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2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Trailblazers – Here and There in a Blaze

The Knicks take on some of the Portland Trailblazers tonight, and this should be an easy win, even though the Knicks have a number of injuries, too.

Hopefully Brunson can return in time to be eligible for the All-NBA team!

Let’s go, Knicks!

The Dylan song is “Dreamin’ of You” from Tell Tale Signs.

95 replies on “2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Trailblazers – Here and There in a Blaze”

Forced to watch the Blazer telecast (Portland is big, man), and they’re highlighting Matisse Thybulle…

I wouldn’t mind Thibs trying to give Dadiet some of the Precious minutes, just to see what happens when Mitch and/or Hart are playing with someone who will shoot.

There should be an award given out to a guy who plays well when Thibs finally gives him some run after a long stint on ice, which only raises the question of why he wasn’t playing at all before. Feels like it’s happened a few times.

Hopefully Delon Wright is the next recepient.

As usual, we look like we’re trying to win this without going to work. 😛

Non-OG guys should try hitting some shots but at least Mitch’s board over Clingan was sick

Nice to hear the Blazers talking up “the world’s most famous arena.” Apparently it’s not just advertising?

Was hoping for 30+ assists this game, but not sure the Knicks are going to make 30 baskets.

Strange to watch a few NCAA games and then come to the NBA and see Landry Shamet rise up for the 3. He’d average 35 per game in college.

That buzzer beater was fun! Nice to not have it happen against us for once.

I’ve been saying all season, Mikal really needs to up his half court shot volume

Kolek looks really small out there. Clever with the rock though

So nice when we hit a wide open three

I wouldn’t mind Thibs trying to give Dadiet some of the Precious minutes, just to see what happens when Mitch and/or Hart are playing with someone who will shoot.

Unfortunately Dadiet can’t shoot. He’s a tick under 32% in the g-league. He’s under 30% if you include the tipoff tournament.

He shoots very well from the line so hopefully this is just an adjustment period while gets stronger.

Precious!

Not sure about that legality of that tip. I guess just a giant dribble. Kind of awesome actually.

Pretty funny, was trying to think of what to say about Precious being useless, and he has about three great plays in a row.

Holy shit what a sequence from Precious dunk to KAT’s block leading to a Precious layup.

It’s one thing to get to 80, and another to get to 80 like Clyde. Class! 👑

Kolek with some good defensive sequences, moving his feet and throwing his chest out to stop bigger guys from getting by him.

Why did the Wizards of all teams trade a young improving player like Deni Avdija?

Typical Knicks bullshit, start building up a lead then immediately start giving up a boatload of 3s.

3 consecutive non efforts defending the 3 point line by Hart, Hart and Precious.

When is Tournament of Champions on? I’d rather watch a few top chefs cook than this team not play defense.

Clinger is largely immobile and not terribly skilled, but he has vacuum cleaner hands.

Very strange that we have one more rebound than they do, since it feels like they’re getting all the rebounds.

Perhaps they’re just getting all the contested rebounds…

That was an incredible Keystone Kops series of plays ending in a three for the Knicks…

I was about to say don’t like this lineup to start the 4th quarter but then they run off a quick 8-0 run!

Went to read my daughter a bedtime story down 4 and came back with the Knicks up 8. Good to know for the playoffs.

Here’s a hypothetical- if the Knicks had won multiple championships since 1973 would Clyde be as revered as he is?

The way OG has played without Brunson probably should be the topic of conversation tmw

But it will be RJ or mezzanine

Bridges absolutely has. It’s a strange thing.

Like OG’s voice.

Clingan a plus 6. Impressive impact on defense.

Pablo Prigioni getting ejected from a game in 2025 is pretty funny, we really need to bring him home

Towns looked like he was running a little gingerly today. I have feeling his knee is bothering him a little again.

OG 28 pts, 7 rebs
Bridges 28 pts, 7 assists.
Hart 14 pts, 9 rebs, 8 assists.

Not so bad.

Glad we could get the rooks in to practice dribbling out the clock in an NBA situation

Nice win for Clyde! My username has always been in honor of the great!

I hope OG and Mikal can keep this level of play when Brunson is back…

Strange to watch a few NCAA games and then come to the NBA and see Landry Shamet rise up for the 3. He’d average 35 per game in college.

There are obviously a lot of very talented kids but it is really jarring how bad they are when you almost exclusively watch the NBA

The way OG has played without Brunson probably should be the topic of conversation tmw

I think they’re playing faster and with more movement, two things Brunson absolutely does not bring.

Watching Kolek really emphasizes Brunson’s lack of passing ability.

Unusual stat of the night: the Knicks benched played 59 minutes to the Blazers’ 53 and outscored their bench 23 points to 4.

Yeah, DRed, I feel like it’s a thing I say every year in March but it remains so true.

I thought it watching Mark Sears, who was a huge college star and would get absolutely eaten alive in the NBA.

Maybe he ends up a FVV or a poor man’s Brunson but people in the NBA are almost infinitely better

When KAT does not have it on offense, his defensive weaknesses are so magnified! He was a participant in, and the main reason of, that embarrassing 20-3 Blazers run to end the first half, and their run at the start of the second half to go up by 14. Things changed when Mitch Robinson came back. It also seems to me that Kolek deserved a few more minutes today as the team had no offensive rhythm during that same stretch.

The magic number for third place is now at 2 wins, I think, and it is good to see that defense has vastly improved since Mitch came back. Even when he is not on the floor! The downside is that KAT continues disappearing when he needs to step up.

Also the Blazers hit 25% of their three pointers (did not feel that way), compared to our landing at 40%.

Of course they took 11 more than us, naturally…

“The magic number for third place is now at 2 wins, I think…”

This seems incorrect.

The magic number vs. Indiana is 4. They have 8 games remaining and can theoretically get to 51 wins. Since we have the tiebreaker, it they won out, we would need 4 wins to get to 51 to clinch.

I believe that the magic number vs. Detroit is also 4, but it’s more complicated because it depends on the tiebreaker, which I believe will go to the winner of the game we play next week. So if we win that game, it may be 3.

I hope OG and Mikal can keep this level of play when Brunson is back…

I think they’re playing faster and with more movement, two things Brunson absolutely does not bring.

I say it practically every day, but I think it’s critical to understanding what’s happening.

There are only so many possessions per game. Brunson is a very high usage player. As soon as he comes back, OG and Bridges will automatically have the ball in their hands less often.

That means OG will take fewer shots, get to the FT line less often and score less.

That means MIkal will taker fewer shots, get to the FT less often, get fewer assist opportunities and score less.

None of that matters much as long as Brunson remains more efficient than Bridges and OG.

However, that’s where we get into more debatable things like Brunson’s tendency to think “score first” and use up much if not most of the clock dribbling too much. Overall he’s efficient, but some of the tough shots he forces are probably not as good as we could get with better ball movement and faster play.

IMO, the ideal is somewhere between the ISO hero ball Brunson who we need at times but probably get too often and a true PG looking to move the ball and create easy shots for his teammates.

We’ll see if OG and Bridges proving they are much better than just 3rd or 4th option role players sinks in for Brunson (and Thibs) and we go into the playoffs with a more balanced offense. We want to take advantage of mismatches and what the defense is giving us instead of Brunson and Towns taking turns. If we play the right way, IMO we’ll have a top 2-3 offense and hopefully with Mitch improved depth and defense.

It’s easy to calculate the “magic number” between any two teams.

I usually ignore tiebreakers because of the extra effort of looking them up. So magic numbers are (1+ the total number games in the regular season; 83) minus the current number of wins for the team that is higher in the standings (now 47 for us) minus the current number of losses for the team that is lower in the standings (31 for the Pacers). This equals 5.

Because we all live and breathe the Knicks more than we do most other teams, we happen to already know that we would have the tiebreaker over the Pacers, in which case it’s 82 – 47 – 31 = 4 instead of 83 – 47 – 31 = 5.

This is the most simplistic method, and does not account for multi-team tiebreak scenarios.

I know he’s still a rookie who is just now getting some PT experience and I also know that this will probably not happen (this season at least) because of Thibs, but seriously how Mikal and OG are playing without Brunson is a huge reason why I’d like to see Kolek remain in the rotation after Brunson gets back, even in the playoffs for the few minutes Brunson sits.

You can keep OG and/or Mikal in there when Kolek plays those non Brunson minutes and his pass PG skills can maybe keep those two involved and get them going and maybe that bleeds over into the minutes Brunson plays too. Hell maybe Brunson seeing that play out when he’s not playing will remind him to look for those guys more often instead of just thinking to score first.

It’s a delicate balance bc we want JB to score obviously but we’ve seen him get the balance right and when he does the team operates so much better. I also think it’s only natural for OG and Mikal to probably play better on D if they’re staying involved on offense.

Regardless, looking at this team next season (without considering any majoré trades) I’d like Leon to not bring back Payne and sort of force Thibs hand to make Kolek the full time back up PG.

Kolek has shot 4 for 15 in these past 5 games where he’s gotten rotation mins. The passing is great but in the playoffs Payne’s potential mini scoring bursts are potentially much more impactful.

Fan darlings Pablo and Donte ejected in the same event must be some kind of a sign…

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