Butler has reinvigorated Steph much in the same way that Luka has reinvigorated LeBron, albeit with better results on the scoreboard. I’m hoping for the Warriors and Lakers to somehow meet in the Western Conference playoffs.

Not sure what to think of the Wiz beating the Pistons and now the Nuggets in back-to-back games on the road. They’ll probably lose to the Blazers tonight, though, and all will again be right with the world.

Payton Pritchard quite the find at the end of the first round, indeed. 22 points (5/8 from 3 and 7/11 overall) and 6 rebounds in 33 minutes off the Celtics bench last night. Sigh.

And Maxwell Lewis had 15 points (3/3 from 3 and 6/7 overall) in 16 minutes off the bench for the Nets.

Dalen Terry with 11 points (3/3 from 3 and 4/5 overall) in 13 minutes off the Bulls bench last night.

Gary Trent Jr. with 13 points (3/6 from 3 and 5/9 overall) and 4 rebounds in 23 minutes off the Bucks bench last night.

Julian Champagnie and Keldon Johnson with 12 and 19 points in 25 and 30 minutes respectively off the Spurs bench last night.

Dennis Schroder with 17 points (4/8 from 3 and 6/12 overall) and 11 assists in 27 minutes off the Pistons bench last night, while Malik Beasley had 15 points in 28 minutes.

The Knicks could’ve used some bench scoring last night.

That’s kind of my point. There are players out there, but we don’t seem to have an interest in getting ones who Thibs might actually play. I can imagine that he would have been pretty much forced, for example, to play Champagnie. Then again, maybe that’s just not how it’s ever going to work as long as Thibs is the coach.

Thibs has his players of trust and nobody is going to break in. Josh Hart getting 30 minutes last night when he was awful was a Thibs special. He isn’t willing to try anything different.

If this team loses in rd 1 the Thibs show needs to end.

I missed the game completely because we were about an hour and a half away from home at tip-off(never go shopping with your girlfriend and your 13 y/o daughter LOL), but I checked the box score, and UGH! We did everything we needed to do to win except have someone step up on the second unit offensively. Payne is slumping right now. Could have and probably should have used Kolek and Wright. Kolek to help the offense and Wright to frustrate Curry some, as he was the only Warrior on his game last night. I wanted this revenge game bad, too.

Question- do we have room under the apron to retain Tucker for the rest of the year and call Warren up to help with bench scoring while Brunson is out until almost the end of the season?

Question- do we have room under the apron to retain Tucker for the rest of the year and call Warren up to help with bench scoring while Brunson is out until almost the end of the season?

No, it’s one or the other. We could let Tucker go after his 10-day expires and bring in Warren. But since I don’t imagine either 15th man would play, it’s a moot point, and they will stick with the locker room chemistry guy.

I’m not really sure what Tucker is doing as the locker room/chemistry guy. Nothing seems any different than prior to his arrival, neither better nor worse. My only excitement regarding Tucker is to see if he plays 1 minute for the Knicks, thereby making him OAKAAK.

Maybe PJ can play more minutes than Giannis’ brother, who played a total of 6 minutes for us.

Saying this as nicely as possible: not sure I see the utility in posting a bunch of box scores from players with no connection to the Knicks and who the Knicks could not have acquired during any particularly recent transaction cycle. Maybe others disagree.

I only caught the end of the game last night. Some nice signs for sure–KAT is very good and Obviously Good Anunoby seems to be back. 97 is by far the Warriors’ lowest point total post-Butler.

Still very frustrated about the wholly self-inflicted roster situation. I’m not going to rag on Precious/Payne/Shamet for basically losing us the game in their minutes because minimum/low-salary guys are going to do that sometimes and they’ve all had their moments.

But for the love of god, with our best player injured and with a bench we all know is a weakness…why did we use a roster spot on a coach? I am under no illusions about TJ Warren or Moses Brown or whoever else, but does anyone disagree it’s possible someone of that ilk could be a better option than Shamet et al. on some nights?

I’m well aware this is not going to make or break our season at the end of the day, but it’s also obviously not the optimal way to go about things. I also think it’ll be kind of hard to put this stupid genie back in the stupid bottle, I mean are we really going to thank PJ Tucker for his services after 10 days?

People are still wondering whether it was the strategically right move to deplete all our assets and clog the salary cap in order to bring in Bridges and KAT. The jury is still out, but I can’t say things look very good. We shall see. It may take another year.

A note about minutes distribution, Thibs’s “circle of trust”, Dante’s seventh circle of hell, whatever. Deuce started and played for 38 minutes, Shamet 20, and Payne 10 minutes. That was ten minutes too many. We saw how poorly Payne played. The same is absolutely true for Precious Achiuwa. Someone here sarcastically noted that Achiuwa was playing for the Warriors last night.

Let’s go to the DNPs. Wright was not available. Kolek has repeatedly shown, as recently as this Wednesday in Sacramento, that he is not yet ready for an NBA rotation spot. Watson is a rookie who was the 54th pick and joined the Knicks just 10 days ago. Tucker has never played this season, is 39 years old, and joined the Knicks 5 days ago.

Who should a serious coach have given meaningful minutes against Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, et co., in a game that went down to the wire? Yet, the imbecilic anti-Thibs paranoia never stops.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmLH0MwW8AE_TH8?format=jpg&name=large

It’s very interesting how the Warriors can give guys like this a chance, but it’s impossible for Thibs to give anybody outside his circle of trust any time on the court.

KAT is going to be putting up some gaudy offensive numbers the next year or so. He needs to be traded at its shiniest. without any defensive upside and his pension for hitting the floor it’s a short blip in time from him going from the big bodega to the big kontract to the big katerakt.

I would have loved to have given Warren or Okeke a chance at some point during the season to crack the rotation. Alas, Thibs probably would not have given them a chance. The KAT trade came so close to the start of the season that they didn’t have time to fill out the roster properly. Hopefully this offseason will give Leon & Co. time to find Thibs the round pegs that he needs.

Who would you propose trading KAT for Clarence?

That’s a good question. I’m not quite sure… I think the fact that KAT was available in the first place for what we got him for was surprising. I think these playoffs are going to determine the market for the bigger targets. But he’s impossible to justify at mega maxish dollars as the guy next to Brunson. So far.

It’s very interesting how the Warriors can give guys like this a chance, but it’s impossible for Thibs to give anybody outside his circle of trust any time on the court.

This isn’t totally true. Sims was drafted 58th or so and ended up getting a lot of minutes.

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