Knicks Morning News (2024.05.13)

Misery misery misery. This place is drearier today than I feel!

Haven’t posted much of late because I don’t really feel any kind of way about yesterday’s game, or the ones remaining. I saw the injuries in G2 as likely heralding the end of our season, regardless of the outcome of that game. I took the G3 loss hard because I saw it as our last-ditch effort to take control of the series on the back of an outlier shooting performance we’d be unlikely to replicate. We fell short, and here we are. With our horses ran to death and 36h of rest, the outcome of G4 was no surprise.

As I’ve said before to much consternation, it’s very clear we’re cooked. Brunson is now compromised to an extent that is clinically measurable ( https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1cqyxdq/hoop_collective_windhorst_i_looked_at_stats_today/), so it’s kind of ironic that the injury report lists multiple ailments for Hali but none for him.

We could maybe have weathered the loss of OG or the crippling of Brunson, but both combined is an unrecoverable knockout blow. Thibs’ insistence on playing one of the worst lineups in the entire playoffs only pours salt on the wound by ruling out the possibility of an upset. We might have a shot at more 3-point luck by starting Deuce, but like a scared old gambler, Thibs is in a defensive crouch playing weak tight. We’ll be getting blown out in the next two games as well if that continues.

Personally, I don’t think the Great Thibs Injury Debate is interesting or informative. He’s not different enough from other coaches in these contexts for the variance in results to be attributable to much more than our consistently terrible luck. My issue is with how he mitigates and responds to the losses — playing Achiuwa in this series is just a repeat of Woodson losing us the 2013 Pacers’ series by going big against Hibbert.

I’m also worried that due to the lack of imaging done on Brunson’s foot, we’ve overlooked a possible injury that may affect him long term. He may have already been Derrick Rosed and we just don’t know it yet.

This year was probably our best chance in awhile. The rest of the East figures to get significantly better, and we will probably have to spend our draft capital just to offset the loss of iHart this season. We’ll be very lucky to end up with a team as strong as this year’s, or to match our position in the standings.

Oh well. We’ll always have January, and the dream of what a healthy team could have achieved this year. Maybe this ECF run will curse the Pacers like the Hawks’ 2021 run did, by convincing them they’re ready to contend when they aren’t close.

Pags, we’re not losing I-Hart in free agency.

And we’ll re-sign OG to a new contract filled with incentives based on availability (and if he is not willing to do so he can go fuck himself on some other teams infirmary, we don’t need porcelain players, let’s the Clippers ruin their seasons doing so).

This is analytical off-day Pags talking here, not game-day unhinged unconditional doom Pags. I honestly think we’re being wildly unrealistic about retaining iHart. This is an absolutely terrible FA class. There’s going to be a lot of dollars chasing not a lot of talent. The history shows that those dollars get spent. In a similar environment Timofey Mozgov got a bigger contract as a % of the cap than iHart is about to get, and he was barely an NBA player.

EPM thinks iHart is All-NBA level, the 3rd best C in the league. EPM has very few results that don’t pass the laugh test and is largely respected by NBA decision makers. BPM says he’s the 27th best player in the league and 7th best C. iHart is REALLY good.

When has a player of that caliber who is young, durable, and a good team guy gone for anything close to the MLE type package we’ll be able to offer? It’s just not realistic.

And regarding OG, we have zero leverage here. If we lose him for nothing it’s a team building disaster and we have no path to recovering the assets we spent to get him. You’d better believe he’ll have very strong offers in this market. Philly will likely have their max offer on the table at 12:01 AM. The time to rethink signing him was before the trade. Right now that move is absolutely mandatory.

The most obvious instance was when Nesmith (who has committed about 12 fouls/game guarding Brunson) landed in Brunson’s space potentially injuring his foot. That’s a perfect opportunity for you to influence the next game and get some space for your star but he passed.

And that’s just the off court stuff. On the court, he’s just got nothing to go to after Plan A. I actually supported the Precious tactic but it wasn’t working and we didn’t have to wait til we were down 30 to adjust.

And what exactly are we doing to get Nesmith off Brunson? Seemed like nothing.

Facts. If Carlisle sent 78 clips, we should be sending 88, even if we only have 50. What you get is always a subset of what you ask for.

This isn’t just about winning the series, it’s about protecting our best player in 30 years from getting hurt. If there’s anything the league SHOULD care about, it’s avoiding injury to a popular rising star in a major market. Just look at the response to that Kawhi injury in terms of the rules around landing space.

This IS the way to get Nesmith off Brunson. They had to go to Nembhard in G1-2 because Nesmith fouled him every time, but then the whistles suddenly stopped coming…

Our only hope is maximum variance. Play 4-out all game with 50+ 3PM. Brunson/Deuce/DDV/Hart/iHart. Use Burks and Milton to spell spots 1-4. Milton is a 36% career shooter.

Make sure Thibs tells the guys to make at least half the threes. Protect the rim and hope Indy’s shooters are cold. Have Thibs go full on Donald Trump and hold a press conference pre-game saying he knows for a fact G5 is rigged, but only if we lose. Accept the million dollar fine. Maybe even run a GoFundMe for Knicks fans to donate. Bask in the glory of 40+ FTA despite shooting all threes.

Then hope this works twice.

So please leave the 5 star review, if you liked it so much. 😛

I actually don’t think it’s good for the blog or the community, so I won’t. This is sort of like the rise of Fox News/CNN/MSNBC to replace the shared reality of the 20th century. We’ll now have separate, fractured silos from which we’ll all have given up on civility and persuasion.

Brooklyn is pretty much the reason Boston is so good.

Yup, their trade for 36 and 37 year old KG and Pierce, who had already fallen off a cliff the year before, is probably the most lopsided deal in NBA history.

Selling high on aging stars is what created the two richest teams in the league: them and OKC. Hope we learn from that when the time comes for Brandle.

If Mitch can play 50 games a season going forward and be available in the playoffs that’s a best case scenario.

I think it’s been clear for awhile that we need to move him. I can tolerate OG’s fragility because he’s a massive plus on both ends, but Mitch is a straight liability on offense now. It’s not just that fouling him is a free ticket to a 37% TS possession, he also can’t finish anything anymore. His dunk rate is down to half of what it was 2 years ago and his 60% shooting at the rim is absolutely atrocious. It’s unacceptable to have a center who can only dunk be *checks notes* 14th on the team in TS%.

Sucks Mitchell can’t go because there’s no reason to watch the game but if he wants to prioritize staying healthy for his Knicks career I can’t be mad

Isn’t it annoying how other superstar guards sit out must-win games with one injury while our opponent’s PG has 3 injuries but still plays at 100% effectiveness?

Cavs within 1! Wouldn’t it be hilarious if they won this and ECF was IND-CLE?

It’ll be like those early 2000’s Finals where the East was just a tourney to see who gets swept by the Lakers.