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Jalen Brunson scores 17 points in fourth quarter to lead Knicks over Hawks, 108-105 – SNY
Josh Hart’s fourth-quarter explosion helps Knicks hold on to 112-106 win over Celtics – SNY
5 keys for the Knicks in first-round matchup against Atlanta Hawks – Newsday
Knicks playoff outlook: 5 reasons why (or why not) New York can reach NBA Finals – The New York Times
Hornets 110, Knicks 96: “Can already hear the ‘F*** Trae Young’ chants” – Posting & Toasting
Knicks vs. Hawks Playoff History: A Look Down Memory Lane & 7th – Posting & Toasting
Part 2 How Kings vs Warriors Helps the Knicks Beat the Hawks – Knick of Time
Most Important Players (Dean Wade Draft) In A NYK/ATL Series | PLAYOFF PREVIEW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
Pod Strickland Episode 585: All Systems Go – The Strickland
The Hawks Are the Knicks’ Perfect First Round Test – Hot Hand Theory
YT News
107 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.04.15)”
G’mornin’, all.
Guess ESPN *really* expected the Suns to win, as they have them on their schedule as playing on Friday night:
10:00 PM
Prime Video
Clippers/Warriors
Suns
(45-37, 25-16 Home)
NBA Play-In – West – 8th Seed Game
Wizards trading away Avdija was just brutally stupid.
Avdija:
With Washington per 36—13.5 pts, 8.2 rebs., 3.5 asts., .457 FG, .327 3FG, .737 FT
With Portland per 36—23.3 pts., 8.1 rebs., 6.0 asts., .469 FG, .340 3FG, .793 FT
How were they to know what he would become? If we’re going with this narrative, it was just as equally brutally stupid for the Clippers to trade away SGA, but no one talks about that.
If the league had any stones, LaMelo would be suspended for the next game.
In terms of the question, it’s front offices’ job to make reasonable projections of their young players’ potential futures. It’s one thing for a contender to trade away an SGA to get an established star; it’s quite another for a lower-level team to trade away a young potential star for peanuts.
I’m glad I’m not a Wizards fan.
Embiid got away with a lot worse on Mitch. (And no, I’m not saying that I necessarily think that LaMelo should get off for that reason alone. But he was at least apologetic/remorseful about it, and said that he’d check on Bam. More than we ever got from Embiid.)
Fair on the SGA trade comparison, although the Bullets got Brogdon, Carrington, and three draft picks. Brogdon was still a valuable piece at the time, but yeah, he only played 39 games for Portland in his previous season.
Deni looked Luka like
If it was a Knick player it would be all over the news
ex Knick player*
Probably only around these parts.
Nah national media
* certain teams provide a much higher click rate *
I think there are grounds to suspend LaMelo, but it probably won’t happen. I would argue that it was exacerbated by Bam being in the process of falling backwards and was not a violent or premeditated act. To my knowledge he has no history of being a dirty player. To suspend him for a winner-take-all game would be harsh. Maybe a heavy fine, or perhaps withholding judgment until after the play-in and then suspending him for game 1 if they advance would be better.
The pick directly ahead of Deni was ..
They do play on friday.
[edited: it is pretty confusing that yesterday wasn’t both 9 vs 10 matchups. What’s the reason for that one?]
I feel like everyone who loves Deni doesn’t blink an eye when a school is bombed.
I’ve long been in the camp that if you have a young player that shows some talent on one side of the ball, has a good attitude and a very strong work ethic you should give him until mid 20s to put it all together.
Most of the guys that show some talent don’t get better either have injury issues, off the court issues or lack the work ethic.
Avdija was improving every year or the Wizards. He was still young and they had all the time in the world to develop young players given they were a million miles from “win now” extremism. They got some good draft capital for him, but it was pretty certain he was going to be a good player. He just got better faster than expected.
(regarding SGA, the Clippers have made a LOT of mistakes thinking short term).
“I feel like everyone who loves Deni doesn’t blink an eye when a school is bombed.”
What in G-d’s name would Deni Avdija have to do with that? I doubt I’m the only one with that question. I love Deni as a player (I don’t know him as a person, obviously), but I hate that any school anywhere is being bombed. (Plus, we’re the ones who did that.)
Don’t engage this.
Yeah, he served in the IDF.
Clippers thought the only way they sign Kawhi was if they trade SGA for PG13.
One was a 28yr old coming of a finals MVP and championship season the other was a 29yr old considered the best two way wing the world.
100% of GMs including all of us would have made that trade.
Deni Avdija was completely different.
Ain’t exactly the most noble of outfits.
I’ll leave it at this. I can’t separate a ball player from someone who was a member of the closest thing my eyes have seen to a modern einsatzgruppen.
But keep talking about his +/-.
He didn’t have a choice but to join up—everyone is required to. No idea what that has to do with his basketball skills.
That’s a you issue. Probably best to work it out on your own without polluting this basketball discussion.
Yeah, I gotta work on my compartmentalizing of evil.
Sorry to pollute. Carry on.
This is not the place to start chiming in about this fella. Good job trying to be some kind of internet hero though.
You need a trench-coat if you’re gonna be flashing that meaty algorithm at random strangers. No drama without the reveal.
Oh I am aware – thin ice with this crowd. Again, just stating my opinion, not attacking anyone.
Let’s stick to hoops.
How come no one wants to talk about Ben Saraf’s +/-?
(Yes, that is a joke—maybe a bad one, but one meant to lighten things up.)
The Deni trade helped spur the Washington tank that gave us the 31st pick so I am good with it.
I didn’t watch a minute of last nights games. I just know when I watch tonight they’ll be bores.
Yeah, silver linings Bern
Oaktrees, with all due respect, your initial statement was attacking “everyone who loves…”. So it is not thin ice with “this crowd”.
I’m not so sure about that.
Kawhi was already breaking down in San Antonio with reports he had a degenerative issue that could impact the longevity of his career and cause other injuries.
It was the kind of move you make if you have 1-2 year window.
To be honest, it’s kind of miraculous they got as much out of him as they did and that he can still play at a superstar level – though in a limited number of games. He has managed it well or the diagnosis at the time was in error (which was one of his issues in San Antonio).
Fully changing my approach this offseason.
I’m no longer thinking about or analyzing opponents, looking at odds, advanced statistics, looking at spreads, match ups, rotations, idiotic vs ideal substitution patterns or worrying about anything.
All this “knowledge” has taken a chunk of joy out of my fan experience over the last couple of years.
Going full RETARD MAX mode like a dumb but joyful teenagaer with an IQ of 61 and an undeveloped frontal cortex cheering the team with every fiber of my being.
I really just want to be one of these guys….that’s the goal!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XvUEJhNC3iw
If I was Jewish, I’d be demanding a retraction and an apology. “Everyone who loves Deni” is pretty clearly aimed at a specific group, and it sure ain’t basketball fans in general.
It’s true what they say about learning something new every day…even at 67. I never heard that word.. I love AI.
I seem to remember reading that a scheduled hockey game got in the way of the NBA’s preferred schedule.
Danny Wolf’s Jewish, too. Not sure about his “IDF status.” (Or for that matter his +/-. I’m confident his +/- was pretty good in his year at Michigan, and I care about that way more than I care about the Brooklyn Nets.)
I think you be overshooting a little here ;-), but there IS something to be said about simplifying instead of overcomplicating. Smart people tend to dig deeper and deeper and get more and more complicated in their analysys under the assumption it gives them an edge, but sometimes you start weighing things incorrectly, start suffering from paralysis by analysis or it takes all the joy out of what you doing when the answer and joy is staring you right in the face.
“Going full RETARD MAX mode like a dumb but joyful teenagaer with an IQ of 61 and an undeveloped frontal cortex cheering the team with every fiber of my being.”
Not great. What the heck is going on here today?
There’s quite a bit of confusion about this, in part because the internet has made people do pretty much anything to present as “smart,” right down to making them do pretty much anything to associate themselves rhetorically with people and ideas they think are the “smart” ones.
But in fact, intelligent people are way better at simplifying things and narrowing issues for consideration and distinguishing dissimilar things than they are at complicating things — and than ersatz smart people are. The smart person will say, “No, a bird and an airplane aren’t the same thing even though they’re both ‘things that fly.'” The less smart person won’t.
“If I was Jewish, I’d be demanding a retraction and an apology. “Everyone who loves Deni” is pretty clearly aimed at a specific group, and it sure ain’t basketball fans in general.”
This is pretty rich coming from someone who was banned primarily for lumping everyone who disagreed with his opinions into the “Greek Chorus.”
Yeah, but you gotta admit that Jew hatred is kinda gross and icky.
“Yeah, but you gotta admit that Jew hatred is kinda gross and icky.”
It is, but not all who are virulently opposed to the actions of Bibi and Donald in response to the October 7 attacks (and other USA-funded Israeli government actions over the years) are “Jew haters.” In fact, many of them are Jewish.
Maybe oaktrees did a happy dance on October 7, and his infantile statement is suggestive of that, but whatever. The main point is that this is not really a forum for that kind of venting.
Of course, it’s not a broad hatred all. I didn’t mean as such, and if it came off that way, it wasn’t my intent. At all. I’m just really sad and grossed out at the state of this world sometimes.
And watching a beloved team limp into the playoffs as a three seed ain’t helping matters.
I think we talking about different degrees of smart.
There’s smart as in able to watch a sport, look at the data, see patterns, learn, exploit mistakes and so on and there’s the guy that spends so much time compiling and analyzing data, using advanced math and models that he has no time to enjoy the sport and misses things that are right in front of him.
Thank you for apologizing, oaktrees.
We are all just people: you, me, Z-man, Deni, Deuce, etc., and anyone with less than 9-figure accounts to their names. We’re all just trying to figure things out.
I am Jewish, was not remotely offended by oaktrees’ comment, and have a feeling we’d agree on a lot of stuff.
That said, I agree with the consensus that we should try to keep this place a safe haven from the horrors of the world that exists outside of the Knicks and other trivialities.
Couldn’t agree more.
Fair.
It’s depressing.
We should let this discussion die, but I have to throw one thing out there. I’ve become convinced that there is a correlation between a lack of empathy and success in business and politics. I think a lot of political leaders, business leaders, CEOs and billionaires are either sociopaths or at least have some of the attributes and are borderline cases. Some may be full out psychopaths. The thing is, they are also often very bright. So even though they have little to no empathy and only think about accumulating wealth, land, power etc… for themselves EVEN when they know they will cause a lot of pain to others, they learn to fake the emotions they see others feeling. That tricks many if not most people. But you can catch them every once in awhile when their reaction is completely out of line with the emotion. That’s how you know they are faking it. I’d love to name a few, but I’m going to refrain from that because it will make the conversation worse instead of better. I’ll just say it’s not a political party thing. But IMO the reason the world is often such a mess is that a significant portion of the people with great wealth or power are not well emotionally and mentally. They are sociopaths.
Zero question.
I’m Jewish, but I’m *not* Israeli, just as Avdija is Israeli but is *not* the Iraeli government, which only looks less horrible when it is compared to our own current version.
The downfall of our government began as soon as it became acceptable for our “leaders” to flat-out lie on a daily basis, about anything and everything. Nothing else could work once that started, and now it is just accepted as a norm with zero accountability to the truth. Until we fix that, we’re screwed.
the antihuman landscape of our present and future is absolutely fertile for the un-empathetic (weather invested with wealth and power or makers of it… or seeking it)… no group of people are inherently “well” emotionally.
America is in significant cultural decline. It’s certainly seen worse days, objectively, like the late 70s, but the system and institutions that eventually could get the country out of that mess were still functioning well. That isn’t the case anymore.
The quality of business and political leadership has gone way, way down, and the internet has eradicated the capability for shared truth. Gonna be a tough sled to get out of it, and it might not be possible.
Porting the potential loss of millions of educated jobs through AI on top of that has the potential of mortal disaster.
I wasn’t going to say anything, but since it was brought up. I watched the replay of last night’s game, Deni was great, on offense everything goes through him and he was their go to POA defender. I didn’t know he had it in him and wished I could be patriotic and proud that an Israeli player is doing so well. But I can’t. I think we’re beyond the “I’m a nice person and what my country does is not my responsibility”. It is. Things are too horrible and scary and destructive to just stay quiet.
I’ve personally always been a “minority” in terms of my makeup vis-a-vis the makeup of the players on elite basketball floors and sometimes though not always while playing. I have no capacity whatsoever to start plucking out a guy’s religion, race, national origin, whatever and then start kvetching and stewing over it and associating a bunch of completely unrelated things with it. Nor will I deface the sport and the endeavor (or my world citizenry) by doing it.
They never did it to me, and I’m not going to do it to them — anymore than I’m going to eat holding my fork differently than was drilled into me in formative days.
Now if Deni Avdija or anyone else starts injecting racial, religious, national politics voluntarily into what they’re bringing to the “party,” that’s a different story. But someone’s mere status as black, Jewish, white, Afghan, Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, whatever? No chance.
YMMV.
One last point on my sociopath rant.
Everyone probably knows I’m generally a free market, pro business, balanced budget, sound money capitalist despite that rant. The thing is, I think you can be all those things and accumulate a lot of wealth as a byproduct of your work while simultaneously providing jobs, providing quality products and services, improving the community and growing the overall pie that everyone gets to eat from. Or you can make the bottom line and excessive returns drive every decision and hurt everyone around you in that single minded pursuit. IMO we are way past the former into the latter territory. Now the goal is creating laws, policies and a business position that enhances your ability to pillage others either through the govt and its institutions or privately no matter how immoral or unethical. Sometimes (many times?) it’s even the military. That’s why I say these people are unhealthy. I don’t really care if you are a billionaire, but I do care how you made it and how you used it along the way.
Can’t wait till Saturday.
As someone vaguely related to Owen’s in-laws might say-
“Chaos fills a void.”
You can’t raise money from Wall Street without that “single minded pursuit.”
You can’t choose your race, and 99.9% of people can’t and don’t choose their country. There’s really no moral basis for either of those things to impose some kind of obligation (as distinct from the kind of choice you’re talking about) of that kind in the absence of any choice or discretion.
This is true but was it always the case? Feels like a big shift in Wall Street thinking happened in the 80’s and we entered the era where every quarter has to outearn the quarter previously or your business is somehow failing and your stocks go down. Like it’s not enough to make a healthy profit anymore. You have to make a profit bigger than what you made in the previous quarter. how is that sustainable without fucking over your own employees and customers?
Enshitification is real.
It’s a broken system. ANYWAY.
How about Spo crying like a baby after the game because Mr. I Breaky Record Against GLeaguers got hurt on the butt?
Obvs I don’t want anyone getting hurt fr, but gotta love the cHeat whimpering and whining about a TikToker hahaha.
EDIT: I’d like to reiterate how I do hope Bam isn’t injured in any way shape or form.
According to most historians, in the 12 years they held power in Germany, the Nazis killed about 66% of the European Jewish population (estimated to be 10 to 11 million).
In the 78 years since the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics says Israel has killed about 2.4% of the Palestinian population in the Middle East (currently standing at a little over 5.5 million).
66% in 12 years vs. 2.4% in 78 years.
Let’s lay off the midwit Nazi analogies.
Oak has badly tarnished this thread, so I’m sadly going to go elsewhere for my ‘entertainment’ today. Live and learn, guys. Also learn to leave well enough alone instead of reflexively jumping into the scrum.
As I leave I’ll just touch on Strat’s also non-basketball rant. The word that I’ve found that encapsulates, or at least seems to be the foundation, for a lot of what you’re taking about, is not necessarily psychopath (although it can be), but hyper-narcissist. I’m beginning to believe that needs to be a defined medical condition that must be treated and otherwise should keep people from positions of power (although of course if saddled with the ‘disease’ that’s all you want, or think you deserve).
See ya.
If you became a billionaire by providing a service or building a product that improve peoples lives than hat tip to you…you can spend it and do with it whatever you like. In my experience, wealthy self made people go through phases like all of us. First it show off success an flaunt welth. Then its hoard it but live reasonably modestly and annonimously and lastly they usually give most of it away…
My beef is with OF tech creators, criminals, drug cartels (legal and ilegal), short video algorithm creators, gambling apps, banksters, teachers unions and university administratiors, military industrial complex, etc…they prey on vulnerability of humanity for self gain.
Because the morality of institutions we trust to protect us (DEA, SEC, FDA, CDC, FBI, DA’s etc) are corrupt and self serving, this experiment is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Like I said, with AI and financially irresponsible politicians expediting the financial downfall of the nation and inevitable path to full blown socialism, its probably best to focus on retard maxing lifestyle over the next couple of decades.
LET’S GO KNICKS!!
Not loving the use of “retard,” but it seems to be a thing now. Ho, hum.
I used to think al was just being a tad touchy when he would snap a bit when politics got brought up here…
then 2025 happened, and holy shit I get it now…
where ever you are at the moment, know this al – you were right…
This principle, which I agree with in normal times, is on a plane that has “I’m just obeying orders” on the other side. I think it’s fair to ask public figures where on that plane they are. Arabs in Israel are asked that 100 percent of the time. Jews like myself, who oppose the war, and its handling by our current government, are asked that question more and more. We have to speak up or they’ll get rid of us altogether.
This would be an interesting conversation about morality but it’s the playoffs and I’ll go with the no-politics understanding around here and stop commenting on it.
Ded. Start a new thread to get us away from this crapola. Sorry for my participation.
FYI, here’s an interesting tidbit:
“170 million people in the US watched NBA games during the 2025-6 regular season, the most in 24 years and up 86% from last season.”
Guess Silver is doing something right.
Up 86 percent just *seems* unbelievably incorrect. Maybe it’s not, though.
Being available in China might have something to do with it…
Also the Amazon.com games and Peacock… more outlets now.
Yesterday I mentioned that I got the impression Brown was playing the starting lineup a little less towards the end of the season (despite still, you know, starting it), but that I couldn’t find any tool that allowed me to look game-by-game lineup data unless I tediously sorted by date on the NBA stats site.
So today I vibecoded such a tool, and was able to determine that Brown easing up was mostly a product of my imagination. The amount of minutes our starting lineup played stayed pretty constant as long as all the players were healthy.
Right now the tool only has data from the 2025-2026 regular season, and only has lineup/player combination data as opposed to individual player data, but it does have every 2025-2026 game and seems to serve its limited purpose pretty well.
Can’t begin to say how very, very cool that is, Noble. Many thanks!
Staying away from politics, but just to clarify for Doogie, the r#tard reference is to a line from Tropic Thunder, not a random slur.
Would be cool if you asked it to add analytic tools to determine when rotation changes occurred across set periods of times.
If anything it looks to me like we’ve played the starting lineup the heaviest minutes in games 79, 80, and 81. Maybe we’ve been sitting backups or something though.
I think people turned on the games, realized it wasn’t the 2025 finals anymore, and promptly turned them off.
okay, so picked the hornets and suns to win yesterday, let’s see if I can guess the winner of each game both correctly, all on the same day…
gonna go with the magic over the sixers, who knows, maybe the magic were just dogging it all season long…
also guessing the warriors suddenly put it together for one night…clips go/stay home…
“If anything it looks to me like we’ve played the starting lineup the heaviest minutes in games 79, 80, and 81. Maybe we’ve been sitting backups or something though.”
We were definitely sitting the likes of Mo and Alvie in those last few games up until the Charlotte game more than we had been previously.
national tv night for mets/dodgers…
how exciting…only another thousand games in the season to be played…
if shohei pitchers though, I will have to tune in…everytime he takes the mound, it’s must see stuff…
Ohtani, and his 0.00 era, is on the mound tonight!
PS —
JK, I thought of you last night, when the Dodgers bunted their #9 hitter setting up the IBB to Ohtani in a tie game. I was like “hmm, give up and out and take the bat out of Ohtani’s hands. What would JK47 have to say about that right now?” Then Tucker immediately hit a flair to LF to score the go-ahead run. So it worked! (Despite my inherited misgivings)
Have we reviewed this yet: https://knickerblogger.net/2025/10/the-how-many-wins-will-the-knicks-have-in-2025-26-prediction-thread/
27% of KBers (17 votes) chose 52-54 wins. Lots of people were pretty spot on.
Looks like TNFH and Pointdexter Jenkins nailed 53 wins. Lots of posters were pretty close this year.
Fair number of posters, including yours truly, guessed 52 or 54.
Anyways, congrats to KB for collectively having some fairly accurate guessers.
Of course, Vegas was at 53.5 so this may not have been all that impressive, but we could’ve easily overestimated given we’re a fan site.
I actually picked 49 wins because I thought we overachieved last season and I wasn’t thinking the coach change would make a huge difference. I am very happy to have been wrong about this.
On a basketball note, the Athletic preview of our matchup with Atlanta is pretty good even though it’s written by the odd combination of Edwards and Hollinger.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7191634/2026/04/12/nba-playoffs-2026-knicks-hawks-preview/
Regardless of any side of any political issue, Oaktree’s comment was absolutely disgusting and worthy of a ban. I’ve never said anything like that in my 20 whatever years on this blog.
Ugh, why.
You mean like saying 58 wins? 🤭
On a non-basketball note, you NY fuckers DID hurt Ohtani. He’s only pitching tonight (grr).
The 2026 Yankees are going to give me a heart attack and it’s only April 15…
I picked 51 games and reading my comments it’s funny how worried I was about Josh hart’s finger.
Philly v Boston should be good
Watching Paolo chuck and brick shot after shot and watching a great shooter like Towns barely get shots at times is something
Worth noting that Deni Avdija has an Israeli Jewish mother and a Yugoslavian-Israeli Muslim father. I’d bet that both his parents love him very much and I’d bet that they both blinked when a school was bombed in Iran.
Which was done by the US Navy, by the way, so perhaps we should remove Admiral David Robinson from the NBA Hall of Fame?
Anyway, oaktrees comments were IMHO quite vile. Anyone who cavalierly throws around a term like einsatzgruppen demonstrates that they really don’t take human suffering all that seriously.
Anybody know if Ohtani is allowed to pinch hit in this game?
Five automatic outs in the lineup for the Mets tonight. None of the five have any business being on a major league roster.
Following on the game on Gameday and saw “Benge hits into force out to LF.”
I don’t know what happened there but I’m gonna guess that good fundamentals were not involved. What the fuck is a force out to LF.
Mendoza has got to go. This team is not mentally prepared.
Narrator: he was overcorrecting, and the East wasn’t as bad as he expected
Nice comeback by the Warriors! Down by 6 to the Clips at the end of the third quarter, the Dubs have just taken a 2-point lead with 2 minutes left in the game. Steph with 34. They may still lose, which would be a shame, but #prideisawonderfulthing.
Kawhi 2 points in the 4th in garbage time
Hmmm
There wasn’t really any garbage time in that game. The biggest lead in the last couple of minutes was briefly 7 points, but there was time for it to be overcome.
I guess I was pretty spot on. Are we doing a playoffs prediction thread?
draymond is still draymond…not sure how many more seasons that’ll last (he started this season slowly), but he’s a fiend on the defensive end…shut down kawhi in the 4th…
Friday, I’ll do something.
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