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Knicks officially clinch Eastern Conference top-six seed in 2026 NBA Playoffs – SNY
Miles McBride’s re-injury could prove costly — for both McBride and Knicks – New York Daily News
Knicks listing Miles McBride as questionable for Tuesday’s game after ‘tough’ exit vs. Thunder – SNY
Thunder 111, Knicks 100: “Not too down on this loss” – Posting & Toasting
NBA Playoff Picture 2026, Updated Bracket, Standings After Knicks Clinch Spot – BleacherReport
The Knicks are a good clutch team, but can they be great? – Posting & Toasting
Next for LeBron? NBA insiders on Lakers, Cavs, free agency options – ESPN
Knicks Vs RocketsLive Postgame Show – Knick of Time
Knicks DESTROYED By KD & The Rockets | 3 L’s In A Row! | Post Game Ep 716 – Knicks Fan TV
Knicks at Rockets – Recap & Reaction | POSTGAME SHOW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
KNICKS at ROCKETS | FULL GAME HIGHLIGHTS | March 31, 2026 – NBA
The Putback with Ian Begley: Zach Lowe talks Knicks playoffs and loss to Thunder – Begley Putback
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95 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.04.01)”
Guys, i’m leaving KB, never liked any of you !!! 🤭😂
For all of the supposed changes, this season is eerily similar to last years in a lot of ways.
Very similar record and same starters with the same struggles.
You could even argue we’re worse bc we’ve had Mitch all season (well every other game at least) and we’ve had our bench all season for the most part.
The only positives is the starters have played less and we’ve developed guys like Kolek and Diawara a bit.
I just have no idea how we’re gonna do but they seem lifeless so often.
lol cyber!
I agree.
I thought the key to the season was Mitch. He’s been healthy all year and productive. Even the lob has been working better lately.
Towns has been much better defensively.
I love the Alvarado upgrade.
Clarkson has been better lately.
Diwara has been an upside surprise
I feel like I know what the problem is, but I had a few stressful weeks in a row and I’m not in the mood for a controversial hot take and debate.
I think a pretty good rule of thumb is you gotta win your own division before you can be taken seriously as a title contender.
Hopefully the Knicks unseriously still win their way to the Finals!
We have also been without McBride a large part of this year since you continently forgot that.
Also Josh Hart isn’t playing 38 min per game and most of the guys are playing less minutes.
Thibs wore the team out to get to the same point we are at. We will see where this team goes. That’s all that matters
On a serious note, I have decided not to get too bothered about our performances in this last stretch of games. It is no disgrace to lose in reasonably competitive games to OKC and Houston on the road, and Charlotte caught us flatfooted, also on the road.
Beyond locking up a top-4 seed, all I really care about right now is health. We need to weather 6 more games of regular season nonsense before the playoffs start. Deuce has time to round back into form. Shamet is due to return, possibly tonight. Brunson and Hart seem banged up but nothing that should’t be fine after a few days off during the play-in stretch. Mitch is close to getting through an entire season without any setbacks.
And so in two weeks, in a larger sense, we will be pretty much exactly where we anticipated we would be when the season began. Even if we had won close to 60 games, none of that would have changed very much. But I predicted 54 wins, which means I predicted 28 losses, and that’s pretty much where we are.
The fundamental questions going into this year were:
1) Will Mike Brown’s coaching make a difference in the playoffs compared to Tom Thibodeau?
2) Is this roster good enough to get to the finals and possibly win a championship?
When you start worrying about who we face in the playoffs, you are kind of admitting that the answer to these questions is “probably not.” Which is where I was going into the season.
So in that sense, we are pretty much exactly where we were going into last year’s playoffs, except with the burden of heightened expectations, along with concerns that the Brunson window is one year longer in the tooth.
But this is where we needed to be with this roster and coach to answer those two questions.
The record and not great vibes at this point of the season is very similar to last season but the underlying metrics say this team is much better. At this point though the only thing that matters is what happens in the playoffs.
We are better in terms of talent and probably fresher this year, but last year we were arguably a couple of calls and plays away from losing to the Pistons in the first round and the Celtics stubbornly shot themselves out of the second round with 3 point variance. IMO, a very good case can be made that we were not as good as our playoff performance indicated last year. Our record and current position this year reflects that.
Win the next two and play the top seven 20-25 minutes a game the rest of the way. I heard Silver made a deal with Mamdani to hand NY the rings this year so stay healthy, so as not yo make it too obvious.
I will go as far as to say that these playoffs will be a referendum on the question of:
“Can you win a championship with Jalen Brunson as your best player?”
I have always felt that the answer to this question is clearly “highly unlikely.” And it isn’t a swipe at Brunson at all. I would feel the same way about prime Dame Lillard, who any objective fan would say is at least as good as Brunson.
For it to happen, you need to build a certain kind of team around a player like Brunson. Leon was actually on the way to doing that, but committed to OG, Mikal, KAT and Hart as those guys, and only Hart was acquired at a bargain price (I think we can dispense with any notions that KAT was a “value” acquisition.) Can those be the guys? I doubt it, but we’ll see. The bench is stronger than it was last year, and Brown might use it more effectively, but it will come down to Brunson and those 4 guys in the main supporting roles.
I didn’t conveniently forget Mcbride. Not really sure what you’re trying to imply.
Record wise our team is no better than last year and health wise, we’re in about the same boat. We played the starters a lot last year but we literally had no bench. No Mitch, no Precious for the first two months, no Shamet till the end of the season. I get that the regular season record doesn’t matter but it is still a good metric. Generally a 55 win team has a better shot at winning it all than a 50 win team and a 60 win team has an even better chance. Even teams like OKC take games off in the regular season but still win many of those games because they’re just better.
And when we lost McBride, we got Alvarado, which I think has mitigated that loss to some degree.
Players get a full week off before the playoffs begin, so I don’t think cumulative fatigue with the starters is really a thing. As long as no one is injured, playing heavy minutes doesn’t really hurt the team beyond them being tired at the end of games on back to backs, etc.
We’ve developed some pieces. On paper I think we can do better but we also got a little lucky in the playoffs last year, so we could perform “better” and end up not going any further or even not making it as far.
I’m really just saying that I don’t know if changing the coach was the fix that this team needed and it’s probably structural.
There’s no point in worrying about the picks we gave up for Mikal but, even beyond that, I think it’s worth asking if he’s really what we needed/need…especially if we’re sticking with Brunson and KAT (which we don’t have to).
The vibes are just not great. but they weren’t towards the end of last season either and we got to the ECF.
I do think we have more juice to squeeze, though, with our key players upping their minutes, Mitch being healthy and playing in every playoff game (and hopefully being able to play like 30 minutes). McBride is rusty with so much time off but we have some games here for him to shake that off.
What I’m trying to work through is why it feels this way, because I agree the metrics are where you want them to be for an outer-circle contender.
A few theories as to why the vibes are off:
1) the starting lineup is remarkably bad for a purported contender. Annoyingly, every site varies a bit in terms of what to count and how they calculate precise offensive and defensive ratings, but Brunson-OG-Mikal-Hart-KAT is +0.7 on the season per nba.com, -0.84 per PBPStats, and -0.1 per CTG.
I don’t think I have to dwell on how badly this compares to the starting lineups of teams as good or better than us. Let’s just say our starting lineup doesn’t have the best net rating among teams that play in the five boroughs. I mean, what the fuck?
2) I am not sure how to quantify this but it sure seems like we’ve arrived at a normal looking record in a very abnormal, streak heavy fashion. The 8-game win streak we capped off with the OT win in Denver was preceded by a 4-game losing streak. The 3-game stinker we’re on was preceded by a 7-game heater.
Your guess is as good as mine here. To chalk it up to us having a disproportionate number of “inconsistent” players feels lazy because I don’t actually know if our guys have anomalous standard deviation patterns.
3) a disproportionate number of our key players engage in body language that can come across as disinterested, unemotional, etc. I’m mostly talking about KAT (who varies more than the other two in this regard), OG, and Mikal.
My instincts strongly caution against reading anything material into this, but maybe for the vibes these guys could stand to look like they’re not clocking in for a shift a little more often.
Add it all up and the most likely scenario is we’re bounced by Boston or Detroit whenever we play them in the playoffs and major changes are afoot.
That’s almost certainly for the best, but it will leave me wondering why multiple coaches clung to a starting lineup that has been screaming “I DON’T WORK” for two seasons.
Probably because of politics, TBH. Brunson and KAT are obviously going to start. They’re the 2 bona fide all stars on the team. But then you have Mikal – Leon gave up 5 picks for him and he’s part of the Nova boys, so he’s going to start. Josh is Brunson’s boy and, honestly, while he has his short comings with his shooting sometimes, he’s definitely not the problem most nights as he gives 100 percent effort and does a lot of intangibles that a team needs. Then you have OG, who Leon also traded for and who has a huge contract.
Out of those 5 Brunson, KAT and OG should obviously start. That leaves Mikal and Josh. One of them going to the bench in favor of Deuce or maybe one day Diawara might make for a better starting 5, but I don’t think it can happen for political reasons.
Which is why I think if we do fall short, Leone needs to do a reset and Mikal should probably be part of that reset
The precise details of the Brunson/Nova/Rick Brunson politics and their impact on the roster and culture aren’t going to come out for awhile, if ever — but rest assured they’re there.
I would tweak that and say “Can you win a championship with Jalen Brunson as your PG?”
To me, he’s not a PG. He’s an undersized SG. He’a a very good shot creator, scorer and closer, but IMO he doesn’t make players around him better with high level playmaking.
If the other team takes him out of the game with length or double teams and he’s not scoring, the offense often becomes a mess.
At that point he’s not scoring at a high level, not playmaking at a high level and he’s defending at a negative level.
I’m NOT saying we are better without Brunson!!!
I’m saying to maximize the players other than Brunson when he’s defended well we need good “PG” play. Sometimes the offense actually functions better when he’s out. Everyone knows the ball and players have to move to score. So they are all more active. When the ball moves guys like OG, Towns, Hart and Bridges are more involved and one or two can have big games.
If this version go the team craps out, maybe a trade for Giannis would make doubling Brunson less of an issue, but it almost feels like we need a tall PG so we can move Brunson off ball like he was in Dallas next to Luka. He’ll probably be less happy, have less impressive overall stats off ball, but he can still be the closer, the ball may move better and the team might be better.
Dead cat bounce for Mikal, who’s reverted to the lost-a-half-step-or-more guy he’s been almost since he got here. TS of 58.4 on 17.3 USG combined with never getting to the line, is dreadful.
Extending him was, as predicted in many quarters, a disaster. Nothing more need be said about giving up five 1s for him, as it speaks for itself.
Big picture theme really hasn’t changed since opening day of last season — Wingstop isn’t consistently creative enough or good enough offensively for this to really work.
The starting lineup was bad last year too. That’s why we had those debates about whether Deuce shoud start to mazimize the spacing even though we’d lose rebounding or Mitch should start to maximize the defense but make the spacing worse.
I’m not sure what’s best given our roster, but I think two years running with two coaches and two systems tells you something that was broken still hasn’t been fixed. I believe part of it is the lack of good old fashioned PG play. We could throw Alvarado out there, but that Alvarado/Brunson combo is also small like the Brunson/Deuce combo and even if we got better PG play and energy, we’d be losing other things relative to Hart or Deuce.
I think the outside noise has definitely gotten to some of the players hence the bad vibes. I assume Its alot easier to tune that stuff out in the playoffs cause at that point it’s just about winning when during the regular season player’s individual stats is more of a talking point.
I mean Knick players were getting shit on by Stephen A in the middle of a 7 game winning streak, in the playoffs only thing that matters is wins and losses.
“I would tweak that and say “Can you win a championship with Jalen Brunson as your PG?”
To me, he’s not a PG. He’s an undersized SG. He’a a very good shot creator, scorer and closer, but IMO he doesn’t make players around him better with high level playmaking.”
This is a silly twist on the question. The main fallacy built into this question is that playmaking is solely (or even mainly) a function of your team’s PG. Yet there are many examples of championship teams with Brunson-like PGs. The Spurs, for example, had Tony Parker as their PG. Steph is not really a playmaking PG in the traditional sense. Kyrie Irving and the Cavs. Kyle Lowry/FVV and the Raptors.
Of those, only Steph could be considered “the best player on his team” and even that is mostly an offensive distinction. Steph had probably the best defender of his generation on his team, who also happened to be a outstanding playmaker. He also had one of the best two-way spot-up/pull-up 3-point shooters on his team. And for two of his championships, he was clearly not the best player (unless you think he was a better all-around player than prime Kevin Durant, which I don’t).
It’s not just that Brunson is our best player. It’s that the dropoff from him to our second-best player is massive, to the degree that team can throw the kitchen sink at Brunson with relative impunity.
It has ZERO to do with him other than a recent short term meaningless rough patch shooting and everything to do with his role. He’s underutilized, but if you use him more then people will be whinig about Towns (which they are already doing again) or OG or Hart.
The “never gets to the line” piece is the real tell here. It’s been the canary in the coal mine since it became clear early last season. They should have cut their losses back then.
How could you say it was nothing to do with him? Why are you defending him so hard. The guy has not been good. He is not a good fit here and if anything stops this team from winning it was that trade in my opinion
This is so tired. His efficiency at his current usage level of 17.3% is middling. Why are we to believe the solution to this is to give him a bigger role?
I’m not even saying it can never be the case that increased usage counterintuitively leads to increased efficiency, but what is the case for Mikal specifically? What should he be allowed to do more often? Should we reserve 8 fadeaway midrange jumpers a game or something?
Correct, but all meaningless to our team.
No one would argue with the idea that you can build a team without traditional PG play. One of the main points of the triangle was to eliminate traditional PG play so your weren’t overly dependent on the PG to have a functional offense. That’s one reason I was a fan of that conceptually. Many successful teams copied that concept. The teams you mentioned were all built for ball and player movement – which I’ve been screaming about for all the years we’ve had Brunson at PG.
The problem is we don’t have the personnel or system to function well if Brunson is not providing the PG playmaking required to make the other players better. Our offense is Brunson dominating the ball looking to score, but if they take that away we are stagnant.
You either change the whole system to be less Brunson centric, maybe change a couple of players or get a tall PG to put next to Brunson and play Brunson off ball. I don’t question whether a team can win with Brunson as the #1 scorer (as opposed to the best player), but I do question whether we can win him dominating the ball as a PG.
It’s not just about usage. It’s about what is required and what you are asked to do for this team’s offense. He’a a much more complete player now than he was in his Suns days. He’s doing the same things he was doing for the Nets, but as I’ve been saying forever and (Josh Hart just said in an interview) he was #1 option for the Nets and this year he’s been #4 for NY. So he’s doing less of the same things he was doing for the Nets. He could score 20-25 a night at similar efficiency, but we’d be worse or he could easily get his TS% back above 60% but we’d be worse. Josh summed it up perfectly in that article
76 games into the season the head coach shouldn’t be clueless about his starting unit https://x.com/JLEdwardsIII/status/2039171891982717434
*Pretty much headed for a similar record this season with a starting lineup that is very questionable against quality teams. Coach has had 82 games to work on it. The slow starts won’t cut it in the playoffs.
This is the Josh Hart issue to a tee
https://x.com/_the6thman/status/2039308169122304066
I could see why Towns might be fed up
He’s not asked to not shoot a bunch of fallaway mid-ranges, and occasionally get to the foul line?
Glad you’re feeling better!
“No one would argue with the idea that you can build a team without traditional PG play. One of the main points of the triangle was to eliminate traditional PG play so your weren’t overly dependent on the PG to have a functional offense.”
Then your entire question falls apart.
We only have one other player that makes others better in the strictest sense…Josh Hart. Josh is fine, but he is pretty far from being Draymond. None of our other players fall seamlessly into the “playmaker” category, i.e. he makes other players better. Frankly, they all need “that guy” and it has to be a starter. Alternatively, you need another “alpha” type, and that was the allure of KAT, who turned out (predictably, imho) to be fool’s gold.
All of this can be rendered moot if the Knicks surprise their way into the finals, and if they lose to the OKC juggernaut in a competitive fashion. And you know what? That could still happen! Which is why I am reluctant to traffic in absolutes.
But if the more likely outcome occurs, i.e. we get bounced prior to the finals, if not well prior, then huge changes absolutely have to occur. Leon has to either go all in on Giannis, or roll the dice on someone like LeBron or Kawhi.
The alternative would be to set the sights lower for the Brunson era and hope that Diawara and this year’s draft picks develop before the Brunson window closes. Run off a couple of more 50-win seasons and second-third round playoff exits, and then pivot from there. Honestly, I’d be fine with that.
@MaxWildstein
Knicks starters in 399 1Q poss:
109.8 OffRtg, -13.0 NetRtg since 12/5
NYK starters in 88 4Q poss:
137.5 OffRtg, +11.1 NetRtg since 12/5
Dating back to start of ‘24-‘25:
Starters in 1252 1Q poss:
110.8 OffRtg, -4.5 NetRtg
Starters in 523 4Q/OT poss:
127.5 OffRtg, +4.3 NetRtg
If what you’re saying is his “Goldilocks” role on offense is to be a middling efficiency, middling usage player who doesn’t shoot many 3s, sounds to me like we got absolutely bilked in the trade for him.
You’re taking an incredibly bleak position on Mikal’s potential here, but unfortunately you may well be right.
Brunson with Mitch more
KAT with shooters
Mikal is what the kids call “mid.” He is not, nor was he ever, a guy you trade five first round picks for. That was a bad idea.
Also his iron man streak is dumb and annoying. It’s not so hard to stay on the court when “jumping” is not part of your game.
For those who have been here awhile, it was pretty clear that Strat (*) was convinced that the Knicks just *had* to trade talent and bad “fit” and “inefficiency” for more “dependable” “fit” and “efficiency,” and he had two guys in mind who would fit the bill *perfectly*. The Knicks didn’t just go out and get one of those guys — they got both.
That’s an awful lot of mental and emotional investment to just up and quit, and I wouldn’t expect it here.
(*) He wasn’t alone, but the intent here isn’t to factionalize the joint.
I said very early on that IMO, Dolan’s fingerprints were all over the Mikal move (*) and I’ve seen and heard very little in the time since to adjust those priors.
(*) Whether via Jalen Brunson, Rick Brunson, one of his other armchair advisors, some combination thereof, or otherwise.
Perfect video. Josh Harts man never defends him and now the offense is all out of wack. How hard is it to try 5 out when the coach was hired to try different things.
Underground…so basically our starters play well in the 4th but horribly in the 1st…so they need to just try harder in the first?
I don’t know, I feel so stupid when it comes to this team as it is so maddeningly inconsistent in such bizarre and difficult-to-pinpoint ways.
One thing, though. We’ve seen time and again that the offense weirdly hums efficiently when Jalen is out. Which is not about Jalen per se but to me, at least, about ball movement. When Jalen dribbles a lot, the offense (outside of Jalen) fizzles and stops. Shots become “I have to take this because shot clock” instead of best shot available. That’s a terrible way to run an offense.
A potential cure (at least for the start of games) is don’t have Jalen bring the ball up in Q1, and tell him to pass immediately, no dribbling, unless there’s a clear seam for him to take it to the hole (or there’s an open three). Let the ball move and see what happens, including god forbid having Mikal get more involved offensively.
Let Cap cook in the 4th, he’s a closer and clearly (as Underground Kings suggests above) it works really well. The problem, and the thing to avoid, is falling into 29-12 holes like last night (which thankfully I missed). Just getting to playing them even that first Q and we’re likely to win most games.
Macri news letter this morning is a bunch of whining, but this is all that needs to be said . If your most played lineup doesn’t work shut it down.
Outside of Toronto, I’m not seeing why this this team should be a clear favorite in its first round matchup.
“I said very early on that IMO, Dolan’s fingerprints were all over the Mikal move (*) and I’ve seen and heard very little in the time since to adjust those priors.
(*) Whether via Jalen Brunson, Rick Brunson, one of his other armchair advisors, some combination thereof, or otherwise.”
Leave it to E to drop in after a long quasi-hibernation to stir up shit by posting wholly unverifiable jaundiced takes.
Sure, Brunsons & Co. might have a voice in Leon’s world. And Dolan absolutely has a voice.
But ultimately, there is no evidence, none whatsoever, that Leon was pressured into acquiring Mikal no matter what the cost.
But hey, by extension it’s clear that it was actually Mikal that forced Leon to trade all of those picks for him. I mean, isn’t it Mikal that forced Leon to fire his long-time friend Thibs? Who also happened to be great friends with the Brunsons?
It’s pretty clear that Mikal must have pictures of Dolan and Leon in drag….he’s the one truly running the show. In fact, that’s why Brown refuses to bench him and start Deuce. All of those cool handshakes with his teammates are actually code for “I’m gonna keep my iron man streak going by not banging in the paint on either end, and no one can do anything about it!”
I cannot think of a player in the NBA that is less of a Dolan player than Bridges.
Dolan ( starfucker extrodinaire) loves big stars and no one is less of a star than Bridges.
Let me say it again from a different angle.
I don’t think we need to ‘find a replacement’ for Mikal or Josh to start the game. I don’t think having Deuce (or anyone else) start is going to fix what’s broken. Because I don’t think it’s the personnel.
We have a GREAT starting five on paper. I think most of us agree on that. The problem is getting the offense to work, especially at the start. I think arguing about who the ‘weak link’ is misses the point. It’s not a weak link, it’s a broken system.
Having Jalen dribble the ball in the backcourt for eight seconds against a full-court press, and then dribble the ball for another eight seconds at the top of the key while probing the battlefield, is not efficient nor effective. It leads to multiple failed possessions and fails to use what is on paper a tremendous starting five.
Again, not laying the blame on Brunson. If anyone needs finger pointing, maybe it’s at Brown.
I have very little concern about the Knicks current play.
The starters are all on big contracts. They are all 30 ish and have been around the block several times. there is virtually nothing to play for til the playoffs. They are playing passionless basketball. It is perfectly understandable. They are humans acting like most wise humans would undersimilar circumstances playing a 85% effort to avoid injury, the only thing that can surely derail their season.
I fully expect the defensive effort to be extremely racheted up come playoff time.
Dolan didn’t (necessarily) name the specific star, but simply gave the order that draft pick hoarding time for a star was over and that it was now time to cash in the hoarded draft picks.
(I don’t agree that Dolan wouldn’t be into getting Mikal specifically, didn’t think he wasn’t a “star” coming off that 18 months in Brooklyn, or wouldn’t be into tweaking Brooklyn, but the above scenario suffices and has always been the one I’ve offered up. Dolan’s patience with the hoarding ran out that summer and Leon had to act. The rest is mere detail.)
That is an Alex Jones level conspiracy theory without corroberating evidence. 🙂
“We have a GREAT starting five on paper. I think most of us agree on that.”
I don’t think our starting five is GREAT on paper. I would call it very good, or solid. Also clunky. And undersized. And not particularly athletic. And not particularly adept at getting to the rim, or protecting it. And with two sub-par and non-switchable defenders. Does that put me in the minority here?
No. It’s solid/very good. Not great.
The efficiency numbers miss some things. Always have. And Mikal is no longer even efficient. I have him down as really a bench guy. He should be on the bench here.
People are underestimating the Pistons’ injuries last year and the call at the end of Game 3, and Jaylen Brown’s bum knee, and working backwards from there. They really weren’t *that* competitive against the Pacers.
I am shocked — shocked! — that E has 1)waited to resurface only when the team began scuffling again, and 2)is spouting conspiracy bullshit that is both completely unfounded and runs counter to everything we know about the people he is conspiracying about.
As always, just an incredible commitment to the bit. Respect.
Thanks for the compliments, Alan — but to call Dolan bigfooting his GM “running counter” to everything we know about him is quite the stretch indeed.
Brunson, I hope you’re right and you very well could be.
I just come back to the reality that, while the regular season “doesn’t matter” the total wins you have is still a really good indicator of how good you are.
Like it’s one thing for a championship team that won 60 something games to then coast through the next season a bit, win in the 50’s, but then turn it on in the playoffs. Plenty of championship teams have done this when repeating and in that sense the regular season doesn’t matter.
But when you’re talking about contending teams that have yet to win anything, generally the more wins you have in the regular season, the better chances you have to win it all.
In other words, I don'[t think we’ve proven enough yet to “coast” through a regular season and teams that are better than us coast too but still win more games because they’re just better and able to win when they coast.
Yes, E. Bigfooting his GM to acquire the league’s ultimate role player sounds exactly like the kind of thing James Dolan would do. You’ve done it again. 10/10. No notes.
Leon kind of painted the starting lineup into a corner with the Mikal move.
Before that, we knew Mitch couldn’t play much to start the year. We knew KAT was moved from the center spot in Minny for real reasons. Josh had already proven to be the perfect 6th man. And yet, we’re still doing this half-baked lineup.
It is what it is.
This is highly subjective, but the Jekyll and Hyde performances even within games can be interpreted to support Bob’s theory. The team (perhaps excluding KAT, who appears to have different motivators)seems to calibrate their effort on a game by game basis based on opposition. The modulation of effort would of course impact the data.
Honestly, the playoffs before we got Mikal (when we played Philly and then the Pacers) the Nova Knicks thing REALLY blew up (especially in the Philly series) with Donte, Brunson and Hart.
So it wouldn’t surprise me if Dolan did put his finger on the scale to make the Mikal trade happen because completing the Nova Knicks (especially if we’d kept Randle and iHart) would have been a HUGE thing from a marketing/PR perspective (especially if we were the Jan 2024 knicks but with Mikal).
The main offensive issue isn’t that we lack playmaking–we rank #7 in assists per 100 possessions. That’s because we have break-even-to-plus-passing with 4/5 of the starting five (JB is an average passer for a PG; Mikal is average to slightly above for a SG; Josh is a clear plus for a SF; OG is a minus passer, but he’s at PF so it’s not an expectation; KAT is a plus passer from the C spot).
The main offensive issue, in fact, is what it has been since Jalen Brunson got here: we lack a reliable secondary ball handler who can punish traps on Brunson. The strategy that still beats us, if executed correctly, is hard trapping Brunson at half court and forcing someone else to set up the offensive set (OKC knew this from the beginning, and other teams have gotten wise to it, e.g., Charlotte). The problem this creates is that no one else can get real penetration off the dribble, and then the offense stagnates overpassing on the perimeter or devolves into contested midrangers.
Really, we have three tertiary ball handlers who secondary ball handle by committee, and one guy who can genuinely handle the ball. Alvarado or Kolek were hopefully going to be a genuine secondary ball handler, but the problem is that they’re both limited in creating their own offense and can’t effectively attack a man rotating to them. The kind of player we need is an athleticish G/F type, someone in the mold of Jimmy or Jaylen Brown, or, more realistically Steph Castle or even someone like RJ Barrett (the Toronto version!)
swifty, the last couple of years have put that assumption to the test.
Last year, both the Cavs and Celts hit 60 wins, but it was the 51-win Knicks and the 50-win Pacers in the conference finals who then pushed OKC to the brink. In the West, it was Minny who finished 6th that went to the conference finals.
The year before that the Pacers went to the conference finals after winning 47 games, while the 50-win 5th place Mavs advanced to the finals.
And the year before that it was the play-in Miami Heat (44 wins) who went to the finals and lost to the 53-win Nuggets, who got there by beating the 43-win Lakers in the WCFs.
So sure, regular season is correlated with how far a team goes in the playoffs, but not to any degree that matters all that much. This team can definitely play better than it has for much of this season, and being in the top-10 in both offensive (3rd) and defensive (8th) rating suggests that we might be better than our record.
That’s why I am going into the playoffs with a pretty neutral level of expectations. I think we are just as likely to lose in the first round as to get to the finals, and either can definitely happen. And how far we go could easily come down to injury luck.
Bingo.
Hmmm. Interesting.
Technically, Julius Randle would also qualify but yeah, there’s a lot more to all this than the efficiency numbers. But in big picture terms, the “fit” actually got worse with the acquisition of the two “better fits.” (*) I wouldn’t call them a full-on “chemistry mess,” but they are way too close for comfort to that.
They’d have been way better off just building normally in the ordinary course off the 2023 playoff team. My former follow-on to this was “plus doing the KAT trade,” but at this point I’m wavering on even that one.
(*) So did the defense, but again, no reason to stir hornets’ nests here.
Yeah, but … 116.9 DRat against the Sixers with a compromised Embiid. Fun spring, but in cold hard basketball terms, not really all that.
They got in teams’ grills defensively in the 2023 playoffs and haven’t really come close to that in the playoffs since. The actual “90s Knicks” team was that one.
Adopted. Any team with both Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns is dangerous.
I’m not sure what you are sayng I’m and I’m not in the mood for debating just for the sake of debating. This is way too simple.
1. IMO you CAN win a championship with Brunson being the #1 scoring option – just not as the PG dominatng the ball the way he does. This is the one and only point on which I qualified or questioned what you were saying about him being the best player on team.
2. IMO Brunson is not a traditional playmaking PG. (we agree)
3. You can win a championship without a traditional PG with the right players and system (we agree).
4. Going back to #1, imo you can win with Brunson as the #1 scoring option as long as there’s a real PG or elite playmaker on the court and Brunson is playing off ball way more often. We don’t have that but that could be what we need.
5. Specific to NY now, IMO guys like Towns and OG would be more consistent with a playmaking PG. We don’t want them creating off the dribble to much. We want set plays, screens, player and ball movement etc… to get them open. They have played better on several occasons when Brunson was out because the ball was moving and they were more active. They aren’t standing around watching Brunson create for himself, then getting the ball and having to create for themselves when Brunson passes.
And we were missing our 2nd best player and all-star with Randle.
He was half strength at best in the 2023 playoffs.
He only dominates the ball though because they traded away Randle and Barrett (and some possible other secondary ballhandlers), and replaced them with two utterly hapless ballhandlers.
It’s necessity, not preference.
You can say that again. (*)
And again, there’s literally zero reason to adjust your point guard personnel to accommodate OG Anunoby’s offense. If OG doesn’t fit with JB, that’s not a JB issue, needless to say.
To the extent there’s been a failure here, it’s Wingstop’s failure. Wingstop has not been failed.
(*) Old school, world-weary sense of the phrase. I mean, OG Anunoby *can’t* create off the dribble.
I’m not going to debate the price we paid because everyone agrees we overpaid. The only debate is by how much.
Bridges was mostly brought in to match up with the Celtics.
We have OG and Mikal to guard Tatum and Brown.
IMO he’s a high level 3rd option player or OK 2nd option player. That means you are trying to get 15+ point per night, his plus defense and some playmaking. This year, OG is getting higher usage than him. So on average he’s basically 4th option. Some nights even Hart has the ball more than he does. So he’s being underutilized relative to his skills, but that’s not something to hold against him or to complain about. It means the Knicks have a lot of talent. There will be nights due to matchups or injuries where he’s asked to do more. He’s capable of doing that without us losing anything. That’s a plus compared to other teams that don’t have that kind of talent.
He was half strength in 2023 – which was against Cleveland and Miami.
2024 he didn’t play at all.
OG is fine, but imo he would be better with better playmaking and movement.
Towns is the way bigger issue. People keep whining about Towns and the offense, but it’s not his fault the team is not running pick and rolls or pick and pops or setting screens that get him open. He’s a 7′ C. He’s not a ball handler or shot creator. It’s on Brunson and Brown to put him in position to get good shots. That’s why I am talking about Brunson not being a real PG and how it’s impacting the rest of the team. Brunson is a terrific shot creator, scorer and closer, but we need more elite playmaking to maximize the others.
And to be clear, I wouldn’t want just 4-5 shot creators taking turns either. LA has Doncic, James and Reaves and they are struggling to get that chemistry right because there’s way too much your turn, my turn, his turn.
Just to be clear on this point. The goal is not to maximize Mikal’s boxscore metrics to justify what we paid. The goal is to win games. If there are better options or matchups that night than Mikal, he’ll score less and if he’s got the good matchup or hot hand, he’ll score more.
I get that Brunson is not a pure PG, but like…he is still a PG and he’s a good player. Can’t he and KAT just practice their two man game more and get the pick and pop and pick and roll down? Shouldn’t this have been priority number one in the off season?
Like, Felton and STAT weren’t great at the pick and roll when they first got together but after like a month of playing together, they got it down and it was pretty fucking effective.
Can’t he learn how to do these things?
And just to be clear on this point, if Mikal’s current production truly represents the absolute best he can do from a “contribution to winning” standpoint, he is just not that good, and you’ll need to do a better of job of understanding peoples’ frustration with him.
You can’t hand wave away the enormous opportunity cost associated with both trading for him and extending him. There is a very, very good chance that Mikal Bridges, who is averaging fewer PTS/36 with a lower TS% than minimum-signing Landry Shamet, is the but-for cause of Giannis Antetokounmpo not already being a Knick.
I already know you’re going to respond with something about how volume scoring is not “his role” or whatever, ignoring the point about how crucial it is that he scores efficiently if he’s not going to score very much at all.
All I can tell you is that if he’s really got the ability to score more without tanking his efficiency and he’s refusing to, that’s damning in its own right. I’d like nothing more than to see him take some shots from Alvarado and Clarkson, two guys we’ve had to acquire specifically because the Mikal as a secondary creator experiment has mostly flopped.
“I am shocked — shocked! — .:.
One of the greatest lines in cinematic history…not sure E is a deserving enough recipient, tho after his posts are 20% of the thread today when exactly 0% during our winning streaks, perhaps Rick has a point.
This is what i hope they’re doing – cruising through the regular season. And now, for a change, we’ll have the “extra gear” for the playoffs that every contender seemed to have and we didn’t under Thibs.
Until we get to the playoffs and the wheels come off, i’ll believe we can achieve great things!
“He only dominates the ball though because they traded away Randle and Barrett (and some possible other secondary ballhandlers), and replaced them with two utterly hapless ballhandlers.
It’s necessity, not preference.”
I’m so confused by this. I look at when Brunson was out at various points this year and last and was replaced by (the Steve Nash-equivalent?) Deuce or Shamet, and suddenly the ball moves like prime-time Golden State…!
We don’t need more or better secondary ballhandlers (although that would be nice, don’t get me wrong). We need Brunson to not dominate the ball, is all — except in the last four minutes of close games, of course.
Yeah, as one of the most fanatic Brunson’s supporters, i agree he needs to pass the ball as a principle. And guess what? Maybe the ball comes back to him later in the play, in a more favorable situation because we made the defense move around.
And also, please ask for help, Brunson my man, and don’t waste energy bringing the ball up court. That is a very stupid waste of energy, when the other team is applying full court pressure.
Although to be fair with Brunson, he seems to move the ball a lot more when the team is moving and/or hitting shots. Looks like a chicken and egg situation because team thinks Brunson will not pass the ball and so they just stand around, and Brunson usually calls his own number when the team does that. I think they are all to blame on this, and they should talk about it as much as they can until it is solved.
@SbondyNBA
The KAT-Brunson 2-man lineup played 62 minutes together in the last three games. It had a -38.7 net rating. It was Brunson’s worst rated pairing during the losing streak. KAT was only worse with Josh Hart. KAT-JB is supposed to be NYK’s super weapon. They’re still taking turns.
If it is true that Brunson doesn’t pass the ball when bringing up the court (which I’m not sure is the right way to portray what is going on), it’s because no one else can run a competent half court offensive set for the life of them. Our best offensive option in a pick and roll led by Josh, Mikal, or OG (when KAT is doing his disappearing man act, at least) is typically a contested Mikal fadeaway, or one of those silly Josh Hart buzzer beaters. That’s pretty bad!
A few comments are partially valid but most are over reaction to a three game loosing streak.
This team has a third best offense in the NBA this season.
They have the #1 offense in the NBA for home games.
https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/offensive-efficiency
Really? Then that means we just need to steal a road game all rounds, except the first round. 😉
Sorry Silky, i may have mixed the topics, one was about JB passing the ball more, and the other was having another player bringing the ball up the court when the other team is applying full court pressure.
Who quit?
Good thread.
Alan, you made me guffaw.
Nate Silver is calling for a draft auction and I think it could be the thing to make the NBA really interesting.
Wait, I just turned on the tv, no Brunson, Alvarado getting the start?
It’s like EVERYBODY read KB today.
Let’s go baby! Pass that rock!
It’s a tanking team so I wouldn’t read too much into it.
Hawks look like a team peaking. Got rid of the bad defense less Point Gawd.
NAW looks like a two way star.
One minute in, Jose has a three and an assist.
And look at that, Josh arranging a cutting Mikal for a layup.
And look at that, Josh arranging a pass in to Towns for a cutting OG for the dunk…
Nice reverse finger roll by Noel Coward.
I know the Grizz are tanking and all, but the amount of empty seats is pretty sad. Looks like a summer league crowd.
But I’m really enjoying watching Kolek and Huk.
At a minimum, they should put a cap on how many games you can lose for draft lottery purposes. For example everyone with 15 wins or fewer would get the same lottery odds. Taking two yearcrecirds into account would help too.
I’m a terrible fan, I had no idea we had a game. I see we have scored 77 points in a half, but aren’t looking very competent in the recent minute I’ve been watching. How is Shamet looking?
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