Categories
Game Thread

2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks @ Heat: Road Opener

The Knicks head to Miami to take on the new look Miami Heat (by “new look,” I, of course, mean the “Totally jumbled up mess of a lineup Miami Heat”).

This is the Knicks’ first road game, so it’s a test in that regard, but otherwise, this Heat team is a mess (although they did just drop 146 points in their previous game, a win over Memphis, but that seems to be more of a shot at Memphis than a feather in Miami’s cap), so the Knicks should win this one.

Let’s go, Knicks!

I can’t wait for 58!

170 replies on “2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks @ Heat: Road Opener”

Fuck. I have to use the Gotham Sports App for the first time tonight. Great, can’t wait to spend half the night trying to sign into my account.

At the arena in Miami for the game tonight. Let’s go Knicks!

Sad news about Nick Mangold. RIP. At least the Jets honored him with a win today.

Good god. You can’t actually press the sign in button on the gotham sports app when you have it on your TV. It’s just an endless loop of entering your email address. Why??????

Just tried to log in using VPN, no dice. Will have to follow via the comments….

Cool, all I had to do was delete the gotham sports app, unplug my samsung tv, wait 60 seconds, plug my tv back in, reinstall the gotham sports app, reset my password, sign in to my TV provider, and now I’m good to go. EASY PEASY!

Damn. I can’t believe this game is blacked out in NY! Thank God for League Pass. It’s easier for
Me to watch Knick games
Here in Florida!

Arena is 1/3 Knick fans for the Heat home opener.

Looks like Heat fans actually showed up for the start of the game.

Must be a promotion or something , show up before 6 pm and get a coupon for a free hot dog.

Pat Riley must have been holding a gun when he traded Kevin Love & Kyle Anderson for Norm Powell.

I’m all for shooting more 3s because I know its important to do so but I fucking hate watching this type of offense when the 3s are just bricks left and right…

Looks like Heat fans actually showed up for the start of the game.

It’s the Heat home opener.

BBA, agree with you, but the Knicks are driving and driving and the Heat are completely sealing things off. The three is about all that’s left.

Anyone else see the Jaylen Brown hair dye video?

My son showed it to me “Dad, dad, you have to come and see this” 😉 😀

Losing this game would be super annoying cause the Heat roster is mostly hot garbage especially without Herro.

When the old players talk about how much they hate today’s NBA these past few mins is a perfect example why…

When the old players talk about how much they hate today’s NBA these past few mins is a perfect example why…

I don’t think you have to be an old player to call this basketball at it’s ugliest

I was so starved for non-Brunson dribble penetration last year it makes me irrationally willing to look past a lot of Clarkson’s foolishness

We’ve had some stagnancy, but I mostly don’t mind our offensive process. Keep getting them up.

Another game where if we were shooting even within a standard deviation of the league average we’d be blowing them out. Thats actually a good thing, despite how horrible it is to watch in real time.

Clyde is still in his prime.

“Pat Riley and I came into the league the same year. He tried to guard me and that’s how he ended up as a coach.”

2

I’d like to see KAT’s number in the alternate universe where he actually takes all his top of the key pump fakes

Alright, I mean, frustrating half, but that block is going on OG’s career highlight reel

1

“Pat Riley and I came into the league the same year. He tried to guard me and that’s how he ended up as a coach.”

GOAT level line. 😉

Defense has been fantastic. We’re getting good shots just not hitting them. We got time to get it right. I’m still not “worried.”

Bridges needs to be shooting more.

KAT gets baited but my god the lack of calls is egregious. If he had half of the Embiid whistle he’d be a 30 ppg on an off night.

Also every year i forget how much I hate the Heat until we play them and my blood boils, Fuck you Bam.

I freaking love Hart cause his hustling plus rebounding is still incredible but if this is how he’s gonna be shooting all season long with that finger…

We wanted more 3Ps, but maybe KAT should stop with the deep 3s unless he’s feeling it. He shot twice of those in the same play.

Yeah, the deep threes aren’t great (OG took one that was almost from the logo, with predictable results). I say no, unless you’re Wemby, in which case it’s like a foul shot.

The bench being 1-11 from 3 (with only four 2PAs) might not be good process. Need some diversity from that group.

OG & KAT being 2-12 is just unlucky. Those are mostly good shots.

It’s a statement against interest as someone who identifies as Hukcurious, but he’s been invisible tonight.

But, keep getting ‘em up.

OG: 11 points on 10 shots
KAT: 7 points on 9 shots
Huk: 0 points on 2 shots
Yabu: 0 points on 1 shot
Clarkson: 4 points on 5 shots
Shamet: 0 points on 1 shot
Kolek: 5 points on 5 shots

Feels like if KAT is standing anywhere near an opposing 3pt attempt it’s guaranteed to go in.

Yabusele is an effective screener because it literally takes two seconds for the defender to run around his gigantic ass

1

If Hart isn’t getting an offensive reb he’s a huge liability on offense right now.

2

If they’re going to run this fugly lineup out there they at least gotta try and run something organized, get the ball into Kolek’s hands and let him try to create something.

This looks like a Captain has to bail Knicks out on his own game….
If 4 finger Josh is going to shoot like this, Brown has a dilemna

Knicks cannot make a
Shot. Hart’s finger is obviously bothering him. Shamet is 0-fer.

And this arena is so f’n loud.

I woke up very earlier than I wanted but it meant I could watch this whole game but what a disaster. Our defense is ok, but everything else is losing this game.

Games like this are where you could use Clarkson’s shot creation. That whole extended period in the third we were trying to do some “ball movement” based offense but the guys trying to do the ball movement were OG, Hart, Dammit Shamet, and Guerschon Kardashian.

ISO-Clarkson probably would have gotten better results to whatever the eff that was.

Yabu & Clarkson are 3-17 tonight, -15 & -17, respectively.

Brunson & Bridges were all alone on offense tonight.

Yabu would fit in better on those shitty pre-thibs era teams….guys just collecting their checks

Not a great loss, but pretty much can be chalked up to bad variance and the bench really stinking it up. You gotta let them play through it though. On to the next.

1

It seems that we may only have 4 good offensive players. So when one is out and one is shit, we’re fucked.

I’d wait more than 3 games to determine if a player can be in a rotation

Yabu has played successful minutes in the NBA not long ago, so I’m going to chalk this one up as a bit of a nadir. He was so bad in this game it was genuinely funny. He’s not THIS bad because nobody is this bad.

I don’t think 2.8 BPM Josh Hart is going to be joining the party anytime soon, and he does not look like a plus player in his current state.

OG: 11 points on 10 shots
KAT: 7 points on 9 shots
Huk: 0 points on 2 shots
Yabu: 0 points on 1 shot
Clarkson: 4 points on 5 shots
Shamet: 0 points on 1 shot
Kolek: 5 points on 5 shots

Update:
OG: 14 points on 13 shots
KAT: 15 points on 14 shots
Huk: 0 points on 2 shots
Yabu: 2 points on 6 shots
Clarkson: 8 points on 11 shots
Shamet: 0 points on 4 shots
Kolek: 5 points on 6 shots

But hey, we did shoot 54 threes!

That’s three straight poor shooting games so the hope is some of these shots start going in. Deuce was really missed tonight on both ends.

I don’t mind losing to Powell and Bam but when you let Vasquez and Fonnteccio go off you deserve to lose

Shamet: 0 points on 4 shots

Shamet has to make shots as he is the easiest guy to cut. Matthews maybe should’ve got the spot over him

The bench has to show up because the coach isn’t going to run the starters into the ground

Could be plenty of bench loses this season if Yabu and Clarkson don’t get it together eventually

The Heat are a reasonably solid team, so you can’t shoot that poorly and expect to beat them. In fact, the way we played, we would have lost to just about every team in the NBA. Maybe some G-League teams as well.

Mikal looked good again, though! That’s something!

cyber you picked the wrong game not to sleep through! 😀

Unlike Geo’s, my sleep is not protecting me from harm. 😀

1

Shots not falling is always a factor but i saw also a great Spo preparation for the game guarding high on the 3p line while also taking away our fast game of the previous two performances.
Players body language wasn’t great too.
You could feel the loss before the end of the 3rd q…

Mikal looked good again, though! That’s something!

Small sample size obviously but he’s shooting 52.4% overall and 42.9% from three. Pretty much exactly what we need from him.

Deuce was really missed tonight on both ends.

Critical because he plays both sides.

We shot some bad 3s tonight guys. This is what I was talking about earlier. It’s not about the volume of 3s. It’s about the quality. You have to create more high quality 3s not default to chucking up more 3s.

Yabusele got 5 offensive rebounds in 16 minutes, but I’d be surprised if any of those ended up leading to Knick baskets.

Anyway it was the free throws that did us in. Norman Powell was like freakin’ James Harden out there. They had 10 more FTA than us, and that combined with the terrible 3PT shooting did us in.

confession time cyber, I had switched the TV to something else by halftime…

my constitution wasn’t sturdy enough today for new york knickerbocker viewing…72 hours of listening to my 2 sons going back and forth at each hour has weakened me a bit…

was hoping.to hide out in my room and escape with the knicks for a while…the knicks are not the current solution I seek…

takes a special breed of fan to endure…more fun today to watch some sport stuff i didn’t care about…

when the going gets tough – time for some ice cream…mmmmmmm, yummmm, sundae with some strawberry ice cream…

life is good again…

With you there, Strat. There were a cacophony of upchuck chucks. KAT gets one logo three a game, two if he makes the first. Nobody else should be doing that unless time is about to run out.

Yabu and Clarkson shooting 17% on 17 shots was not a good thing. Nor was their each going 0-4 from three. I know it’s just three games, but if Brown cut them later tonight my eyes would be dry. Because it’s not just the shooting.

We shot some bad 3s tonight guys. This is what I was talking about earlier. It’s not about the volume of 3s. It’s about the quality. You have to create more high quality 3s not default to chucking up more 3s.

I thought most of them were good, open, spot-up attempts (excluding KAT, but he gets to shoot from wherever).

OG, in particular, was getting great looks. So were Shamet, Clarkson, and Yabu.

Those three bench guys were 0-12 and most of those 12 were good shots. If they shoot 25% on their open looks instead of 0% we win the game. Those guys might just suck.

I thought the Heat played very good defense and are not a bad team at all. It wasn’t just that we couldn’t shoot. Our starters were ok but our bench couldn’t score and only Hart, who got rebounds snd assists, played well off the bench. I have the intuition that Diawara, with his mobility, could have helped, but I’m probably wrong about that.

It’s not like we played great and blew out our opponents the first two games. I am personally not thrilled by the way we have been playing so far but it’s only game three. Spoelstra is very smart. I expected this tonight. Mike Brown said a few good things at the press conference. Let’s wait and see.

Brunson was a + 6

Kolek (-) 12

That’s a 18 point swing

Entire bench was awful

Brunson, Bridges, and Deuce seem healthy and in a great place. OG and KAT are lagging but not altogether lost… not sure why Hart is waiting until June to get surgery. It seems like he needs it now.

My takeaways from last night:

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.

And 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.

Comments are closed.