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2025 Playoff Thread: Knicks vs. Pistons, Game 1 – Things Should Start to Get Interesting Right About Now

Finally, the 2025 NBA Playoffs have begun, and Thibs’ minute-distribution will finally look totally normal!

The Knicks host the feisty young Detroit Pistons, led by their All-Star guard, Cade Cunningham. Typically speaking, feisty up and coming teams like the Pistons take at least a year to get used to the playoffs (look at how long the Thunder have taken to get used to the playoffs), so this series SHOULD go the Knicks’ way, despite the Pistons winning the season series between the two teams 3-1.

The big issue for the Knicks is how healthy Jalen Brunson is. Hopefully the time off has helped him a lot.

Let’s go, Knicks!

16 wins to go! Let’s see them get them!

The Dylan tune is “Mississippi,” written for the Time Out of Mind sessions, but not released until “Love & Theft,” by which point Sheryl Crow had already released her version of it (with permission of Dylan).

230 replies on “2025 Playoff Thread: Knicks vs. Pistons, Game 1 – Things Should Start to Get Interesting Right About Now”

Shout out to the Knicks Medical and Therapy teams. Hoping for a healthy group and a long and fortuitous run.

Let’s Go Knicks!

Thanks Mike, thanks Brian and…

LET’S GO KNICKS!!! 🗽🏀🧡💙🧡🏀🗽

cyber, my kid is gonna watch the game at a place called Southern Cross Pub in Copenhagen…she and her boyfriend had to convince the bartender to stream the game!

I left a banger of a crawfish boil to be here for this… lets fucking go

okay!…anthem

Westbrook lol of all people

And the full Westbrook experience just happened

4th youngest team in the NBA , best player has zero playoff experience…

How can they pre-empt the Knicks game to show a bunch of losers who can’t play defense or execute off a timeout? Ugh.

cyber, my kid is gonna watch the game at a place called Southern Cross Pub in Copenhagen…she and her boyfriend had to convince the bartender to stream the game!

That’s great! 😉 Now let’s get a win! 🙂

Due to additional technical issues at home, I’m listening on radio. It’s a throwback. One step up would be a tiny black & white tv with tin foil on the antenna.

What do they say about the cobbler kids’ shoes?

Can’t afford this to be a shootout… Knicks gotta tighten up their defense

Gotta grab rebounds Shamet

The defense is not stepping up and I don’t think they can

They seemed to work on the OG/Brunson balance during the off week

The interminable nuggets clippers game hurt my soul. Why is Landry Shamet in the game and where is Josh Hart?

Our record when leading after the first is pretty good…not sure that 1 point counts, but I choose to believe so…

OG is awake, the offense is clunky and I’m shouting bad things toward Shamet… not a good first quarter after Josh exit, the guys need to wake up.

KAT’s only taken one shot.

That’s unacceptable

He hasn’t been fully utilized in the Thibs system this year. That’s a strike on the coach

This isn’t quite 90s physical, but the refs are letting them get away with a lot.

Feels like Tobias Harris has already scored more pts in this game than he did entire series last year for Philly.

When you finally want Thibs to be overusing the starters, lots of minutes for Shamet, Payne, and the subs

Dumb challenge

Before the commercial, they showed a replay and it certainly looked like he whacked Shamet on the arm. Bad time to lose your challenge.

The Mitchening is upon us

Cap gonna get it together by the end of the series … by the second half would be nice

Brunson did play horrible first 2 games against Philly before turning into MJ rest of the series so not worried about him but it’s still frustrating to watch right now.

I heard something about KAT being a really good shooting big.. guess we will never know

I heard something about KAT being a really good shooting big.. guess we will never know

The East is big, man

Mitch steal into a quick OG three to get a 2-1 and then the Deuce steal sealed by a timeout.

One of my favorite sequences of the season. Full team effort.

I don’t know, sometimes I feel like, after an 82-games preseason, we still don’t know how to use our two best players together…

Meanwhile, OG blossomed into an offensive force 😁

In the year of our Lord 2025, you let Tobias Harris go off for 22 first half points?!

Defense!

Any team that allows Tobias Harris in 2025 to score 22 pts in a half is not serious.

Tobias Harris is not going to keep shooting like this.

We are much more talented than this team. If we lose to this team, it’s an embarsrssment.

They should have Tobias Harris take a full court shot for $10 million, he’d swish it

believe it or not that’s not tobias’ best first half the first game of the playoffs

Getting destroyed at the 3pt line continuing the theme of the Knicks for past couple of months.

Setting the tone for home court playoff debut by letting a seemingly washed up player go off on us, is kind of a very Knicks thing to do

Yankees with their worst loss of the season, hopefully Knicks can avoid that same outcome.

The “put OG on Cade” has worked very well so far, but the “don’t bother to guard anyone else” part was something I didn’t foresee.

That includes the “don’t let Malik shoot” bit that they forgot. He should never get to take 6 threes in a half.

WTF exactly were the Knicks doing this past week? Cause coming up with a good game plan certainly wasn’t it.

OG starting to gamble on D, seems dangerous when he’s responsible for Cade… luckily hasn’t burned us yet, wish they would just be solid on D

the pistons are playing pretty solidly right now…looks like they are not going to beat themselves…

sure could use a few points from deuce and landry/cam…

Thank god for Mike Breen but Richard Jefferson makes me want pour bleach in my ears

It must be hard for Richard Jefferson not to yell “yeah baby!” when the Pistons score

Brunson not himself.

Pistons can really defend. And score in transition.

Man, that was rough

These guys just don’t have any juice. Schroeder just ate Brunson’s shot like it was a Ritz cracker

WTF exactly were the Knicks doing this past week? Cause coming up with a good game plan certainly wasn’t it.

It appears that had David Fizdale design today’s offense.
Getting clowned by twilight of mid-career players like Harris, Timmay, and Shroeder really an embarrassment.

Don’t worry, at least we have a coach who is really good at making adjustments…. Oh

Hard to know what to say about the Harris/Schroeder demolition we have experienced

Well this is going exactly as I expected. How long until Pagliacci’s early realization that we are not the better team here settles in as the new consensus? I think it will take until we’re down 3-1

Maybe we get back into this in the fourth quarter.

But this looks like one of those games where we are running in quicksand and just get worse as the game goes on. This just looks like a very slow and unathletic team with no clear identity on either end.

I wanna try to pull off Donnie Pistons Fan, but, honestly, outside of a little Tobias Harris here and there, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of these guys play before (including Hardaway jr.).

This coach was saving things?

He coached a very mediocre boring season and nothing changing here.

The Grizzlies did get to the playoffs with their interim coach and the Nugs won today

The worst part of the way we lose is that we don’t even make runs, we just kind if get down 4-7 points and then gradually roll over and die.

The Bridges trade will haunt us into the 2030s. Man, what a disaster.

Bridges wasn’t worth 5 3rd round picks playing like this

He is a role player, its not really a shock. The thing is you don’t double down and pay him.

The Knicks do own their 1st round pick next year and control it. It’s something the front office should think about.

Cam is a surprisingly useful player for the amount of times he makes me want to choke him

The worst part of the way we lose is that we don’t even make runs, we just kind if get down 4-7 points and then gradually roll over and die.

Sure

Cam Payne contribution

The power of having no conscience. We should be taking notes….

Unsurprising, Mikal is a -18

I know +/- means nothing in small samples, but…

KAT has come up huge on defense (something we rarely say other than the three above comments.) His defense on Duran was super impressive. And then that.

I am not sure who used the defibrillator but it worked.

Seriously winning strategy. I hope.

The Pistons are not allowed to score in the 4th qtr.

Let’s hope it rolls on.

Payne is doing Mikal’s job. Mikal is a scrub.

Great play here in the fourth, massive spike in the energy level after they looked dead tired in the third. Veteran Knicks outplaying the young Pistons in the high leverage possessions. Now let’s just keep the pedal down.

I felt like they could have called a foul on that Cade 3.

Going to be a tough series.

Game ball for Payne or the Garden crowd. Can’t decide.

Ok phew. But this is going to be a tough series.

(I mean Brinson wouldn’t be called captain crunch if we hadn’t farted away so many leads this year)

Going to be a tough series but I like the intensity. Hope we get through it healthy

Winning by double digits while the other team shoots 47% from deep is pretty good.

Pags thank you for coming in with the clutch reverse jinx, your timing is impeccable as always!!

We should not be strunggling with this team. We are way more talented. They have a good defense and play hard, but it should still be no contest.

Good game by Towns.
Payne did his job as well as we can ask him to.
Mitch had some good minutes.
Brunson and Hart were much better in the 2nd half.

Holy shit just looked at KAT’s box score: 23 pts on 10 for 14 shooting with 11 rebs, 5 asts, 4 stls and 2 blks.

Monster game by KAT, he got blown by a few times but made some great defensive plays, and the running 2’s were sensational.

Monster game by KAT

Agree 100%. But also a great game by OG too, he kept us afloat in the 1st half.

The 21-0 run was revelatory and made me just so happy.

Playoff intensity is back at MSG.

But this is just one game of seven, so we have to come right back, just as smart, and play just as hard for the next one. Go Knicks!

Boston and Cleveland are probably gonna have playoff games like this where they sleepwalk for 3 quarters and then dominate down the stretch.

There’s a reason we’re the 3 seed and they’re the 6 seed

Detroit played like an inexperienced team. They were lost in the opening minutes, and then totally unraveled when the Knicks up the pressure in the fourth. It was a dogfight in between, and this is not good for this more talented and experienced Knicks team. I am still cautious, not about the series which we should win, but about what this Knicks roster can achieve. Although healthy, rested, and prepared, the Knicks looked for most of the game like the same inconsistent team we have been watching all season. Overall, they didn’t look dominant or take their game to another level as many of us were expecting. Time will tell.

Lots of heroes tonight. OG early, then Mitch had a good impact for a stretch. Then Cam’s heroics, and finally Josh and Jalen made lots of plays down the stretch. It helped that they missed two point-blank dunks!

One thing I’ll give Mikal credit for is coming in cold off the bench in crunch time and knocking down a jumper.

All the butterflies should be gone and the confidence should be back. I think we can play better defense next game. We only locked down in the 4th quarter. We can do better than that. Plus, Harris, Beasley and Hardaway all had good shooting games. I don’t think they will do as well as a group next time. Next game could be easier if they come out ready to put another nail in the coffin. Let’s also hope Brunson’s ankle is OK.

I thought Brunson played just “ok”, and then i looked at the stats and he had 34 pts and 8 ast with FG% .444 3P% .400 FT% .800

Now imagine when he plays great! 😀

Watched the first half of the Lakeshow.

1st quarter, right? Unless you invented time travel! 😀

Some of you guys are insanely harsh critics who won’t be happy with anything short of complete and utter blowout domination from a Knicks squad who sat and rested cold for around a week. This team put on a clinic in the 4th quarter. Relax.

As we all know I’m the first to go off during game threads and the first 3 quarters today were not easy to watch but in the end it’s the playoffs so just winning is all that matters.

That 21-0 run reminded me of the 32-2 run in 1999 Game 3 vs Miami but today was much more dramatic.

cyber, you are a maniac! Get some sleep!

I should, i should… but now i’m fired up! 😛 Going to watch a tv show to relax a little before going to sleep. 😉
See you all tomorrow… well, except Pags and E because we won! 😀

I was at the game, amazing atmosphere. Cam couldn’t miss in pre game warm ups , glad that translated to the game! And Kat, played really solid D , hope he keeps that up!

Yeah, johnlocke, looked like a raucous atmosphere! I think the MSG crowd shook up the Pistons a bit.

Garden crowd was insanely into the game, esp in the 4th. Amazing atmosphere tonight!

The worst part of the way we lose is that we don’t even make runs, we just kind if get down 4-7 points and then gradually roll over and die.

This post aged like an organic, overripe, peeled banana left in the noonday sun with a magnifying glass above it and an anthill beneath it.

First three quarters were shaky especially the third.

But we turned it in and the pistons had no answer.

Obviously don’t want to get to cocky after one game but the reality is that this pistons team as a whole is very inexperienced when it comes to the playoffs. They got a great future and should be proud of what they’ve accomplished this season. But our team is stacked with playoff veterans and we have the best player on both teams. We probably have the second best player too. And we have different looks we can throw at them. They play one way and I don’t think they have mich of a counter to throw at us.

Of course they’re gonna come out hard next game and we need to play like we did in the 4th but I think we got this.

Randle a TOrnado. Wish him the best but he’s just not built for the playoffs.

Disagree, EB. Randle had a very decent overall game despite the TOs. 16-5-5 including 4-6 from 3 and a +19. Played pretty good defense as well and put a physical hurting on some guys.

Who would have thought a centre-less team would struggle against one with some pretty good centres? (Naz reid is legit)

And I would say the loss is more Pelinka’s fault than Redick’s. As the announcers said , the Minnesota drives to the basket killed the Lakers. They don’t have a good big msn inside so they gang up on the driver leaving outside shooters open. Minnesota made them pay. The Lakers also don’t have a very good bench. That’s all roster construction.

just looked at the “odds” for the games tomorrow, first three favorites (thunder, celtics, cavs) are all listed at plus 12 points…

that golden state and houston matchup though, that first game should be real interesting…

You guys sure do think coaching matters, wow.

To the extent that I will scream my lungs out ‘fire Thibs’ after a loss or two, hell no! Half of the today’s delirium crowd will be doing this if we lose game two or three of the series.

I must say that I felt quite pleased about the Knicks coaching staff while watching the second and third quarters of the Lakers game.

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