surprised to see sochan still in the rotation for the spurs, thought he was just a mascot now, incredible athleticism but crazy raw talent…pop and the spurs rode him to a bunch of top draft picks though…

interesting to see houston using thompson at the point, that sheppard pick might have been a miss for them…

Yeah, that’s it but unfortunately misses the nice Mikal-OG action at the start. Feels like we don’t see much run with those 2 together

The extent to which we’re involving these guys in off-ball actions feels like one of the standout differences between this season and last.

I felt like I was going a bit crazy last season watching a team of good shooters just not shoot very much, and I started to wonder if Thomas knew something I didn’t (which, to be clear, is true across a wide variety of basketball domains).

Maybe our guys were just not capable of creating the kind of looks we needed to generate to be a high-volume 3PA team. It seemed like a dubious proposition based on my isolated observations of everyone’s ball skills and mobility, but it was hard to believe we truly were just leaving points on the table.

Lotta season left to play, but turns out…yeah, good chance we were doing that.

Yeah, that’s it but unfortunately misses the nice Mikal-OG action at the start. Feels like we don’t see much run with those 2 together

Not sure this will be at all clear, but I’ll try to describe one set I really loved. There was a play with around 7:30 left in the 1Q where the Knicks in semi-transition:

I think I found it?

This.

Shot Clock 23: Mikal cuts from the left elbow to the right corner.

Shot Clock 20: Brunson brings ball up to slightly right of top of the arc.

Shot Clock 19: OG who started in the right corner, takes a step forward to screen Mikal’s defender as Mikal passes him on the baseline side.

Shot Clock 18: Mikal receives pass in right corner from Brunson. Mikal & OG’s defenders both lunge at Mikal. OG slips as Mikal lobs him a pass over their heads.

Shot Clock 16: OG catches the lob under hoop. Gobert meets OG there after leaving Hart. Hart begins cutting to basket.

Shot Clock 15: OG passes to cutting Hart. McDaniels leaves Brunson to meet Hart a step in from FT line.

Shot Clock 14: Hart stops, pivots, and throws pass to Brunson beyond the arc. Donte leaves Mikal to run at Brunson.

Shot Clock 13: Mikal receives pass in right corner and drains the 3.

That’s 5 passes in the time it would have taken us to get into a set under Thibs.

I don’t recall Thibs ever running that play in the corner with a Mikal-OG tandem who sometimes ran something similar with a wing-big combo, usually only when we played 2 non-shooting bigs.

“We can count dribbles per possession and all these other crazy analytical stats but I think in the end you put the ball in the hands of your best player and that’s what Tom Thibodeau did.”

I disagree with Popper 100%. That was the biggest problem.

There is an enormous amount of offensive talent on this team. The problem with the offense in the second half of the season last year was that there was very little strategic player and ball movement. There were too many possessions where everyone was standing around watching Brunson dribble away the whole possession looking to create a shot for himself. Admittedly, he’s very good at that and we need that late in the clock. But there’s no way in hell that’s optimal for Brunson, let alone the team. The offense actually looked better at times when Brunson was out injured and a couple of other players (like OG) went on a tear because we were forced to move to ball to get shots. There’s no way it should even be possible that when our best player is out, other players are playing better (not just scoring more points but playing better).

I’m not saying we have it all mastered at this point, but there’s obviously been more of an effort to keep players and the ball moving and it has translated into much better results for OG and Mikal. Brown is also not afraid to go small and play 5 out with Shamet or Deuce when the matchups are right.

I’m not worried about Brunson.

Towns has been less than 100%.

I’m not worried about the offense at all.

It’s the defense that could be an issue.

If the Knicks can’t make this offense work, then the team needs to be blown up.