i knew we wouldnt be happy with our first loss whenever it happened but i cant say that i was expecting this
Watched bits of the game. Hitting some threes would be good. This is how everyone plays and sometimes the threes just don’t fall. I think the process is good though.
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I love Josh Hart but he absolutely kills the offense when he’s on the floor. If I was the opposing coach I would just instruct my team to double team Brunson or KAT and leave Hart wide open. Right now his shot is completely broken.
I feel bad for the guy but it may be time to bite the bullet and get that hand fixed. We can survive until the playoffs without him.
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Its going to take time to get used to this style of play which will lead to losses like last night. Hopefully though for the most part it will lead to plenty of wins and winning quarters by 28 pts like the 2nd quarter vs Boston. Ditto playing the bench alot, you’ll get games like vs Cleveland where they played great then 4 days later they cost us the game.
Thibs wanted to control the controllables as he liked to say because he hated variance. Hence not having patience with bench players and not wanting to jack up 3s. Its a different style we’re gonna have to get used to, especially myself, but it should pay dividends in the end.
I’m not worried that much about the poor shooting. We’re 29th in the league in eFG% and that should regress to the mean in a significant way.
The more worrisome thing to me is the health status of Mitch and Josh Hart. The “busted finger” version of Hart looks like a minus player. And it’s not looking like Mitch is gonna be playing a whole lot of minutes. If we’re getting a bunch of nothing out of that guys, that places a pretty firm ceiling on us
I don’t think there’s any info in this outside of the fact that we’re shooting more threes as the team is getting more comfortable with the idea, but so far we’re shooting 35% on 40, 38% on 45, and 28% on 54 shots.
As mentioned last night, some of the threes yesterday were a tad egregious. Shamet took one on a break it seemed before any of his teammates had crossed center court (and missed). Both OG and KAT were taking multiple ones from like 27 feet (KAT can do that, OG’s long shots looked terrible). Those mostly don’t seem like they’re sensible or in the flow. Miami’s defense made doing anything else really hard, but it seemed like giving in to the easy choice. Which was probably just what Spo wanted.
Chalk it up to figuring it out, but the process is fairly fugly.
There was a stretch in the third where KAT was in foul trouble, Brown went with Yabu over Huk probably for the spacing advantage, and Kolek was in the game but OG was doing most of the ballhandling. That made me raise an eyebrow as it seemed like an extremely bad use of personnel. That lineup got smoked and looked completely hapless and disjointed.
If Kolek is going to play, you gotta let him do point guard stuff. Playing him off ball while OG Anuboby tries to cook was painful to watch.
If Friday was arguably the first “would’ve lost under Thibs” game, yesterday was arguably the first “would’ve won under Thibs” game. No one topped 37 minutes, 10 guys played, and 54 threes were taken. Last season we probably push the starters and take fewer threes (which in the isolated case of last night would’ve led to better offense, since we couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn).
I support the new style 150%. We’re not going anywhere if we don’t shoot a bunch of threes. Of course, we’ve gotta make ’em, but I thought the selection last night was mostly pretty good. Shamet, just for example, was 0/4 on 4 damn good looks.
And now for the take the will get me canceled…I still think Clarkson brings a necessary element to the team, and is mostly doing what we want him to do. The results just suck. To be clear, they may well stay that way and then we’ll have to pivot, but I’d give him a serious shot to sort it out.
Yabu’s a mess though, and I’m falling pretty firmly on the side of “Hart should just get the surgery out of the way.”
Its crazy to me that Yabu looks so out of shape considering he played in the European championship and had some really good games.
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methinks that the swapout of rozier for this improved version of norman powell might be more of a boon to the heat than previously considered (or wanted)
Through 3 games, Clarkson has a .357 TS% while Yabu had a .250 TS% on 10.3% usage. The off-season looking like a disaster so far.
The Blue Jays are sending Max Scherzer (4.99 FIP) and Shane Bieber (4.47 FIP) out to pitch in the next two games of the World Series. That is not very likely to go well.
It’s going to take time for everyone to figure out the new offense and defense. I’m not worried about the ups/downs from game to game or even bad shooting nights.
However, I don’t think they’ve found the right formula for trying to shoot more 3s yet.
IMO the idea is to create high quality looks from 3.
IMO high quality means driving and kicking it to an open OG/Mikal from the corner, a wide open step into the into the shot 3 on the break, Towns trailing and stepping into a 3 and things like that. It doesn’t necessarily mean shooting a 35% or lower 3s early in the clock because you are open is the best option.
Open from 3 doesn’t always translate into the right shot depending on the shooter, location and distance. The TS% on even some technically open 3s is not going to be better than some players driving to the basket, potentially getting fouled, potentially getting an extra OREB or even creating one of those kickouts to a wide open high quality shot.
I think they’ll figure it out, but just hoisting up extra 3s of medium quality (and definitely below that) is not going to help long term. It’s going to add volatility to our results game to game and may even cause some other issues.
Was this contract Yabu’s first contract that was big enough for a change of lifestyle?
I might go out to the best restaurants and have a few extra cocktails for a few weeks after a contract that changed my life. I’m not worried about his current TS%. I think he’ll be fine. He has to be better on offense than Precious. Overall, is another issue.
Brown said post-game that he wasn’t happy cause Knicks only had 14 sprays when they were over 20 in each of the first 2 games. He was also more upset about allowing 31 fast break pts and way too many FTs.
Yeah I was just going to mention that we also got annihilated on the fast break. This is a potentially concerning problem given our lack of foot speed and overall athleticism. In a game when we’re not missing 40+ threes that’d be less of a problem, but it was concerning to watch in last night’s game.
Damn, I got threaded twice in the same morning!
My takeaways (from two hours and two threads ago):
1. We are an extremely thin team with no margin for error. At full strength, we can make the NBA Finals. But a simple injury to any of our top 5 players means we’re fucked and could lose in the 1st round.
2. Deuce is one of those top 5 players. Hart & Mitch are important but Deuce feels critical.
3. The early signs on Leon’s reinforcements (Yabu & Clarkson) are very discouraging.
Per NBA.com, our 3PA last night:
Very tight (closest defender 0-2 feet away): 0
Tight (2-4 feet): 3/9
Open (4-6 feet): 7/22
Wide open (6+ feet): 5/23
Dunno, I liked the looks. I’m not saying it’s as simple as “they’ll fall eventually”–sometimes they don’t–but things like KAT going 1/6 on “wide open” 3PA are the type of thing you have to sometimes live with if you want to raise your offensive ceiling.
And my other thought, since echoed by Noble:
For the sake of balance, you could make an argument that last night might have been a game we could have won last year. Thibs would have played Clarkson, Yabu, and Shamet 8 minutes instead of 47 bc they were all so shit. And maybe Brunson goes nuclear if he stayed in the game. But honestly I’d rather take the L than use that smoke & mirrors BS.
Per NBA.com, our 3PA last night:
Very tight (closest defender 0-2 feet away): 0
Tight (2-4 feet): 3/9
Open (4-6 feet): 7/22
Wide open (6+ feet): 5/23
Matches my eye test. Thought OG got great looks and was just off. On a normal night he’d be more likely to go 8-12 with those looks than 4-12.
Landry, Clarkson, and Yabu just sucked. 0% on 12 3PAs. 25% and we win.
All that being said, this is exactly what the Celtics said after they were down 0-2. I don’t want Brown to be just as stubborn as Thibs in the other direction. I don’t think he was; I think the Heat just took away the paint. Ware and Adebayo is really hard to drive against. But it bears watching. I don’t want our offense to look like the Celtics’ last year. They had the shooters for it. We don’t.
* I do think a lot of KATs wide open 3s are because he took the shot from 6ft behind the 3pt line. It’s a shot he can make sometimes but maybe not sometimes enough. Overall, the 3pt decision making looked fine to me.
* There are going to be growing pains in a new system and there are always going to be bad shooting nights.
* OGs poor passing is a problem for this offensive system so far.
We really only get the spacing we want with the Death Lineup: Brunson/Deuce/Mikal/OG/Towns. I suppose you could swap Shamet in for Deuce and still get that quality spacing.
This is why Yabu is a wild card: if he shoots .380 like he did last year from 3pt, that allows you to play some other configurations that maintain the good spacing. When he’s barely hitting the rim with his shot attempts as has happened so far, not so much.
He has enough of a pedigree as a shooter that he should be given a chance to turn it around. He is missing short on almost all of his attempts.
Shams:
The NBA informed its 30 teams that the league has begun process of reviewing policies regarding injury reporting, training and education of all personnel, and enhancing internal and external monitoring programs to identify betting activity of concern, per memo obtained by ESPN.
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I think Clarkson is cooked, I would give oladipo a look at his spot. He looked explosive in his preseason games against NBA teams.
“The NBA informed its 30 teams that the league has begun process of reviewing policies regarding injury reporting…”
Finally an official reaction to the Mitch “injury management” reporting!
“to identify betting activity of concern”
of concern? any activity
Maybe Austin Reeves is available.
i wouldnt want a guy whos never played an nba game or oladipo at this point for that matter
All that being said, this is exactly what the Celtics said after they were down 0-2.
Nah… that might have been what they said but their flop was more because of KP’s mystery virus, Jaylen Brown’s inability to break down defenses due to his surgical knee and Holiday’s lingering hammy.
Their offense generated different looks shot by players playing way below 100%.Varience was a big part of yesterday’s loss, but they didn’t play well in other aspects of the game.
Saturday night on South Beach before a meaningless game was a big factor with 2 of your top seven players out and a third playing with a busted finger.
I wish we’d stop saying regular season games are meaningless.
In the grand scheme if we win 50 to 55 games and get to the playoffs healthy, yesterday’s game will be meaningless. But every loss is one less win.
If we lose the next 5, are they also meaningless?
Count me among those who strongly that if Thibs was still coaching that we’d be 3-0. This is not to say I wish he was still coaching….I don’t. It’s to give Brown a pass because he’s trying to get the team to play differently than they are used to and last night can be chalked up as “growing pains.”
But I will never be among those who thinks that this particular team is much better off leading the league in 3PT attempts per game, like it is right now. In fact, I would say that if we take more than 50% of our shots from 3 in the playoffs, there’s a much better chance that we will get beaten in the first round than we will make the finals. And it’s more about the personnel than the strategy (although I think it’s a dumb strategy as well.) We simply do not have the kind of roster that is suited to play that way. If we get locked into that, we will will be very susceptabe to acute variance-itis, and will likely die from it at some point.
The two teams that made it to the NBA finals last year were 16th and 21st in 3PAr last year: OKC (41.9%) and IND (40.0%)…not all that far removed from our 38.2%. Yet those teams had nearly the same 3pt% as we did, around 37%. That seems to be a sweet spot of sorts. In fact, only five team averaged over 40 attempts a game (BOS, GSW, CHI, CLE).
If you look at the per 100 possession stats, the difference between the 25th ranked Knicks (34.9) and the 4th ranked Timberwolves (40.7) is less than 6 attempts per 100 possessions. The Pacers took 0.6 more 3’s per 100, the Thunder 3.9 more. Those teams are both extremely well coached and had as good of 3pt shooters as we did, if not better. That’s the kind of balance we should be aiming for…more of a few tweaks than a complete overhaul.
Hopefully this is just Brown force-feeding them until they get used to his whole “sprays” schtick (which I personally find tiresome, even when listening to his Sacto postgames, but I digress…). This team should be taking somewhere around 38 3PA per game, with the amount varying depending on whether they are making them and opponent’s tendencies/vulnerabilities.
Aa to aesthetics, I don’t think there is any basketball uglier than a team shooting 15-54 from 3, especially when it also shot 23-44 from 2.
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Nah… that might have been what they said but their flop was more because of KP’s mystery virus, Jaylen Brown’s inability to break down defenses due to his surgical knee and Holiday’s lingering hammy.
They set all time records for shooting futility on good looks in the first two games.
Regardless, not trying to debate the cause of two second round defeats, just saying I appreciate the increase in 3PAs but I’m not going to be sold a steady diet of “we got good looks” because this isn’t exactly a roster full of dead-eye shooters. I think there was a good excuse last night: the Heat defense pushed us to the perimeter. Still, I don’t want to see Brown overcorrect and push us towards a style we don’t have the horses for.
Theoretically we have seven guys who should be shooting threes, with their percentages from last season included here:
Brunson .383
Mikal .354 (can do better)
OG .372
Towns .420
Deuce .369
Shamet .397
Yabu .380
Even if you include Yabu’s shitty 3pt shooting as a young player in Boston he’s still a .364 shooter from out there in his career and should be taking them.
That’s plenty enough 3-point shooting to be like a top 5 team in 3PAr. Maybe we don’t need to be #1 overall, but this team seems to have the personnel to take a modern shot diet: mainly 3-pointers and shots at the rim, with a couple of guys in Brunson and Bridges who excel in the midrange game.
Last night it seemed like we took a million pull-ups. You’d like to see less of that. Need more catch and shoot.
Not having Mitch makes it easy for a team with 2 good bigs to cause us a lot of problems to score at the rim. But i also think we were super slow last night. Sometimes the guy being contested by one of Miami’s bigs passed the ball to a player that was close, and that player was so slow that the defender recovered and was right there contesting him too.
Apparently the Knicks flew down to Miami Saturday but had plane issues and didn’t arrive until 2am Sunday morning.
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“Aa to aesthetics, I don’t think there is any basketball uglier than a team shooting 15-54 from 3, especially when it also shot 23-44 from 2.”
Did you not watch Yabusele yesterday?
okay then, we are 100% losing to the bucks on tuesday…we have not a chance…making peace with this less than immaculate vibe we are seeing on the court…
feels like we are super dependant on a guy that has a hard time staying on the court…best wishes to mitch’s ankle…
I think I could easily find 10+ teams with a “top 7” who could justify having a top-5 3PAr at least as much if not more than the Knicks could.
More generally, there’s a reasonable range of ways to go about taking a “modern shot diet” without hyperfixation on 3PAr. I would guess that every team has a theoretical point of diminishing returns and variance risk tolerance. Even more importantly, a team should be able to vary its shot diet significantly, both from game to game and from quarter to quarter, depending on a number of factors.
Last year, the median 3PAr was 42.2% and the upper quartile was around 44.5%.the 90th %ile was 45.8%. In terms of 3PA per game, median=37.5, UQ=39.5, 90%ile=42.0.
So where’s the cutoff for “that team has a modern shot diet? Does it depend at all on personnel? Put differently, did the 20 coaches outside of the top-10, or the 15 coaches below the median, run offenses that ran contrary to modern analytics, including Daignault and Carlisle?
My opinion is that our 3PAr should be somewhere in the 50-75th percentile, somewhere around 38-40 attempts per game, with lots of company in that range. That’s 4-6 more attempts per game than last year, which is plenty. More importantly, we should be working to get better attempts taken by better shooters in better spots.
That seems to be Brown’s MO. His 2022-23 his team finished 5th in 3PAr and 1st in ORtg. Then they lost a 7-game series in the first round where they shot .306 from 3 on a 3PAr of 41.5%. Then the next year, they finished 3rd in 3PAr and 3PA/game, but only 16th in 3PT% and 13th in ORtg. Then after beating the Warriors shooting 46% on 39 3PA, hey lost to the Pelicans in the play-in game after shooting 27% on 41 3PA (the Pels took only 19 3’s).
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At the end of the day, the Knicks don’t look all that cohesive and confident right now, and I expect that it will take 20 games or more to settle in. Brown deserves lots of grace right now, and so do the new guys. Come New Year’s Day and that leash should be tightened. And there will be zero leash in the playoffs. Last night should serve as a reminder that they are not even at, as Churchill said, the end of the beginning of the process.
theyre more fun to watch than last season though and it will be even better when the shots inevitably start falling at a better rate
Mike Brown’s Kings were 6th in 3PAs (and a wide margin away from the top 4), so I’m a little surprised to see us leading the league after 3 games.
We were 26th last year. I’d be happy with top 10. Top 1 would be an overcorrection.
Also not seeing much of KAT as a play making hub at all. Maybe it’s the injury.
Obviously it’s extremely early I’m just a little surprised.
Really nice article by Edwards in The Athletic detailing his watching nobody but Anunoby during the Miami game. It is a nice reminder that there are a ton of little things he does all the time.
He only highlighted one foul gaffe, and I seem to remember a few bad plays, but it’s still worth a read.
That’s interesting bc in the telecast last night mike Breen suggested watching only OG for a whole game to see all the little things he does.
…and Skattebo’s injury was an ankle dislocate. A big one, but still.
And I don’t know, this headline made me snicker:
‘Clippers fans taunt Blazers with ‘F-B-I’ chants following Chauncey Billups’ arrest’
And finally, The Athletic has the Knicks #2 in their power ranking (up from 4 just as the season started). So that’s something.
The “little things” OG does, again …. Hearty perennial.
In fairness, we can suppose that a new coach, a new bench, and a new style is enough change for one offseason.
Apparently the Knicks flew down to Miami Saturday but had plane issues and didn’t arrive until 2am Sunday morning.
Plenty of time to get to Club Madonna, 6AM “close”.
I pegged you as more of an E11even guy, Bob.
CLUBSPACE
That really sucks for Skattebo. Here’s to a full recovery for a very dynamic young player.
I pegged you as more of an E11even guy, Bob.
Nah… not much for clubs at 73 🙂 Although I live 7-8 months a year in Boca Raton, the last time I was in South Beach was to see a performance of La Travita at the Colony Theater on Lincoln RD.
Per NBA.com, our 3PA last night:
Very tight (closest defender 0-2 feet away): 0
Tight (2-4 feet): 3/9
Open (4-6 feet): 7/22
Wide open (6+ feet): 5/23
I think you guys are still missing my point.
We obviously shot poorly last night. That kind of volatility is nothing to be concerned about.
More important to my point, even Open and Wide Open are not necessarily the measure of shot quality. Just as important is location, the player taking the shot and the time remaining on the clock.
You can be wide open from the corner, wide open at the top of the key or on the wing or wide open from 3-4 feet past the 3 point line.
It can be OG or Mikal wide open from the corner or either open from 3 feet past the line on the wing.
It can be Yabu, Kolek or Hart open from the wing.
It can be with 18 seconds left on the clock and still having an opportunity to drive or 5 seconds left on the clock and you better shoot.
Last night’s shooting results are meaningless as evidence of anything. Look at the decison making. IMO that’s where they are still off. They took some shots I don’t think were correct even if they were technically classified as open.
An extreme example would be Hart. We get frustrated that Hart often passes on 3s when he’s open. He probably overdoes it, but he’s mostly correct to not shoot even when he’s open unless it’s his best spot on the court or it’s late in the clock. If there’s plenty of time on the clock or he can drive and draw a foul he should pass or drive.
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I think you guys are still missing my point.
Reading through the rest of the thread, my view is pretty close to Z-Man’s.
I think you guys are still missing my point.
Not really. All 3s aren’t created equal, that’s for sure. However, these guys with substantial careers have data. Not all “good” 3 point shooters are good from all spots, but the data is clear where all these guys have relative success or don’t.
Cliffs Notes: Excluding certain end game clock situations, KAT can and should hoist up a 3 any time he gets an open look at time he is within 28 or so feet. His numbers are terrific from any sector on the floor.
Brunson the same except from head on above the break. You can peruse the others at your convenience.
OG and Deuce are very good from both corners and substantially worse from other spots. Shamet is hotter than the sun from the corners and is good from everywhere else.
So, a good three needs to be calibrated with this data in mind. But it is easily quantifiable.
As best I can tell, Strat, you’re indirectly suggesting wide open 3’s should be passed up in favor of attacking two of the best defenders in the NBA while they’re packing the paint. Not sure I agree with that one.
I know you didn’t say that, but what do you think is going to happen when you pass up that open shot?
pacers signing mac mcclung and cutting wiseman for him plus zion is out tonight with an injury already
Brown did say the defense was ahead of the offense, but that’s somewhat jarring.
I mean sure, it’d be nice to be able to frequently pass to your best shooters at their most favorable spots on the floor and to also have them be unguarded but most possessions don’t really pan out that way. The other team is usually trying to prevent this outcome. If you’re a good NBA three point shooter and you get an open look you should generally take it.
Still stunned that Wiseman didn’t pan out. Can’t measure heart, I suppose…
methinks that the swapout of rozier for this improved version of norman powell might be more of a boon to the heat than previously considered (or wanted)
Doogie and I (and maybe Hubert) seem to be the only ones who think Miami is actually good and this caused a lot of problems for us.
Yeah they look like a top 5 team in the East to me. I’m a big Ware fan. Also like the kid they drafted this year. Norm Powell was a Riley heist. And Fontecchio seems like a classic Spoelstra guy. Plus they’ve got the makings of a very good defense with Wiggins, Bam, Ware.
“If you’re a good NBA three point shooter and you get an open look you should generally take it.”
As a general principle, this is certainly true. The issue is that in practice, the term “good NBA three point shooter” is blurry, and can vary situationally due to a host of factors, as can the availability of opportunities.
I like bringing up OKC and Indiana because last year both teams had plenty of “good” 3PT shooters, but still were well within the main cluster of teams in 3PAr and 3pt%. They didn’t hunt open 3’s as much as they hunted mismatches and imbalances which often resulted in good looks from 3, but didn’t have to shoot tons of 3’s for the offense to hum along. A key component for both teams is that they were top 7 in pace. OKC also had the biggest TOV% differential.
At the end of the day, the key difference in offensive production between us and OKC was that they made 1.6 more 3’s (total +4.8) while we made 1.4 more 2’s plus 0.2 more FTs (total +3 points). All of the shooting percentages were similar, so that’s where I’d like to wind up….4-6 more threes mostly arising from a faster pace, a slightly higher 3pt%, and everything else the same. Again, this seems more like tinkering than overhaul.
VJ Edgecombe is something else, can you imagine if the Spurs had drafted him?
Weird fact I just stumbled on, wrong sport and one I don’t care about so apologies all around: Sam Darnold is seventh in passer rating at 109.2, while fifth-place Daniel Jones is at 109.5.
Analytics site Pro Football Focus has graded Darnold as the No. 1 quarterback in the NFL.
VJ Edgecombe is something else, can you imagine if the Spurs had drafted him?
Harper seems pretty good himself.
16/5/4 in 26 minutes 49 FG %
Oh yeah Harper is really good but Edgecombe looks like a generational talent.
You know why I don’t give any credence to the Clippers being real challengers? Because while they could field a team with three hall of famers, they could have an average age on the court of 37.
Ohtani is not of this earth
how bout dem bulls
This game might have more base running atrocities in it than any baseball game I have ever seen
Markaten with a nice night.
And swinging at obvious ball 4 with bases loaded…
Just taking the bat out of Ohtanis hand is wack , I know it’s a rule that can be used , but it’s lame
even without shohei hitting the dodgers keep testing that outfield wall…can’t believe they haven’t won this game already…
no way this goes past the 17th…
what, the jays are pitching to shohei…this won’t end well for them…
yeah, that was four balls way away, should have just intentionally walked him, what a tease…
klein is out there running on fumes this inning…
ovah
Kind of disappointed that Yamamoto didn’t get to pitch the 19th.
78 replies on “2025-10-27 Daily Post”
i knew we wouldnt be happy with our first loss whenever it happened but i cant say that i was expecting this
Watched bits of the game. Hitting some threes would be good. This is how everyone plays and sometimes the threes just don’t fall. I think the process is good though.
I love Josh Hart but he absolutely kills the offense when he’s on the floor. If I was the opposing coach I would just instruct my team to double team Brunson or KAT and leave Hart wide open. Right now his shot is completely broken.
I feel bad for the guy but it may be time to bite the bullet and get that hand fixed. We can survive until the playoffs without him.
Its going to take time to get used to this style of play which will lead to losses like last night. Hopefully though for the most part it will lead to plenty of wins and winning quarters by 28 pts like the 2nd quarter vs Boston. Ditto playing the bench alot, you’ll get games like vs Cleveland where they played great then 4 days later they cost us the game.
Thibs wanted to control the controllables as he liked to say because he hated variance. Hence not having patience with bench players and not wanting to jack up 3s. Its a different style we’re gonna have to get used to, especially myself, but it should pay dividends in the end.
I’m not worried that much about the poor shooting. We’re 29th in the league in eFG% and that should regress to the mean in a significant way.
The more worrisome thing to me is the health status of Mitch and Josh Hart. The “busted finger” version of Hart looks like a minus player. And it’s not looking like Mitch is gonna be playing a whole lot of minutes. If we’re getting a bunch of nothing out of that guys, that places a pretty firm ceiling on us
I don’t think there’s any info in this outside of the fact that we’re shooting more threes as the team is getting more comfortable with the idea, but so far we’re shooting 35% on 40, 38% on 45, and 28% on 54 shots.
As mentioned last night, some of the threes yesterday were a tad egregious. Shamet took one on a break it seemed before any of his teammates had crossed center court (and missed). Both OG and KAT were taking multiple ones from like 27 feet (KAT can do that, OG’s long shots looked terrible). Those mostly don’t seem like they’re sensible or in the flow. Miami’s defense made doing anything else really hard, but it seemed like giving in to the easy choice. Which was probably just what Spo wanted.
Chalk it up to figuring it out, but the process is fairly fugly.
There was a stretch in the third where KAT was in foul trouble, Brown went with Yabu over Huk probably for the spacing advantage, and Kolek was in the game but OG was doing most of the ballhandling. That made me raise an eyebrow as it seemed like an extremely bad use of personnel. That lineup got smoked and looked completely hapless and disjointed.
If Kolek is going to play, you gotta let him do point guard stuff. Playing him off ball while OG Anuboby tries to cook was painful to watch.
If Friday was arguably the first “would’ve lost under Thibs” game, yesterday was arguably the first “would’ve won under Thibs” game. No one topped 37 minutes, 10 guys played, and 54 threes were taken. Last season we probably push the starters and take fewer threes (which in the isolated case of last night would’ve led to better offense, since we couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn).
I support the new style 150%. We’re not going anywhere if we don’t shoot a bunch of threes. Of course, we’ve gotta make ’em, but I thought the selection last night was mostly pretty good. Shamet, just for example, was 0/4 on 4 damn good looks.
And now for the take the will get me canceled…I still think Clarkson brings a necessary element to the team, and is mostly doing what we want him to do. The results just suck. To be clear, they may well stay that way and then we’ll have to pivot, but I’d give him a serious shot to sort it out.
Yabu’s a mess though, and I’m falling pretty firmly on the side of “Hart should just get the surgery out of the way.”
Its crazy to me that Yabu looks so out of shape considering he played in the European championship and had some really good games.
methinks that the swapout of rozier for this improved version of norman powell might be more of a boon to the heat than previously considered (or wanted)
Through 3 games, Clarkson has a .357 TS% while Yabu had a .250 TS% on 10.3% usage. The off-season looking like a disaster so far.
The Blue Jays are sending Max Scherzer (4.99 FIP) and Shane Bieber (4.47 FIP) out to pitch in the next two games of the World Series. That is not very likely to go well.
It’s going to take time for everyone to figure out the new offense and defense. I’m not worried about the ups/downs from game to game or even bad shooting nights.
However, I don’t think they’ve found the right formula for trying to shoot more 3s yet.
IMO the idea is to create high quality looks from 3.
IMO high quality means driving and kicking it to an open OG/Mikal from the corner, a wide open step into the into the shot 3 on the break, Towns trailing and stepping into a 3 and things like that. It doesn’t necessarily mean shooting a 35% or lower 3s early in the clock because you are open is the best option.
Open from 3 doesn’t always translate into the right shot depending on the shooter, location and distance. The TS% on even some technically open 3s is not going to be better than some players driving to the basket, potentially getting fouled, potentially getting an extra OREB or even creating one of those kickouts to a wide open high quality shot.
I think they’ll figure it out, but just hoisting up extra 3s of medium quality (and definitely below that) is not going to help long term. It’s going to add volatility to our results game to game and may even cause some other issues.
Was this contract Yabu’s first contract that was big enough for a change of lifestyle?
I might go out to the best restaurants and have a few extra cocktails for a few weeks after a contract that changed my life. I’m not worried about his current TS%. I think he’ll be fine. He has to be better on offense than Precious. Overall, is another issue.
Brown said post-game that he wasn’t happy cause Knicks only had 14 sprays when they were over 20 in each of the first 2 games. He was also more upset about allowing 31 fast break pts and way too many FTs.
Yeah I was just going to mention that we also got annihilated on the fast break. This is a potentially concerning problem given our lack of foot speed and overall athleticism. In a game when we’re not missing 40+ threes that’d be less of a problem, but it was concerning to watch in last night’s game.
Damn, I got threaded twice in the same morning!
My takeaways (from two hours and two threads ago):
1. We are an extremely thin team with no margin for error. At full strength, we can make the NBA Finals. But a simple injury to any of our top 5 players means we’re fucked and could lose in the 1st round.
2. Deuce is one of those top 5 players. Hart & Mitch are important but Deuce feels critical.
3. The early signs on Leon’s reinforcements (Yabu & Clarkson) are very discouraging.
Per NBA.com, our 3PA last night:
Very tight (closest defender 0-2 feet away): 0
Tight (2-4 feet): 3/9
Open (4-6 feet): 7/22
Wide open (6+ feet): 5/23
Dunno, I liked the looks. I’m not saying it’s as simple as “they’ll fall eventually”–sometimes they don’t–but things like KAT going 1/6 on “wide open” 3PA are the type of thing you have to sometimes live with if you want to raise your offensive ceiling.
And my other thought, since echoed by Noble:
For the sake of balance, you could make an argument that last night might have been a game we could have won last year. Thibs would have played Clarkson, Yabu, and Shamet 8 minutes instead of 47 bc they were all so shit. And maybe Brunson goes nuclear if he stayed in the game. But honestly I’d rather take the L than use that smoke & mirrors BS.
Matches my eye test. Thought OG got great looks and was just off. On a normal night he’d be more likely to go 8-12 with those looks than 4-12.
Landry, Clarkson, and Yabu just sucked. 0% on 12 3PAs. 25% and we win.
All that being said, this is exactly what the Celtics said after they were down 0-2. I don’t want Brown to be just as stubborn as Thibs in the other direction. I don’t think he was; I think the Heat just took away the paint. Ware and Adebayo is really hard to drive against. But it bears watching. I don’t want our offense to look like the Celtics’ last year. They had the shooters for it. We don’t.
* I do think a lot of KATs wide open 3s are because he took the shot from 6ft behind the 3pt line. It’s a shot he can make sometimes but maybe not sometimes enough. Overall, the 3pt decision making looked fine to me.
* There are going to be growing pains in a new system and there are always going to be bad shooting nights.
* OGs poor passing is a problem for this offensive system so far.
We really only get the spacing we want with the Death Lineup: Brunson/Deuce/Mikal/OG/Towns. I suppose you could swap Shamet in for Deuce and still get that quality spacing.
This is why Yabu is a wild card: if he shoots .380 like he did last year from 3pt, that allows you to play some other configurations that maintain the good spacing. When he’s barely hitting the rim with his shot attempts as has happened so far, not so much.
He has enough of a pedigree as a shooter that he should be given a chance to turn it around. He is missing short on almost all of his attempts.
Shams:
I think Clarkson is cooked, I would give oladipo a look at his spot. He looked explosive in his preseason games against NBA teams.
“The NBA informed its 30 teams that the league has begun process of reviewing policies regarding injury reporting…”
Finally an official reaction to the Mitch “injury management” reporting!
“to identify betting activity of concern”
of concern? any activity
Maybe Austin Reeves is available.
i wouldnt want a guy whos never played an nba game or oladipo at this point for that matter
Nah… that might have been what they said but their flop was more because of KP’s mystery virus, Jaylen Brown’s inability to break down defenses due to his surgical knee and Holiday’s lingering hammy.
Their offense generated different looks shot by players playing way below 100%.Varience was a big part of yesterday’s loss, but they didn’t play well in other aspects of the game.
Saturday night on South Beach before a meaningless game was a big factor with 2 of your top seven players out and a third playing with a busted finger.
I wish we’d stop saying regular season games are meaningless.
In the grand scheme if we win 50 to 55 games and get to the playoffs healthy, yesterday’s game will be meaningless. But every loss is one less win.
If we lose the next 5, are they also meaningless?
Count me among those who strongly that if Thibs was still coaching that we’d be 3-0. This is not to say I wish he was still coaching….I don’t. It’s to give Brown a pass because he’s trying to get the team to play differently than they are used to and last night can be chalked up as “growing pains.”
But I will never be among those who thinks that this particular team is much better off leading the league in 3PT attempts per game, like it is right now. In fact, I would say that if we take more than 50% of our shots from 3 in the playoffs, there’s a much better chance that we will get beaten in the first round than we will make the finals. And it’s more about the personnel than the strategy (although I think it’s a dumb strategy as well.) We simply do not have the kind of roster that is suited to play that way. If we get locked into that, we will will be very susceptabe to acute variance-itis, and will likely die from it at some point.
The two teams that made it to the NBA finals last year were 16th and 21st in 3PAr last year: OKC (41.9%) and IND (40.0%)…not all that far removed from our 38.2%. Yet those teams had nearly the same 3pt% as we did, around 37%. That seems to be a sweet spot of sorts. In fact, only five team averaged over 40 attempts a game (BOS, GSW, CHI, CLE).
If you look at the per 100 possession stats, the difference between the 25th ranked Knicks (34.9) and the 4th ranked Timberwolves (40.7) is less than 6 attempts per 100 possessions. The Pacers took 0.6 more 3’s per 100, the Thunder 3.9 more. Those teams are both extremely well coached and had as good of 3pt shooters as we did, if not better. That’s the kind of balance we should be aiming for…more of a few tweaks than a complete overhaul.
Hopefully this is just Brown force-feeding them until they get used to his whole “sprays” schtick (which I personally find tiresome, even when listening to his Sacto postgames, but I digress…). This team should be taking somewhere around 38 3PA per game, with the amount varying depending on whether they are making them and opponent’s tendencies/vulnerabilities.
Aa to aesthetics, I don’t think there is any basketball uglier than a team shooting 15-54 from 3, especially when it also shot 23-44 from 2.
They set all time records for shooting futility on good looks in the first two games.
Regardless, not trying to debate the cause of two second round defeats, just saying I appreciate the increase in 3PAs but I’m not going to be sold a steady diet of “we got good looks” because this isn’t exactly a roster full of dead-eye shooters. I think there was a good excuse last night: the Heat defense pushed us to the perimeter. Still, I don’t want to see Brown overcorrect and push us towards a style we don’t have the horses for.
Theoretically we have seven guys who should be shooting threes, with their percentages from last season included here:
Brunson .383
Mikal .354 (can do better)
OG .372
Towns .420
Deuce .369
Shamet .397
Yabu .380
Even if you include Yabu’s shitty 3pt shooting as a young player in Boston he’s still a .364 shooter from out there in his career and should be taking them.
That’s plenty enough 3-point shooting to be like a top 5 team in 3PAr. Maybe we don’t need to be #1 overall, but this team seems to have the personnel to take a modern shot diet: mainly 3-pointers and shots at the rim, with a couple of guys in Brunson and Bridges who excel in the midrange game.
Last night it seemed like we took a million pull-ups. You’d like to see less of that. Need more catch and shoot.
Not having Mitch makes it easy for a team with 2 good bigs to cause us a lot of problems to score at the rim. But i also think we were super slow last night. Sometimes the guy being contested by one of Miami’s bigs passed the ball to a player that was close, and that player was so slow that the defender recovered and was right there contesting him too.
Apparently the Knicks flew down to Miami Saturday but had plane issues and didn’t arrive until 2am Sunday morning.
“Aa to aesthetics, I don’t think there is any basketball uglier than a team shooting 15-54 from 3, especially when it also shot 23-44 from 2.”
Did you not watch Yabusele yesterday?
okay then, we are 100% losing to the bucks on tuesday…we have not a chance…making peace with this less than immaculate vibe we are seeing on the court…
feels like we are super dependant on a guy that has a hard time staying on the court…best wishes to mitch’s ankle…
I think I could easily find 10+ teams with a “top 7” who could justify having a top-5 3PAr at least as much if not more than the Knicks could.
More generally, there’s a reasonable range of ways to go about taking a “modern shot diet” without hyperfixation on 3PAr. I would guess that every team has a theoretical point of diminishing returns and variance risk tolerance. Even more importantly, a team should be able to vary its shot diet significantly, both from game to game and from quarter to quarter, depending on a number of factors.
Last year, the median 3PAr was 42.2% and the upper quartile was around 44.5%.the 90th %ile was 45.8%. In terms of 3PA per game, median=37.5, UQ=39.5, 90%ile=42.0.
So where’s the cutoff for “that team has a modern shot diet? Does it depend at all on personnel? Put differently, did the 20 coaches outside of the top-10, or the 15 coaches below the median, run offenses that ran contrary to modern analytics, including Daignault and Carlisle?
My opinion is that our 3PAr should be somewhere in the 50-75th percentile, somewhere around 38-40 attempts per game, with lots of company in that range. That’s 4-6 more attempts per game than last year, which is plenty. More importantly, we should be working to get better attempts taken by better shooters in better spots.
That seems to be Brown’s MO. His 2022-23 his team finished 5th in 3PAr and 1st in ORtg. Then they lost a 7-game series in the first round where they shot .306 from 3 on a 3PAr of 41.5%. Then the next year, they finished 3rd in 3PAr and 3PA/game, but only 16th in 3PT% and 13th in ORtg. Then after beating the Warriors shooting 46% on 39 3PA, hey lost to the Pelicans in the play-in game after shooting 27% on 41 3PA (the Pels took only 19 3’s).
At the end of the day, the Knicks don’t look all that cohesive and confident right now, and I expect that it will take 20 games or more to settle in. Brown deserves lots of grace right now, and so do the new guys. Come New Year’s Day and that leash should be tightened. And there will be zero leash in the playoffs. Last night should serve as a reminder that they are not even at, as Churchill said, the end of the beginning of the process.
theyre more fun to watch than last season though and it will be even better when the shots inevitably start falling at a better rate
Mike Brown’s Kings were 6th in 3PAs (and a wide margin away from the top 4), so I’m a little surprised to see us leading the league after 3 games.
We were 26th last year. I’d be happy with top 10. Top 1 would be an overcorrection.
Also not seeing much of KAT as a play making hub at all. Maybe it’s the injury.
Obviously it’s extremely early I’m just a little surprised.
Really nice article by Edwards in The Athletic detailing his watching nobody but Anunoby during the Miami game. It is a nice reminder that there are a ton of little things he does all the time.
He only highlighted one foul gaffe, and I seem to remember a few bad plays, but it’s still worth a read.
That’s interesting bc in the telecast last night mike Breen suggested watching only OG for a whole game to see all the little things he does.
…and Skattebo’s injury was an ankle dislocate. A big one, but still.
And I don’t know, this headline made me snicker:
‘Clippers fans taunt Blazers with ‘F-B-I’ chants following Chauncey Billups’ arrest’
And finally, The Athletic has the Knicks #2 in their power ranking (up from 4 just as the season started). So that’s something.
The “little things” OG does, again …. Hearty perennial.
In fairness, we can suppose that a new coach, a new bench, and a new style is enough change for one offseason.
Plenty of time to get to Club Madonna, 6AM “close”.
I pegged you as more of an E11even guy, Bob.
CLUBSPACE
That really sucks for Skattebo. Here’s to a full recovery for a very dynamic young player.
Nah… not much for clubs at 73 🙂 Although I live 7-8 months a year in Boca Raton, the last time I was in South Beach was to see a performance of La Travita at the Colony Theater on Lincoln RD.
I think you guys are still missing my point.
We obviously shot poorly last night. That kind of volatility is nothing to be concerned about.
More important to my point, even Open and Wide Open are not necessarily the measure of shot quality. Just as important is location, the player taking the shot and the time remaining on the clock.
You can be wide open from the corner, wide open at the top of the key or on the wing or wide open from 3-4 feet past the 3 point line.
It can be OG or Mikal wide open from the corner or either open from 3 feet past the line on the wing.
It can be Yabu, Kolek or Hart open from the wing.
It can be with 18 seconds left on the clock and still having an opportunity to drive or 5 seconds left on the clock and you better shoot.
Last night’s shooting results are meaningless as evidence of anything. Look at the decison making. IMO that’s where they are still off. They took some shots I don’t think were correct even if they were technically classified as open.
An extreme example would be Hart. We get frustrated that Hart often passes on 3s when he’s open. He probably overdoes it, but he’s mostly correct to not shoot even when he’s open unless it’s his best spot on the court or it’s late in the clock. If there’s plenty of time on the clock or he can drive and draw a foul he should pass or drive.
Reading through the rest of the thread, my view is pretty close to Z-Man’s.
Not really. All 3s aren’t created equal, that’s for sure. However, these guys with substantial careers have data. Not all “good” 3 point shooters are good from all spots, but the data is clear where all these guys have relative success or don’t.
Cliffs Notes: Excluding certain end game clock situations, KAT can and should hoist up a 3 any time he gets an open look at time he is within 28 or so feet. His numbers are terrific from any sector on the floor.
Brunson the same except from head on above the break. You can peruse the others at your convenience.
OG and Deuce are very good from both corners and substantially worse from other spots. Shamet is hotter than the sun from the corners and is good from everywhere else.
So, a good three needs to be calibrated with this data in mind. But it is easily quantifiable.
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/kat-shot-chart-career
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/brunson-shot-chart-career
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/anunoby-shot-chart-career
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/mcbride-shot-chart-career
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/landry-shamet-shot-chart-career
As best I can tell, Strat, you’re indirectly suggesting wide open 3’s should be passed up in favor of attacking two of the best defenders in the NBA while they’re packing the paint. Not sure I agree with that one.
I know you didn’t say that, but what do you think is going to happen when you pass up that open shot?
pacers signing mac mcclung and cutting wiseman for him plus zion is out tonight with an injury already
Early season narratives may be a little off:
Brown did say the defense was ahead of the offense, but that’s somewhat jarring.
I mean sure, it’d be nice to be able to frequently pass to your best shooters at their most favorable spots on the floor and to also have them be unguarded but most possessions don’t really pan out that way. The other team is usually trying to prevent this outcome. If you’re a good NBA three point shooter and you get an open look you should generally take it.
Still stunned that Wiseman didn’t pan out. Can’t measure heart, I suppose…
Doogie and I (and maybe Hubert) seem to be the only ones who think Miami is actually good and this caused a lot of problems for us.
Yeah they look like a top 5 team in the East to me. I’m a big Ware fan. Also like the kid they drafted this year. Norm Powell was a Riley heist. And Fontecchio seems like a classic Spoelstra guy. Plus they’ve got the makings of a very good defense with Wiggins, Bam, Ware.
“If you’re a good NBA three point shooter and you get an open look you should generally take it.”
As a general principle, this is certainly true. The issue is that in practice, the term “good NBA three point shooter” is blurry, and can vary situationally due to a host of factors, as can the availability of opportunities.
I like bringing up OKC and Indiana because last year both teams had plenty of “good” 3PT shooters, but still were well within the main cluster of teams in 3PAr and 3pt%. They didn’t hunt open 3’s as much as they hunted mismatches and imbalances which often resulted in good looks from 3, but didn’t have to shoot tons of 3’s for the offense to hum along. A key component for both teams is that they were top 7 in pace. OKC also had the biggest TOV% differential.
At the end of the day, the key difference in offensive production between us and OKC was that they made 1.6 more 3’s (total +4.8) while we made 1.4 more 2’s plus 0.2 more FTs (total +3 points). All of the shooting percentages were similar, so that’s where I’d like to wind up….4-6 more threes mostly arising from a faster pace, a slightly higher 3pt%, and everything else the same. Again, this seems more like tinkering than overhaul.
VJ Edgecombe is something else, can you imagine if the Spurs had drafted him?
Weird fact I just stumbled on, wrong sport and one I don’t care about so apologies all around: Sam Darnold is seventh in passer rating at 109.2, while fifth-place Daniel Jones is at 109.5.
Analytics site Pro Football Focus has graded Darnold as the No. 1 quarterback in the NFL.
Harper seems pretty good himself.
16/5/4 in 26 minutes 49 FG %
Oh yeah Harper is really good but Edgecombe looks like a generational talent.
You know why I don’t give any credence to the Clippers being real challengers? Because while they could field a team with three hall of famers, they could have an average age on the court of 37.
Ohtani is not of this earth
how bout dem bulls
This game might have more base running atrocities in it than any baseball game I have ever seen
Markaten with a nice night.
And swinging at obvious ball 4 with bases loaded…
Just taking the bat out of Ohtanis hand is wack , I know it’s a rule that can be used , but it’s lame
even without shohei hitting the dodgers keep testing that outfield wall…can’t believe they haven’t won this game already…
no way this goes past the 17th…
what, the jays are pitching to shohei…this won’t end well for them…
yeah, that was four balls way away, should have just intentionally walked him, what a tease…
klein is out there running on fumes this inning…
ovah
Kind of disappointed that Yamamoto didn’t get to pitch the 19th.