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2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks @ Hornets – Black Friday Discount – 60% Off the Hornets Rotation

The Knicks take on the Hornets’ D-League team due to a slew of injuries, and since the Hornets sucked before the injuries, this is a really bad Hornets team today.

So that’s nice for the Knicks. Perhaps Thibs will even give some of his starters more of a rest (I know, I know, it’s Black Friday, not Opposites Day).

This should also lock the Knicks into the next round of the In-Season Tournament (I am not calling it the Emirates Cup, or whatever they are calling it officially).

Let’s go, Knicks! Others teams being down eight is the way to get to 58!

226 replies on “2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks @ Hornets – Black Friday Discount – 60% Off the Hornets Rotation”

Day game?

Terrible opponent?

Bunch of opposing players injured?

Worst loss of the season is written all over this one, boys.

we do not look so good to start the game…

I normally wouldn’t think it possible to lose a game like this- but, that may happen…

Always interesting how big College Basketball is in North Carolina, but the NBA lags far behind for people.

Six turnovers with time left in the first. Hard to win if you don’t even get shots off…

They look like crap so far. It’s like they expected Charlotte to roll over and play dead.

I already pay for league pass, Hulu Live, and eight million other streaming channels and I still can’t watch this game. I feel like my wallet has been devoured by squirrels at this point.

This team is kinda mid anyway. I’m not missing much apparently.

this is painful and boring…i think i am going to go to home depot to walk the aisles…more entertaining..

ps..i haven’t watched much lately…but if this is the version of bridges that we end up getting..what a freaking disaster that trade will be…

Hey, at least we’re doubling our 7 1st quarter points from the last game! Progress!

I can’t watch either, but I’m following the score. Another second fifteen point first quarter in a row is horrible. I don’t know what they are doing, but they seem to be giving the ball away a lot.

We’re not going to lose this game. But if we somehow did lose this game, the site will get too dark even for me.

the site will get too dark even for me.

It’s getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door

I guess the team didn’t get the memo about being the best offense in NBA history.

It isn’t. When KAT/OG/Hart’s shooting percentages regress and we play more games against good defenses we may find we’re not even top 5.

We went all in for a team worse than last year’s. It’s harder to deny every day.

Mikal Bridges might stink, but you do get a lot of him. He’s like the buffet at Golden Corral

So Mikal and Brunson come back in and the Knicks suck again.

I hate Thibs’ rotations so much…

Sit the starters… not because we’re leading, but because it’s them that let the Hornets go on a run.

This game is just an embarrassment, thus far.

“Toppin averaged 20 & 8.5 as a rookie during last year’s g-league regular season. 27 & 7 is better, but I’m not sure it’s so much better that it screams NBA rotation player.”

Yeah, but Warren averaged 19.3/4.5 on 50.9 percent field goal shooting and 37.9 percent 3-point field goal shooting in 32.6 minutes per game over a 3-year period from 2018-2020 for the Suns and Pacers. By comparison, Jacob Toppin has averaged 1.1/0.6 on 54.5 field goal shooting and 20.0 percent 3-point field goal shooting in 3.7 minutes per game for his entire Knicks career.

I would create a Mikal doll and stab it with pins, except that clearly someone got there ahead of me.

Jacob Toppin sucks, if the Knicks want to pick somebody off the G league team I’d go for Warren or Chuma Okeke.

Can’t watch the 2nd half because i’m going to the stadium for a game of our women’s national football/soccer team. Don’t let this slip away, even if it’s the worst win of the season (kudos to Pepper). See you later, good people of KB.

Go hire their little coach buddy from Villanova. Maybe that will get everybody excited to play basketball again. Go all-in on the cronyism

I blinked and missed it, but I’m pretty sure he threw the ball away under the basket with a second left, and the hornets scored

“That was fucking AMAZING. They’ll still win, but WOW.”

It is unclear, at least to me, as to whether you are writing that you believe the Knicks will win or the Hornets will win.

At some point the Captain of the team and his friend Brunson has to tell Bridges to man up.

I thought that Brunson *was* the captain of the team, as so just recently named.

I too think the Knicks will win anyway. But so awful.

Also, can someone please tell me if the whole “Not crediting hustle” on close calls is an actual basketball concept? Or is it just our announcer being an idiot?

I think that was the fifth at-the-rim bunny that has been missed so far.

Katastrophe so far…. they’re calling super tight on offensive fouls and travels, players need to address

I don’t think that we’d be saying that Brandon Miller is good if he were playing for us and shooting 4-for-16.

Our motor right now is really not great…. Hart, Cam and Deuce the only above avg motor on the team, generally?

My hot take — if we just replaced Bridges with Deuce in the lineup we might never lose again.

Our motor right now is really not great…. Hart, Cam and Deuce the only above avg motor on the team, generally?

I’d add Precious , but yeah

My hot take — if we just replaced Bridges with Deuce in the lineup we might never lose again.

Cam Payne would work as well

Yes, they are bad but we compete with them in that department today. Fingers crossed but I don’t share the optimism that we will eventually get the W. Fingers crossed.

Time to stick Bridges on the bench and play Deuce. It may hurt his confidence even more, but he’s too terrible to play, politics or not.

Turns out comparing the Bridges trade to the Bargnani trade was far too generous.

We paid 5x the price for a worse player than Andrea Bargnani.

Time to stick Bridges on the bench and play Deuce. It may hurt his confidence even more, but he’s too terrible to play politics or not.

Fans would like that, but Leon Rose can’t do that. Going to be hard to talk to Dolan if you make that move.

Bridges is going to be fine. players go through slumps

This is not a slump. It’s a coma.

The concern with Bridges is not that he’s on a slump, he’s doing nothing well and leading the team in minutes. Thibs needs to get his mins down to 20-25 per game

I don’t understand what their complaint is there. It was obviously pre-shot.

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leading the team in minutes.

Yeah, the fact he leads the team in minutes is bad. Make him a 28 – 30 minutes per game player and give the extra minutes to Payne and Mcbride.

Players even go through comas sometimes. It’s not awesome, but there’s no indication that there’s something wrong with his body that would cause his game to drop off a cliff out of nowhere at his age.

Thank goodness the Hornets are terrible. They don’t know what they are doing against the Knicks’ pressure.

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This should be a game where bridges builds his confidence against these scrubs…instead he looks like one of the scrubs

It’s not Mikal’s body. It’s his brain. He’s missing bunnies, his passes are nowhere even close to teammates. He’s turning it over in all kinds of ways.

He’s pulled a neuron.

He doesn’t seem to be a cerebral player. Taking dumb contested 3 PT shots above the break, with 20 seconds on the shot clock, or not once learning how to fake in the post or add a counter to do the turnaround midrange. He also doesn’t seem that smart on the defensive end, he struggles to stay in front of his man and isn’t a great anticipator or help defender. The only thing he does well is play ton of mins and stay healthy

When will Mikal run out of excuses? He’s been below average on both ends for more than a full year now!

If nothing is wrong with his body, why can he not navigate a single screen when he used to be elite at that?

Imagine what trouble the Knicks would be in if Brandon Miller stopped shooting

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Meanwhile, KAT should be destroying this team and yet….

Excellent point.

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I guess what I’m saying is that I would trade five first round picks for Caleb Martin.

So bizarre to have Bridges still in there, despite subbing pretty much everyone else.

Wow we are actually gonna lose this game.

What do you think the Nets would demand if we asked for our picks back?

Brunson, right? They’re already about as good as us so may as well turn them into a contender.

Oh come, the Knicks are still winning this game. It’s embarrassing, but they’ll win it.

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Just Tuning in expecting to be up 30, but …

At least I got to see Cam Payne throw up a Kent Tekulve three pointer 😉

Meanwhile, KAT should be destroying this team and yet….

He’s having one of his “bad decison” games. The game is too ugly for me to pay close attention, but doubling at times may be causing him some issues.

Even a win here is embarrassing. Our vaunted offense can’t outscore the 26th best offense that is missing their 33ppg scorer. If Ball was playing this is another blowout to a horrible team.

We can be very disappointed in this performance without thinking they’re actually going to lose.

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What a surprise, Bridges benched and we make a run.

The kicker on the 500% overpay is that he can be arguably the worst starter in the NBA and we still have to play him.

Is there anything Knicksier than a massive overpay for a guy whose skills have fallen off a cliff, but he’s so durable he leads the league in minutes but never misses a game?

Kinda wondering if Thibs is hoping to run him into ground at this point

“He’s the only brand name in the game. You have to give him the ball.”

Hahn, dude.

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It looks really bad for Bridges that they’re so much better without him on the court.

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This is hysterical, watching them ratchet up the D. Oh, so you CAN play defense then!

How about during the other three quarters?

This is hysterical, watching them ratchet up the D. Oh, so you CAN play defense then!

How about during the other three quarters?

We are 11 points better on defense when Bridges is off the court. 120.3 when on (would be worst in the league) and 109.3 when on (would be 7th).

The differential with Towns is only 7.4…
Hart 8.8 worse when on
Brunson 4.4 worse when on
OG 1.0 better when on despite mostly playing with the starters

Mikal is literally our worst player on both ends.

The short rotation is really draining a lot of the joy. It’s pretty tiresome to see the same 6 guys all the time.

There’s a casual arrogance to this team which has been amply displayed in last two games and is maddening. Agree worst win of season.

Hart arguing that last (non) basket. Haha.

But — Oof — Only saw the 4th, but plenty to whine about tomorrow.

SRS is now below last year’s team, which was missing 2 of our 3 best players most of the time…

“I wonder if any gamblers out there are wondering if the ball went through in time”

“Am I the only one who didn’t know that situation doesn’t count as a basket?”

Once it leaves the shooter’s hand, it doesn’t matter when it went through the net. I think the refs were only checking to see whether there was any residual time remaining. Think about it…a long 3 at the buzzer never gets into the basket before time expires.

Can’t put my finger on it…right now…something is off…no clear leader on this team…and thibs’ slip is showing….it’s early…long ways to go…but bad vibe….and the new mantra is “bridges sucks”

*What* situation doesn’t count as a basket? I thought they counted it, as we only won by one point.

I thought the only thing they were “checking” was whether it was a 3 or a 2, as the Hornets announcers said that “the only thing to be decided is whether we lost by one point or two points.”

Points matter for the NBA cup. We’ll need to win against Orlando to make it anyways.

Never been so glad not to watch a win.

Points matter for the NBA cup. We’ll need to win against Orlando to make it anyways.

Wait, serious? They’re not assured a spot in the next round yet even at 3-0?

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no clear leader on this team

Who was the leader last year? Was it Randle or Divo?

The nice thing about traveling today and not being able to watch is I can just treat it as any other win even though it sounds like it sucked

Interesting thing is OG had another truly sucky offensive game, 3-11 and 0-4 from three (actually worse than Mikal). But he was doing his hellacious thing on D all game long, so I had no idea he was struggling on O.

Take a peek at the +/-.

It’s a real dilemma.

We overpaid by a lot.

We probably can’t trade him this year or next for anything that will even save face.

It’s politically difficult to play him off the bench when you paid that much.

The only good news is that next year he’ll be an expiring contract. So it’s not like we are locked into a mess for a long time. As each year passes our draft assets get replenished. So if we continue thinking in terms of a 4-5 year window, we have time to fix this. In the mean time we have Mitch and Precious to wait for and we can hope Bridges snaps out of it. It’s shocking to me how bad he’s been so far.

As each year passes our draft assets get replenished. So if we continue thinking in terms of a 4-5 year window, we have time to fix this.

Wrong. The way Leon structured the Bridges deal, we will only gain access to one tradable pick in the first 4 years of this team. And that won’t come until the summer of 2026.

This is us.

Unless of course you’re ready to pivot from Mikal Bridges. But I have it on good authority that’s a stupid idea. We should ride this out for 2 more years and see.

They could move him for Brandon Ingram no doubt.

After using the trade machine it would be very hard to do.

They could move him for Brandon Ingram no doubt.

Ingram wants huge money, imo he’d be an overpay and we’d have to include another asset/salary.

I wonder if the lights are to bright for Mikal. In Brooklyn you have 0 pressure.

Ingram wants huge money

He isn’t going to get the contract he wants. It was pretty clear this off-season when nobody traded for him that he will have to take a pay cut if he wants to play in the NBA after this season.

Wrong. The way Leon structured the Bridges deal, we will only gain access to one tradable pick in the first 4 years of this team. And that won’t come until the summer of 2026.

That’s fine, but you are forgetting that if we move Bridges we are going to get something back given his relatively low salary (and it’s an expiring next year). That’s the reason I said that even if Bridges continues to play below hopes, if you think in terms of 4-5 years, we can fix this. We just can’t recover what we gave up. Also, we’ll eventually have a far out future pick also.

I didn’t watch this (squirrels) but it appears to be another game in which the team did not look well coached at all.

It also appears that the team is getting worse, not better, as the season progresses.

Fire Thibs ‘25. Join me on the bandwagon. Lots of seats available.

The Knicks shouldn’t be looking to move any more picks. You have to add young talent to the team. A huge issue the Knicks have is they have a coach that doesn’t value picks. How many times do the Knicks just play around in the draft every year.

I agree Thibs is not doing a good job but I’m actually a little scared of how bad this can get without him. Our floor right now is probably like 47 wins. Get the wrong guy in here, add in some injuries, and suddenly there is no floor.

Just stop on the “fire Thibs” nonsense.

First, imo it has little to do with Thibs, but even if it did, he’s coming off a COTY caliber year and was just extended. The only way Thibs is out is if his health forces it. It’s 0% other than that.

Hart slams Knickerblogger over all the Mikal criticism.

Okay, he didn’t call us out in particular. But he got a bit spicy over it.

Strat

The Knicks giving teams wide open 3s has a lot to do with the coaches scheme

Rarely ever look prepared to start the game

And for the record:

Bridges: 37 mins, 3-10, 8 pts, 2 ast, 2 reb, 2 steals
Anunoby: 40 mins, 3-11, 8 pts, 0 ast, 4 reb, 2 blocks

Pretty much the same exact line so don’t let Mikal hog all the attention.

OG was good on defense

Brandon Miller [The Hornets only starting level player today] took 25 shots for 20 points

That’s the biggest difference between the two. Bridges brings no value anywhere on the court right now.

Only one team from each conference gets a wild card berth, and the tiebreaker is point differential. If we lose to Orlando on December 3, then it gets tricky. Our point differential right now is +15 and if we lose it will obviously max out at +14, so it will depend on a) by how much and b) what happens with the following teams:
Group B: DET, MIL
Group C: CHI, ATL, BOS, CLE

One team from each of those groups will win their group. Also, one of ATL or CLE and one of BOS or CHI will also be eliminated for having 2 losses. If the Celts and Cavs both win today, they will face off on 12/1 and the loser of that game is eliminated from the wild card, so the Knicks would only have to worry about the Bucks and Pistons, who play each other on 12/3. If either ATL or CHI wins, then theoretically there can be two 3-1 teams in Group C. If that happens, the only way we’d have a chance to advance is if we have a relatively close loss to ORL and the Hawks ahve 2 close wins to finish 3-1 but lose the group on a tiebreaker to either the Bulls or Celts. If any of the Celts, Bulls, or Cavs finish 3-1 but lose the tiebreaker for the group winner, then they would be guaranteed to get the tiebreaker over us, since they would all have a minimum point differential of +15.

So if you actually care and you want for us to advance, you should root for both the Celts and Cavs to win and for the Pistons to lose. That would make it so we’d be in unless Detroit beats Milwaukee by like 20 points on 12/3.

other than hart and payne and deuce …nobody really impressed today…it was a lifeless mailed in effort…perhaps they are tuning out thibs a bit…

I’ll save y’all seats on the bandwagon. Most of the best seats will be gone if you don’t get on now, but there will be room for all.

Thanks, Z-Man! So I guess we just hope they beat Orlando on Tuesday and make the whole thing academic, right?

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Glad I missed this one, but they clearly need to fix Mikal ASAP.

Maybe they can bring an assistant in from his Phoenix days? It couldn’t hurt. It looks like Kevin Young isn’t working in the league rn.

And yeah, Thibs needs to use him more situationally. At least until he gets it going again.

headline of the post game article in the post

“Helping hand: Jalen Brunson bails out Knicks as Mikal Bridges bottoms out against lowly Hornets”

I’m not going to join you on that bandwagon, JK47, but I do agree he has coached very poorly this year.

This rotation is a joke. Forget about the minutes police or any of that shit. It’s joyless and boring, and the starters often look like they’re showing up to a job they don’t like.

Breathe some life into this team. Try new things. Take the stick out of your ass and let Dadiet and Hukporti get some minutes.

Mark me as still optimistic, but ill-at-ease. We totally changed the dynamic of a team that before had about two years to gel together behind Randle and JB. Now, the offense and defense are looking totally different and clearly guys are struggling to acclimate on both sides of the ball. We’re not yet at the 20 game mark, though early returns have been utterly infuriating. But it takes more than 20 games to gel when you overhaul the roster as systematically as this.

As such, I think there’s lots of low-hanging fruit that will improve our performance as the season wears on. First, obviously, even more time to gel. Second, the return of Precious and, eventually, Mitch. Precious is almost guaranteed to be a massive improvement over Sims and gives us more lineup flexibility. Our defense will not be world-beating unless Mitch returns back 110%, but even moderate improvement on that end will make a big difference for this team. Perhaps there is also one midseason trade left in the chamber that changes our trajectory.

Finally–and most importantly–Mikal literally cannot be this bad. He will eventually progress to his mean. That said, I’m beginning to think he should be benched for Deuce–if only temporarily–so he can work out his kinks leading the second unit. We look much, much better with Deuce as the fifth guy than Bridges right now, on both sides. Such a move may benefit both of them.

“Thanks, Z-Man! So I guess we just hope they beat Orlando on Tuesday and make the whole thing academic, right?”

I guess, but honestly I’m so ambivalent about the whole ISM thing, especially because of how it wound up kinda screwing us last year. I suppose that having something to play for and additional measuring stick games might have some value, but really, who cares?

I’m with Z-man. I’ve tried a few times to care about the in-season tournament, but it’s really not working at all. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.

Wait, serious? They’re not assured a spot in the next round yet even at 3-0?

The Cronin jinx didn’t deny the win today, but it definitely prevented them from running up the score.

The crud Charlotte Hornets played their crummy bench 70 minutes, we played an eight man rotation and our bench played 46 minutes, and we barely eked out a win on a day when they didn’t have their only good player.

I mean, I guess we needed to play the starters that many minutes, because look at the scoreboard, but on the other hand it’s pretty pathetic that we had to play the starters that many minutes against this shit ass opponent.

I mean, I guess we needed to play the starters that many minutes, because look at the scoreboard, but on the other hand it’s pretty pathetic that we had to play the starters that many minutes against this shit ass opponent.

One of our starters is not like the others in terms of his impact on our on-court performance…

Cavs getting destroyed in Atlanta after losing at home to them on Wednesday. Warriors earlier this week lost at home to the Nets and Minnesota’s record is 8-10. Just for a little perspective…

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