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The Knicks’ matchup strengths & weaknesses give a wide range of potential playoff outcomes – Posting & Toasting
Submit a question for James Edwards’ Knicks mailbag – The New York Times
Mike Brown praises Knicks rookie Mohamed Diawara, whose confidence is ‘growing by the day’ – SNY
Analyzing Knicks’ playoff seeding chase and best possible matchups with season winding down – SNY
How have Knicks done against NBA’s best teams this season? – Newsday
Knicks Bulletin: ‘The whole team told me to shoot, for real’ – Posting & Toasting
Knicks vs Raptors Preview 🔥 Key Matchups & Predictions KFTV – Knicks Fan TV
Knicks at Raptors – Recap & Reaction | POSTGAME SHOW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
KNICKS at RAPTORS | FULL GAME HIGHLIGHTS | March 3, 2026 – NBA
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30 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.03.04)”
I thought KAT had one of his best “unsung” all-around games of the season last night. He made some excellent plays on both ends. His 18′ baseline jumper and drive across the lane were very much needed when the game was in the balance and the offense had kind of stalled. The passing was also great.
Brown is showing a lot of patience, not over-coaching per se, and you can see the chemistry building with all the units he is throwing out there. Everyone is contributing. You can also see that Brunson is making a conscious effort to get everyone involved, especially early.
Tonight will be a great test. The Thunder also had a b2b with travel but they rested SGA and iHart and are crazy deep. Hopefully it won’t turn out like last year’s MSG debacle.
The most impressive part of their recent play has been the improved defense. It’s hard for me to tell how much is generally improved effort, better adjustments, better 3p defense vs luck or changes in personnel. It’s probably a little of everything. But I’d say getting Clarkson and Yabu off the court and substituting Alvarado helped. I occasionally see mistakes, but I suspect Diawara is also a plus over Yabu. Finally, I think Towns is actually defending better lately which is no small feat given his overall history and age.
Mitch played fne last night, but imo we would have won that game without him. OKC rested players last night to gear up for tonight. I’d still rather have him for tonight’s against a team with a couple of bigs that can play alone or together.
I believe that energy can really change the momentum of the game. Players like Shamet, Jose, Mitch and Deuce off the bench help change games when the team seems stagnate. I thought Jose, Shamet and Mitch were all good yesterday. Not just counting stats, but changing the energy and really bringing an aggressive mindset.
With you on tonight being a great test, Z-man. Given the back to back, travel, and the fact that they’ll probably have a fresh SGA while we won’t have Mitch, I won’t get too down if we lose — unless we get boat raced by them. The no-show against Detroit and the Cavs loss still have me hesitant to completely buy into this great stretch of play. But if we can do this against the relentless, crazy deep defending champs? Ten cue Mickey Dolenz singing “I’m a Believer.”
Built in excuse for a team lacking confidence. They were so worried about losing at home to OKC, they tried to lock up the game with Toronto even though matchup wise and “test” wise having Mitch for OKC made more sense. That’s not what a confident team does.
That’s not what a confident gambler does.
A confident team makes the best decision for the long term. Toronto are a non tanking team in our conference. A regular season win over them is objectively more valuable than a regular season win over OKC. Also gives Mitch an extra day’s rest for Jokic.
If you actually think the Knicks lack confidence against OKC or any team you’re delusional. This current Knicks team if anything is probably too overconfident about how good they are.
Yeah sorry Strat but no. The Toronto game is more important standing wise. I get you want to beat OKC and show our muscle but now is not time. If we hadn’t had that horrible stretch after the Cup game I might think different but standings are tight and we have a tough stretch
Disagree strongly.
If you don’t have a huge edge over Toronto without Mitch (a matchup with limited value since Toronto is not strong at C and no one expects Jakob Poeltl to go off) and are worried about finishing ahead of them you have plenty to worry about besides that game.
A confident team goes for both games PERIOD. IMO Mitch would be way more valuable tonight. They basically said, “We are low probability to beat OKC even with Mitch, so let’s go all out against Toronoto”.
I think at times they can be overconfident, but if you gave them a lie detector test and asked them if they think they are better than OKC, Detroit, Denver at 100% (which they rarely are), Boston at 100%, they’d all say “YES” and fail the test. So would Brown.
They will play hard tonight and could even win at home, but they focused on Toronoto because they know they aren’t as good as OKC and wanted to get 1 win out of the 2 games.
“If you don’t have a huge edge over Toronto without Mitch…and are worried about finishing ahead of them you have plenty to worry about besides that game.”
Huge edge? Going into the game we were 3.5 games ahead. Maximising the chances of making it 4.5 instead of 2.5 is not worrying, it is being sensible.
Yeah, I have to agree with the Hive Mind against Strat on this one. A big part of me — the fan boi — desperately wanted Mitch to sit out last night to be ready for today (“We’ll show them all!”), but strategically it makes better sense to do it this way. Frustrating, but understandable.
Mitch blames his FT woes on lack of opportunity to practice them and rejects shooting underhand ” granny style” as being ” just silly. It could cost him and Knicks in a playoff series.
https://nypost.com/2026/03/03/sports/what-mitchell-robinson-blames-for-his-knicks-free-throw-woes/
Just read this stat on Twitter: last season Knicks were 10-20 against the Top 6 teams in each conference, this season Knicks are 15-9 (16-9 if you count Cup Final).
I like Mitch. He is such a unique player in how just his presence makes a positive difference on the court. His rebounding, especially offensive, and his defense help the team greatly. However, I don’t think that is a good excuse to be shooting 39% from the foul line. Maybe it makes a little difference, but not to be historically bad.
Strat, you’re being silly. Talking about lie detector tests. Come on, bro.
Toronto was on the road and is in our same conference and division. Securing the win against them is more important than beating OKC to “make a statement” against a team we might not ever even face in the plaoffs.
OKC is at MSG and they are also on a back to back. You could just as easily look at it like OKC felt like they needed to rest two of their best players last night in order to make some meaningless statement and the Knicks are confident they can compete at home even without Mitch.
This is all getting a little silly. For all you know Brown thinks they can beat OKC without Mitch.
Expected Lineup
PG S. Gilgeous-Alexander Prob
SG Cason Wallace
SF Luguentz Dort
PF Chet Holmgren
C I. Hartenstein Prob
MAY NOT PLAY
G S. Gilgeous-Alexander Prob
C I. Hartenstein Prob
C B. Carlson Ques
G A. Mitchell Doubt
F J. Williams Out
Expected Lineup
PG Jalen Brunson
SG Josh Hart
SF Mikal Bridges
PF OG Anunoby
C K. Towns
MAY NOT PLAY
C M. Robinson Doubt
G M. McBride Out
Mitch says a lot of wild and/or hard-to-parse stuff on social media but it never seems to impact his play one iota, so I write it off as a funny quirk. His free throw shooting does seem to follow a more dramatic boom-or-bust pattern than similarly terrible shooters, but the best assumption is that’s noise.
It is what it is at this point, but if his minutes were a tick higher I’d make an honest-to-god case that he should be the 6MOY despite not fitting into the typical gunner mold, to say the least. I definitely think he’s the most impactful bench player in the league, but I can’t write it off that he won’t hit even 1,500 total minutes on the year. Oh well, a ring is better.
Strat, you’re the coward for thinking we need every little advantage just to eke out a win. Championship teams win even when they’re not at full-strength. They’re good enough to spot opponents a player or two.
They win not by small margins, but are able clear any margin of error when they’re at full strength. If they can’t win without Mitch, there’s too high a chance they lose to bad shooting luck.
That’s a joke if it isn’t clear.
Let’s hope Luke Dort doesn’t injure any Knick tonight.
Amick:
I am not that worried about what happens tonight.
Not a statement game guy.
Tonight’s a great game to air out the bench a little.
Strat… with all due respect it was a very close game (2 points with 4:38 left). The only reason the box score looked like an easy win was the 16-2 run to end the game. If you had bet the game heads up, you’d have been passing a kidney stone with 5 minutes left. If they had benched Mitch last night and you bet the game, you would have been cursing.
With 2 of your top 7 rotation players out there are few “lock” victories sans playing Chicago, Utah and the rest of the tankers.
It’s always a great idea to maximize the odds of winning the first game of the back to back. Now MB playing with house money….players play looser and may even pull of a great win. Want to expose Mo to a professional foul hunter like SGA. Needs to fail early to continue to learn…early success often hurts player’s long term development.
Never thought of it that way but it makes sense. Win the first game that flight after the game is loose, guys can sleep a little easier, vibes are better then you go into the next game loose and on the up.
Let’s please not let Jared McCain or Isaiah Joe go off on us.
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