Categories
Game Thread

2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks @ Thunder: Entering the Thunderdome

The Knicks head to OKC for a premier NBA matchup tonight, as we get to see if the Knicks can push their winning streak to ten games in a big statement game against the Thunder and our old buddy, iHart.

Let’s go, Knicks!

296 replies on “2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks @ Thunder: Entering the Thunderdome”

‪@theathletic.bsky.social‬
JUST IN: Jimmy Butler has been suspended seven games for conduct detrimental to the team “over the course of the season and particularly the last several weeks,” the Heat announced.

Miami added that they will listen to trade offers for Butler.

Heat Culture!

Let’s Go Knicks! 🏀💙🧡💙🏀

I really like the way Old Pat is taking care of Jimmy “Locker room cancer” Butler 😂

Denver could do a Porter Jr./Nnaji/Cancar/DeAndre Jordan plus picks offer for Butler… not sure that helps enough though.

I can’t believe how much of a douche Jimmy Butler is. It’s so weird.

By Post Author

Caruso has been out past couple of weeks.

It’s really amazing how good they’ve been with Chet out forever, and Caruso out for a significant period of time.

By Post Author

Brunson playing, Deuce not. Curious if Kolek gets off the bench at all, or if all the backup guard/wing minutes go to Payne and Shamet.

Pat Riley and Jimmy Butler both come across as kind of maladapted, so it makes sense that the marriage was initially great and is now crashing and burning spectacularly.

Brunson playing, Deuce not. Curious if Kolek gets off the bench at all, or if all the backup guard/wing minutes go to Payne and Shamet.

Gotta figure it’s Payne for 37 minutes.

By Post Author

Pat Riley and Jimmy Butler both come across as kind of maladapted, so it makes sense that the marriage was initially great and is now crashing and burning spectacularly.

Fair, but man, Butler is still being really unusual in just how much of a douche he’s being. This is not normal behavior, even from a diva.

By Post Author

‪@fredkatz.bsky.social‬
Just reminding the world for no particular reason that if the Heat make the playoffs this season, then they owe an unprotected 2026 first-round pick to the Thunder.

Actually, think Fred might have gotten this backwards. Everywhere I look, it seems like the Heat’s pick is lottery protected this year, becomes unprotected next year. So it’s in their best interest in making the playoffs, which will guide whatever deal they try to make with Butler.

Refs not calling much which is great for us, takes away a bit of mini Harden’s game.

Nice start so far!

Well, our defense already looks significantly worse not going against the Wizards or the other 10 worst offenses in the league

A few defensive miscues that reminded me of the early season, but nice to see they are not having much trouble getting good shots.

Brunson seems a bit off so far.

Bridges is just unrecognizable from a few weeks ago. Wildest in-season transformation I’ve ever seen.

The worst part about playing the Thunder is that they have like 5 randoms that shoot 3s in their rotation and our specialty is to have randoms shooting the lights out against us.

This team is GOAT level, it’s so depressing that they are in the league

I’m surprised at how easily the Knicks are getting good shots against a historically good defense.

Playoff atmosphere early on. Just happy to see a competent first quarter. Once they start missing some 3s we’ll be at least even with them.

I’m surprised at how easily the Knicks are getting good shots against a historically good defense.

Because we have a great offense. 😉

As Muad Dib said, there are many ways this could go. But so far, it’s been not a rock fight, but an absolute battle.

The Precious experience already in full effect, missed a layup by hitting only the backboard and a horrible pass for a turnover.

2/9 from 3 and keeping up with the “best” team, I’ll take that for a first quarter.

if they keep trapping jalen at half court we need to flash josh and kat more aggressively to the top of the key to be the pivot

Daigneault can just keep throwing waves of good players at you, he’s like a hockey coach changing lines.

Riveting basketball. I turned to this after watching some of the Hornets-Pistons and it’s like switching from middle school ballet to Baryshnikov.

The game us just so effortless for them, they are vastly better depleted and in 2nd gear than we are redlined at full strength.

The iHart bringing the ball up rather than playing in the post thing is really weird, but okay.

We’re way too sloppy in transition and OKC is gonna kill us if we’re lose with the ball

Been trying to get my son into the Knicks during his winter break but his favorite color is orange and I can’t seem to overcome the Thunder uniforms.

Keep forgetting to breathe

It’s like if Uncut Gems was a basketball game, or maybe I’ve had too much coffee today…

Payne has been awful

Literally every Mitchell layup had come from a mistake by Cam

I’m not happy with the bench contribution, especially with the turnovers by Precious and Shamet.

KAT just can’t get a whistle…

I love Josh Hart but I’d like to punch him every time he does something like this…

Ridiculous tech on Hart tbh. He’s been getting mauled and it’s playoff basketball.

This is simply an excellent game right now. I don’t have any particular grievances with our approach.

Even this new “softer” version of the Knicks are much more physical and stronger than OKC.

Really liking that we’re working it inside as much as we are, their one weakness is that they’re just not that tall and we’re making them pay

Hart was frustrated, but that tech was total BS. The refs took OKC and gave up the points. 😉

Feels like KAT needs to post up down low. The post up at elbows is not very efficient for him.

OKC has an amazing defense but I think they’re not quite big enough to be truly physical a la the bad boy pistons. Their only truly big guys are Dort at the 2 and Hartenstein at the 5.

I feel like a healthy Mitch would maul this team.

Regardless of the outcome, I don’t want to see anyone here give a hedge that we weren’t facing the Thunder at their best. I’ve already seen someone try that shit, and it’s tired.

We are on the road without our starting center/defensive anchor.

too early to say fuck Pags?

beautiful quarter, just keep it up and this is a win.

Solid half, but this game is a million miles from over. The good news is that we clearly belong in the top tier based on what we are seeing so far.

Great entertaining basketball, much better for the eyes than every game involving the Celtics.

And a wonderful half for our guys, our starting lineup can go toe to toe against everyone.

Thunder players seemed genuinely demoralized on defense there in that last minute, guys just standing around on that possession bridges knifed in for the score

Even if we were down by 5 this is the best half of Knicks basketball I’ve watched this season. Just a great game.

What an impressive half. Notice that the second quarter run happened with Hartenstein on the bench. We absolutely mauled them in those minutes when J-Dub was playing the 5. That, coupled with aggressive doubling of Shai and OKC’s hot and cold three point shooting put us in this position. They’re clearly a great team, but they’re not some juggernaut yet. They need Chet back but can still be outmuscled in the paint.

And my God, the ball movement! It looks like the 1970 team out there!

If Bridges keeps playing like this we’re going to be a big problem for the rest of the league.

Sorry Gilj-Xander, oooh ooooooh! KNICKS ARE FOR REAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!! Never meant to make Hart-en-stein cry, I apologize 87 million times.

What’s hart saying to Breen? I have the OKC feed.

Josh told Breen that he told the ref to wake up

Really gonna be interesting to see what OKC does with their starting lineup once Chet returns.

Are you not entertained?

Indeed. What a beautiful basketball we are playing tonight. 🙂

OKC is not reaching the NBA Finals this year.

I’ll go on quote with this one too, they’re not. They’re still the Harden Rockets at this point, scary team that can beat anyone in the regular season but will get exposed in the playoffs. People are enamored with the idea of what OKC will be with all their assets and young players and are overrating what they actually are.

And yes we might still lose this game but I’ll die on this hill.

NEW YORK BASKETBALL!

Everybody has been very unselfish. This team is really clicking on both ends of the floor.

Magic took Jalen Suggs off the court on a wheelchair after he went down with a non-contact back injury. Didn’t look bad but Suggs seemed like he was in a lot of pain

Sleepwalking to start the quarter, Thibs needs to scream at his team right now.

OKC might be the best basketball team in the NBA but their in-arena music has to be dead last

Lead melting like ice on a hot grill. Let’s see how Knicks respond. Like to see Kat get touches on low post if Ihart guarding Jhart.

NBA refs are so terrible it’s embarrassing for the league. There has to be some consistency. There is none. It’s so obvious that they favor some players over others and sometimes one team over the other.

Towns going to work and punishing the lack of size

When the refs aren’t calling bullshit fouls KAT has played very good defense tonight.

I never saw Michael Jordan play but I imagine it was something like Brunson + the SGA whistle

It doesn’t look bad, but I hate that there is still something going on with that elbow.

Knicks better hold on and win tonight cause don’t know how many available healthy bodies they’ll have tomorrow night.

This is such a heavyweight bout. Still not used to having so many insanely talented players…

A lot of nononononono moments from Precious but it feels like we need him anyway

He plays very hard. So it’s easy to like him. But he’s still more of 3rd string player.

Feeling our lack of depth right now… which probably says more about OKCs depth

What the fuck are they doing in the breaks that they start every quarter sleeping?

Stratomaticsays:
January 3, 2025 at 21:55
Precious shouldn’t be shooting 3s unless we are up 20.

Fair but he was wide open and the clock was expiring. Maybe don’t get so deep into the corner next time Presh.

The offense has been terrible when Payne is on the floor. This is probably too big a game for Kolek, but they look very disorganized out there.

Hopefully we’ll find a way to hold on, but I said this week that their bench is a strength and ours is a weakness. So it wouldn’t be a shock if they wore us down late.

I’m mad because KAT don’t get whistles and I’m mad at Payne for not recovering the last ball…

It’s annoying because they played good defense in both possessions and just had poor bounces/maybe poor effort

Maybe our players are a little more tired than theirs, because we can’t have a rotation like OKC has.

The offense has been terrible when Payne is on the floor.

He’s not a consistently good player. He does good things in spurts. But he’s going to make bad decisions and he’s not really a run the offense PG. I’ve been saying that all along, but when he’s rolling no one is going to listen to that. You have to take the bad with the good. Hopefully Kolek will eventually replace him.

Torn between being in awe of the game in general and pretty annoyed by the whistle…

pathetic throw… but it’s fine, just a regular season game against the supposed best team in the league.

OKC locked in the half court defense and we slowed down to let Brunson break it, but he couldn’t.

Also Wiggins is killing us

Total home cooking from the refs this is disgusting.

That said, not our best quarter.

My takeaway is that when they clamp down on D we have huge problems running an offense.

It’s frustrating that the Knicks decided to stop attacking in the second half. They went away from what was working.

I like the way we played. They just have waves of players to throw at us and we came up short.

that’s why I don’t think OKC will win the title with this roster, there’s no fucking way they get this favorable whistle in the playoffs against a ‘bigger’ franchise.

We knew they’re good but too much hero ball, we basically forgot Mikal in the second half…

JB with another bad shooting night.

It’s a 50%-30% disparity from deep. You can’t win like that. It’s surprising it’s even close.

Best part is gonna be a well rested Chicago putting up 130 pts tomorrow night.

With the kind of defense OKC does it’s incredible they’re not even it the penalty… fuck the refs

The Knicks had this game. They got away from what was working. Stopped playing team ball in the 4th.

We shouldn’t have tried to iso with Brunson, that’s not our team this year.

Frustrating loss, but a top tier basketball game. The Thunder are clearly beatable and needed Wiggins to single-handedly win them the game. We clearly need more bench depth and maybe need to tweak our end of game sets, which get really ISO-heavy and stagnant. Still—what a game!

Oklahoma OK. Refs still undefeated. We have to hit foul shots. Jalen tried playing hero ball at the end but didn’t really have it. Don’t know how we never got it down low to KAT while IHart was off the court in the 4th. Played tough until we didn’t. Hope no lasting issue from OG. We showed what we can do and then they punched us in the mouth and we had no response when the 3s stopped falling. Still, a whole lot of Hart and a whole lotta hope.

Brunson has to be better in this situations too, every possession the Thunder just full court pressed and they wasted so much time, then tried to make something happen with 10 seconds left. This can’t happen against a good defensive team.

Just threw away the lead with this, unfortunately, but it happens. Better to have it happen now and find a way to get over it when it matters, as much as I hate losing this game.

This game was lost for 2 simple reasons, the 20th best 3pt shooting team in the NBA hit 14 of 27 and Brunson was garbage.

We played very well.

We knew coming in they were very good and had home court. So it was going to be really tough.

I think the difference between the two teams is that they have a solid bench that can trusted to play against our starters and hold together. So at the end of the game their starters were fresher and could step it up a notch and close well while we are getting gassed.

Having Deuce and Mitch would have helped, but we really need another legit quality bench player. That’s where still having DDV would have helped. We’ll see if Leon can pull another rabbit out of the hat before the deadline. If not, then we’ll run with what we have and hope someone steps up. But I don’t think guys like Precious, Shamet and Payton are the answer for a championship caliber team.

We DO have a championship quality starting unit!

Did KAT test positive for leprosy in the 4th quarter? Did he touch the ball the last 10-12 possessions?

I think Brunson blew this one personally more than anything. This isn’t the first game he tried to take over and killed the momentum for us.

KAT should have been getting a steady diet in the post. He had no issues down there all game.

Beautiful basketball game, the final score is a lie, and I like what I saw from our team, we played very well for almost three quarters but an annoying collapse in the 4th.

Brunson sometimes is too stubborn, this team thrives when we share the ball and we have a great post player this year, there’s no need to go iso-ball so soon as he did just as he subbed back for the disastrous Payne.

The bench, without Deuce and Mitch, is a real issue, and speaking of Payne I hope to see Kolek soon…

Can’t be mad at this game. For me, they lost for two reasons: (i) three point disparity, and (ii) the Knicks went prevent offense in the second half, with too much iso, instead of attacking relentlessly like they did in the first. This made OKC way too comfortable.

5 points off the bench. – TJ Warren still running laps in the G league

,

instead of attacking relentlessly like they did in the first.

It’s kind of hard to keep attacking playing 40 minutes – every starter tonight. Thibs starters are overplayed

Sheesh all the starters over 40 minutes, Leon needs to organize a screening of Dr. Restlove or: How Thibs Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bench

This the scenario I joked about this afternoon where they played a great game, lost late, and now go into Chicago gassed and blow the B2B. Maybe I should have bet that parlay. 🤣

We played so well for three quarters, but then our weaknesses poked out.

We have no bench scoring especially with deuce out, while their bench guy comes in and steals the show. We only had 1 bench player that played double digit mins (shamet).

While we’ve been winning our volume and accuracy on 3ps has been in retreat. Tough to beat great teams with low volume of 3ps made and low accuracy. Brunson 0/5. Kat has zero attempts.

Kat took 2 less shots than Hart, and the same # as OG. We need to find ways to get him the ball consistently. He’s too efficient not to. Kat can sometimes be too unselfish and our guards not focused enough on getting him the ball, that includes brunson

Obviously Chet is going to make this team very tough to beat, but his minutes will come at some cost to Hartenstein’s, who seems to have been about as productive. So while it will definitely make them better, I still hold out hope that that’s enough to keep OKC beatable, especially if Mitch can be 80% of himself come playoff time. Perhaps that overly optimistic, but we’ll see.

blockquote>We have no bench scoring especially with deuce out, while there bench guy comes in and steals the show. We only had 1 bench player that played double digit mins (shamet).

Deuce is ok as a scorer, but they have a legit NBA bench scorer on the G league team.

It’s NOT that the starters are overplayed.

It’s that the bench sucks.

Guys like Previous, Shamet, Payton and Sims are 3rd string players. They’ll be fine against the typical team in the NBA, but not against the very best teams in the league that have quality starters and a quality bench.

Deuce is OK and Mitch will help, but they need more help.

It’s kind of hard to keep attacking playing 40 minutes – every starter tonight.

I think tonight it was more of a risk averse posture after they had the big lead. I don’t think it was tired legs, it was too much Brunson.

Deuce is ok as a scorer, but they have a legit NBA bench scorer on the G league team.

The answer is not in the G league. Warren is just another body. They need a higher quality bench player.

Warren can get buckets, the Knicks don’t have much wiggle room to make a trade under the new CBA

Obviously Chet is going to make this team very tough to beat, but his minutes will come at some cost to Hartenstein’s, who seems to have been about as productive. So while it will definitely make them better, I still hold out hope that that’s enough to keep OKC beatable, especially if Mitch can be 80% of himself come playoff time. Perhaps that overly optimistic, but we’ll see.

I agree.

Chet is a terrific player, but imo they don’t lose much with I-Hart in there instead. They’ll play the two together at times to give them a bigger team when they need it, but I don’t think they will be much better when he returns. They’ll just be even deeper for when there are injuries and have that bigger lineup to match up here or there.

As annoying as the collapse was, the second quarter didn’t feel like fake news or lucky variance.

There was a brand of basketball that seemed unstoppable and inevitable. Now we need a way to four quarters of THAT.

New York Basketball
@NBA_NewYork

“Thunder bench a huge difference, not surprising when Tom Thibodeau just refusing to play his second unit”

–– OKC broadcast

Well

There was a brand of basketball that seemed unstoppable and inevitable. Now we need a way to four quarters of THAT.

So get the starters to play 48 minutes and not get exhausted ?

I don’t think TJ Warren is going to unlock this team, but I would prefer him to Matt Ryan…

Warren can get buckets, the Knicks don’t have much wiggle room to make a trade under the new CBA

He’s barely an NBA caliber player. Forget it. The answer is not in the G league. Anyone can get buckets in the G League.

Warren has done it in the NBA before, maybe give him a shot or maybe Shamet is the answer.

think you guys are wrong. love ihart but think chet is a good bit better. margins look modest in the regular season but those increments matter at altitude. more importantly think they will play quite a bit together and work effectively against most playoff opponents.

You also have to hand it to the OKC D. They turned it up a few notches when they needed to.

I agree entirely. Except it’s even worse than that.

I like the way we played. They just have waves of players to throw at us and we came up short.

Because OKC has about twenty more first round draft picks stored up, and the current crew is all 23 years old. They’re going to have this degree of depth as long as I’ll be alive.

As expected, we don’t belong with the real elite. Just effortlessly collapsed us in Q4. Sigh

This game was lost for 2 simple reasons, the 20th best 3pt shooting team in the NBA hit 14 of 27 and Brunson was garbage.

Our own 3 point shooting was mostly bad because Brunson had an off night (0-5), but they also did a good job going small and covering Towns outside so he didn’t get his usual diet of 3s (took none).

Brunson still has that tendency to try to do too much. I thought he would eventually stop given how many weapons we have now, but he still does it at times. It can be an issue at times and annoys the hell out of me, but when he’s rolling we don’t complain.

I thought OKC got quite a few wide open 3s. Some were probably just good ball movement on their part, but towards the end of the game I think we were just gassed and not closing out well.

think you guys are wrong. love ihart but think chet is a good bit better. margins look modest in the regular season but those increments matter at altitude. more importantly think they will play quite a bit together and work effectively against most playoff opponents.

I agree that Chet is much better than I-Hart as an individual player, but imo they are so good, they get most of what they are missing on offense with Ihart from other players. So on a net basis imo they don’t lose as much as you might think despite I-Hart instead of Chet. Maybe better spacing from Chet helps Shai a bit.

Where we agree is that there will be times they need to be bigger defensively and on the boards. They can play both together.

We’ll see how that works on defense when both have to guard outside against teams like us and Boston.

Thunder are 21-3 since their 2nd best player got hurt. There is nothing but upside for this team, and it’s crazy how good they are already.

Spurs v Thunder is going to be the WCF matchup for most of the next 10 years

Spurs v Thunder is going to be the WCF matchup for most of the next 10 years

It’s kind of crazy to me how the Spurs haven’t been more aggressive in building around Wemby. His best teammate is 39 fucking years old! Sochan is okay, and Tre Jones isn’t awful, but that’s it. Why aren’t they trying to give him better teammates?!

By Post Author

I was thinking about Porzingis, and if I’m correct, besides some cap filler, the Wizards just got one season of Tyus Jones and a second round pick for KP, right?

Isn’t that kind of terrible?

How did Boston end up getting a first round pick in a trade when they were getting KP for Marcus Smart?!

By Post Author

Leave a Reply

This site uses User Verification plugin to reduce spam. See how your comment data is processed.