Chet was going to wind up like Porzingis and get hurt a lot because he’s so thin. The early returns are not good.

The early returns are that today is going to be the first game he’s ever missed since his playing career began.

The one thing I will say about Thibs is it makes no sense to acquire Mikal Bridges and use him like Quentin Grimes.

Who do you want to shoot less often?

Towns 24.9 PPG TS 65.5%
Brunson 25 PPG; TS 58.2%
OG 15.6 PPG; TS 60.1%
Hart 13.8 PPG; TS 66.7%

Right now the only obvious negative on offense is Bridges shooting poorly from 3 away from the corner. We are the 2nd rated offense and very efficient; albeit clearly too slow pace wise. If we could step up the pace or Bridges could work out the issues with his shot; we’d probably be the #1 offense. If we could do both, we’d almost certainy be #1 at least until KP is back in Boston. And it’s still early. This offense is going to improve a bit just from expereince together.

The problem so far is 100% defense.

This team is also very small.

MVP caliber play from Brunson will cover up a lot of structural issues and Mitch will address the size when he’s healthy (but will unleash new problems). Things will certainly get better, but disqualifying problems abound and will not go away after 20 games. That was a Pacers team missing two starters and Obi, against Thibs’ Game-7-of-the-NBA-Finals rotation, and they drove a tank through our structural holes.

The one thing I will say about Thibs is it makes no sense to acquire Mikal Bridges and use him like Quentin Grimes. He’s got that tentative look that we’ve seen from a myriad of players who have been misused in this offense.

It’s an 8 man rotation theoretically but in practice a six man rotation.

Hard to play an NbA season like that.

It was 1 minute away from being a 7 man rotation and 10 minutes from being a 6 man. It’s not like KAT and JB are out and there are big time minutes to fill, its Precious and Payne for god’s sake.. Huk nailed to the bench and Kolek gets 1 minute? Health is not the issue, but at this rate it soon will be.

EDIT: lots of others beat me to it!

Even the MSG team is calling out the coach

I don’t agree this constitutes calling out the coach. Monica is saying the injuries are shortening the rotation. Thibs clearly thinks Towns fortieth minute is much more productive than the first minute of Hukporti, and similarly for other possibilities in our bench. He is probably right about this. I think if his bench options were closer to starters in quality he’d play them more. From Monica’s phrasing, she agrees with that (or at least isn’t suggesting she disagrees)