great read. 😉
I still can’t get over Hart heckling Reggie Miller like that. He and Brunson are already in my top 10 all time favorite Knicks.
His arsenal is limited due to his dungeon and since we have to sit here and watch Obi Toppin kick our asses up and down the court after being in said dungeon I’d say judging him is absolutely fair. He is a fine coach but his faults are deadly. And the only adjustment he could come up with yesterday was to put Brunson back in.
Hart is hilarious! 😀
Hubert, you are starting to sound like your girlfriend cheated on you with Thibs! LOL
Just enjoy the ride, we’re 2-0! Two and O!! 😉
Dolan should invest in hyperbaric chambers or other technology to restore Knick players. Forget The Sphere.
Thx, @llcoolbop. Envious of that live experience!
Thx, @unreason. Below is exactly how I felt upon waking up. Haha.
Precious sipping the Knicks Kool Aid, post game:
I hope he’s watching game footage. He can def. play better.
My best hope for OG is that it’s a 2-week kind of injury, meaning that he could be back for like Game 3 of a Boston series if we can just get by the Pacers without him. No small task, the Gainbridge Fieldhouse is a very hostile arena and we are like a mortally wounded animal that a smart. patient team should be able to wear down. Indiana hasn’t looked like that team, though. But I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it’s 2-2 coming back to MSG.
The ride is Jalen Brunson. And Thibs is doing more to slow it down than Rick Carlisle.
First he makes him carry that sorry-ass two center lineup with Precious at the 4 which never should have seen the light of postseason day. And now making him carry an OG-less side into Indiana.
Do whatever you want with Josh Hart, Thibs, but OG Anunoby pulling up lame after averaging 46 mpg when you have two perfectly viable NBA wing players in your dungeon is 100% on you.
Wait who are the two perfectly viable wing players in the dungeon again? (I’m actually serious – I have no idea who you’re talking about).
Just want to wax poetic about Jalen Brunson a little. That second quarter that he missed was an abomination on both ends of the court — it is really just unreal how much of a difference Brunson makes as a leader on the court. Without him they really get discombobulated on offense, and even though it seems like defensively they should be better without him, it really did seem like the Pacers got like 12 shots in a row that were uncontested layups or 3s. Then you put him back on the court limping around and suddenly there is order in the world again. The dude is such a leader – a guy who really does make everyone around him better in some unquantifiable way. I would venture to say he is the most impactful non-Lebron FA signing maybe in NBA history (Lebron going back to cleveland and winning a championship probably is more impactful) — not just in terms of overall play but just in completely changing a franchise.
I have no idea what will happen the rest of the postseason, but I’m already happy with the whole season – and whatever happens from this point on, I’m fine with it. With so few healthy bodies, it would not surprise me if we run out of gas and Indy ultimately wins. And I don’t see any possible way we can compete with the Celtics if OG is not on the court. Hopefully Brunson’s foot doesn’t worsen so much, and OG can come back after a game or 2 like Sutterer said in his video…
Here’s a great quote from Donte about Brunson – from Fred Katz’s Athletic article today:
“When he’s out there, there’s a level of calmness,” DiVincenzo said. “We’ll get the right shot every single time. There’s a level of confidence from everybody that we have him on the court with us. Everybody can settle down and play their own game.”
(by the way for us to win this series, we will need nuclear Donte to take us to one of those wins – he has really stepped up his aggressiveness – and we need it)
On his post-game pod, Macri argued that for Game 3 — especially if Brunson is out, but maybe even if he plays — Thibs needs to play some or all of Burks, Shake, and DaQuan at least a few minutes, just to see if any of them might be viable rotation options in later rounds. I’m skeptical that our coach would do that, but I think we’re at the point where he needs to seriously consider such a thing — just start throwing things at the wall to see if any of it sticks, even if it means sacrificing one game.
D’Antoni = 7 Seconds or Less.
Thibodeau = 48 minutes or More.
Without OG, Mitch, Randle and Bogdanovic and with Brunson hurt I really have entered a zen state here. Just going to enjoy it for what it is.
Cry harder, Rick Carlisle:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40111250/pacers-file-complaint-78-calls-nba-source-says
“…and OG can come back after a game or 2 like Sutterer said in his video…”
I’d be very pleasantly surprised if we see OG again in this series.
The worst argument at this point is that Burks has usable players on the bench that he should be using more. He doesn’t. Don’t you think he would be playing Burks more if he could guard or hit a shot? In 50 seconds yesterday he managed to blow a defensive rotation and miss a contested long two. You could say it’s too tiny a sample and he’s not had an opportunity, but this is the stuff he has done for the last two months. I’ve seen enough. The Knicks only play super close games, so if you think Burks should have played more please tell me at which point of the last 8 games you would have been comfortable introducing him. And no, you are not allowed to say that if only he played more he would be better – he played plenty and was awful.
Is Precious a viable player? I think the Knicks might have won it by 15 if he wasn’t on the floor yesterday. He was awful and almost single handedly allowed the Pacers back into the game.
Alan, rationality strongly suggest it, we’re hardly winning this series with a 6-men rotation where half are “nominally” bench players.
Emotional bursts work in limited use (and take advantage from the other team relaxing in a false sense of security, while the “wounded” team give 120%), then usually the other team adjust.
But this is Thibs (who I used to call “Psycho” back in the days 😉 ) and these are the New York Nuclear Cockroaches so…
Jokes aside, I’m pretty sure he’ll probably use at least another player, alas I think Burke is at the top of the totem pole, I’d rather give a try to Shake…
I’m in the same zen state as Owen, the only thing that bothers me is the idea of the Pacers celebrating their win (especially on our turf), with us at full strenght thie is not even a series, it’s a bloodbath.
That made me chuckle, thanks Owen.
And Frank I’m talking about Burks & Milton. Both are equally as viable as rookie Ben Sheppard, and he isn’t killing Indiana for 20 mpg.
The key is to actually put a game plan together so we can get something out of them. The dungeon isn’t just about being on the bench. It’s about how when coach does finally call your number he does it clearly against his will and there’s no role for you in the offense so you enter the game set up to fail. Just ask Obi Toppin about that.
On the contrary, when Spo is forced to use a scrub like Duncan Robinson he doesn’t just hold his nose and put him in. He runs plays for him right away to get him going immediately.
I get the whole zen thing buy there’s a legitimate chance to win a championship here and it may be the best one we ever get
Hubie, how do you run a play for a guy who misses two thirds of his shots and can’t guard his man on defense? What is this mythical play we are speaking of here?
This version of the team makes me so freaking proud, man. Like the 94 squad. Maybe more. Alas, the worry is strong lol. I don’t wanna take anything away from the level of fight this team has or sound like I’m losing faith, but these fuckin injuries!! I’m starting to feel like any wins we get in this postseason beyond this point will make the season a success. We’ve got Brunson hobbled but fighting and winning, and we will likely lose Anunoby for a few games at minimum. Granted, I do think Thibs can insert Sims and Burks into the rotation to fill in for Anunoby’s absence and we still win this series in 6. But taking a 2-0 lead in the semifinals with no Randle, no Mitch(mostly), a beat up Brunson, Hartenstein having an Achilles that needs rest, and now no OG for a little bit is a hell of an accomplishment and a testament to the Nova Knicks and Thibs.
Achiuwa- get ready to play 40mpg! I would also consider using Milton some in addition to Burks for the rest of this series just to spread the floor for Deuce to operate on that second unit and get back to playing like he has since Feb.
Asked before the series about getting “revenge” on Carlisle for benching him earlier in his career, Brunson said ~ “No. It’s not about revenge at all. Rick Carlisle helped me become the player I am today.”
Quality.
I don’t know, Marechal, maybe just look and see how Rick Carlisle does it for Ben Sheppard. That guy shot 39% from the field this year and had a minus 4 bpm. If he were here, he’d be in the dungeon and y’all would stand for it. In the hands of another coach, though, he is useful. Kinda like that Toppin guy y’all said couldn’t play, either
So…. today we are looking at a 350 message story of how Rick Carlilse depantsed Thibs while trailing 2-0. If that fails… then Obi…. if that fails… only because Brunson. Yippie!
And I sure he is responsible for OG landing funny on his leg that was so fatigued playing 1.6 games in the past 6 days…. blah, blah, blah.
Hubert, Ben Sheppard isn’t embarrassing himself on both sides of the court the way Burks is. At a certain point, you can’t scheme your way around a player being entirely cooked.
I still think he should give Shake and/or Jeffries a try. But Burks has been awful in games since he came back here. He’s not the hill you should be dying on today.
Not everyone Hubie, not everyone…
He didn’t cost us any game so far but he’s playing well so I’m pissed as expected 😀
Sorry Hubie, you make no sense. Carlisle didn’t tell Sheppard to hit 3/4 from deep, much like Thibs didn’t tell Burks to miss a contested two like he always misses. If your takeaway from yesterday’s game is that the Knicks’ 10th and 11th bench pieces are not playing well because of Thibs, I don’t know what to tell you.
This team, man.
So I guess Precious starts now and we’ll get to see Jericho Sims in the playoffs? I mean that’s gotta be the move.
I think Precious did fine. I don’t see why everyone is saying he had a bad game. He grabbed some huge boards for us. He’s not going to score a ton of points most nights. Did he make some huge mistake that I missed?
Deuce has to step up.
I know we’re going to continue to have this debate but OG got hurt in the third quarter. Yes he had played a lot of minutes and played a lot in game one. He also had a day off and had three days off before game one.
Part of me thinks let Brunson sit and punt game 3 bc we’re most likely losing it anyways but also maybe we could steal a game without OG and Brunson and then it would be over. But I also don’t want to give these guys a game because I feel like even though we’re up 2-0, if Indiana gets back in this series and it goes to 6 or 7, we’re screwed.
Just hope OG’s hamstring soreness is just that and it’s just one or two games.
Regardless, the Nova Trio has I think secured their status as legends of NYC. How can you not love these dudes and this team?
I know the ride is going to end at some point. It has to with this team being so short handed. But GD if this isn’t the most fun I’ve had as a fan since 99;
He was really bad on the boards in the third and improved in the fourth, made some awful fouls (a terrible and-one on Jackson and a push on Siakam after not grabbing a rebound when they were on the penalty already, leading to two FTs). He also missed his defensive assignment several times, though he wasn’t the only one.
Sheppard is part of the Pacers’ game plan. Burks & Milton are not part of ours.
That’s exactly the precise danger and risk from overuse — that instead of landing normally in a normal, everyday basketball move, you land “funny.”
I mean, was there ever any doubt that this … cough … interesting … rotation was going to wind up at exactly this point? With players falling by the wayside and the “defense” lowering their expectations?
No, I’m not “enjoying the ride” if it winds up in a second round loss to Indiana because of Thibs’s players — yet again coming up lame. You guys can.
Sadly there are just simply bad luck injuries in the playoffs, happens every year. Porzingis, Kawhi, Giannis this year, Kyrie, Harden with Brooklyn that one year, Chris Paul like every year lol. The list goes on.
It’s why load management and minutes restrictions in the end can only go so far. One bad step and boom.
That said I do think Thibs needs to explore options, especially against a mentally weak team like the Pacers. Winning the first two games can afford a luxury at least for one game. Alas, I don’t think he will open the bench.
He did throughout the season and Carlisle is putting him in a position to succeed.
He’s played 50 seconds!
Shake Milton actually is the hill I’m dying on. He’s 27, has a track record, has played in the playoffs before.
This ain’t Cam Reddish here. Leon got Thibs a half-decent player and Thibs needs to work him into the game plan.
Man what a fucking win. JB doesn’t hurt his foot we might have actually won a game that wasn’t nailbiting until the last minute
The existence of bad luck injuries in no way relieves you of blame for overuse injuries.
Burks got a chance to play when they made the trade. He has been awful in every aspect of playing bball since he got here. He got a chance. He failed.
He came in and immediately was terrible again. He didn’t come in and have a neutral effect. He came in and was bad.
This might be the most miserable Knicks community on earth at this point btw.
ahahahaha cry more
Different expectations and standards mostly. The community has survived and thrived nonetheless and I’d expect that to continue.
It’s not this community DRed, it’s only a certain few.
BTW maybe Carlisle should change his brilliant game plan since he’s down 0-2 in the series.
“This might be the most miserable Knicks community on earth at this point btw.”
Nah, just the usual suspects.
“The existence of bad luck injuries in no way relieves you of blame for overuse injuries.”
Alternatively, the existence of overuse injuries in no way makes you to blame for bad luck injuries.
Yeah, but have you ever noticed that all the guys Thibs relegates always look bad (or in the case of someone like Bogey, way worse than baseline), but the guys in that same 7-ish to 11-ish place in other coach’s pecking order … don’t?
The biggest blow of the OG injury is that one of his main jobs on the Knicks was going to be to defend Tatum or Brown when/if we faced the Celtics in the playoffs. We don’t have MRI results yet, but I heard they can usually tell from the ultrasound and it looks like 2-3 weeks.
OG pulling a hamstring after averaging 46 mpg ain’t one of ‘em.
You may hate me for saying it but that one is on Coach and he may have just submarined this entire glorious postseason.
Did people really expect there would be no commentary on Thibs’s rotations and the concomitant players dropping like flies?
He invariably lowers the ceiling. Tough verdict, I’m aware, particularly given the context — but true nonetheless. The injuries are essentially what economists call a “negative externality,” the functional equivalent of the factory upstream that pollutes the river downstream without incurring the costs. Unfortunately, the Knicks do have to incur the costs of the injuries.
Just to close the loop on the Mitch injury, Katz and others have reported it as a stress injury from overuse. Didn’t really have anything to do with Embiid’s dirty play. Mitch had a stress injury before from overuse, had surgery on it, had a stress injury again.
Remember when you guys spent a year crying and moaning about Thibs burying the great evan fournier and then he went to Detroit and it turned out he fucking sucked? Maybe learn from your mistakes.
If you have proof that the injury was due to overuse instead of an unlucky moment of a misstep or extension of muscles then I’d like to see it. But we don’t either way. We can ASSUME it was for one reason or another but as I said injuries can happen regardless of heavy minutes usage or not.
I’m with Dred. At times this board feels like we lost the game rather than won it. I’m all for criticism and I have my gripes with Thibs and his methods but damn!
Whatever. As Perkins would say, “carry the hell on.”
Yeah, I don’t think I did spend a year crying about Evan Fournier, DRed.
I did say Thibs could have gotten more out of Obi Toppin. And that treating injury-prone OG Anunoby like ironman Josh Hart was a bad idea.
And I remember you crying and moaning about that. So maybe learn from your mistakes.
God this place sucks sometimes. Thanks Hubie and E.
By the way,
“The existence of bad luck injuries in no way relieves you of blame for overuse injuries.”
Is pretty much the same as saying “This tornado has nothing to do with climate change.” It is an ignorant, stupid statement. You, and virtually every scientist on earth, doesn’t actually know the answer. For you to pretend that you do shows how utterly biased — and utterly foolish — you are. You embarrass yourself. And the rest of us, just by reading your stupid words.
Yeah he definitely did that but I also thought at least 2 of those fouls were suspect.
Also, the pacers are being such little bitches about this. Now you’re going to file complaints about all of the calls made the entire game? I spend half the time watching these games complaining about the calls against The Knicks but sack the fuck up.
OG Anunoby is a notoriously non-durable player. Not a criticism in the least, but it is something that has to be factored in when you set out to play him ridiculously absurd minutes.
It was not factored in.
Losing OG is way worse than losing the game.
It might be time for E and Hubert to follow in dj’s footsteps…
Except we don’t know yet how much we’ve “lost” him. It could be just one or two games. We’re up 2-0. Even with fully healthy Brunson and OG we could lose the next game anyways.
We’re 2 wins away from the ECF.
I’m not trying to dismiss these concerns. I’ve said before the playoffs started that it needs to be something the entire organization addresses this off season. But we’re not there right now.
I mean we lose that game if OG doesn’t do what he did in the first half.
At this point it is what it is. The team is short handed.
Mitch was injured by Embiid.
Also, please remember the Knicks filed for an injury exception and were denied. We could have signed another big to fill out the bench and let Mitch fully heal but the league fucked us on that.
Bojan suffered an injury that had nothing to do with overuse or too many minutes.
Mitch was re-injured because of Embiid.
Randle’s injury wasn’t because of overuse.
OG – maybe it’s overuse but it’s the fucking playoffs. We had three days of rest before game one and these aren’t back to backs.
He wasn’t, but I’m well aware of the Liberty Valance “when the facts and legend conflict, print the legend” idea.
Sadly, I think Carlisle is probably playing this right if he is trying to manipulate the refs ahead of what is essentially a do or die Game 3 for them.
There isn’t
It won’t
When it comes to the way Thibs has handled OG since we acquired him, I am the scientist and y’all are the climate change deniers.
If this sucks, maybe it’s because we just had our 5th natural disaster of the season and the same gang is still standing up for the guy who refuses to limit carbon emissions.
I know you think you’re sounding smart but that might be the dumbest analogy ever used on this blog.
I haven’t said a fucking thing about OG, I just said you and E are miserable.
Yeah Brian, I think you’re right.
I really try to be objective about refereeing, it’s hard but in general I usually disagree with the board’s “the ref’s suck” contingent here. I do think there’s been a few cases of it, more in the Philly series, but again I thought it went both ways over time. Yesterday I got no sense at all that there was a Knicks bias.
The double-dribble was egregious but it was a nothing-burger bad call that got reversed, which overall is a good thing. Lots of violence on both sides; most of the time that Brunson brought the ball up TJ could have been called for a foul, a regular season game before the all-star break he would have immediately been whistled, it was a constant mugging.
Hell, Brunson could have been called for a foul on some of his push-offs and elbows toward the end of the game to get TJ off him. But they couldn’t call those if they’re not whistling TJ for jumping on Jalen and riding him like a pony each time down the court.
DRed for GM
Slightly bittersweet that while I have never been as proud of the team as today, today is also the first time I feel the run is going to end sooner than I dreamed. And low and behold, E can’t resist by starting to take pre-mature victory laps on something he completely made up, while I chalk Hubie down to just being disappointed with the OG situation.
That was an amazing victory, probably due to Thibs’ short rotation, but people aren’t wrong to suggest it’s also why OG got hurt. Both can simultaneously exist at once.
That pulled hammy was clearly an overuse injury in my mind: not getting his usual lift and therefore landing funny. And don’t put that shit on OG being “injury-prone”. That has been debunked before.
At the same time, you can definitely argue that Thibs had no other option to actually win that game. He knows his players. Borks clearly has one foot in retirement, and the other guys probably aren’t NBA-level players. It’s a shit hand we’ve been dealt, although I’m surprised Leon traded for 30 yr old-plus players again after the Kemba fiasco.
…and I think Thibs will again run 7 guys out there with Sims as the backup C for maybe 10 minutes at most lol.
I agree Brian, with this weak move he probably did buy Game-3 even before the jump ball (see Sixers Game-3… or Nate McMillan perfectly executed preemptive strike before Game-1 in 2021)…
This tactic works.
I wonder if TJ is auditioning for a move to NY
I don’t think it matters but I think he hurt his hammy trying to get the pass, he doesn’t really jump the play he comes out on because his leg is already injured.
Knicks realistically might not win another game this series but shit last night was an incredible moment, let’s just all freaking celebrate and appreciate it. Come Sunday night if the series is tied 2-2 then the apprehension can resume but for now let’s just enjoy this run!
“McConnell said. ‘They smashed us on the boards against tonight…….'”
Did he really say that? If so, I want him even less than I otherwise would. He could be considered an idiot if he said that.
walker and bender said it earlier on this thread, and I agree with it: We would have had no chance at winning this game if OG hadn’t taken over the offense from the in-the-locker-room Jalen in the first half. Those minutes he played were kind of necessary.
Thank you, Bernie. You are correct. Although it’s being exacerbated by the Toppin situation, too. It’s not just that OG got hurt, it’s that his injury feels like part of a fatal institutional flaw: the dungeon. I’m feeling more than the loss of OG. I see where this is going.
Funny how E resurfaces to do the “I told you so” shtick after barely uttering a peep around here the last few weeks.
Is Josh Hart now a proven Awesome Playoff Player in the mold of RJ Barrett and Dejounte Murray now, or is he still a lame hustlebunny scrub? How about DDV, does he count as a ruff rydah now?
Pretty much all of E’s memes have been proven fraudulent but here he is, still doing “I told you so” now that the goalposts have been safely moved out of the stadium entirely.
If we eliminate Indiana, will he shut the fuck up for a while then? Or will the new take be that Thibs sucks because we couldn’t beat Boston?
I think we know the answer to this question.
Mitch looked slow before Embiid pulled him down but he wasn’t hobbling around. After that incident he clearly looked hobbled to me. I fully think Embiid is responsible for that.
And you can’t blame Mitch’s injuries on Thibs. You can’t blame Bojan’s injury on Thibs either. That’s 2 rotation players right there.
The OG injury – sure, maybe. But again, down 3 rotation players (Randle, Bojan and Mitch) – Thibs is really supposed to play Charlie Brown or Burks?
Hamstring injuries are among the most common type of injury in all sports. They happen in the off-season, pre-season, practice, regular season games, and post-season games. They happen in the first minute of games and the 47th. They can happen due to overuse, underuse, and anything in between.
The anti-Thibs trolling is so fucking transparent. If it weren’t this, it would be that. So long as those agenda-driven trolls frequent this site, it’s just a fact of KB life.
I thought about that this morning. I would trade one of our first round picks for him and I think Indiana would be happy to do that (he’ll be 32 and has just one year left).
But salary-wise, we’d have to use either Mitch or Bojan.
One possibility: sign Precious to a 1 year, $10MM deal and trade him with a first to Indiana for McConnell. That, of course, depends on Precious.
Burks might be more inclined to do that since he might be heading for vet min territory. Would Indiana pay Burks $10mm to get a first? They might.
Pascal is shooting 44% from the FT line in the playoffs maybe we should be doing hack a Siak
Siakam is pulling the unconventional “free agency slide” instead of the more common free agent push you see for players.
Then again, in the current NBA, I guess guys like Siakam are going to get maxed out regardless, right?
Agree on fouling Siakam. Might as well.
It has not, Ess-Dog. In fact, the debunk has been debunked.
OG is legitimately prone to injury.
I think Thibs is doing a great job. I see the merit in expanding the rotation, but I think that Thibs has earned the benefit of the doubt here: so far he’s profoundly out-coaching two championship level coaches. In general, widening the rotation is a judgment call that we as fans are not in a position to make—what this argument comes down to, really, is: do you trust Thibs, or don’t you? I don’t think there’s an obvious answer here—choosing who to trust depends so deeply on one’s personal calculus regarding the trustee’s merits and flaws—but Thibs has done enough by my lights to think that if he’s not widening the rotation, there’s a good reason for it.
Whatever else, the players seem to trust Thibs nigh-unconditionally and are not openly worrying about the minutes. I would like to see some Burks, Shake, and even DaQuan minutes, but defer to Thibs’ decision here. Let’s see what Friday has in store.
Also, we’re way ahead of our skis on armchair-diagnosing of injuries. Not one of us knows what caused what. So we should refrain from claiming that it’s quite obvious that OG is or is not injured due to overuse, even in light of Thibs’ track record.
TJ has risen to Embiid-level dislike in my book. Sort of like Patrick Beverley, I want nothing to do with him, although I respect the hell out of his gnat-like qualities. (And hey, it does look like Bev is a loon, eh?).
One of the most amazing things about this team is that nobody on it is an asshole. I’m sure the Nova Trio pisses the hell out of other team’s fans, but only because they never stop and seem to be much better than they should be. And keep beating other teams.
Well, Josh Hart yelling “They’re saying F— You!” into the mic might irritate die-hard Pacer fans, along with some religious fundamentalists in Indiana. But it was pretty damn funny. Assume he’ll be fined for it?
What is wild, Z-Man, is that Thibs has this team playing the best basketball that most of us have seen The Knicks play in the last 20 plus years. We’re 2 games away from making the ECF for the first time since 2000 and people are upset because injuries are happening. But if people would just take a second and breathe and think about it, they would realize how unfounded these laments are.
Bojan – freak injury. Only played limited minutes since getting here. Not Thibs fault.
Mitch – wasn’t ready to come back – this is the NBA’s fault. We filed for an injury exception and were denied. It’s also Joel Embiid’s fault. Mitch wasn’t playing heavy minute at all but was locking down Embiid. So Embiid pulled a dirty move and Mitch did not look the same since that happened.
OG – like you said, Z-man. That injury happens all the time. Also, it should be noted that it’s been called a bruise. He didn’t pull a hamstring. He may not even miss much time. But he played a lot of minutes! Yes, 2 days ago. Before that he had 3 full days off and the injury happened in the 3rd quarter (after half time when everyone gets a break).
Then there is Randle – which has been debated endlessly but he wasn’t logging heavy minutes in that game when it happened and there was plenty of time left in the game for Miami to come back.
Again, the team should address this in the off season as a whole but it’s not on Thibs. Not completely at least.
You know what myth is getting debunked? This one:
I always thought it was bullshit but it was one of those things you could never prove. Now the outstanding play of Obi Toppin throughout this postseason is exposing this myth once and for all.
Shake Milton’s been in the playoffs three times and done just fine. He’ll probably be back in them again next year and do just as well as he always does. Thibs doesn’t know Shake Milton can’t play. He’s just stubborn.
TJ could play for my team any time.
Obi played in all 16 playoff games during his Knicks career averaging 15.1 mins per game. So far in 8 playoff games under Carlisle Obi is playing 19.3 mins per game.
Is Carlisle really that much smarter than Thibs cause he’s playing Obi a whopping 19 mins per game?
As someone who has advocated for expanding the rotation and continues to think we should, allow me to distance myself from the absurd idea that it’s some obvious call Thibs refuses to make because the coach at the helm of one of the most unlikely playoff runs I’ve ever seen is too stupid or stubborn or whatever.
Chances are Burks and Shake Milton suck. Like, suck so much even spot minutes likely lose us one or more of the playoff wins we’ve racked up. Our margin for error is zero. Yes, it is absolutely plausible 45 minutes of Hart + 3 of Burks is a loss while 48 minutes of Hart is a win.
Now, I still am above 50/50 on giving them a quick shot because we’ve been in certain scenarios where there’s not much to lose. In the 2nd quarter last night Brunson was injured, Deuce was playing like shit, and our defense was terrible anyway. So yeah, I thought we should’ve seen if a different look and/or some fresh legs could’ve mucked the game up a bit.
…but we won, and again, this is hardly an easy call. I can’t fathom saying with any degree of confidence that we should be playing these guys more.
Also am I the only one finding it ironic that Hubert is advocating trading a 1st rd pick for TJ considering his complaining about the Josh Hart trade?
He’s been untrustworthy with the minutes since his early Bulls days and remains so now. Other than the fact that he’s our guy now, there’s really no contra side to this one. If he was coaching the Kings now with this top-heavy construction and these results, everyone on the board would be saying “same as it ever was.”
If you simply step away from it and look big picture, yet another one of his teams is extremely top-heavy in minutes and dropping like flies at the most important time of the year. I don’t see that going more granular really “helps” him all that much, but if people want to get granular by way of defending it, go for it.
As for me, he had a well-earned reputation when he got here and upon very close attention I’ve seen literally nothing that would indicate that said reputation was off in any way.
“If he was coaching the Kings now with this top-heavy construction and these results, everyone on the board would be saying “same as it ever was.””
Or alternatively, if he were coaching the Kings, they’d be a 50-win team battling in the second round of the playoffs instead of being eliminated in the play-in by the shitty Pelicans.
In his last 12 games before coming to Thibs, Alfred E. Neuman averaged 16 ppg in 25 mpg, shooting 432/459/951. As with Bogey, his performance then virtually immediately fell off a cliff.
Re Obi, I remember a 38-pt game from the man. As has been said constantly, there was a basketball player in there. The Hali style not surprisingly suits him better than Thib’s “Play defense please” requirement. He doesn’t play defense, so the Pacers are the perfect place for him. Run wild, run free little Obi.
As for the dungeon, Obi played 15 a game for us, pretty much every game, and largely sucked except in brief moments. Burks now blows — I don’t know why, it’s one of earth’s great mysteries, but it’s a fact.
People have full-on seizures here when Sims is on the court, I actually enjoy watching him hop around but I tend to agree he’s not good. I’d like to see Shake get some run as my data set is limited, but Thib’s data set is not limited as he sees him every day. Maybe he’s brilliant but Thibs hates his name or something.
If Shake comes out and scores 15 in 15 minutes on Friday, that’d be interesting. I’m going to guess that ain’t happening, though.
Edit: Or what Noble wrote while I was laboriously typing…
As I said earlier, the dungeon isn’t just about minutes. It’s about being part of the game plan. If you give a guy minutes but force him to run another player’s actions or do nothing to play to his strengths, he’s still in the dungeon.
Yes, and it’s about something even more subtle than that, which is the sense of being valued and wanted, so that your potential and production can be maximized. It’s part of man management, and from all indications Thibs is poor at it.
Sadly, I think Carlisle is probably playing this right if he is trying to manipulate the refs ahead of what is essentially a do or die Game 3 for them.
I am not so sure Brian (and Raven). He is accusing them of making more than one bad call per minute. That moves the needle from the up your game/give me a break message to the you are fucking incompetent message. Could backfire into a very tightly called game, which I think would benefit NY as it would slow the pace. Though we have so few bodies we may have to literally play less than 5 players given people fouling out.
I do continue to think our use of the fringe roster spots is unusually wasteful, which normally doesn’t matter but is now coming into play (this is obviously not a Thibs thing).
My reasoning here is very simple. It makes sense to use these spots in one of two ways, and teams do in fact overwhelmingly use them in one of these two ways:
1) maintain the rights to a player you think might be able to help you in the future e.g. Kendall Brown and Jarace Walker on the Pacers
2) having some break-in-case-of-emergency vets who won’t go Frank Ntilikina on you if you have an unusually bad injury situation e.g. Shake Milton
I don’t think I need to make a detailed case about how Charlie Brown, DaQuan Jeffries, Duane Washington, and Jacob Toppin don’t fit into either category. I’m actually not even sure which of these guys made the playoff roster, but none of them are “prospects” in any sense of the word and I am fairly certain random journeymen like Jordan Bell and Will Barton could give you more competent emergency minutes.
Hopefully we make some draft picks and this problem solves itself.
We know some things about thibs. His teams offense is going to collapse in the playoffs. The sky is blue. That’s why the Knicks have the second best playoff offense in the NBA this season. It puts a hard cap on his teams. It is what it is.
Obi’s Usage Rate this season was his lowest since his rookie season.
Those who are concerned (or appalled) by Thib’s short lineup and overuse of players are going to disagree with me.
We are in the playoffs. It’s “whatever it takes” time. There’ll be months to recover. Now we need one and only one thing – to win 10 more games this year.
Whatever it takes!
Go NY Go NY Go !!!!
The box score lists Jericho, Shake, DaQuan, and Mamadi Diakite as DNP-CDs.
It’s stark to read Macri’s joyful newsletter today and then watch E and Hubert hijack this thread and just beat the happiness out of the day.
Which is precisely why I have given Thibs zero grief for any player’s minutes this postseason until today. Do what you want with Josh Hart but not OG Anunoby.
A 38/10 split for OG and Shake might cost us a game but a 46 mpg average for OG Anunoby will cost a lot more.
I mean if you have been flogging the argument for several years that Josh Hart sucks and his game will collapse in the playoffs, this might be a good time to either come hat in hand saying what a completely fucking stupid take that was, or better yet going and sitting in the corner and shutting the fuck up. The “I told you so” shtick is ringing a lil bit hollow right about now.
Carlisle is a menace for forcing ref discourse on the world in a game his healthy team lost by 9 to a team down to the ‘Nova guys (some of the time) and MSG ushers. You know it’s some half-hearted shit when the Pacers players can’t even be bothered to join in.
E’s takes on Josh Hart are well-documented and to say they’ve aged like milk is too harsh on milk, which can last for a couple of days. One of the best non-star trades any team I root for has ever made. But let’s not forget the victory laps he was taking when Donte had a rough first few playoff games too!
I’ve had my hat in hand for Josh Hart for a while now.
Perhaps now it’s time for y’all to do the same with Thibs.
Because the injury to OG after egregious overuse and the play of Obi Toppin on the other side is as definitive an ending to that argument as Josh Hart hitting the series-winning three against Philadelphia.
It’s not just being wrong about certain players, it’s a whole dumb narrative that has been blown to smithereens. Only true Proven Playoff Guys like Dejounte Murray have the certain kind of special moxie it takes to succeed in the playoffs, while the hustlebunnies and Soft Rydahs of the world are doomed to fail.
I love this team. Last night was the reason we all care about sports to begin with. Jalen Brunson is the second best player the Knicks have had since I started watching the team, and he could give Patrick a run for his money if he plays at this level for long enough. Josh Hart is a joy to watch. So is iHart when he’s at his playmaking best, DDV when he’s shooting without remorse, etc.
Not engaging with the rest anymore. Let’s go Question of the Day instead:
What was your favorite play from last night’s game?
Incredible stat. Unfortunately, without Randle etc, we won’t be able to witness the full potential of this team this season
https://twitter.com/TommyBeer/status/1788577021947253142?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Carlile is an old fox and knows what he is doing. We should be ready for an officiating massacre on Friday.
What was your favorite play from last night’s game?
Without question, the iHart double dribble.
Yeah, as if this team wouldn’t be way better with Dejounte Murray on its roster.
I’ve always said this about Thibs, and still feel the same way: I’m agnostic. He comes with pluses and minuses. This playoff run is kind of the perfect embodiment of that. Would we have a healthy OG Anunoby if Shake Milton had played some scattered minutes? I dunno, maybe. Maybe not. It seems like a weird counterfactual to me. Thibs doesn’t trust a lot of players, and that can be fairly ascribed as one of his minuses.
At the same time… scoreboard. We’re 6-2 in the playoffs and eliminated an excellent team in the first round. Despite non-workload rated injuries to two key players (Randle and Bogey) we’re halfway to a series win in the second round and the opposing coach of this series, who has a healthy roster, is doing ridiculous embarrassing crybaby shit in a desperate attempt to stem the tide in a series where his team was defeated in the first two games by sheer hustlebunnying. Maybe the culture created by Tom Thibodeau had something to do with this, I dunno. That seems like something you put in the “pluses” column.
Could be worse. I’m not a knee-jerk Thibs supporter but the results ain’t bad.
Favorite play?
Brunson had just returned. Can he walk? He takes it at TJ, hard contact, no call. Re-groups, takes it again, plows through TJ, scores -> and one.
Pathetic straw man.
Thanks for trying to shift the discourse, Alan.
I like BernieErnie’s answer a lot, but for me it wasn’t an actual play. It was the Garden’s reaction to Brunson coming out on the floor at the end of halftime.
You brought him up.
Then you’re arguing just to argue. We’ve seen it before.
Ultimately, for a host of somewhat related reasons, Thibs lowers the ceiling. That’s the primary “minus” argument against him and we’re seeing it now.
Some people (/raises hand) call it for what it is. Other people, and this is perfectly fine, rationalize things in anticipation and say things like “it’s been a great season already, even if things go south from here.”
Different standards, different interpretations. Knicks reddit is still there for those who want all kumbaya and hosannas. (I’m old enough to remember when TNFH and (I think) even you routinely trotted that one out.)
Normally, I’d be in playoff quiet mode and I anticipate getting back to that, but watching OG going down last night after significant overuse was too much and warranted comment.
I brought up Dejounte in a specific context: to illustrate how dumb your idea is that only certain players have special playoff magic, and that hustlebunnies like Josh Hart just don’t have this innate playoff moxie.
You’re not dumb and you know this. Your bad take has blown up in your face like a TNT device that the coyote ordered from the ACME company. Deal with it.
Any injury updates? Brunson X-ray negative kind of thing. Or OG?
Jalen’s 2nd And1 last night might’ve been my favorite play.
I think my favorite play doubleteamed Josh wrapping a pass around Jackson to Donte under the rim for a layup about halfway through the 3rd. Josh is in trouble, sees Donte creeping towards the rim, looks away to freeze the defense and then gets it to Donte for an easy score. Just really showed the way the Nova guys seem to be thinking with one brain a lot of the time.
You seem to be talking to me but these are E’s takes.
My position on Thibs has always been that his inability to adjust and the shortened roster we are forced to play with because of his dungeon will continually put us at a disadvantage when we get deeper into the playoffs.
These takes are not being blown to smithereens.
How are the Knicks playing on offense so far?
That’s your interpretation because you’re always on the lookout for “boomer” “David Eckstein” types. I’m not that, never have been that, and never will be that.
When all you bring is a hammer, an awful lot of things look like nails.
They’re not my takes and never have been. See above.
I’m talking to E and these are indeed his takes.
Right because none of us have reading comprehension and we haven’t all seen that you’ve been bashing Josh Hart as a sucky hustlebunny who will suck in the playoffs for the past several years in literally hundreds of posts.
Okay bruv.
Let’s just stop talking to E, how about.
I’m curious to see if Carlisle’s tactics will work for the next game. Because it feels like he kind of went over the line last night and now submitting a review for like 49 different calls? Seems like it could potentially backfire where the refs are like “fuck you, man up” and they don’t get the calls their way next game.
I mean, it’s one thing in a game that comes down to the last play to complain about an obvious blown call that happened at the end of the game. But this is some bitch ass shit.
Never said any of that. Did say he sucked against Miami last year and was a hustlebunny and that he doesn’t have enough pop to be a starter at that position on a chip team and that Thibs’s affinity for that type of player lowers the team’s ceiling.
All true. Great role player a lot of times but even playing out of his mind in the first six playoff games, he’s averaging 13.8 points per 36.
Never said a single word about his lack of “moxie” or that he would suck in the playoffs every single year/every single series/whatever.
But the headline of today isn’t Josh Hart; it’s yet again the ceiling being lowered by bizarre coaching philosophy/decisions. Very unfortunate.
Back on roster construction playoff hiatus.
We should be allowed to bring back Ron Baker to sic on McConnell
Basketball is a contact sport and multiple fouls can be called on almost every play. The Knicks could also produce a similar 50, 60, 80 plays list. What Carlile does is a calculated move. At the very least, that move takes away our right to complain in case the refs kill us on Friday and Sunday when the Pacers will be playing rugby instead of basketball.
E’s schtick aside, people on this board shouldn’t feel the need to regulate conversation topics based on their positivity level or perceived angles… it’s a fucking blog, people. If you don’t want to talk about hamstrings, talk about something else with someone else. It’s not like this is a Pacers blog with only 3 people on it… we have a bunch of different voices here… end rant.
( with apologies to Raven)
Were Paul Silas or Dennis Rodman hustle bunnies?
Man a lot of fire on the blog today, never thought i would see the day where TNFH and JK47 are aligned with Z-man against Hubert.
Not to pull a djphan and sound super condescending but everyone understands why Carlise is playing the Ben Sheppards and Issaih Jacksons of the world right? No one on Indy played more then 36 mins last night for Indy in the playoffs in a close loss.
Carlise knows his best 5/6 can’t beat our best 5/6, he is playing full court defense the enitre game to speed us up and wear us out. If the game is close in the fourth quarter he knows our team will out execute his. His only gambit is to tire us out, he’s not playing ben shepard bc he wants to. That’s his only option bc they can only win if they outscore and tire us out in a hig scoring game. His whole strategy is for us to be forced to play the shake miltons and alec burks and thibs is refusing to do it.
And as for hamstrings, it’s a muscle and “muscle fatigue” is the most common issue with muscles! OK sure, OG’s issue wasn’t definitely from “fatigue,” but it’s not a crazy idea!
Like JK, I’m pretty agnostic on Thibs, but I think his outlier minutes distributions are a fair topic, sorry.
Also E what was the ceiling of this team without Randle, you keep saying we are lowering our ceiling? I’m pretty sure we are going to hit our ceiling and it is bc of our coach….
His whole strategy is
Should already be clear, but the term “hustlebunny” is more of a dig at Thibs than on the players.
The curator of the official Knickerblogger lexical dictionary should be alerted.
Hubert’s take here is reasonable, and if I disagree with him it’s around the margins. Hubert also has the humility to say “wow I was wrong about Josh Hart,” much in the way I have the humility to say “wow I was wrong about Leon Rose.” All perfectly normal discourse. You get more information, you revise your assessment.
Other people, you know, not so much. Some people feel the need to cling onto narratives that have blown up in their faces.
I agree with ess-dog, OG was fine running 40 mins a game as our defender and spot up three point guy, with a few straight line drives mixed in there. Brunson went out and he kind of had to be more involved in the offense on top of all his other duties.
Its kind of like if you are on the track team as the long distance runner and the sprinter gets hurt. They ask you to fill in and you blow your hammy bc all year you been doing one thing and all of a sudden your asked to sprint on top of running long distance.
I’m pretty sure we’d see more “normal” mins if Randle, Bogey and Mitch were healthy. Also for majority of games vs Philly Deuce played more 4th quarter mins than DDV, if Deuce plays well he’ll get plenty of mins.
What was your favorite play from last night’s game?
mine is in honor of fallen OG. in Q3 he hits a corner three to go up 82-79. pacers come down and they try to post siakam on him. siakam bails and sets a screen. OG switches on to nesmith and forces him to kick to turner with no advantage. turner beats ihart going right and the only help is josh who is late and small. OG somehow recovers from the strong side and beats turner to the spot, goes vertical from a physically unfathomable angle, and gets his right hand above the ball at the rim. this doesn’t quite show the full play:
https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2024/05/08/0042300212/334/58c142fd-b4b9-4488-15ef-28f08ad0beca_960x540.mp4
Exactly so don’t understand why people are praising his bench use.
This doesn’t make any sense at all lmao
Yes, the negative vibes only persist if you continue to engage and argue with the people putting them out there.
I love taking digs at Hubert but it’s definitely all in good fun, as annoying as the discourse can be at times this site wouldn’t be the same and nearly as fun without it.
But shit Knicks are up 2-0 in the 2nd rd off another incredibly dramatic win, let’s try to enjoy it while we can!
I was one of the biggest Obi stans on this blog, but there were multiple reasons to part ways with him, most notably that we couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to re-sign him after this season at the price he would get (similar to Quickley). He was also just a very poor fit for Thibs’ system, which isn’t even a knock against him per se. And third, he was getting disgruntled about his minutes in a contract year.
I don’t love the return we got for him, and maybe Thibs lowered his value some by not playing to his strengths, but that’s a byproduct of the Knicks actually winning many games.
*Side note: Once Obi tried his between the legs dunk during a game, I would’ve been done with him… not a recipe for winning basketball IMO.
Exactly! Don’t waste your brain cells trying to rationalize the irrational.
A much better lunatic conspiracy theory is that OG has been hurting for a while, and the three blown dunks this series alone are proof of that, and Thibs played him too hard anyway, and the injury happened.
But that’s MY lunatic conspiracy theory, and you can’t use it.
The three of us disagree a lot, always in a respectful manner. Like Ess Dog said, there’s a lot of different voices here. I am, as Roman Roy would say, pre-grieving what now seems inevitable to me. Except I’m not actually bottling it in so it all comes out at the funeral.
FWIW I did my best to get behind the inclusion of OG in the short rotation. I hated every second of it but I kept my mouth shut until now. And who knows maybe he comes back in two games or even one. But I just don’t see any learning curve, so I’m actually dealing with all the future injuries to OG Anunoby right now.
A fascinating observation given the long and tiresome debate over RJ Barrett spilling all the way over to what he did in TOR.
But in any event, I have no aversion to “admitting being wrong.” But as TNFH in his frustration often notes, I really don’t make a lot of binary observations that can be either “wrong” or “right.” Josh Hart as usual appears to be the obsession du jour. He’s playing very well in the playoffs and I can obviously see why he’s a fan favorite, but in basketball terms I stand by what I wrote about him immediately above. Treat that as an admission if it will make you happier.
Oh, but it makes perfect sense. The origin story of the term — in several disputative posts way back when — was Quentin Grimes and Thibs’s absurd gooey eyes over the guy and how downright … hustlebunny … Thibs found him. You can’t have one without the other or the term makes no sense.
This blog never fails to surprise.
While Rick Carlisle is moaning, Bayern Munich had one of the worst, most consequential refereeing decisions in history go against it. An absolute all time gaffe that ruined an incredible ending. They complained but handled themselves much better.
To be clear, I do think Hubs complaints are reasonable and I do think OG’s injury could be attributed to fatigue/too many minutes. But then this:
our starting 5 is better than their starting 5. Their bench is better than ours. I would argue even if Bojan and Mitch didn’t get injured their bench would be better than ours.
If we had a fully healthy team with Randle and Hart was on the bench, it would be much more even.
But Thibs isn’t playing the starting 5 crazy minutes because he’s stubborn. He’s playing them crazy minutes because that is giving us the best chance to win and it’s working!
Now we can argue that long term this is going to blow up in his face and maybe OG getting injured is proof of that. But this is the playoffs. The goal is to win and move on.
If OG misses a game or two but we still win this series, then the tactic worked. We’ll get time off before the next series anyways.
If we had a bench as good or better than Indy’s, I believe Thibs would play them.
Yes, that’s the argument exactly. But then you have to take the next step and realize that the performance isn’t what it appears to be at face value because it carries within it the risk of destruction.
That’s my point. Sometimes you got to play a guy you don’t want to. When you do, you have to work hard as a coach to put him in position to succeed. Carlisle is doing that superbly.
And bc Thibs refused to do it for 10 minutes, now he has to do it for 48!
Seems like Carlisle got way more than he hoped for.
When I read Roman Roy for some reason I thought about Ray Romano.
There is some “chicken and egg” to this debate.
With a healthy roster, we’d be playing everybody a normal amount of playoff minutes. Randle would start and our bench would be Hart, Bogey, Mitch, and Deuce. Nine man rotation completely normal.
BUT we have a bunch of guys who are injured, so we’re down to playing the guys in the 11-13 range of the roster. So there’s not a whole lot you can do other than relying on your 11-13 guys to give you non-disastrous minutes.
BUT you can make the argument that Thibs’ rotations in the regular season wore everybody down, and that this is a big reason for all the injuries.
BUT two of the very significant injuries were clearly not overuse injuries and were of the freak variety: Randle and Bogdanovic. Hard to blame Thibs for those.
BUT maybe it is reasonable to blame Thibs for the OG and Robinson injuries, as those can fairly be called overuse injuries. And you can argue that both of those guys were rushed back from previous injuries.
Like I said, lots of chicken and egg questions in there.
Carlisle got himself an 0-2 deficit, I guess he’s playing Parcheesi while Thibs is playing Chinese Checkers.
I want Thibs to create a game plan that makes 8-10 minutes of bench play with players he doesn’t love sustainable. That strikes me as a very low bar for a championship coach and he’s not coming close to meeting it.
Also just want to reiterate. We applied for an injury exception and got denied.
And also…as much as I love Rose, he maybe messed up with the Bogey and Burks trade. A similar trade getting us a back up Center and PG might have been the better move.
Thankfully I am in the Zen portion of my Knicks fandom or else I would be really stressed out by this entire thread.
Tough to know what any other coach would do in Thibs’s situation — before last night’s OG injury, none of the injuries to Randle, Bojan, or Mitch could really be attributed to too many minutes — in fact, what the media has been talking about is that the Knicks are so much better conditioned than other teams precisely because they had already been used to playing crazy minutes. Then – Brunson goes down in the 2nd quarter and the only player who can score is OG — really hard to leave your offense completely rudderless when you’re already hemorrhaging points. In retrospect it’s easy to say that OG has a history of soft tissue injuries and so maybe he needs more rest than fucking Iron Man Josh Hart — tough to know what to do in the moment without the 20/20 spectacles known as hindsight.
Re: his dungeon – is there a single player who has truly been in the dungeon (ie. not Obi who played real minutes, just not as many as he wanted) that has gone on and shown to be a useful player elsewhere?
Dungeon inhabitants:
Cam Reddish – DNP-CD in the playoffs (seems he found another dungeon?)
Evan Fournier – ’nuff said
Kemba Walker – out of the league
Derrick Rose post-we here season -> totally washed
Kevin Knox – is he still in the league?
You don’t go into the dungeon unless you deserve to be in the dungeon.
Thibs is constitutionally unable to play players he doesn’t think can help the team win. I suppose that is a weakness when you’re running on fumes. I can’t even blame this 100% on the front office’s roster construction (meaning end-of-bench players who are not playable) since I don’t know that you can really plan for when nearly half your players are hurt.
(reminds me of former Colts OC Tom Moore’s quote about Peyton Manning: “Fellas, if 18 goes down, we’re fucked. And we don’t practice fucked.”)
Really enjoyed TJ’s comments in the postgame presser. Brunson also had very nice things to say about him in his postmatch comments.
I think you can pencil TJ in as a future coach.
Is Carlisle refusing to close games with TJ…
1. Because TJ’s body just can’t play that many minutes at his age?
2. Organizational politics, where they have to appease more important pieces of the past/future? (see also Jackson not subbing in for Turner, and Obi for any of Siakam, Nembhard, or Nesmith)
3. Carlisle genuinely thinks he has a better shot against us in the end by playing his starters?
Carlisle is definitely playing some not-so-good players to avoid overtaxing his good players. Most coaches do. He’s also down 0-2 to a team ready to ask its court side alumnae if they can suit up. So, I don’t think he has clearly been vindicated on any front.
Reminded me about a quote from former Dolphins OC Gary Stevens “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.”
The dungeon as I’ve defined it includes Obi Toppin. It’s not all about the minutes.
Second, if I may, I think you’re asking the wrong question.
The right question is how many times has a coach been able to coax a few effective minutes from players who aren’t very useful.
I know Thibs doesn’t have a great hand right now. I also know Thibs would do well with a better hand.
We got Brunson playing like MJ right now, though. And we need the coach to play this hand better.
Carlisle is playing depth and speed
Thibs is playing chemistry and D
Nothing more or less
It is what it’s supposed to be
Injuries and minutes shit are Drama popcorn
With OG likely being out for the rest of this series and at least first half of Boston series, I certainly hope that Thibs doesn’t repeat same mistake he made earlier in the season when OG went down by playing Precious at the 4.
Court shrinked for JB surrounded by 3 non shooters and offense sufferred materially.
Thibs needs to show that he has learned a valuable lesson, start Deuce and have him play 40+ minutes, if NY is goig to have a chance to win 2 out of next 5.
“The right question is how many times has a coach been able to coax a few effective minutes from players who aren’t very useful.”
I don’t know, Hubie. This seems like the wrong question. First, if a player isn’t useful, he’s not useful. That’s the definition. If he is useful, yes, a coach should figure out how to use him.
I know you wanted Thibs to turn into D’Antoni every time Obi came in, as did I to be honest, but that’s not what he does (and in fact, few coaches completely change their schemes mid-game for a bench player). So in fact Obi wasn’t very useful to Thibs, because Obi really couldn’t adjust. And as has been noted above a few times (e.g. 15 vs. 19 minutes), it’s not like he’s been wildly successful in Indiana either.
Finally, if you look at this team, there’s a whole suite of useful players that Thibs not only plays but has coached up to become something akin to stars — talking iHart, Hart, Divo. And while I find it a little difficult to give huge credit to Thibs for Brunson, he went from what appeared to be a decent point guard starter to fifth in MVP voting, and maybe Thibs created an environment that let Brunson blossom?
Shitting on Thibs for not giving Shake a shake with all this counterfactual seems sorta missing the forest for a stump.
Actually against Indiana I think Precious at the 4 with the starting lineup is the way to go because he can guard Siakam. Indiana is so bad defensively even Precious at the 4 won’t affect the Knicks offense that much evidenced by the 4th quarter last night.
I think we are all being waaaaaaaaaaay too hasty on the OG diagnoses. We really don’t know what is wrong with him at all. The dude could still play in Game 4 for all we know! Hell, maybe even Game 3 (but okay, fair enough, that’s unlikely).
This season was over the minute Randle fucked up his shoulder. It would be very fun to beat Indiana due to our history against them and because I don’t like Rick Carlisle, but even with a healthy OG this team would (deservedly) be a huge underdog against the Celtics and in case of a miracle whoever won the Western conference. Our last 5 wins have been by 3, 5, 3, 4 and 9 points. If we were giving real minutes to Jericho Sims, Alec Burks and Jacob Toppin we would have lost to Philly. We’re not winning the title this year, you can enjoy the wins we do get or you can whine about winning the wrong way I guess, and when we lost to Indy or Boston you can claim you were vindicated.
I’m not even contemplating OG returning until earliest Game 5.
I’m not a doctor but even the slightest grade 1 strain requires two weeks off. That’s actually the best case scenario. My 2 cents.
A couple notes:
* We won the game
* Shake Milton got cut by the worst team in the league
* We won the game
* Burks played 44sec last night, you should go watch them
* We won the game
* OG’s minutes may have contributed to his injury, we don’t know
* We won the game
Imagine if we are somehow the recipient of two Double-Bangs in the same postseason?
(As it is, I believe we’ve received two of only six or seven that Breen has ever called, the other being Julius’ stumbling, fumbling, bumbling, fucking beautiful three-pointer to beat Miami last season.)
But we don’t even know it is a strain. It could be a bruise or something like that.
Theory on Jalen Brunson: He isn’t actually that good. At the base level he’s the 20 & 6 guy he looked like when he initially signed with us.
His powers just scale geometrically with the addition of more Villanova teammates. When we added Hart, he hit another level and became a consistent 25 PPG guy. When we added DDV, he became the 30 PPG 1A scorer we have now.
We need to trade the farm for Bridges because it’ll turn him into an inexplicably GOAT-level 35 PPG demigod.
From DDV and Hart’s performance for us, it appears that the other ‘Nova guys may also be subject to this effect
What’s Saddiq Bey doing these days? We could probably replace OG with him, accounting for his presence making Brunson/DDV/Mikal each 10% better…
If one hour shopping with my gf can tire me down far more than 5 hrs searching for vinyls then Time and Wear are definitely relative!
I see Obi being very successful in the Pacers’ half court sets against us. He sets screens and they run plays that free him up to shoot from the top of the arc and the right elbow, which seem to be his preferred spots.
In NY Thibs just had him stand in the corner and wait. That’s honestly just the on-court extension of the dungeon.
Rewatching the game on tv (watching it live on cellphone while working graveyard shift) Don’t get the Achiuwa hate
I like what I’m seeing
man if we only still had Obi maybe we’d be up 2-0 in this series
Dred, if we still had Obi, we’d have already swept the Pacers and be up 2-0 on the Celtics.
This board can just be so negative sometimes.
Hear you Brian and hope you’re right but I just don’t see it. Will find out soon enough…although I fully expect Leon to oput him on a day-to-day category until Josh Hart calls him out on it.
My point was that Thibs needs to fight his insticts and urges to start Precious.
“What’s Saddiq Bey doing these days? We could probably replace OG with him, accounting for his presence making Brunson/DDV/Mikal each 10% better…”
Why wouldn’t Hart be 10 percent better with the addition of Bey, too? By the way, Bey is languishing on the Atlanta Hawks, scoring pretty well in limited games, but shooting very, very badly. By the way, he also went to the same high school as Josh Hart.
Also don’t get the Precious hate from last night. Dude got crucial offensive rebounds for us at crucial times.
It does kind of seem like Carlisle is overdoing it with the foul grubbing. Indiana committed more fouls than any team in the NBA this year and the league probably doesn’t appreciate being called corrupt by a veteran coach who should know better.
Well, this sucks: https://sny.tv/articles/og-anunoby-status-knicks-pacers-hamstring-injury-5-9-24?latest=1
Brian, I wish I could believe that but it was definitely a non-contact injury. He just grabbed the back of his leg and grimaced. I’ve had hamstring injuries and that’s exactly how it happens, you feel a pop and you can still walk but have no ability to accelerate.
I wanna be hopeful, but honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he’s out 2-3 weeks, which is basically the rest of the playoffs.
IMO, If I can give Rick credit, these “Referees R BAD N R SCREWIN SMALL MARKTS ” antics are distracting the media narrative from talking about how:
1- The Pacers played some of the worse defense in a playoff game (this isn’t hyperbole, it was comically bad) I’ve witnessed in years
2- Their Olympics bound star made Houdini jealous in the 2nd half with that disappearing act
3- they blew a double digit lead against a hobbled Brunson & a hurt OG (known for his offensive prowess) who left with an injury late in the 3rd
4- Sitting his most effective players down the stretch: TJ and Obi
5- Their perennial all star blockbuster trade Marquee couldn’t buy a basket and whiffed on big free throws.
Rick is doing the fire and brimstone ala Nurse, but also got his ass tossed while Nick was way more out of control.
“3- they blew a double digit lead against a hobbled Brunson & a hurt OG (known for his offensive prowess)”
OG Anunoby is definitely *not* known for his offensive prowess. Not sure where that came from.
“3- they blew a double digit lead against a hobbled Brunson & a hurt OG (known for his offensive prowess)”
OG Anunoby is definitely *not* known for his defensive prowess. Not sure where that came from.
I should’ve been way more specific with my sarcasm there lol.
I meant more that known 3/D master OG was torching them on Offense.
How hilarious would it be if OG and Brunson can’t play in game 3 but we win anyways because the refs call the game super tight and Indiana fouls the shit out of us.
interesting post airkent…sounds pretty reasonable…
I know I was happy not seeing TJ or Obi on the court towards the end of the game…
couldn’t believe the way siakam and turner disappeared in the 4th…
I just can’t beleive TJ is wrecking Deuce so badly…
at this point – it all tastes like gravy….mmmmmm, like some tasty peppery white gravy generously ladled over some warm flaky biscuits…
I think I’m hungry 😊
I hear you Geo, but I need two more wins before I’m tasing gravy. Celtics can sweep us in a series of 30-point blowouts if they want, I just want to be able to say we made the ECF.
I think we have a puncher’s chance if Thibs goes with Brunson/Deuce/DDV/Hart/iHart. Less so if we just throw Achiuwa in there for all of OG’s minutes like I suspect is actually going to happen…
There are only so many ways you can arrange the six players, so I would guess we’ll see a fair amount of the Brunson/Deuce/DDV/Hart/iHart lineup. Basically you can only rest one of the four at any given time unless you break into the Burks/Shake cupboard. Hart of course never comes off the floor.
Obi Toppin is not a good basketball player and I will die on this hill. The guy is playing in the one possible system that absolutely maximizes every single aspect of his skillset, which is basically running and jumping high and hitting some open shots here and there, and he’s still not that great. He’s absolutely not a player you change your playstyle to accommodate.
He’s the type of guy you can make a killer highlight reel about with his best moments, but a terrible defender that has to play Power Forward while not being able to create for himself or others or rebound is simply not a good player.
Does it bother me that we have wasted roster spots with useless g-leaguers that wouldn’t see the floor anywhere else like DaQuan Jeffries? Yes. I really want to see those end of bench roster spots going to more promising players in the future. But I haven’t ever lost sleep about losing Obi and I never will.
Precious is pretty rough offensively and sometimes he falls asleep on defense, but he’s good on the boards, he’s big and he tries, it’s not the worst set of attributes for an emergency big.
Bruno, you’re right. Obi Toppin is not a good basketball player. Neither is Ben Sheppard. Neither is Isaiah Jackson.
That is the whole point.
While don’t get me wrong, I don’t like hearing the term “pessimistic” used to describe an injury, but still, until we know for sure, doomcasting doesn’t do us any good, either.
Then maybe if Carlisle played his good players more minutes he wouldn’t be 0-2 in the series.
I’m sure Siakam and Turner will love to go to Cancun while freshly rested.
[Begley] Josh Hart is the first Knick to play consecutive 48 minute games in the postseason. He entered tonight’s game averaging 46.6 MPG in the playoffs. “Thibs always asks me if I need [a break], and I always tell him no. It’s something I want to do.”
From the man himself.
But Obi Toppin/Isaiah Jackson/Ben Sheppard are infinitely more playable than Mamadi Diakite/Charlie Brown Jr./DaQuan Jeffries, Hubie. I think *that’s* the point.
Carlisle is down 0-2 because he played two games against Jalen Brunson at MSG.
But those aren’t our 7th, 8th, and 9th guys.
The comps for Toppin, Sheppard, and Jackson on the Knicks before Thibs chose to run OG into the ground were Precious, Shake, and Burks.
It’s the same level of extremely limited usefulness.
And both games were extremely close, so we would have lost.
Anyone else notice that Jericho Sims isn’t even being mentioned when discussing the dregs of our roster? LOL
Then it’s game, set, match, Hubert.
The argument here is that Thibs is incapable coaxing 8-10 minutes of reasonably competitive bench play out of a subpar cast.
We still have iHart and Achiuwa to hold down the 5 for 48 minutes. What we don’t have is any viable wing player beyond Josh Hart, who will now have to average 96 mpg
I think he’s going to play, even if it’s only 5-10 minutes. Sims tends to have one good game out of every 4 or 5, but he’s super limited on offense even in the good ones, so I’m not particularly excited about those minutes. Would rather just go super small with Precious surrounded by four guards.
Sims just can’t rebound on the same level, and that’s extremely costly for the style the Knicks play unfortunately. Much rather see Precious too.
No, the argument is what does it take to win. We’re winning. Game. Set. Match.
Precious makes some very good plays but also makes a fair number of dumb plays and will disappear for stretches on defense/defensive boards.
We’ve been spoiled at backup C for too long and I think we’re expecting too much from a guy who is probably a 2nd string C on a few teams.
Ideally, starting Deuce would get his game going, but Siakim should have a field day with Hart guarding him for 48 minutes. Thibs usually starts the guys who can defend their positions, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Precious starting at the 4.
To understand Hubert’s argument you have to believe Thibs refuses to play certain useful players for reasons that have nothing to do with the players on court basketball ability. If you say ‘well he did play Burks, and Burks fucking sucked’ you have to realize that’s also Thibs fault -Burks was scared of failing because he knew Thibs would unfairly put him in the dungeon if he sucked and that destroyed his shooting ability.
i think we have a good 1200-1400 posts of solid material left on whether shake milton should have played 6 minutes, so let’s take a quick breather for a trivia interlude so we can come out strong in round 43. this is supersecret trivia so it’s the best kind:
Once upon a time in response to the following Tweet…
Tommy Beer
@TommyBeer
·
Feb 10, 2022
The Mavs have Brunson’s bird rights – so they can go over the cap to re-sign him.
But Dallas will enter the summer already $10 million over the luxury tax line. Will that impact their decision if another team is willing to offer Brunson $20 million per year? We shall see
https://x.com/TommyBeer/status/1491893773600804868
***
…someone replied in a tweet that has apparently since been deleted
“If someone offers him 20m a year you just pass. Pretty easy decision.”
Who?
Isaiah Jackson is good. Posters just assume that any player they haven’t heard of sucks.
Obi became a much better shooter this year — 40% from 3. He’s a rotation player.
I’d be curious to see Sims for a bit, as he’s quick, which at least conceptually matches the Pacers. Plus he jumps really high. My concern is that he doesn’t seem to grasp that ‘defense’ thing, and with all the drivers and cutters on the Pacers I worry about even more uncontested layups.
Question of the Day:
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GRAVY?
1). aus jus (used for roast beef sandwiches)
2). turkey gravy (poured over: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes)
3). white country gravy (poured over biscuits, fried potatoes and over easy eggs)
4). chicken gravy (poured over baked or rotisserie chicken and white sticky rice)
am i forgetting any any significantly tasty gravy?
It takes having OG Anunoby available. And now we don’t.
I can see all the points of view, but if we’re going to go with play Hart 38 and lose or play Hart 48 and win, I’m going to go with 48 and win every time. This might be a good thing for Leon to see. He may use his draft picks to try to grab some cheap depth.
Josh Hart
hmmmmmm, they would need to be someone whom would have caught your interest, in terms of irony…let’s see – mark cuban?
maybe rick carlise?
no, probably some analyst, or local reporter…
my final guess – zach lowe…
I don’t mention Sims when I talk about the dregs because I think he’s a perfectly fine use of a fringe spot, maybe even a slightly above average one. He’s not good at all, but when your back’s against the wall he can the rebounds an NBA center is expected to get, finish the odd lob, and not single handedly derail a defense.
My gripe is with the fact that I’ve seen no evidence Obi’s bro, Brown, Jeffries, or Washington Jr. can do similar fill-in appearances. They are neither NBA prospects nor do they have NBA experience one can reasonably point to as evidence they are NBA worthy. I’m genuinely dumbfounded as to why we keep them around instead of Will Barton or JaMychal Green or whoever.
Again, all of these guys suck. Will Barton and JaMychal Green wouldn’t do anything substantial for us. But since we don’t have draft and/or UDFA prospects at the moment, we might as well give these spots to these types of guys.
Geo, my hot take is that I’ve never enjoyed any kind of gravy ever.
almost forgot to ask – are you aware of puddles pags?
GTFO AL…heresy i dare say – heresy…
ugh, please tell me you don’t just pour barbeque sauce or ranch or ketchup over everything do you?
yuch yuch yuch…
Edit: no fair changing up al, your first response was the best 🙂
@ptmilo, my guess is Haralobos Voulgaris
Puddles? Is there some sort of double meaning there?
Neither guy has played NBA ball in the past year. Barton is playing in the Puerto Rican league. Green doesn’t seem to be playing at all.
Why would you want either guy?
OG was sprinting, perhaps faster than he has sprinted before… and he pulled up lame. From my experience, that’s a strained or pulled hamstring… if it were a tear, we’d be able to see that, and he’d be in significant pain… The way in which he held his position was kind of odd though, like with his leg straight out… I’ve had 2 serious pulls, no tear and I was out for 4-6 weeks or more with pool and eliptical workouts only… BUT, that hold your leg out straight sorta thing he did, i never would have thought of doing that… You kind of crumble and bend at the knee, first reaction… who the hell knows… my emotions are ready for a significant pull and multiple weeks out…
This is kind of where I’m at. Leon made the Bojan and Burks trade. Bojan was proving useful before he got injured, so that is bad luck but Burks has been absolutely awful and is washed. So that trade, which many of us, including me, thought was good at the time, turns out to be pretty bad. Although Grimes was/is hurt too, right, so we wouldn’t have him. But Fournier maybe would actually be useful right now, lol.
And beyond that Leon has hoarded picks, kicked them down the road, for that “big move.” Except we’ve kind of had the big move internally with Brunson taking another leap, Hart showing out in the playoffs, DDV turning into a legit 3rdish option and the OG trade being perfect synergy for us.
So now the end of the bench looks pretty dreggish and I just don’t know if I can get mad at Thibs for not wanting to play Charlie Brown Jr. in a close playoff game.
So yeah…that’s why I’m really now in the camp that the moves this summer should be to bring everyone back (OG, iHart and Precious), get Randle and Mitch healthy and make our picks to put some new young talent on the bench we can develop.
No, that argument applies to Game 7 of the Finals and only Game 7 of the Finals. Every single other game has an embedded component consisting of “preparing for additional games in the near future.”
@ptmilo, my guess is Haralobos Voulgaris
boom
You can blame Leon, but if Burks didn’t forget his shot in a packing box back in his Detroit apartment, then we’d have a perfectly cromulent 8-man rotation still.
The real question is wtf happened to Alec Burk between Detroit & NY?
Like a late-game DiVincenzo 3-ball, that one felt like a swish the moment it left my hand. What a schmuck.
The same thing happened to Bogie on the very same charter.
I’d re-read Hubert on the matter.
This is such bullshit. This isn’t Mike Tyson’s Punch Out on Ninetendo where you can enter a cheat code and skip to the final match against Tyson.
You have to win 4 games in each round to advance. You can’t give away games.
You can’t prepare for future games if you get bounced.
Except it really didn’t. Bogey was rough when he got here, sure. But he also had some good shooting games early on and straightened his shit out. Burks never did.
How did the Frank Vogel move that was obviously a bad idea not work out? It’s almost like making a bizarre Bradley Beal trade, and then saying, “Oh man, who could have predicted that this bizarre Bradley Beal trade wouldn’t work?!”
just another sad clown…it seems to be a small group, thought you might know…
enjoy puddles pity party…
i dare you not to smile 🙂
It didn’t make me smile, geo. What do I get?
My sources say Burks flew public and only Bojan went private
don’t tempt me so doogie…
edit: oh god, you just made me remember being such a sarcastic dick for a good bit of my life…
the truth is – i now generally view sarcasm as the world of the weak willed and weak minded…
i ain’t him no more though doogie – so, yeah – i’d just ask then that you give me something good to listen to…whatcha got doogie?
what’s something on your core playlist…
yep…the king of all gravies…the kind you pour on top of egg foo young….talk about crack like properties…
Boogie With Stu by Led Zeppelin
Does anyone know of any knicks fans planning to go to Game 4 in Indy on Sunday? I live in the midwest and want to make the trip, but i really prefer not to be alone in hostile territory.
Wear your Knicks gear proudly, even if on the road.
i’ve never heard that one (Boogie with Stu) before doogie – way to go brother…nice 🙂
ha, couldn’t help but tap my feet and fingers to that tune…
He shot 27% from 3 after we traded him and it turned out that he wasn’t in some mythical dungeon because of his bad vibes and lack of hustle but because he is fucking cooked as an NBA player.
EB I trust you to be a man who follows the numbers, so please follow these:
– Alec Burks shot 39% on 41 catch-and-shoot 3PAs as a Knick.
– For the year, he’s hit 40% of over 200 catch-and-shoot 3PAs.
He didn’t lose his shot.
What happened was Thibs forced him to play PG, to create his own shot and carry the 2nd unit. This is not a suitable role for Burks, and he shot 21% on 42 pull-up 3PAs.
This is Thibs at his worst. Let this guy ride shotgun with Jalen Brunson and you’ve got a lethal catch-and-shoot wing who can spell OG or Donte as long as you want. But Thibs is too damn stubborn.
got me curious pepper…honestly, i don’t think i’ve ever had egg foo young…
now checking on the restaurants in my town to see if it’s served anywhere close by…
still sad that the last time you rolled by on I-10 past the house a couple of years back i wasn’t in such great shape for company…
i’m much healthier now though, so – if your journeys carry you through this way – we will dine on that 🙂
Was gonna guess Haralobos but Pags beat me to it–damn! Hilarious stuff.
Can we get Stephon and Carmelo to dress up like Alec Burks and DaQuan Jeffries and smuggle them onto the bench? I’d be willing to try anything for some useful depth at this point.
I don’t know how many coaches would have had this team up 2-0 in the second round with the Randle, Mitch and OG injuries, but my guess is that you could count them on one hand and have enough fingers left over to scratch two balls and one ass at the same time.
One of the possibilities, Eric Spoelstra, is sitting home right now because he couldn’t coach up his team enough during the regular season to avoid a 2-game play-in scenario and subsequently got blasted in the first round by the team with the best record in the NBA.
Impossible to choose among those gravies, though I’d probably put au jus a very, very close fourth.
Fair enough. He didn’t shoot nearly as bad on pull-up 3s in Detroit (sample size was still small) but I’ll concede that Thibs should use him off-ball next to Brunson with those C&S numbers and might’ve been able to spell OG without completely killing us.
He has other issues besides his shooting, but tell him to take the Grimes/Obi role on offense and that probably good enough
Btw I’m going to post these numbers any and every time someone defends Thibs’ decision to run OG into the ground. So just stop.
Alec Burks ain’t useless. He’s just not a point guard.
@geo…its old skool cantonese dish…tough to find and even tougher to find it done the right way…
I think we might be coming to LA for thanksgiving…but would have my mom and wife in the car…not sure they’d want to hit the bong with us but…you never know…
Literally every coach in the NBA could have won two home games this week behind Jalen Brunson.
I’d probably throw in most WNBA coaches and about 60% of NCAA coaches at Division 1.
The real question is how many of them would have run OG Anunoby into the ground by playing him 46 mpg? And the answer to that is just one guy.
Is this really on Thibs? We acquired Burks specifically to play backup PG and replace IQ as an admission that Deuce is actually a tiny wing.
There were definitely less bad backup PG options available, but this is what Leon chose. Losing OG might create the opportunity to play Burks at the wing some, and if he is in fact not injured/cooked, maybe he can have a Buddy Hield moment at some point.
Well, at least we know they’re officially calling it a hamstring strain.
ptMilo, Donnie, EB, DRed and Pagliacci, (just to name a few) would have won two games against an undiscplined and foul prone young team like the Pacers with Jalen Brunson playing at prime Michael Jordan level.
Do you think we got Burks & Bojan for their defense or for their shot creation?
Burks made 40% of his pullup shots on the Pistons and 20% on the Knicks. His efg on open/very open shots on Detroit was 65/60 and 40/50 on the Knicks. I don’t think that happened because he was taking 1 or 2 more shots off the dribble a night.
OG is done for the series. This is/was common sense.
Can’t wait to see the starting lineup tomorrow night. If Precious starts, they need a new coach this summer to take them to the next level.
So we think OG in the absolute best case is gone 2 weeks? (I am assuming he’s done for the playoffs)
Yes.
The guy’s been a wing his whole damn life. We had two professional wings available. We should have gone to one of them before we lost OG.
Hard disagree. Brunson doesn’t put up MJ numbers in a vacuum. Thibs has put him in a position to maximize his strengths over and over again.
Coach Pagliacci wouldn’t even be here after forfeiting the Sixers series after Game 1.
I’ve looked through a couple elite shooters before and this number usually tops out around 45% from 3. I suspect it was a small sample issue and a red flag, not that I’d have thought to look at it.
There’s a few issues here:
(1) Was Leon wrong for acquiring Burks?
(2) Did Leon do enough to boost the back-end of the roster (depends on if he fucked up with Burks)?
(3) Could Thibs have used Burks in literally any capacity that would allow OG, or whoever, to get a rest?
For 3, it’s hard to say because Burks couldn’t dribble either. It’s probably easier to argue that we should have used Deuce more, even when he struggled.
OG being gone for the playoffs is a virtual guarantee at this point, especially because without him, the playoffs for us are now very likely to be coterminous with this series.
Well Thibs has done his damage. Do you want Thibs coaching this guy on a new contract? He doesn’t know how to manage a rotation
It’s clear OG is not an iron man and shouldn’t be playing heavy minutes like the other guys
Jalen, Donte, Josh, Precious, iHart was +8 down the stretch against the Pacers starters and I would be mildly surprised if we did something else to start. We’re going to need some combination of offensive rebounding and the Pacers bad defense to save us.
We can beat these guys without OG, Pags.
They lost to the startless Bucks and Brunson is way better than anyone on that team, so I think we’ve got a shot. Deuce really needs to step up.
The Bucks never beat Indiana in Indy in that series.
Folks are misunderstanding my comment. Those two games were winnable because we are in position to win them. With most of the coaches, this would’ve been a play-in team at best, given the regular season injury situation. I’m assuming that home court advantage is unanimously viewed as important? For example, do you think that the Knicks win the first two games vs. Philly in which Brunson played like dogshit if we didn’t have home court advantage?
Do we even want to? At this point I’m worried someone will have a major injury that impacts the long-term future playing this many minutes at this level of intensity.
Isaiah Jackson is the kind of player that I grew on KB reading about — a guy who produces well per minute but isn’t afforded more minutes, for whatever reason. (Hartenstein was that kind of player too, prior to Robinson getting injured this year).
You’re right, Z-Man. That’s the conundrum of Thibs.
Woj: “Mike Budenholzer is emerging as the frontrunner to become the Phoenix Suns’ next coach, sources tell ESPN.”
I don’t pay a ton of attention to the Pacers Donnie, but I poked around on Pacers reddit today and it seems like the Pacers mostly wanted to play with a center who can shoot 3s, and Isaiah Jackson can’t.
Did Thibs tell Burks to iso for the final shot of the first half? Asking for a friend.
Point is, he’s not a guy that the Pacers are praying for for 5-10 minutes of competent basketball, like you’d do for Shake Milton, DeJuan Jeffries, or Albus Bumblebore, i.e. he’s not a “scrub”, as has been implied here this week. He’s what would have been a KB darling back in the Mike K days.
He’s Cole Aldridge with hops!
Hey tasty cakes, you got to chrome block user plugin, we got the Debbie downers in here forming like some kind of crap Voltron.
Thibs should file with the nba a petition on 80 fouls he disagrees with, just to mess with Rick
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc,” a Latin phrase meaning “after this, therefore because of this.” The phrase expresses the logical fallacy of assuming that one thing caused another merely because the first thing preceded the other. In other words, it is the fallacy of inferring a causal relationship from a temporal one. For example, “the dog barked immediately before the power went out; therefore, the dog’s bark caused the power to go out.”
I hereby deem this the post hoc thread.
Pags, tip o’ the cap for your very funny analysis of Coach Pags. It made me bark…
Thank you Raven. For handling me at my game thread worst, KB deserves me at my morning news thread best.
The larger point about Thibs is that he’s a top-notch coach who adheres to a particular approach, at times too rigidly, but mostly with positive results. I have repeatedly said that he is very much like D’Antoni or Larry Brown in that regard. When he has a team that is well-suited to his coaching style and who responds to him, he is among the very best in the business. He is slow to modify his approach when it’s not working. This is not an uncommon trait among top-notch coaches. For example, Nurse and Carlisle are both excellent coaches. However, Nurse played Embiid a ridiculous amount of minutes on a compromised knee and stuck with Tobias Harris even though he gave him mostly nothing. Carlisle refused to play TJ at the end of the game even though he was giving Brunson and the Knicks fits. He even said postgame that he didn’t change because that’s the way he’s been doing it all season.
Thibs could possibly be a bit more flexible with his bench minutes, but the margins have been so minimal that any change in approach could have derailed the home court thing, and each and every Sixers game, and each of the first two Pacers games.
Did the big minutes cause OG’s injury? I highly doubt it, beyond the obvious “you can’t get injured while on the bench” thing. It is well known that hamstring injuries like the one he sustained can happen to anyone at any time…it is the most common type of muscle strain in any sport that requires sprinting. He is no more to blame for OG’s injury than Mazzulla is for KP’s injury or Doc is for Giannis’ injury or Lue is for Kawhi’s injury, etc., etc. Blaming it on Thibs is just taking a cheap shot at him. If OG is injury-prone, then nothing the coach does or doesn’t do is going to change that.
If any injury should be blamed on Thibs, it’s the Mitch injury, and even that one is as much of a medical team mistake as a Thibs mistake. The dude had been noticeably limping since coming back, and clearly aggravated it in game 3. I think it’s fair to question whether he should have been playing in games 4-6. Maybe he’d have been available at some point if he were rested at some point, maybe not. But at least there’s a reason for debate there. The OG situation is pure speculation.
At the end of the day, you can’t have it both ways. If another coach were coaching all along, the team probably wouldn’t still be playing.
“Did Thibs tell Burks to iso for the final shot of the first half? Asking for a friend.”
It sure seemed like a set play…
As to whether Thibs can win a championship, he’s no different than Carlisle, or Nurse, or Doc, or Lue, or Larry Brown, or Vogel, or Budz in that regard, and probably closer to the top of that list than the bottom.
That pretty much sums up why it’s a dumb argument. If my aunt had wheels she’d be a bicycle. Alas, she is who she is – not a bicycle, but pretty chill nonetheless. Like Thibs, with his flaws, but without whom we’d be arguing whom to draft.
Celtics look tense already lmao
Z–Man, preachin’ truth…
Geo, not a huge gravy guy. Don’t get me wrong I like them all well enough, and appreciate them when they’re around, but give me a good cheese sauce over them any day…
geo, my wife’s turkey gravy is insanely delicious. Like throw-down with any gravy anywhere kind of good.
I have watched a lot of Evan Mobley in my life and this might be the first game he’s looked worthy of the pre-draft hype to me
Of course you can have it both ways. Thibs does good things and Thibs fucks up.
Cavs are looking very good right now. Celts, not so much. Law of averages catching up with Derrick White?
Now that losing OG has ended our ECF aspirations the most Knicksy thing ever would be for Cleveland to beat Boston to set up what would have been an easy march to the finals
Mobley with the double brain fart, although Bick should have challenged…
It’s a very beatable team without Porzingis, Pags. If by the grace of god we can get OG back and Thibs can avoid killing him again…
It’s in review with the Chrome web store – I’ll let y’all know when it’s live (assuming it isn’t rejected for frivolity or whatever – I’ve never shipped a Chrome extension).
Let me tell you, the browsing experience is a LOT better with a couple of targeted incinerations!
Turkey gravy is pretty great and last night’s win was awesome. Bummer that OG is as injury prone as he is, because he’s amazing at basketball. While I don’t share Hubert’s fury about Thibs lineup management, poor health is a problem that seems to compound itself – fewer good options, more players logging heavier minutes, more injuries. Just hoping we can get through this series and have OG back on the floor for Boston. But the ride has been excellent thus far!
If Cleveland wins this game we have to go all out to sweep. Get as much of a rest as we can before we try to do the impossible.
Anybody despise the Boston PA announcer as much as me? Just the fucking worst.
I suppose his voice is a good fit for the bland, personality-free Celtics.
Also, don’t sell our guys short without OG. There’s a reason people are coming up with different names for the Nova Trio. 3 guys that can give you 70+ points a game even if they aren’t all considered “stars” is pretty fucking good.
Oh I agree Hubs. If we have OG somehow and they don’t have KP I would give us a solid 30%+ to win the series.
Tatum is the modern Melo and I fear him not at all. Derrick White would be my main concern.
Bidiong, I love our Nova Corps but the numbers are clear, OG elevates us from .500ish team to The Team Nobody Wants to See.
This is such delightful schadenfreude.
And I’m sorry but the “we have no chance against the Celtics anyway” crowd is just wrong.
Mitchell is pretty good.
It would be hilarious if the Knicks got to stay at home and wait for the Celtics series to finish.
Boston without Porzingis is a much different team. He is what makes them elite
Fucking Cavs.. the team if we’re fully healthy could absolutely demolish
I think Brunson puts up 50+ tomorrow. He’s probably pissed he missed a 40 point game last night even though he won’t admit it.
Ok let’s first hope the guy can actually play, pretty sure he is only human.
Probably, anyway.
I should entertain myself on Twitter with the incoming Boston tears.
The mighty, “historically good” Celtics getting run off the floor at home—you absolutely love to see it.
All the Celtics fans leaving. What losers.
The Jays are so overrated, I honestly think they are about the 3rd and 5th best players on that team.
Already half as many home losses in the playoffs as they had all season
Celtics blog tonight will be highly recommended reading. Mazzulla’s readiness to concede this game makes me thankful for Thibs
Wow, good on Cleveland stealing an away game.
Celtics shooting like 1-18 from 3 in the second half and getting blown out at home probably doesn’t mean all that much but it’s very, very funny
Best part of the night was how pathetic the Boston crowd was.
The Cavs really need to trade one of Mobley or Allen.
go cavs…that was special watching their fans file out of the stands…so sad, too bad…
As I recall, Miami won their second game in the first round against Boston in Boston too; and then proceeded to get blown out in the rest of the games. This Cleveland result could just be a Boston flub rather than a sign of things to come.
As Knicks fans, this isn’t about good faith as much as it is about kicking the Celtics when they’re down. The Celtics ought to win in 5 or 6; but let’s hope that Cleveland makes it interesting against the odds!
well pepper, we are a very family friendly establishment here in the abode…
plus – i have gummies and chocolate too 🙂
RANGERS!
I feel like we’re linked so if they’re up 3-0 we will be, too
The Celtics are so weird, all this talent yet somehow they still find ways to have these horrible games, like when things start to go wrong they just shut down and go through the motions. They’re the Anti-Knicks.
We could have Knicks-Celtics and Rangers-Bruins conference finals.
On a different note some real Machiavellian shit at work in Dallas as an ‘unnamed’ assistant coach leaked this little tidbit to a very reliable source:
“One veteran assistant coach, underscoring the ball-dominance issue, said you can almost sense a “sigh of relief” among Doncic’s teammates when he checks out of a game, “because it opens up a little more freedom” for others to make plays. “It’s a sense of, ‘Hey, now we get to play,’” the coach said. “It’s difficult to have any rhythm if you’re not touching the ball.” And when Doncic is off the floor, it’s a chance for those teammates to show “we don’t have to depend on him,”” reported Howard Beck of The Ringer.
That ‘woosh’ you just heard was a RPG zipping by Luka’s ear…..
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/mavericks-coach-says-players-don-t-want-to-play-with-luka-doncic/ar-BB1m7jRS?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=ada5de85757240eaa57dc80c1a05c9bf&ei=7
I am bummed about OG but I think we still have a shot to win one of the next two without him and then we could afford to keep resting him until we close out the series. We need him 100% against Boston or we are done.
This scenario is exactly why I was so angry about our trade deadline. We traded a solid young player in Grimes (who would be the 5th best Knick right now) and a less solid young player in Flynn (who funny enough would probably be our 7th or 8th best player right now) for two not-very-good older players to help our depth and then didn’t utilize the waiver wire at all. One of those players wasn’t great and is now injured (not shocking considering he is 35) and the other one has completely played himself out of the rotation. And instead of trying to sign anyone else useful, we decided the best use of our bench was Jeffries, Brown Jr, Toppin, Washington Jr, and Diakite. The only player we signed at the waiver wire who could possibly play in this series, but probably won’t, is Milton. We could have easily signed three more players of Milton’s (or Burks’s or Bojan’s) caliber, possibly at other positions, and have a number of options to eat 5-10 minutes in a pinch. Instead, Burks, and maybe Milton, are our only options. One has been terrible, the other hasn’t played, and neither of them are forwards.
This is why you make your draft picks, this is why you don’t give away solid young players like Obi, Grimes, and even Flynn for nothing, and this is why you value and utilize the end of the bench in the regular season. That way when you have to go 10-11-12 deep in the playoffs you are not forced to either play your rotation 45 minutes a game or play players with zero experience.
Well, Luka and his teammates just stole home court advantage against the #1 seed Thunder with Kyrie having a rather poor game for his standards, so I think they’ll be fine…
We were ravaged by injuries this season but still somehow managed to bring six players into the playoffs who played less than 50 minutes for us this year. Our lack of experience at 13-18 is shocking, especially considering that when we entered the playoffs we were down a starter and two of our main bench pieces were not fully healthy.
Now, 3 of our top 9 players are out for the playoffs and another is out for at least a couple games and we are facing having to play at least one of those 6 players just to cobble together an 8 man rotation. It is both a failure on Leon to not sign better depth and on Thibs for not finding time in the regular season to sharpen and season our bench. It is on the coach to find time to play the 13th, 14th, or 15th man in the regular season so they are ready if you need them in the playoffs.
From ESPN’s post about OG missing game 3 and most likely 4:
As much as I think Thibs is a great coach, and the team culture is amazing, this is on him. He’s risking players’ health, and it’s documented previously and now here. If I were Leon, I would let him know he must cut players’ minutes, before Hart, Divo, iHart and Brunson go down as well. This team is too good to risk its long term success on Thibs’ obsession.