I did notice that a lot of our starters barely cracked 30 minutes. Was this just Brown resting players against a G-League team and giving dudes like Clarkson some burn to fill in?

I do like using Clarkson during this stretch of the season. Let our starters rest and Clarkson can play against these tanking scrub teams.

But just curious why we aren’t blowing these bad teams out.

I think this happens a lot when one team learns that the opponent is missing basically everyone. They come out unmotivated and get burned by hungry hungry scrubs

Also, specific to last night’s game, often a team playing their first home game after a long road trip comes out flat

Not making excuses, but that’s my best explanation Swifty.

Hard to believe this team is only 6 wins away from 50.

Yeah, that makes sense. People act like G-League guys can’t play basketball but these tanking teams that bring these dudes up…these are all guys looking to prove something so they can make a big boy roster next season. It’s not surprising to me that they can play well for one night.

Clarkson may play here or there until Deuce is back, but he didn’t suddenly become a good player and decision maker because he had a couple of good games against G League quality opposition. He’s still a significant negative player.

Can someone fill me in who watched the game?

Why was it so close?

I watched most of the first half with the Oscars on the main tv. The Knicks sucked in the first half. Seemed to be effort + shots not falling. Warriors just looked hungrier.

The Knicks were flat and slow. Also totally unhelpful that they couldn’t hit a shot. At halftime they were like 18% from three, while the Warriors were over 50%. You’re not going to win with that kind of discrepancy.

The starting lineup continues to suck donkey kong. I know some people want to blame Hart, but I’m struggling to see him as the real problem. I mean maybe, but when he was out and Shamet started they still sucked.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m quite concerned about bad habits getting ingrained. I mean sure once the competition gets better maybe they’ll just turn it on from the get-go. Or you know, maybe not.

I would very much like to see some ass-kicking in the next two games. By the Knicks, that is.

As we’ve seen a number of times over the years, when you have a bunch of young low-level guys, a good coach can REALLY coach them up a LOT.

You start to lose the effect of “coaching them up” when you get star players who, well, you know, aren’t going to do everything the coach tells them and thank them for it like young, low level guys.

Last night’s performance was certainly against scrubs. But Clarkson’s best game of the season was probably Christmas against the Cavs, in a game we definitely would’ve lost without him. I’d say we’re up to 5-6 of those, actually.

I don’t feel super strongly as to whether he should get any real playoff minutes, though given how much everyone but Brunson struggles with dribble penetration and shot creation I’m probably more open to it than most.

Very happy with the minimum signing, though.

It was hilarious when Kerr threw a tantrum at Will Richard for not catching a terrible pass from Podz.

On the question of why that happened: the defense wasn’t really good – Warriors were getting to the rim at will. There was a lot of shooting variance in the first half (plus at least 2 fouls on 3PAs?).

I am worried about the Knicks offense. It’s taken a nose dive in the last month, not unlike last year.

“Hard to believe this team is only 6 wins away from 50.”

It is hard to believe cause they should only be 3 wins away from 50 according to their point differential!

Clarkson may play here or there until Deuce is back, but he didn’t suddenly become a good player and decision maker because he had a couple of good games against G League quality opposition. He’s still a significant negative player.

Yeah, you don’t need to say this every time Clarkson plays, lol.

We get it. He sucks. He’s also a vet who can score points on a minimum contract. Perfectly reasonable to have him soak up some minutes late in the season against scrub teams.

Clarkson obviously is what he is, but there has been an improved level of engagement since his benching. He is playing very animated defense…probably Shamet-level in terms of effort. He is also taking shots in his lane, rather than just putting his head down. That’s all I can ask from him.

I think last night was more about the Dubs and less about us. Their 5 best available players last night are guys who could be in the rotation for lots of teams. They played like it was game 7 of the finals and are extremely well coached, and probably not all that well scouted. For example, Santos was displaying some moves that probably caught our wings by surprise. But they were also hot from 3 while we were cold. There was one Knicks possession where we missed 3 wide-open looks from 3. But our energy level in the first half was not a match for theirs, and that has to change.

The Warriors were hitting their threes in the first half and taking a lot of them. Our effort was….lackadaisical.

There seemed to be some bad bounces too.

I don’t know, we won the game. It was a bad look though.

Not to focus on one guy during a lackluster defensive effort by the entire team, but KAT stood out to me because was obviously late on some closeouts on made 3’s, one of which was replayed by NBA with Jamal pointing it out. He just gets trapped in no man’s land way too often.

one thing that stood out was that the warriors ran the exactly same play over a dozen times. and holy shit did it work. basically an adjusted weave where the handler’s main goal was to break formation and duck straight toward the hoop if he had an opening around the foul line. it’s amazing how many times this worked. our help defense was just consistently ignoring it and following their cutters around like groupies. santos did make a couple of nice eurostep moves on this play but that was just the leading edge of it. it’s one thing to get caught like this by a great offense but this was as close as it gets to have zero creators and he they made 21 fg at the rim, almost all in the half court.

notable that we went to an all small lineup for a bit down the stretch and of course have no deuce, yet mikal was still on ice for last 7 minutes.

What I found very impressive about the Dubs’ offense was how quickly they moved the ball. There was very little dribbling or standing around compared to whatever we were running.

I think last night was more about the Dubs and less about us.

I have to call polite BS on that. I give DSW great respect the way their deep… deep bench guys played last night, but the Knicks came out like it was a september 1st scrimmage in Tarreytown.

The Knicks took 21 shots in the first quarter: 16 from at or near 3 and ONE at the restricted area. One bloody shot at the rim when GS had the end of the bench on the floor and we have a 7 foot 265 pound skillful center?

21 and 25 points in the first 2 quaters against what GS had on the floor was absurd. With Draymond, KP. Butler and Curry on the floor 46 points is possible, but not against the mash unit they ran out there last night.

In the first quater GS had seven shots in the restricted area with 6 makes. Zero effort the first 20 minutes.

Liked this tweet about Brunson’s fg% on two point shots.

We probably don’t appreciate how insanely good his touch is, for anyone, let alone a six footer. It’s absolutely crazy how he makes the ball go through the hoop.

https://x.com/AndrewDBailey/status/2033560741668950317?s=20

Thanks Owen, that’s a nice chart. Power to the Cap.

And I’m with Bob on this. One thing I’ll note is that in the first half KAT was just wandering around, picking flowers. In the second half he had steam coming from his ears. His energy seemed to make all the difference, driving and shooting and passing.

Would like to see a full 36 minutes of that.

On balance, I think the game was more about the Dubs. With complete unknowns (other than to Kerr) they came out with a playbook that caught us off-balance on defence coupled with few shots, even open looks, falling for us. Credit to MB for making the changes needed to get us back to being competitive, albeit not so much tactical as personnel.

My biggest takeaway from the game?–Kerr is the best coach in the NBA.

Knicks just need to get through these next four games with a W without injuries. Need too rest players. It’s about effort. Its hard not to look at the oppnent, know youre way better than them, relax and play lazy.

Our backups are all better than their starters. Let them play a lot…we will still win anyway.

It’s that kind of thinking that may have produced the way the last three games looked. Just sayin’.

I’m with Doogie on this one. If we were in Month One of the season, sure. But the playoffs are looming, and we have to practice hitting on all cylinders. “Oh we’ll turn it on when the playoffs start” is a very, very dangerous game to play. Especially with this team, where multiple players go all invisible quite randomly and without any obvious reason.

We need to start crushing inferior opponents, not learning how to play down to them.

Knicks have 27 wins by double digits which is 4th most in the NBA, they’ve crushed plenty of opponents this season.

I saw the game, on TV. I’ve rarely seen a Knicks win that left me feeling worse, and I’ve been a die-hard fan since the 1970 and 1973 championships.

Why did it happen? I think everyone has said it already, but I’ll name names. There are three guys (Quinten Post and Gui Santos and Gary Payton II) who probably feel like this is their ONE OPPORTUNITY to get a serious look from a serious team. Maybe not the Warriors, but anyone.

Quinten Post is on contract for this year only. Same with The Glove Jr. Gui Santos is signed for a few more years, but EVERYBODY knows that the Knicks bring National TV and National Attention. So with Curry, Draymond, Jimmy Butler, Porzingas out — this is maybe their only chance to play like hell and raise their ticket. So they did.

And then there is Podziemski, who is to me a dirty player and will do anything.

Meanwhile, we played slowly, came out of the gate in molasses, and missed a bunch of shots too. Our guys are probably thinking that these games are about not getting injured and getting some rest for April.

I still love our team. But I hated it last night.

And they’ve lost to or struggled against crap opponents. They are certainly capable of crushing, and certainly capable of getting to the finals, if not winning it all. But only if they develop some consistency and stop playing with their food.

Thirteen games to figure it out.

Need too rest players.

I will give brown great credit for this last night, sticking to his guns. With the knicks down 15 in the first quarter another coach might have ridden the starters like a rented mule.

Brown’s starter’s minutes allocation: 36, 31, 31, 29, 21. Big picture focus. As Carl Banks says, “Keep the main thing, the main thing.” Try to finish the regular season with the players healthy,worked and fit, but somewhat rested.

I don’t put a lot of stock into these trap games. Most contending team lose a couple of those, and barely escape with wins in a few others.

We have a smart, veteran team. They’ll be ready to rock and roll come playoff time. I’d like to see a couple of wins vs. the better teams we play in the remaining games, but mostly just want everyone to be healthy.

i know one person who’d be dismayed to see the Knicks squeaking by an inferior opponent while the starters average sub-30 minutes

i don’t want to give it away but here’s a hint: his name rhymes with Jom Jibodeau

Obviously it would be better to go into the playoffs crushing teams on a big win streak, but last season we lost 3 out of our last 4 regular season games and didn’t exactly have a great last 20 games of the season. Then we went to the ECF.

The 2012-2013 Knicks rode into the playoffs on like a 13 game win streak and then barely survived Boston before losing in the second round.

I just don’t know if you can take too much out of these games, especially with Brown managing minutes the way he is.

Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I love Brown’s minutes. Stellar job, normally I just complain about him letting Clarkson see daylight, but hard to argue with Clarkson’s play of late, either.

If I was going to complain about Brown it would be about failing to motivate the starters at the beginning of games. A situation I am completely baffled by. It’s maybe some curse that Thibs put on the team.

I might also point out that of the 4 teams at the top of the EC, we have the best record over the past 10 games at 7-3. Detroit is 5-5, Boston is 6-4, and Cleveland is 5-5. In that stretch:

Detroit lost to the Nets at home.
Celts got destroyed by the Hornets at home
Cavs got murdered by the Mavs at home

And since the debacle on MLK day vs DAL, we only lost one game to a shitty team (IND in OT at MSG on 2/10). Since then, we’ve beaten some tough teams on the road, and all of our losses except OKC were to tough teams on the road, including on B2Bs.

There might be some kinks still to work out, but no reason for any alarm.

As Carl Banks says, “Keep the main thing, the main thing.”

Or, to out-geek you, Bert Lance might argue “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

Last spring the knicks were fully healthy and had their best playoff run this century despite Thibs doing everything he could to injure everyone and have them exhausted for the playoffs.

Just my opinion, but as to resting players, it sounds logical as a general idea. But players are not fungible and some folks need more rest than others. Some need less. Ironically, the players who need more rest physically are Hart, OG, Brunson and even Kat, who take mucho contact. In this regard, I believe Mitch has been properly managed, because his injury is capable of repetition and in need of long term healing. Rest isn’t just about physical prowess. Mikal also needs rest because, well, he needs rest to reset. His streak is his curse. While he conspicuously avoids physical contact, he still needs a break (or benching)-the streak takes its toll! He has sucked IMO, but is truly a skilled gifted player. Benching during the games is worse than a forced two game sabatical. Maybe someone other than Mikal needs to curtail the streak. Enter MB.

Or, to out-geek you, Bert Lance might argue “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

Hahaha… quoting Bert Lance is pretty funny as he actually lost a primary to Lester Maddox and was run out of town in 6 months as the Carter’s Director of OMB for questionable ethics.

If you put a white hat and white suit on him, he could have body doubled for Boss Hogg on the Dukes of Hazzard.

It is still a good quote 🙂

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