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41 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.03.08)”
What about JVG as the replacement for Thibs?
It’s a reasonable thought, but I’m not sure he’ll fix the offense. Mike Brown is another possibility.
JVG ran good offenses w Houston w McGrady and Yao.
* Clippers have the 4th best defense and had 2 nights off while we’re trying to reinvent our offense on the fly on the 2nd night of a back-to-back — it should get better. That said, things were pretty rough and it sure looked like we don’t have many viable offensive sets without Brunson.
* Mikal finally took some initiative and hit a bunch of middies out of the PnR. He looks better when he’s in motion, which doesn’t happen enough with Brunson.
* Our PGs were awful, especially Deuce. If Kolek doesn’t get some burn, then he probably can’t hack it in the NBA.
Ugly game last night with terrible minutes distribution. Kolek needs to get some run, he’s the only actual PG left on the roster.
In other NBA news, holy shit Jokic! Dude put to a 30/20/20 game last night.
Hart and Precious can not be on the floor at the same time without Jalen Brunson. Defenses completely ignore the threat of them shooting. Having two players that will consistently pass up wide open shots is not workable. I thought my eyes were gonna start bleeding yesterday watching that game.
I agree.
The promise of Towns was that we could play 5 out like the Celtics, but Hart is in one of his down periods where he’s not shooting 3s well and he’s even afraid to shoot when wide open. Precious is not a 3 point shooter. So instead of having great spacing we have spacing issues, that will also be a problem with Mitch and certain combinations.
You can even see it when Towns tries to drive. He’s always driving into a wall of defenders and unfortunately almost never gets a call. That’s spacing.
The only way to fix the defensive deficiencies was to turf the spacing and therefore the enterprise was structurally suspect from the get-go.
Writ large, the defense turned out to be not (even close to) good enough to let the team unlock the promise of 5-out. That was not a fixable problem. Ultimately you have to look to the “wingstoppers” as the structural defensive problem. Leon and we all thought they’d be good enough defensively (*) to unlock the 5-out, but that has not been (close to) true.
This is not a fixable problem with this roster. It’s structural and inherent.
(*) Assumed for Leon. Not confirmed.
Decent night for Jokic.
Messed around and got a double triple double
You see 31 points, 22 assists, and 21 rebounds and think, wow!
But I see 45 minutes and think, but nobody else does that to their starters in meaningless regular season games!
Kessler almost had the blocks triple-double with 18-25-8.
Jaylin Williams (yes, Jaylin) also managed a triple double. Because who needs iHart or Chet or Jalen or SGA anyway?
Also, 20 rebounds for Hart is a career high and so is 7 ORebs for OG
Jaylin Williams is someone who might get too expensive for OKC that we might be able to acquire. I hope he’s on our radar.
Don’t love that Mitch had to sit this one out already. Was he ready to play in that first game last week or not?
It was the second night of a back to back and he’s on a minutes restriction. It’s totally normal for a player to sit in the situation.
Cavs barely beat Charlotte.
Not the start to Deucesanity I was looking for
Yeah, 2-13 isn’t great.
Kolek was recalled from Westchester after JB got injured and was on the way to join the team. He was not on the roster last night. Now, the game is played on both offense and defense, so one needs to be very cautious about Kolek’s impact on the team. We know the Knicks like him a lot and give him time to develop. I do not know how much he has improved his game the past months, but from what we had all seen in the past, he could not play NBA-level defense. This Monday, he will have go against DeRozan, LaVine, Monk and so on.
I’m very skeptical of Kolek, but I’d love to see him. Payne should be getting the start and Kolek should play PG off the bench next to Deuce.
For all his terrible shooting habits, Payne has been excellent as a backup PG and everyone in the starting lineup is too gunshy anyways.
Payne has a 4:1 ast:to ratio and 6.7ast/36. That’s approaching Tyus Jones territory.
The Great Experiment got off to a pretty mediocre start, I must say. Deuce is in a slump that I think is not applicable to his new role, as he was 0-6 against the Lakers (before Brunson went down). He’ll need to snap out of it or it’s going to be a long end of the season.
OG and KAT were pretty much crap as well, with KAT seeming to wake up a bit in the second half. He gets something of a pass given what’s gone on in his life of late, but he’ll need to suck it up and start to dominate again. I don’t know what to say about OG, his D is great but he must have the tiniest hands in the NBA.
Bridges woke up, but even with that he still faded in and out. A few posters last night blamed Thibs for that, and yeah, maybe so.
Precious actually did a decent job, but I did miss Mitch. Our Diminutive Duo both shot under 30%, which isn’t good.
Josh getting 20 rebounds is pretty great, but 46 minutes, Tom? Really?
From a scholastic perspective it’s an Incomplete, but the team is hovering in D- territory. Let’s see if they can fix it.
And Rough, that’s a great point about Kolek and the opponents in our next game. I’d still want to see him for around five minutes (not in garbage time) to start assessing where he is and whether he can be of any use at all.
To your point, EB, Macri had this to say about Payne:
“Cam Payne came in and did what Cam Payne has done all season long, which is run one of the best backup units in the league.
That isn’t a sentence we thought we’d be saying back in October, but the numbers are undeniable, and Payne-led units have been a clear net positive at both ends.
Last night, he led a primary bench unit featuring Bridges, Hart, Achiuwa and Shamet, and that group outscored LA 24-19 in just 10:45, which was good for a 114.3 offensive rating. In the 2:49 he played with the other four starters, New York had a 116.7 offensive rating.
Deuce can and should continue to get the starting job, but without Brunson, the offense looks much more crisp with Payne running the show.”
It is possible Kolek will get some burn on Monday, especially if Deuce and/or Payne don’t have it. We shall see. We have an experienced coach who knows the players more than all of us combined, and reads the game better than all of us combined.
Re. Payne. We know who he is but you can’t find anything better at the veteran minimum level. It’s not even close. In terms of risk vs.reward, I feel better about Payne than KAT and Bridges and their impact on the Knicks cap and assets.
Deuce isn’t a PG so him running the show and the offense sucking isn’t a shock. Deuce is a small 2 guard who needs to play next to an actual PG.
Maybe there’s an Allerian reason I’m not seeing for why we haven’t used the 15th roster spot yet, but in the last Westies game Warren had 31-6-8 and Brown had 25-21.
I am very doubtful these guys can make a shred of difference, but our sun, moon, and stars being out for a while seems like the time to find out.
Saw a few minutes of the Westies a day or two ago, and man Warren has a buttery stroke. He may not have the lateral movement to play defense in the big leagues anymore, but as with Noble, now’s the time to find out. A 6’8″ knock-down shooter could fix a few bench ills…
Yeah TNFH, was thinking same thing last night. If there ever was a time to add TJ and actually use him it’s definitely now.
As ugly as it’s looking right now the schedule lightens up significantly after this road trip so while the Knicks might struggle to win a game next week they should be able to win a decent amount of games at the end of this month to right the ship a bit. Then hopefully JB can return and play some games in April to be ready for the playoffs.
None of these guys are ever going to play. You’re going to get 46 minutes of a recently injured OG Anunoby on the second game of a back to back in which we lose the game anyway, and you’re going to like it.
I haven’t checked the numbers, but I am sure the Knicks outside shooting has taken a dive in the past six-eight weeks. It could be fatigue that affects player energy, small injuries that affect shooting, upper echelon defenses as opposed to those we were facing earlier in the season, and so on. Whatever the reason(s), the Knicks must find ways to adapt and generate better team offense. More and more Brunson iso and hero ball is neither pretty nor healthy. That was not the case earlier in the season. They have no other choice now with Brunson out.
I haven’t seen TJ play recently. But can’t be worse than Shamet.
I can’t believe I stayed up for that shit last night.
It’s nearly impossible to have an effective offense if two of the five on the court refuse to shoot when open.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t really a thing, but I remember Knicks announcers talking about how when the Knicks get over 30 assists they always win. Which could, I suppose, be a proxy to their playing ‘the beautiful game’ and having an effective and efficient offense.
You’d have to go back 11 games to the Pacers game Feb 11 to when they last broke 30 (they won with a whopping 37). Over the last 10 games they are 5-5, with assists ranging from 20-29. Interestingly, when they hit or exceeded 27 assists, they always won (4-0). Between 20-26 assists, they are 1-5 (they had 22 assists when they beat the 76ers).
Only reasons I could think of not bringing in a 15th man are (1) leaving it open gives more positional flexibility if there’s a rash of injuries at one position, or (2) they intend to cut a player and bring in a second guy sooner, like we discussed a little while ago. I guess generally speaking, you might as well save money and flexibility if whoever you sign will never see the floor anyway.
Regarding (1) we could keep flexibility with a 10-day contract without much consequence, so I’m not sure it’s a great reason.
More random assist noise — in the 16 earlier games, the Knicks were 11-5. They were 9-1 when they got 27 or more assists, and were 2-4 when under 27.
The loss last night while frustrating and ugly to watch wasn’t really that big of a deal. We were playing a very good team on the road, on the 2nd night of a B2B after an OT game, our 2nd best player isn’t right, and we were without our best player who just got hurt.
The Clippers are an elite defensive team so our offensive struggles while not surprising look worse than they will against most teams. Especially as we get used to playing without Brunson.
McBride is definitely more of a 2 guard but he is serviceable as a 1 and I think his struggles last night were more just a slump than anything else.
Also just a small aside, McBride isn’t really small for a 2 guard. Both his standing reach and wingspan are bigger than Donte and Shamet and his wingspan is bigger than Hart and he only gives up 1″ in standing reach. He also similar size to Lu Dort and Bruce Brown. He is not really undersized at the 2.
His buttery stroke is hitting the bottom of the net at an anemic 35.9% this season over 19 games. But he is getting up 18.5 shots/36, so there’s that.
Shams reporting Knicks signing PJ Tucker to a 10 day contract.
Dafuq?
By several accounts, the locker room chemistry this season isn’t great. As Begley suggested a few days ago, Tucker isn’t being brought here to play. He’s being brought here to help get the house in order. Basically, scarier Theo Pinson.
But for them to have to devote a roster spot to a guy who can’t play anymore, at a time, when we’re dealing with a bunch of injuries, suggests that the locker room must in fact be very bad, especially compared to recent groups.
I can’t believe nobody likes my theory that if the Knicks do nothing but work to get 27 or more assists each game they can be on a 76-win pace. Facts!
Just FYI, if they get 26 assists or below, it’s a 21-win pace.
Fine, I’ll go work on some other idiotic theory then.
If it’s all about assists Free Kolek