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14 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.02.24)”
Here’s the thing, though, were the Mavericks better than the Thunder last year? Or did they just get hot at the right time? Were the Hawks really the second-best team in the Eastern Conference a few years back, or did they just get hot at the right time?
The Knicks clearly aren’t as good as the Celtics or the Cavaliers, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t beat either of them in the playoffs. It’s not likely, but I don’t think it’s some crazy thing, either. Especially now that Mitch is back. The Celtics and Cavs are clearly better than the Knicks, no doubt about it, but being the fourth best team in the NBA is still A. pretty damn good, and B. very much still in the realm of possibility that you’ll go out and win in the playoffs.
The only issue, of course, is that we won’t know until the playoffs begin, so we’ve just got a lot of meaningless regular season basketball left (I guess beating the Cavs or Celtics with Mitch, even if it won’t matter for the standings, could still be cool. And hey, maybe it will matter in the standings with the Celtics. The Knicks are only four games back of the Celtics! Granted, the Celtics look like they’ll never lose again, but still…).
I think it’s a little more systemic than that. We can’t even create the looks needed to get hot from 3.
If there’s any hope, it’s that Brunson can do what Bernard did in ‘84.
And honestly we probably would need a coaching change before the playoffs, too. I don’t think any of this is Thibs’ fault (it’s the roster) but he can’t create the game plan for an upset.
Mavs played OKC 4 times last season and went 1-3, however, in none of the losses did both Luka & Kyrie play. In the only blowout loss, neither played. In the games they missed only 1 of the 2, they lost by single digits. In the only game both played, Mavs beat OKC by 35pts.
Maybe the Mavs were worse, maybe they were rarely healthy, or maybe they had a favorable matchup. It doesn’t really matter why. What matters as it relates to our team is that they didn’t get blown out every single time they went up against OKC. Meanwhile, the Knicks have been blown out every time they’ve played Boston.
Basically, we’re counting on Mitch to come in and have the same impact as adding Luka or Kyrie…
…and KAT is so terrible in drop I’m not entirely convinced that can’t happen.
To the systemic point, these aren’t random blowouts. Nothing we do works against their defense and everything they do works against ours. That puts us out of 3 pt variance range.
We are within injury luck range, though. But it probably has to be Tatum or White. Missing Porzingis ain’t gonna cut it.
Well, i went to my mother’s to spend time with her and that would be a good decision even if we somehow managed to win the game, but given how the game went it was a very good decision. 😉 😛
I guess i’m not mad today because i saw none of it, and the final score isn’t too bad, so i’m chilling. And also i agree with Brian, what matters is how we will perform in the playoffs.
In the only game with their full team, including PJ and Gafford, Dallas blew out a full OKC by 35.
This is a huge problem.
And we definitely have problems, which if all are confirmed in the playoffs, i agree that everybody except Brunson and Hart can be used to improve the team. But obviously the opportunity has to come up, we can’t trade guys just because we want to. Also i agree with Hubert, but only for the summer, if we don’t show progress in the playoffs i think we should move on from Thibs.
Man, the blistering postgame monologue last night by Macri — the most unwavering Thibs defender of them all — was a real “If I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America” moment for this coach.
Guess yesterday was the Tet Offensive.
Thibs isn’t your guy for serious winning. Never has been.
Both are poor rebounders and always have been. (*) None of this should have been a surprise to Leon. Fortunately, KAT helps to cover for it at least somewhat, but still.
We’re at the point of the season where nothing of any import is likely to happen. They just need to try to get healthy and running on all cylinders going into the playoffs, so they can at least take their punchers’ chance. All this other stuff is summertime material (assuming they don’t fire Thibs, which there’s about a 1% chance they would, pre-playoffs.)
(*) And it’s time for another pedantic but important reminder that rebounding is part of defense.
It’s why Thibs has to play Precious.
Precious also had 1 rebound yesterday, but 10 against Cleveland at least
Thibs is Buck Showalter. He changes culture for the better, but he is too doctrinaire to take the next step.
Well one thing of importance is going to happen. We are going to get a look at Mitch as part of the rotation and whether he is the same player. We are also going to get a look at how Thibs plans to use him. That’s the most interesting part to me. Do we think that Mitch will start along side KAT once the playoffs start?
One more thing on the “it’s the roster not Thibs” commentary. Yes, to a degree that’s true because KAT was a known entity on defense as a 5. However, there is a glaring weakness in Thibs strategy to me on the offensive side of the ball. We traded 5 picks for Bridges because he’s a 2 way player. And nothing Thibs has done on offense has been built around Bridges on that side of the ball. This was clearest to me in the almost loss to ATL. Hawks were hiding tiny Trae Young on Bridges. We should have been running the offense through him on those plays instead of JB iso all 2nd half. Thibs is not good at exploiting his mismatches on offense. Mazzulla for example will do that all night. This is a big flaw and to me part of the reason why Bridges is not playing well.
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