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.

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.

Part of the problem is that you have to be willing to try to develop these young players during the season with an understanding that you may lose 2-3 games you could have otherwise won, but you come into the end of the season with a fresher healthier core and a more prepared bench of younger players.

It looked like Thibs was ready to give Huk some minutes until he got hurt, but once Mitch returned he probably would have gotten buried again anyway.

Pending what we learn from the Mitch/Towns pairing, if that doesn’t work I think Towns will have to be traded or we have to find a very specific PF to put next to him. It’s hard to imagine Towns and Brunson suddenly working.

Well, of course Huk would have been “buried” once Mitch came back, and we pretty much know that for a fact because it happened to the guy playing *ahead* of Huk (Precious).

C’mon, I love Mitch as much of the next guy, but if we trade one of either him or KAT it’s gotta be Mitch for the scoring PF that we don’t have. I think there is a market for Mitch, but we’d have to include more, obviously.

Good on Quentin Grimes.

Although he’s really remade himself from a pimple-faced kid into something of a malevolent riverboat gambler.

*as much as the next guy*

I’m a horrible multi-tasker sometimes.

Yeah, in 1995-96, the 72-win Chicago Bulls worked Jason Caffey and Dicky Simpkins into the rotation, as a rookie and a second year player (Caffey then took all of Simpkins’ minutes the following year). The Nuggets worked Christian Braun into their crunchtime rotation as the #21 pick in his rookie season.

You can work these guys into good teams, and a lot of teams do that. A lot of teams do not, though. So it’s not like Thibs is all alone in this, but I think it tends to be a better thing if you do do it than if you don’t.

finally found a show to get super excited about, just picked up a ticket for Beck doing this orchestral version of his tunes, making it even cooler, it’s at this outdoor venue in the san diego bay, right off the embarcadero next to the convention center…score…

For Giants fans, from Danny Heifetz, this is hilarious:

‘This is the same deal–3 for $36 million– the Giants would not pay Saquon Barkley last year. Now they’re giving that same deal to Darius Slayton, who they have been trying to get rid of for 5 years. The Giants are the absolute worst and I hate rooting for them.’

C’mon, I love Mitch as much of the next guy, but if we trade one of either him or KAT it’s gotta be Mitch for the scoring PF that we don’t have. I think there is a market for Mitch, but we’d have to include more, obviously.

The main issue is Towns/Brunson defensively.

IMO we’d need a scoring PF if we traded Towns and Mitch was the starting C.

If we are keeping Towns and moving Mitch, then we’d need someone that is so good defensively at PF, we can live with Towns at C and Brunson at PG.

The latter is tougher to find and may not work anyway because we are already pretty good defensively with OG/Mikal/Hart and that’s not working defensively with Towns/Brunson so far.

That’s why I keep saying we HAVE TO find out whether Mitch/Towns works like Gobert/Towns. If so, we have no “major” issue starting. But if it’s not working I think we have to make a move.

I think we could also use a backup PF that can shoot and score. I like Precious, but at this stage he’s still more of a 2nd/3rd string player where you can break glass in case of emergency at C or PF, but not necessarily right as our backup PF and especially not C. Maybe we can improve other areas of the bench and then Precious would be fine as the backup PF.

Part of the problem is that you have to be willing to try to develop these young players during the season with an understanding that you may lose 2-3 games you could have otherwise won, but you come into the end of the season with a fresher healthier core and a more prepared bench of younger players.

Thibs has been consistent with this at least in his Knick’s tenure, if you can at least defend a little, he will play a rookie. Examples: IQ, more of an offensive player than a defensive player got 18 minutes a night from game 1 of his rookie season. Grimes by the middle of his rookie season played his way into the rotation and stayed there until he rightfully played his way out two tears later. He even gave Deuce 9.3MPG as a rookie with his horrid Ts% (.393) because he defended well enough to be situationally (is that a word?) useful. Huk practiced his way into the rotation by mid season before his untimely injury.

I’m sure he works/scrimmages players 9-15 hard during the season in practice and they earn their way into playing time that way.

Good on Quentin Grimes.

Grimes was hurt during his last season with us.

Injuries are part of the game, but depending on what the injury is, when it involves a young player, imo at times you not only have to give him a pass for the season, you have to understand that it also impacted his potential development. So that development may come later than the typical profile.

Grimes is a young guy and basically lost over a year in NY and Detroit. I don’t know where he’s going to top out, but he was pretty good from 3 and seemed like a good on the ball defender in when healthy in NY . He showed enough to think he could become a very useful player on a serious team.

We got trash for him while he was hurt, he was still hurt on Detroit and Dallas underrated him. Hopefully for him he stays healthy, reaches his potential and gets paid. Some young guy keep getting hurt and never get where their talent allowed.

It’s so funny how Morey keeps making smart moves on the edges, like Grimes…all centered around two franchise-crippling moves. Too, too hilarious.

Grimes was hurt during his last season with us.

The nice thing about the NBA is players have a logged past performance chart, just like race horses anyone can look at. Grimes played 45 of first 48 games last season.

He missed two games in November with a “hand” injury and one game 12/30 with an “illness.”

He went on the injury report with a knee injury 1/31 and missed the next 8 games. He was traded 2/7.

He played his way out of the starting line-up after starting the first 18 games, not due to injury, but on his own merit.

Not arguing whether the trade was a good or bad idea, but he lost his job here due to sub-mediocre performance, not injury.

So far, I’m glad to be playing Trae, Clingan, and Cam Johnson on NBA DFS tonight. That can change, of course.

Make that Trae Young and Trendon Watford. Glad the Hawks/Nets game is close, too. 🙂

Trae Young, Jaden McDaniels, Tyrese Martin, and Keon Johnson. Hopefully SGA can shine against the Bucks!

Just to be equal opportunity, here’s a nice bit on the new Jets’ QB:

“The NFL is hilarious. Fields was available to any interested team last offseason, and all the Bears could get for him was a sixth-round pick. He started six games for the Steelers, performed somewhere between slightly below average and bad, and got benched for Russell Wilson. You would think those events wouldn’t have done much to boost Fields’s value. But apparently, they did. The Jets are now signing him to a two-year, $40 million deal with $30 million guaranteed, according to ESPN.”

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

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