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OG Anunoby overcomes off offensive night, plays late hero for Knicks against Hawks – SNY
Knicks 128, Hawks 125: But if Thibs was coaching…. – Posting & Toasting
New York’s biggest sports stories of 2025 include Knicks playoff run, Mets collapse and Jaxson Dart – New York Daily News
Game Thread: Knicks at Hawks, December 27, 2025 – Posting & Toasting
How to watch Knicks vs. Hawks: TV channel and streaming options for December 27 – The New York Times
Kevin McCullar Jr. latest Knicks youngster to shine with extended opportunity – SNY
Knicks Youth Movement 2.0 Is REAL… But Here’s the Big Concern | Knicks Weekly EP 140 – Knicks Fan TV
Top 5 Knicks Moments of 2025 | KFS Weekly Recap | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
The Run.down Knicks vs Hawks Postgame Show – The Strickland
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59 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.12.29)”
Expected Lineup
PG Jalen Brunson
SG Mikal Bridges
SF OG Anunoby
PF M. Diawara
C K. Towns
MAY NOT PLAY
G M. McBride Ques
F Josh Hart Out
C M. Robinson Out
G L. Shamet Out
Expected Lineup
PG J. Fears
SG B. McGowens
SF Trey Murphy
PF Saddiq Bey
C Derik Queen
MAY NOT PLAY
G J. Alvarado Out
F H. Jones Out
G D. Murray Out
Football corner…
Seems like the Giants didn’t really hurt themselves much with that win, but they kill themselves if they beat the Cowboys. Unfortunately all indications are they will treat that game as their Super Bowl combined with the emotion of “win one for the gipper” (an ill Mara).
If we trust JK’s instinct about the Raiders beating KC, the Jets are in great position to capitalize on the stupidity of the two teams ahead of them.
But if things end as they are now, and the Giants have the #2 pick in a 2 QB draft, they’ll be in great shape. The trade everyone keeps mocking is the Jets giving up their two 1sts and 2nd to move up. If you trust Dart, you do that all day. But if the Jets are down at 4, maybe you even trade down again for a second haul.
All I know is Joe Schoen hasn’t earned the right to be the guy making that decision. I give him credit for some good moves but please let’s move on already.
Presented without comment:
“[McCullar] was scheduled on my little minutes sheet to come in at the 8-minute mark of the first quarter. I was going to throw him on Trae just to see what happens,” coach Mike Brown said. “Kev’s a young, really good defender, has a great feel on both ends of the floor, but especially that end of the floor. I wanted to give him a chance. I threw him out there a few minutes and he was fantastic. So, he just earned more minutes. I didn’t have him down for that many minutes, but he definitely earned those minutes as the game went along.”
Last year at this time we were 21-10 and in the midst of a 9-game winning streak. And that was without a single game of Mitch and following a major roster overhaul. We had either the #1 or #2 offense in the NBA.
The vibes this year are much better, and it’s nice to see the kids play and have a verbose and upbeat coach who tries lots of new things in ways that make sense, to the point where there isn’t a single hater on the blog or pretty much anywhere in the media. We also don’t have the “signature” losses we did last year at this time. There’s clearly plenty of cause for optimism.
But speaking strictly about team performance up until this point in time, there really isn’t much daylight between this season and last.
Basically agree as the difference between the first and second pick is 400 points (the equivlent of a mid second round pick). Winning Sunday would be a disaster as that could move them to 7th which would be equal to losing the value of 3 mid second round picks or an additional mid first round pick.
My only worry is Jerry Jones is just Machivellian enough to shut down Prescott/Lamb and Pickens to prevent their competitors from improving.
really loved the most recent edwards article sitting with jalen for a few minutes and asking good questions about specific film. i would have picked different plays but that’s nitpicking. it’s great.
While this years team is only one game better at this point, I think the way they have gotten there is quite different and a better process for the long term.
Last season the Knicks’ starting 5 was 1st, 3rd, 5th, 14th and 20th in the entire NBA in MPG which is patently absurd. This season only Brunson (8th) and Bridges (13th) show up in the top 20 in MPG. That’s a huge difference.
Last season there is no way on earth Thibs whould have tried McCuellar on Trae. Not to say it would have worked, but the notion of experimenting was just not in his DNA. And that rigidity got the Knicks deep in the playoffs and simultaneously cost the Knicks a chance to move onward.
The guy was successful, and it might be hard to out perform last season, but he had run his course with this group and I prefer not throwing rock at every situation.
Our top 7 have missed a combined 38 games so far, Kolek sat or played token minutes for another 10 games, and whoever replaces Yabu missed 250 total minutes whether or not he played in any of those games.
We also won a championship, which was kinda nice.
I’m not much of a football fan, but why would the Giants draft another QB with such a high pick when they already seem to have the starting QB position settled? I would think they’d immediately start building around him with that pick by either using it or trading down for even more depth.
If it’s a two QB draft (I can’t tell at all) and the Raiders select a QB at #1, it seems to me the Jets just have to make sure whoever else selects ahead of them other than the Giants doesn’t want a QB. Because they should be able to trade up to #3 if they have to. It’s the Raiders that are an issue.
as a jet fan…i can see it unfold with bills resting allen and trubisky playing and we rally and win the last game in that god forsaken stadium and fall from 3rd to 7th or 8th….that is almost a certainty in the eyes of a jet fan…
can we just surreptitiously send yabu back to philly and bring his former teammate adem bona to play for us under the radar maybe they wont notice
Through 31 games…
Last season: 120 ORTG
This season: 122.2 ORTG
Last season: 35.7 3PA/G
This season: 39.6 3PA/G
Last season: 3 players averaging 36+ MPG (Bridges, OG, Hart)
This season: 0 players averaging 36+ MPG
Last season: 281 passes per game
This season: 291.9 passes per game
“Last season the Knicks’ starting 5 was 1st, 3rd, 5th, 14th and 20th in the entire NBA in MPG which is patently absurd. This season only Brunson (8th) and Bridges (13th) show up in the top 20 in MPG. That’s a huge difference.”
At this time last year, Thibs had an 8-man rotation: essentially the same starting 5 with a bench of Deuce, Payne, and Precious.
The rest of the bench was Jericho Sims, 3 very raw rookies (Kolek, Dadiet, and Huk), and Jacob Toppin. So at this point in the season, the extended minutes were at least arguable. I suppose you can counterargue that losing some games to get the rookies more reps might have had some long-term benefits. But you could also just as easily argue that sophomore Kolek, Huk, and McCullar are improved via offseason work, and Diawara is more ready to contribute as a rookie than any of those guys were last year.
For me, the minutes thing was more about later in the season, when Shamet was healthy and Delon was acquired. Still, nearly everyone thought we would lose to the Celts, and the main reason (beyond KP being moribund, Brown being banged up, and Horford and Jrue showing their age) we won was that Thibs unexpectedly changed strategies to heavy switching, while Mazz failed to adjust his offense until it was too late. For all the shining about heavy minutes, we actually looked fresh as daisies in that series.
At the end of the day, folks can nitpick all they want about why we eventually lost to the Pacers. I think it had little to do with minutes management, or with Thibs in general. But I fully agree that he had run his course and it was time for a change. Brown is doing an excellent job thus far, and I’m very optimistic, both about his coaching and about the state of the East. The question for me is, will he actually get this team to advance to the finals, or will we just have different stuff to complain about in June. That’s the bar, isn’t it?
“Through 31 games…
Last season: 120 ORTG
This season: 122.2 ORTG
Last season: 35.7 3PA/G
This season: 39.6 3PA/G
Last season: 3 players averaging 36+ MPG (Bridges, OG, Hart)
This season: 0 players averaging 36+ MPG
Last season: 281 passes per game
This season: 291.9 passes per game”
So what’s your point?
I’m not going to waste a lot of breath on the Thibs vs. Brown question because I don’t think we’ll really have an answer until the playoffs, which is a nice luxury to have (we’re not in Fizdale vs. Fisher purgatory anymore!)
There really isn’t a Thibs vs. Brown argument, since I am in full agreement in Thibs needing to be replaced. It’s more of a “how good is Brown, and was he the correct choice to replace Thibs or is he just a lateral move?” argument.
Brown is not some newbie…he has a fairly long track record, and not a particularly distinguished one. We can’t go back in time and determine what would have happened if Brown was hired back in 2020 instead ot Thibs. Would he have lasted 5 years, with 4 playoff appearances and a conference finals appearance? I think it’s a fair question. Brown still has that new car smell, while Thibs had 5 years of data to parse.
The problem with last season is the offense sputtered out as the season went along, not that we were bad through December.
I wasn’t a “fire Thibs” guy until his last season here, which I found to be highly frustrating. Given the team’s playoff run, I was surprised that he got fired. I thought the Mike Brown hire was kind of “meh” but figured we’d see some positive changes just because there were two areas of low hanging fruit: 3PAr and minutes allocation.
In those two areas, Brown has nailed it. We are now a perfectly normal team in those areas. We’re 8th in 3PAr, up from an unacceptable 28th, and we no longer dominate the leaderboards in the individual MPG category.
Brown has scooped up the low hanging fruit. At this point of the season, the team has a higher fun factor to it, and does look like a better team. Next challenge will be to maintain this level of play as the season progresses. Last year we hit a wall and did not play all that well in the second half of the regular season.
It is a fair question, but without connection to the issue at hand.
Brown wasn’t hired to fix the situation 5 years ago and Thibs may have been (and was) an excellent hire FOR THAT SITUATION. Probably a better hire than Brown for the situation 5 years ago.
But that isn’t the issue at hand, which is, is Brown an upgrage over Thibs NOW. I’m very comfortable calling Brown an upgrade for today’s situation.
Methinks you are a little off base this this one:
Mike Brown 476 – 313 = .603 win percentage
Thibs 578 – 420 = .579 win percentage
Playoffs:
Mike Brown 50 – 40 = .566
Thibs 48 – 55 = .466
I think the best argument is that the Pacers were very deep and Carlise’s strategy was to run like crazy so the Pacer’s depth would eventually become an advantage late in games or as the series wore on.
That is the exact strategy that George Karl used in the regular season when he was coachng the Denver team with Gallo, Chandler etc.. They had no real superstar, but they were very deep in good players. It was run run run, attack the rim and bring waves of good fresh players off the bench to wear the opponent down. Karl (for whatever faults he may have had) may be the most underrated coach ever.
In any event, that means Thibs’s unwillingness to use the bench and develop it during the season left the Knicks particularly vulnerable to what Carlise was doing and wearing us down late.
Mike Brown had peak Lebron for some years.
An interesting and worrisome aspect to this year, especially of late (mainly because I have no memory) is how wildly inconsistent we’ve been. It’s gone a bit under the radar as we’ve been finding ways to win over and over, but we’ve had a bunch of games where we fell WAY behind early, only to claw our way back, and then last game where we actually got out to a great start, only to have a near-collapse.
KAT does NOT get the blame for the team’s overall inconsistency, at least I don’t think so, but his recently play has been an echo of the team’s swings — in the last five games he’s scored 22, 2, 40, 11, and 36 points. That’s very weird.
Basketball is a game of runs, but it feels like we’ve been a bit excessive in that regard. I’d love for a more consistent level of play.
This was also our peak last year. We took that 9 game winning streak into Oklahoma City on Jan 3rd and they burst our bubble.
Our offense was all predicated on the KAT/Brunson pick and roll. Once the league started defending those differently the well was empty.
This year feels a lot different. We’re developing a whole roster, not just one lineup. And we’re building a diverse offense that can’t be shut down with one trick. To be doing all this development/experimentation and still be ahead of a team that was going with a game 7 rotation from the get go feels like a huge amount of daylight to me.
And he also presided over an 18 win increse in Sacremento.
You are what your record says you are, especially over a large sample size.
He is 8th all time among NBA coaches in win percentage with over 500 games coached.
The Giants would trade out of the #2 spot, Strat, because it’s so valuable. Even if the Jets are at 3 they’d have to give up a haul to beat all the other teams trying to jump ahead of them.
I’m a Jets fan. There’s no passion involved like with the Knicks, but I like the Jets since I was 8-9 years old. When I was 10 I bet my Aunt Agnes $1 that the Colts would beat the Jets as a hedge against them losing the Superbowl (gambling family of Sicilians haha). I figured if the Jet’s lost and I won a $1, that’s less bad than the Jets just losing. When I happily lost the bet I tried to pay her with pennies. She laughed and gave them back to me. So I am suffering a long time with them too.
The Jets need a young talented QB and someone to develop him. That’s all I care about for next year.
Yeah, Tom Thibodeau was not the main reason we beat the Celtics.
And frankly the fact that using the best and most obvious strategy to beat them was unexpected says more bad than good about him.
The Knicks had alot of success and generally I liked Thibs but each of the years they made playoffs they also lost to a lower seeded team
Brown was dismissed by Kobe’s Lakers 5 games into not season 2 and run out of town in Sacto after his team underperformed and he lost the locker room by publicly calling out players. Didn’t seem to be a hot commodity despite his glorious win percentage.
Bottom line is he hasn’t done much apart from riding the GOAT’s coattails. I get that he improved the Kings after taking over for Alvin Gentry but that’s not saying a whole lot. Despite his “success” he hasn’t exactly been a hot commodity post-Cleveland. Leon seemed hesitant to hire him.
But hey, it’s working out! I agree with JK’s assessment, and this team doesn’t need Thibs’ brand of stale, top-down leadership, and is benefiting more from his residue than it would have from his continued presence. But is Brown the guy? We’ll see.
i like to think/hope that mike brown has learned from his previous errors as best he can
Jolly, I don’t put much stock into playoff seeding. I also think that all of our playoff losses were to better teams at the time of the losses. But that said, I think that we won due to Thibs outcoaching his opposing coach vs. Boston. In all other cases, we won because Thibs had the better team.
almost anything you try to learn about coaches from team level wins or point differential is destined to drown in a sea of confounders, even over long careers. there is no realistic sample large enough to overcome the autocorrelated confounding. it’s slightly interesting that there’s been no obvious defensive difference with the sudden exodus of a defensively ballyhooed coach. we ended last year .2 per 100 better than league average and and sit at .5 better now. we’ve had much more mitch but our defensive performance with mitch on has actually underperformed by a good bit. we’ve also had way fewer minutes (450) from the guy i consider to easily be our most important defensive player.
on the other hand if we use the ctg numbers, which tries to exclude garbage time, our offense is actually a decent bit worse on a relative basis year over year. last year we were +8.9 to the average offense vs +6.8 this year. of course as mentioned this huge margin all but evaporated in the second half to only +2.1, and we weren’t even a top 10 offense post dec 28.
i do see pretty radical style of play differences on offense relative to most other situations where a coach changes on a team without much personnel change or young player explosion. jalen going from leading the league in dribbles per touch for two straight years to falling out of the top ten has been stark. we are also the only team in the entire league either attempting 12+ or making 5+ corner threes per 100 after being nothing special in that arena last year.
More generally, I believe that only the outlier coaches determine playoff outcomes, good or bad.
Mike Brown probably puts “fired by the Kings” at the top of his resumé
eye test says that much more passing around the perimeter looking for more optimal shots has increased significantly over last year as opposed to jalen dribbling backwards towards the basket for 15 seconds or so
And how’d that work out for petulant Mr Bryant? The Lakers lost 55, 61 and 65 the three years after he was fired after going 41-25 his only full season with the Lakers.
How’d that work out for the Kings? Sacto had 17 consecutive losing seasons until Brown walked into the door. This team that lost 17 consecutive seasons and won 30 whole games the previous year won 48 and 46 the next two years. He was fired 31 games into the season and the Kings have been 35 and 48 since.
I was just about to post the same. Sure there’s more to each story but guy does seem to have some success
Do you not put any stock in having home court advantage? 2021 Knicks have home court and lose in 5, 2023 have home court and lose in 6, 2024 home court and lose in 7, 2025 home court and lose in 6
Last year the league adjusted to the Knicks by making every game like Brunson was starring in The Raid. They never really stopped because it never really stopped being effective. Brunson was good enough to adjust and play that game and the team was pretty fucking successful. Yet the signs were there. Brown has done a pretty good job of choosing the battlefield. So far.
Oh my God… the most frightening thing I have heard in a while was Carl Banks just saying on his podcast that Charlie Bullen reminds him of a young Bill Belicheck as a DC! Sounds like he is preping the fans for the Giants to keep the staff, yikes!
Marcus Freeman reworked his contract with ND. Somebody talk me off the ledge, please.
Not really, JR, the better team usually finds a way to win regardless of home court.
All the things being said to defend or criticize Brown’s coaching record are the same kinds of things that were said about Thibs. Which is exactly why I think the switch was a lateral move, not an upgrade. The main difference is a different voice, I.e. more fresh, more collaborative, more upbeat, more player-friendly, more flexible, etc. That was a necessary change. My point is that if the situation was reversed, i.e. if Thibs was brought in to replace Brown after 5 years, things would not be much different, just the nature of “what we needed” would change…more style than substance.
Thibs and Mike Brown are both very good head coaches with solid resumes who just go about it in different ways. They both also had very successful careers as assistant coaches on championship staffs.
The Giants are in such a good theoretical position that it’s hard to see how they would screw it up, young QB showing flashes, young stud WR, great d-line… all they have to do is get competent people in the coaching staff and nail one draft and they’re in a great position…
yeah they’re going to screw this up somehow.
yet, somehow their vision remains unerring in messing things up…
The fact that SO many reporters, national and local, are hearing that Schoen is going to keep his job is your answer right there.
It feels like some of us are trying to quantify an answer to a question that – to me – isn’t about Brown being better than Thibs, but Brown being better for what the team and organization needs right now. I think there are some data points that suggest things, like 3PAr and an uptick in passes.
Question: is Bridges’ assist numbers up from last year? Because I’m sensing btwn him, Hart and Kolek’s emergence as not just backup PG but his sharing floor time with Brunson, that they are finding ways to let Brunson breathe a bit more as a scorer – not too dissimilar to how in Kerr’s first year with the Warriors, he tweaked things to let Steph be more of a scorer.
I just don’t know when it comes the daggone Giants. I’m probably 60/40 in favor of letting Schoen go… it’s just that he’s not the biggest problem. Ownership’s decision-making process is… though I believe Dart is the right guy for this franchise.
Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT what the Giants should do about their issues. Let me know if yall wanna see what it said – it’s a long answer.
Hey Cdiggy — Mikal’s assists are up a good deal this year — 4.2/game vs. a high of 3.7/game (last year) — bouncing around the 2s and 3s for most of his career (2.8 average). Checked his per 36 just in case, but same story, 4.3 vs. a career average of 3.0. Even his asst% is the best of his career by a bit, 16.8 vs. a career average of 12 (was 16.3 in Brooklyn that year). So yeah.
Beck saying nice things:
‘Detroit has the East’s best record at the moment (24-6), but New York has more proven talent and playoff experience. The Knicks are more seasoned than the Magic, Hawks, and Raptors; more well rounded than the Sixers, Bucks, and Heat; deeper than the Tatum-less Celtics; and, frankly, much tougher than the Cavaliers, who continue to shrink when the lights are brightest.’
I never hated Thibs but I wanted him gone for this season because I felt the loss to Indiana in the playoffs was inexcusable, the Knicks should not have lost that series the way it went comparing both rosters.
I felt like the team needed someone who would come in and actually try to develop some depth (and the front office needed to build that depth in the bench in the first place) and that Thibs cycle simply came to an end, we needed a breath of fresh air and a different approach.
So far so good, I didn’t have the best expectations towards Brown but he’s doing the basic things well and seems to understand what the path forward is.
almost anything you try to learn about coaches from team level wins or point differential is destined to drown in a sea of confounders, even over long careers. there is no realistic sample large enough to overcome the autocorrelated confounding.
wait what, so does it really all just boil down to: shit happens…can you not be anymore certain and reassure me a little more than that…
“I never hated Thibs but I wanted him gone for this season because I felt the loss to Indiana in the playoffs was inexcusable, the Knicks should not have lost that series the way it went comparing both rosters.”
I think Indiana’s roster was vastly underrated, and they showed as much in the finals. To me, the series came down to games 2, 4, and 6. Those were must wins, and we didn’t lose any of those games because Thibs was outcoached. It was because they had a better roster. At least that’s how I saw it.
Even if we disagree on that, I agree wholeheartedly that it was time for Thibs to go. He was losing the locker room and the roster wasn’t going to get all that much better, so a new voice with a similar floor and ceiling was a good, safe move, if not an outside-the-box dice roll, i.e. maybe rolling the dice on a top assistant.
Deuce upgraded to probable. My guess is that he starts, but wouldn’t be shocked if Brown rolled with Diawara again…
per underdog nba all five knicks starters are top-16 in east all star voting brunson 3 kat 7 og 13 mikal 15 josh hart 16
Thibs was an abomination in game 1 of the ECF, and that game is the biggest reason we lost to the Pacers. That doesn’t mean we lost bc of him, but he was integral to the defeat.
He coached terribly against the Pacers in 2024, as well.
But the worst series he ever coached here was the won we won against Detroit.
Expected Lineup
PG Jalen Brunson
SG Mikal Bridges
SF OG Anunoby
PF M. Diawara
C K. Towns
MAY NOT PLAY
G T. Kolek Ques
F Josh Hart Out
C M. Robinson Out
G L. Shamet Out
deuce in mitch out
great now espn inexplicably changed their gamecast pages so that one cant see all players on the floor at once unless reducing page view
I’m old enough to remember Caleb, who left this blog around the time my first username did, and if he taught me one thing (he taught me a lot of things) it’s that a coach’s record tells you whom he coached, not how he coached.