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2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Cavaliers: Opening Night!

Ha, thought it was a primetime game. My apologies.

90 replies on “2025-26 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Cavaliers: Opening Night!”

Heck of a half. For those who missed that lineup:

Brunson
Deuce
Shamet
Mikal
OG

21 3PAs, a well executed 2-for-1, a lot of time with 5 out lineups, and using 11 players. Thanks, Mike Brown.

The Cavs have 22 3PAs. I’m too lazy to look up, but pretty sure we were never in the same stratosphere as they were in any of the 4 games last season.

Meanwhile, in the Thibs timeline…

the Knicks trail 45-42, Mikal Bridges played all 24 minutes, an injured Josh Hart played 22, and 80% of the plays run have involved Hart setting a screen for Brunson while everyone else stands still. Some folks are concerned bc Mitch left the game in the 1Q after seeming to re-aggravate his injury. Nevertheless, a lazy journalist just tweeted that Thibs is “maximizing winning” bc only 8 players have entered the game. And of course someone on KB is calling everyone a ghoul for thinking it could be better.

2

Well, that was a very exciting first half of the first game of the season. Some takeaways:

Huk is definitely NBA ready. Another fantastic late second-round pick. A reasonable facsimile of Mitch while he’s out.

Bridges clearly was not happy last year. A totally different player on both ends. This guy was worth…well, at least a few picks.

I would HATE to be guarded by OG.

KAT apparently prepared to commit 2 dumb fouls every game, not willing to shed that label yet.

Kolek maybe isn’t totally terrible after all? We now know why Brogdan retired.

Most important: Brown not disappointing so far. First, he played 11 guys. 11 guys! My brain nearly exploded seeing Jemisen in there with Kolek, Shamet, and Yabu. Just wow. Tbh, I think it was one guy too many, but still, our main players are gonna be so much fresher. And we took so many 3s… Very nice to see. I’m hoping we stop throwing it to the other team – dumb TOs are the only reason we’re not up 20. Ok, that and the open 3s we keep giving up. But this early in the season, it’s about process, not results, and the process looks good.

Also: offensive rebounds is as much the story as the foul shots. We got so many of them! Huk has been great. Which we need, since Brunson has not.

Oof, Knickerblogger staff still in preseason mode. Had solid Latin fusion at Coppelia tonight at least

At least the Knicks are ready for the season!

OG!!!

Liked that drive and dish from Bridges. Feel like we didn’t see a lot of that last year.

I’m doing my best not to overreact to 60% of game 1 but it’s hard to shake the feeling we left a lot on the table last year huh?

1

I’m doing my best not to overreact to 60% of game 1 but it’s hard to shake the feeling we left a lot on the table last year huh?

Why you such a ghoul, bro?

Yabusele is 0-2 with one rebound in 12 minutes so far. Totally useless.

I’d rather give his minutes to Jemison, or Shamet. Or, you know, Diawara.

Looks like Brown agrees with me that Jemison better than Yabu. At least Jemison isn’t wasting offensive possessions, by, you know, shooting and missing. And I think his defense is better.

Fairly predictable from Donovan after a quiet first half. He’s a great player.

I fell like Kolek made one to many passes. He was very close to the basket and coukd have taken a shot when he passed to Anunoby in the corner.

From watching the Yankees season embarrassingly end to this bullshit I’m getting too old for this…

Kolek would have a bushel full of assists if the Knicks hadn’t forgotten how to shoot. Wide open clankers.

Probably shouldn’t be giving the Donovan Mitchell assignment to Landry Shamet

I’m pretty sure the worst idea I ever had (not just here, but anywhere) was when I thought a Brunson Mitchell backcourt would be too small.

Brown not coaching like its game 7 of the ECF, not necessarily to Knicks advantage tonight. But maybe in the long run

The extremely rare OG double double is surely a good omen for this season

1

I’ve always wondered why OG isn’t a better rebounder and this game feels like it’s from Earth 2 on that front

Just checking in… Deuce is gonna be huge this year.

Edit: Glad their guys do dumb shit too.

Edit: ugh come on

It’s so fun to see Deuce/Mikal/OG together on defense,

Brown should probably be doing offense/defense subs here with Brunson.

Mitchell Robinson still getting the best of Jarrett Allen, and Mitch isn’t even playing

This is what Wing Stop was supposed to look like.

I was about to post this

OG was really good but had some jaw-dropping turnovers; Towns was good but had really stupid fouls; Jalen was 12-13 from the line but shot poop from the field; to me the hero of this game, offensively and defensively, was Deuce.

This was a fantastic win, damn. Process and results.

OG played 37 min, but nobody else over 35.

Well that was fun! Without Mitch and Josh I thought we might struggle in this one, that’s a real nice win.

OG was really good but had some jaw-dropping turnovers; Towns was good but had really stupid fouls; Jalen was 12-13 from the line but shot poop from the field; to me the hero of this game, offensively and defensively, was Deuce.

Mikal with 16pts, 5 rebs, 6 asts, 3 stls, 2 blks

Definitely a good game.

By the way, the Raptors are winning big over Atlanta and the Bulls have an eighteen point lead over the Pistons. Two results I was not expecting.

OG was really good but had some jaw-dropping turnovers; Towns was good but had really stupid fouls; Jalen was 12-13 from the line but shot poop from the field; to me the hero of this game, offensively and defensively, was Deuce.

100%. But the on/off feels right to me – Deuce and OG were great, despite OG’s terrible TOs.

Like that Brown gave Jemison & Kolek some run. Helps team in long run. Something Thibs refused to do.

1

Did Deuce play more minutes with our top 4 tonight than he did all last year?

Like that Brown gave Jemison & Kolek some run. Helps team in long run. Something Thibs refused to do.

I actually don’t mind listening to MB talk basketball, communicates well…just those changes alone, huge…

also sat yabu…the bench played really well…

ha, huk was trying to nab a Mobley jersey after the game 😊

I was pretty happy with how everyone filled the role they were given. Yabu was the most glaringly “meh” for me.

Re: Game 2 on ESPN, the Luka trade was so incredibly stupid that you forget how friggin’ good Anthony Davis still is.

1

2 years ago Embiid would have put up 60 on this trash Celtics frontcourt and tonight he was 1-9, he might be just phycially shot

Seeing the ball movement, the 3P attempts, and, most of all, the 11 man rotation on game 1 of the season was a huge breath of fresh air. We just look looser out there and got the W despite looking like we had a ton of room to grow. Really excellent stuff!

Maybe Tyler Kolek is the kind of player who just doesn’t show out in situations like G League and preseason garbage time, and is actually a competent little player when surrounded by rotation-quality players. He missed a bunny and his teammates missed some easy shots off of his dishes, and he still had a perfectly decent box score line in 14 minutes.

2 years ago Embiid would have put up 60 on this trash Celtics frontcourt and tonight he was 1-9, he might be just phycially shot

2 FTAs in 20 min. He only shot fewer than 2 FTs three times in the last three seasons (and one was when he played only 16 min).

So just checking — watching ESPN, there was an early dunk, I think by a Knick, and the screen suddenly flashed with a bunch of weird stuff sort of like a home run with angle and height and speed off the bat, that sort of thing. It was too fast to read, and possibly too fast to even acknowledge. If it did actually happen, it was clearly also too stupid to repeat. But did I just have a seizure?

Raven,

It happened and I was also very confused. They’re clearly workshopping a new graphic but it imparted even less information than a replacement level graphic does.

man pop rode jeremy sochan to an incredibly talented young san antonio core…

castle and vassel are a terrific pair, haven’t noticed fox and harper at all…

edit: okay, there’s harper 😊

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