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Knicks Game 2 players and coach grades – Posting & Toasting
Hawks are attacking the Knicks’ weak spots. New York needs to reciprocate – The New York Times
Playoff Game Preview: Knicks at Hawks, Game 3, April 23, 2026 – Posting & Toasting
Josh Hart’s fourth-quarter explosion helps Knicks hold on to 112-106 win over Celtics – SNY
NBA playoffs 2026: Karl-Anthony Towns and Knicks face major stakes – ESPN
Mikal Bridges: Knicks must ‘bring that fire’ into Game 3 against Hawks in NBA playoffs – SNY
Knicks Key Defensive Adjustment in Game 3 – Knicks Fan TV
The Run.down Knicks vs Hawks R1G3 Postgame Show – The Strickland
Knicks at Hawks (Game 3) – Recap & Reaction | POSTGAME SHOW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
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160 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.04.24)”
Hawks now the betting favorite to win the series at -134.
Wolves have also flipped the betting script and are (slightly less of) the favorite in their series at -124.
(FanDuel)
Knicks could be up 3-0. Their play in last seconds of both games has been so bad.
For the first time in the Leon era, the Knicks are in a position where they have to dig down and find something within themselves and it’s reasonable to fear that they’re going to go through that process and realize that they don’t really want to bother.
Kinda hated the Giants draft, too.
Feels like they passed on Downs bc they predetermined offense/defense before the night, which is dumb.
If they really wanted a guard so bad, I would have rather they drafted the Penn State guy who is a guard and projects to be a great one instead of taking the tackle with a herniated disc to move to guard. They also could have traded down to Dallas to get him and add picks.
Oh well. At least I got ice cream for finishing 2nd.
Mike Brown should send a clear message to Mikal and start Deuce and not play Mikal the entire game, ending his iron man streak. Play Diawara instead.
The realization that, notwithstanding the reputation, Mikal really in fact couldn’t play ball screens came to KB within his first ten regular season games with the team. It represents one of the group’s finest hours.
I’m still team Brunson, but man is he playing bad. 🙁
I want the old Brunson back, hero ball and all, i think this “Brunson is the problem” is making him doubt himself and that has been a disaster.
And the team has to do more too, if he is supposed to play the right way, they have to move and create spaces or get open. Brunson was triple teamed and i didn’t re-watch it, but at the time it looked like all our other players were static.
Well, i hope they can overcome this, but we really need to steal a game in ATL to not go into panic mode.
Was Mitch as bad as -18 in 11 minutes would indicate? Or did he just have the misfortune of playing all his minutes with bridges? It’s unfathomable to me that he wasn’t in the game for the final defensive possession.
Disgusted with Brown. How the fuck you put that weird ass line up in on the last Atlanta possession but not put your best rim protector and rebounder in the game. If Czj misses that shot there’s a good chance Atlanta gets the rebound anyways.
And the last possession by us shows a lack of cohesion.
He is a clear downgrade from Thibs.
And don’t get me started on Mikal. We traded 5 picks for this guy and Leon chose him over Thibs bc he didn’t want to lose the guy he traded 5 picks for and he’s just ain’t it.
Trade him and develop Diawara. We won’t win a chip but we can continue to be a good playoff team.
Also fire Brown. I don’t know who to replace him with but this player’s coach style ain’t it.
The trade I keep going to is KAT (who I love) and Mikal for Giannis and Turner.
It works money wise. Milwaukee wants out from Turner and while KAT is not as good as Gianni’s, he’s been healthier and is still an All Star elite player.
Annoyingly, if Kerr leaves Golden State, while he would normally be a good option here, I doubt he’d take the job knowing he was replacing his friend, Mike Brown.
I do not get it. We have one of the best rim protectors and rebounders in the league and we’re playing a team without a single player taller than 6’ 8” and Mitch is just rotting away in the bench.
My girlfriend, who has only been watching basketball for a couple of years and only watches the Knicks, knew that the move was to put Mitch in for Hart on the final defensive possession: Mitch, KAT, OG, Brunson, and Deuce. And then assuming that we stopped them, we could take a timeout with about 10 seconds left (we had one left, right?), re-insert Hart for Mitch, and close it out. Get the ball in KAT’s hands as he is our best free throw shooter, and call it a day with a hard-fought 1-point victory (or 2 or 3, if they sent KAT to the line). Inserting a cold Shamet and a cold (and bad) Mikal was the exact thing to *not* do. She was disgusted by it.
She could also see that Jalen needed a couple of minutes rest in the fourth quarter—maybe just 2 or 3—as he looked exhausted. No wonder he kept making boneheaded plays at the end (she said). She loves Jalen more than anyone else on the team, which is to be expected.
I’m also flummoxed by Diawara being Siberia’d. His size and long-range shooting could have easily made a difference in the last two games. It can’t be that we don’t want to lose him by “showcasing” him. That would be beyond stupid. We stand more of a chance of losing him by benching him and going down in flames without him. He’s as good as gone, and maybe Mitch now, too.
With the extension, Mikal is now a distinctly negative asset.
That’s for the offseason though; the immediate dilemma is what to do with him on the court. He should be running “show me” minutes with the second unit against ATL’s bench guys but I doubt Brown will do that in full. Best we can probably hope for is that Brown starts him on a “show me” basis, pulls him for Deuce before the 9 minute mark of the first, and then puts him in against bench players on a show me basis.
It’s just incredible how physically and mentally soft Mikal is. It must have always been there just below the surface, and factors specific to the here and now Knicks are bringing it out. And/or he realizes he’s declining athletically. Probably a combination of all of the above.
The other issue plaguing them is that they’re still short a piece and have been since the OG (*) trade. Nothing can be done about that now other than realizing it and greatly shortening the bench. That takes us back to having to go with Thibsian minutes, but in retrospect Thibs really didn’t have much of a choice. This is neither the time nor the roster to start worrying about too many minutes for the guys who can actually play basketball.
(*) Who was awesome last night.
Horrific coaching by Mike Brown
– Towns is a plus 22 and takes 12 shots. He also only plays 34 minutes and wasn’t in foul trouble . It’s the playoffs not the regular season .
– Mitch hasn’t played 20 minutes once in this series. Last night he played 11 minutes ! Why are you resting him the regular season to lower his minutes even more in the playoffs.
– plays a lineup again that never played during the season
Player note
Brunson – taking double shots attempts of Towns while racking up 4 assists .
*Mikal- minius 26 in a one point game . You know how hard that is to do .
And when you go to the podium and say dumb shxt like this it makes you look like an idiot https://x.com/NBA_NewYork/status/2047507298617110629
Also on the last play where CJ gives them the lead
How do you as a head coach
Not put more size on CJ? Why the f is OG on Onyeka when he isn’t going to take the shot ? Everybody knows where the shot attempt was coming from except the idiot holding the clipboard .Why the hell is OG on Onyeka. Why not bring in Mitch for Onyeka and let OG defend CJ. You also have Sochan, Diawara sitting on the bench who can bring more height in. Why use Deuce to just have CJ shoot over him. Horrible coaching job .
The final possession lineup and coverage assignments no exaggeration was one of the dumbest fucking things I’ve ever seen.
To close the loop on Mikal as an asset — we should all realize that his extension *has not even kicked in yet.* He is owed $150 million all the way through the 2029-30 season.
I predicted 3-4 games would come down to the last few possessions and even though we had the better closer, that scared me. We’ve already had 2 games like that and Atlanta and McCallum have closed out games better.
The series is not over, but as I said, their defense was underrated. They have the length to give Brunson trouble and we are not taking advantage of our edges. This was not a good matchup and we are being badly outcoached.
Something has to change, but I have no confidence Brown will make the right lineup tweaks and adjustments.
Mike Brown has two starters currently with. 70 TS
Towns and OG and he may lose this series
*easier first round opppnent than Thibs ever had
Mitchell Robinson hasn’t played 20 minutes yet and you’re giving up so many offensive boards. The medical staff wanted to keep him healthy, but the Coach doesn’t want play him . Thibs would at least get this guy on the court . This guy is so far behind the 8 ball.
JJ Redick is coaching a marvelous series with 40 year old LeBron and role playerz. He has a game plan and is executing it. Really no excuse Mike brown can’t use his roster to beat the Hawks and yes there is no way they would lose this series with the other guy on board.
*you won’t hear much from the Thibs sucks crowd people btw because it can always be worse*
Then maybe he should run for Congress in Arizona or California in November and flip a seat, instead.
The problem with Kerr is he loves a free flowing offense
* Curry maybe the least ball dominant superstar ever . Would he have any interest in Brunson Ball..
I think the Brunson hate has gotten a little out of control and is too much. He is not playing great at certain moments of the game, but when you take a step back, it isn’t all his fault.
Like some have indicated, he is getting physically and mentally worn down. Bigger players, double-teams, and pressing him up the court sometimes too.
He would benefit greatly (as has been said for a few years) of having some other plays take some of that load off him. We really don’t have players that can consistently bring the ball up and initiate or create. It all falls on 1 guy. As I said last night, that is not typical for most playoff teams. The Hawks have a few guys who can create their own shot or one for another play.
I think KAT is playing well in spurts, but overall he is still playing good in like half the game. I don’t love Stan Van Gundy, but he said KAT has been playing well in 1 quarter so far this series. Yesterday was 2 quarters. We need more. We also need him to fight for posting position. Even if he doesn’t post to score, he can post to create for someone else’s open shot. Mike Brown should try and get him some good shots, especially early in the game.
I wish we would use Sochan at the end of quarters or halves if it is possible. When you can do subs and bring in defensive players. He would have been a good sub (if he played a little and wasn’t totally cold on the bench) to come in and guard CJ.
Strangely even after what happened last night I’m still feeling pretty optimistic about this series. The fact Knicks could play such an awful game and still should’ve won is a somewhat comforting feeling.
You can hear it from me Underground. Just because Brown is shitting the bed doesn’t make Thibs the right coach. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Thibs had a ceiling. They needed something else. Just not Brown
Update-
The Knicks starting lineup now has a negative 7.4 net rating
The Brunson, McBride, Hart, OG and Towns lineup has a plus 75 net rating.
Also another lineup here with Brunson, McBride,OG and Mitch at Center that has a plus 34 net rating, but barely has playing time. How is Brunson in this series not even getting more time with Mitch ???
So the firing was terrible when there was no clear replacement . Now you have another coach on the book who should get fired if he loses this series and a circus show developing.
*also the teams Thibs lost to could’ve won the title if their best player doesn’t go down with a horrific injury.
Not to defend Mikal, who has been bad, but Nickeil Alexander Walker is generally considered a very good defender (as are a few other Hawks). Maybe he/they should be getting some of the credit.
There’s also another issue.
I always bring up this usage issue, but when you have 5 guys that can score, someone is going to get left out. Brunson is going to be Brunson. We want Towns to be a major part of the offense and in this series OG has become the clear 3rd option. So one of either Hart or Bridges is going to have lower usage automatically on top of being defended well. Hart was 1-9 and 0-4 from 3 (maybe give him some grief?), but at least he’s filling up the boxscore in his usual other ways. Bridges only took 3 shots. That’s NOT fully on him. That’s whether or not he’s getting the ball and how well he’s defended when he gets it. The problem is that despite having so few opportunities to shoot, he had 4 TOs and zero stocks. If he was doing other things well, we could live with Towns and OG being highly efficient on high usage, Brunson being Brunson and Mikal sacrificing some shots against these matchups.
Can’t give credit here. Mikal shouldn’t be on zero points . It’s inexcusable. The team shouldn’t be able to plug in a cheap contract guy and the lineup gets much better with the same players on the court around him. His value is in the pits.
https://x.com/Michael_Nania/status/2047671485246967963
Another sign this coach is a fool. Is there no data available for this guy? The amount of stuff he says that gets shot down ..
We have enough. We didn’t have the 3rd best offense in the league because we have too few weapons.
When Hart gets a defensive rebound he often brings up the ball on a break. He can also makes plays in the half court.
Mikal can bring it up and also make plays.
Even Towns can pass a bit.
The problem is once Brunson has the ball they throw long defenders at him quickly and instead of passing, he dribbles around trying to shake them. Other times he stands there surveying the court (like Melo and Randle used to do) and then tries to create for himself. These things are running precious time off the clock and we wind up taking too many tough shots late in the clock.
Maybe we are not young and athletic enough to do some of what I envision, but the ball has to move. You can’t stand around or over dribble. That’s the surest road to a tough shot against a good defensive team like this.
Mikal might play better with the second unit. I found it weird that Thibs would nearly every game play RJ Barrett with the second unit but seemingly didn’t do the same with Bridges.
https://x.com/shwinnypooh/status/2047664213875695794/mediaViewer?mode=profile¤tTweet=2047664213875695794¤tTweetUser=shwinnypooh
This is a play where Mikal could use some of those play making tactics, but not interested and does this instead
I used to think that and maybe still do a little bit, but there’s a very good chance that he really actually can’t do that.
So get him 12-15 shots and if he doesn’t score he deserves to be called out, but at the same time then don’t complain that Towns, OG or Hart is not doing enough. Those shots have to come from somebody else. The idea is to get the ball to whoever has the best matchup. So far that’s been Towns and OG. So maybe a little less Brunson and a little more Mikal. I’m more pissed that Mikal is turning the ball over and not doing anything special with blocks or steals.
He’s played 21 playoff games as a Knick and is shooting 449/323/778.
He’s shot 18 free throws in 21 games playing something like 37 minutes a game. Let that sink in. He’s a starting wing. He’s shooting less than a free throw a game.
He stinks. The idea of going out of your way to create shots for him is a non-starter.
Couldn’t watch any of the game. Watched highlights late last night. Just crushing.
I would still give the Knicks a very healthy chance to win.
The moment between games 3 and 4 against the Celtics was the first time, and they responded with the most incredible Knicks game of the 21st century.
The second time was probably game 2 against the Pacers. That result was unbecoming for the situation.
And the third time was game 6 in Indiana. That was when they realized they don’t really want to bother — they quit in the 2nd half.
“Maybe we are not young and athletic enough to do some of what I envision, but the ball has to move. You can’t stand around or over dribble. That’s the surest road to a tough shot against a good defensive team like this.”
Anyone remember early in the season when the ball was being passed around the horn a *lot*, like a real NBA offense? It was beautiful to watch. We’d have easily been a 60-win team and a real contender if we hadn’t explicably stopped doing that.
“I would still give the Knicks a very healthy chance to win.”
I apologize, but does it really look to you like we’re going to take 3 out of 4 from Atlanta right now? I know we *can*, but it’s seemingly very unlikely that we will.
ICYMI I also had a crushing night — losing in the final of a backgammon tournament when my opponent had a 0.000805% chance of outrolling me in the bear-off phase.
Kuminga is out there playing 30 minutes and they are going to let him be a difference maker
Mikal didn’t compete yesterday on either end. He turned it over four times in those awful minutes and if he had gotten 15 shot attempts he probably would have turned it over 10 times.
He died on every screen, got continually hunted on the defensive end. When Deuce came in the game, it was the opposite— he blew up almost every screen where he was guarding the ball handler and played effective defense.
Mikal was the worst player on the floor by a mile, was truly unplayable, laid a complete goose egg of a nothingburger of a performance in a crucial game. He’s an anti-Knick. A crummy team player who looks and plays like he’d rather be doing something else.
It was an all-timer of a horrendous performance. NAW is a nice player, but let’s get real, he ate Mikal’s lunch. Maybe instead of trading five firsts for Mikal and giving him a 4/150 contract, we could have just… signed NAW for 4/60 like the Hawks did, but then again that wouldn’t be a cute “Nova Boys” story.
The idea that we actually needed MORE Mikal yesterday is one of the funnier things I’ve ever read here. He was brutally bad.
It reminds me of the ’98 ALCS when the Yanks were down 2-1 to the Indians after the Knoblauch debacle. Mikal is obviously the guy who didn’t pick up the ball. If there’s an El Duque, I think it’s going to be Mitch.
“We have enough. We didn’t have the 3rd best offense in the league because we have too few weapons.”
I just don’t see it. The last few years, especially in the playoffs it gets exposed. Brunson takes a beating. Hart can bring it up sometimes, and a few others a little. But the first thing they do is look to give it to Brunson. The shot clock has whittled down a lot by then. Mainly though, is these guys can’t really beat their defenders off the dribble and create their own or someone else’s shot.
When we play Deuce/Hart/OG at the 2-3-4 slots, we can actually play some decent defense. Deuce takes POA and tries to disrupt pick and rolls, OG guards the best opposing wing (he played great D yesterday) and Hart holds his own against whatever wing is left. With this lineup, KAT is a reasonably effective defender at the rim.
Put Mikal in and that all goes to shit, because Mikal is a defender you can exploit. Get him on a screen and he will not fight through it, and now everybody’s job is harder, especially KAT’s.
There’s a reason the Knicks’ numbers with their default starting five are so bad.
Maybe get Towns more than 2 shots in 4th and more than 12 shots for the game . Towns should be avg 30 pts in this series. Every single analyst is saying this .
With regular season load management and massive tanking, those numbers have lost a great deal of their signal. That then becomes even more amplified when you get into the real games and the other team plans for you and adjusts to you down to the very finest detail.
At this point, it means basically zero.
Is it possible that Mike Brown is so dumb he was thinking “I don’t want Mitch in the game because if they miss and he gets the rebound they’ll foul him”?
I think he is bc I can’t think of another reason.
Hard to believe we spent the whole year keeping Mitch healthy for the playoffs and are declining to use him.
Aren’t they hiding CJ on Mikal? I didn’t see last night but that’s what they did in games 1 & 2.
Yeah count me as completely done with the Mikal Bridges experience.
This dude is soft AF. He basically got Thibs fired and was supposed to now be happy and in a good situation but he’s the same fucking player. He disappears far too often. Never hits shots when we need them. Is not a good defender, despite is supposed reputation.
Look. Everyone knows my stance on Thibs. LOVED the dude. But I also realize his shortcomings. But the minutes thing last year for the starters was in large part because the bench was super weak. No Mitch till the last two weeks of the season. Didn’t even have Precious the first few months. Shamet was gone a lot of the season. Kolek and Huk were rookies (and he did play Huk!).
I just find it hard to believe that if he had Diawara (who is a good defender), second year Tyler, Clarkson, Mitch every other game, etc…that he would have played the starters this season as much as he did last season. He probably still would have played them more than people would have liked but we spent all season “experimenting” with line-ups only for Brown still not to know what buttons to push. And I will give him credit for benching Mikal last night. But very little Mitch in this series is a fucking crime.
So Mikal led the revolt that got our best coach in 25 years fired and he’s still not giving full effort or happy. And the politics of giving up 5 picks for him and then extending him after firing Thibs basically makes it impossible (I’m speculating) for Brown to not play him.
So trade his ass this summer. Don’t make some desperation move for Giannis or blow up the team. I know even if Mikal is gone you probably aren’t winning it all. But honestly I just hate the fact that if Leon gets desperate we’re gonna fucking go back to LOLKnicks because we gave up all these picks and can’t rebuild.
So trade Mikal for whatever you can. Take the L and move on. Use your picks this draft to bring in more young talent (we got 3 picks this year, use them!). Extend Diawara and bring back Mitch, maybe Shamet, etc.
Will starting Diawara make us contenders next year? Probably not. But we can keep this window for a few more years of being a 50 win team that makes some noise in the playoffs and at this point I’m fine with that.
Brunson ain’t the problem. He has his limitations but he’s earned our trust at this point. KAT isn’t the problem. Again, has his limits but he busted his ass last night. He might have games where he’s off but he then takes that personally and comes out the next game and he’s done what’s been asked of him this season. OG is definitely not the problem. Deuce and the others are not the problem.
It’s fucking Bridges man. And what is so frustrating is realizing that if Leon hadn’t made that trade, he could have then still traded Randle for KAT and thrown in say 3 picks instead of 1, kept Donte, and we’d still have had ammo to make another move.
But, alas, it feels like this era is about to end.
I’m not even talking about the direct one-on-one matchup, I’m more referring to the fact that it’s absurd to pay a premium for a player like Mikal when you can find players like NAW for a fraction of the cost, who have the added benefit of playing like they give a shit in the playoffs.
This is where Leon fails the exam again and again. There’s no way he’s gonna find a good surplus value player like NAW for 4/60. He wants the “name” player for 4/150 plus five first round picks.
Getting Mikal 12-15 shots is such a bad idea I’m afraid Mike Brown might try it.
You have to bench Bridges. What’s the use of accumulating all this data all year to not use it. He got his money. Bench his ass
Yeah I’d start Diawara, play Deuce a ton of minutes and bench Mikal for all of game 4. Punish him by making him lose his ironman streak (although I wonder if not playing in a playoff game counts?)
Like he needs to get the message that we aren’t coddling to him anymore. We let him get Thibs fired and brought in a worse coach to make him happy. It’s time for that to end.
the Nova boys died the second Donte was traded and, honestly, seeing Mikal’s demeanor and behavior, I’m wondering how much that really would have been a thing if Donte was still here anyways. Hart and Brunson can have their bromance but Mikal…GTFOOH.
Walker- if the Knicks want to go after Giannis- it will 100 percent be a Dolan call. If he wants to try and get him nobody is standing in the way of what he will want to offer.
I think Dolan is getting ready to take back over. He already meddle last season with the head coach.
The thing is that Hart, even when he shoots poorly, is giving 100 percent effort and has lots of hustle plays that make up for the poor shooting. Last night Hart shot 1 for 9, yes. But he also had 9 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals.
I’ve often been frustrated when Hart is cold or when he refuses to shoot. But I’ve never questioned his effort or hustle.
Josh Hart flat out won three 50-50 balls (that were really more like 30-70 balls) in the first five minutes of last night’s game. He is the anti-Mikal Bridges.
That clip where Mikal stands with the ball just on the left side of the top of the three point line, still with his dribble, doesn’t dribble but instead just stands there doing nothing with a who-gives-a-shit look on his face, and then proceeds to just throw the ball to the other team to relieve the pressure, is infuriating.
Whatever happens in this series, Leon needs to go.
We can’t let the guy who thought Mike Brown was the answer try to solve the problem again.
Beyond that, we need a lead decision maker with less loyalty to these players than their godfather and former agent. Cold hard decisions need to be made, like maybe not handing a supermax contract extension to Jalen because of a promise you made in 2024.
I love Jalen, but we’ve got his dad here, all his best friends, and his godfather runs the team. It’s not a coincidence no one can get the ball out of his hands. Leon created a fiefdom for him. Maybe that was all instrumental in his rise but we need something different now.
Agree with Swift about Hart: it’s one thing to have a bad game. Hart had a bad game.
It’s another thing entirely to play with zero effort like Mikal did, to play as passively as Mikal did, to phone it in on defense like Mikal did. He looked like he did not belong on the court. He contributed nothing.
I’ve watched a lot of Knick teams good and bad, and I’ve rarely been as upset as a player as I was at Mikal yesterday. Things weren’t going his way and he quit. He’s a cancer.
Down 1-2 in the 1st round, after TONS of data sitting behind what you’re observing means drastic changes time. Duece needs to start bring Bridges off the bench. Do not run that awful no Brunson, no Towns lineup. Play Brunson more with Mitch. Get Kolek some playing time, he’s good at activating Towns. And just in general actually look at data!
There is no defending Mikhail …supposed to be a 2 way player, zero stocks, lazy play, non-focused, no passion.
We need to run the offense through Towns vs Brunson, Town’s a lot more efficient against the Hawks.
We have to find ways to hide Brunson much better on PnR than watch Kobe McCollum shoot over him over and over again. Double the pick and roll, force them to have someone else beat you — wtf
We do all that and beat the Hawks, we still need to blow up this team, if we want to be championship contenders, and not just good. Good is the enemy of great. At least when we were awful we could dream about draft picks (which we’d inevitably fuck up), but still …
I know, Underground, and I’m very afraid.
Giannis scares me. With Mikal’s value being nothing, I fear the only way we can get him is if we give them KAT and whatever picks we can plus some of our young guys like Diawara, Kolek, etc. It will basically be an emptying the cupboard move that will get us an aging, injury prone superstar and we’re going to enter the decline phase of this era (sort of like the last few Melo years) with no picks to rebuild, no young talent to hope for, etc. Dolan won’t be happy with just being a respectable, good team.
It’s like he can’t fucking help himself. He stays out of the way just long enough for us to get good and then gets greedy and star chases.
I’m still furious with what went down with Thibs. Warts and all, he got us further than any coach had in 25 years and I’m of the firm belief that in any profession, if an organization or business is showing improvement every year, even if it’s incremental, you do not fire the leader!
Every year under Thibs we got a little better (sans the second year when we took a step back but I blame that on Fourner and Kemba). The last 3 seasons we 1) won our first playoff series in a decade, 2) won 50 games for the first time in a decade and then got to game 7 of the second round (one game further than the year before) and then 3) won 51 games, beat the defending champs and got to the ECF. That was clear linear progress and Thibs deserved one more year to show if he could keep building on that and address some of the criticisms people had of him (which were valid).
Instead he got fired because Mikal didn’t like him and Leon gave up so many picks for Mikal he didn’t want him to walk.
They’re going to have to try to paper over the problems because they have to do everything possible not to be handing over lottery picks to the cross-town team one after the other starting next year.(*)
After this year when the Knicks pick in the mid-20s, they don’t control a single 1 through 2031, other than 2030. They’ve barely scratched the surface on the debt owed to get Mikal.
(*) Meaning that will be their thinking. It’s not mine.
“Giannis scares me. With Mikal’s value being nothing, I fear the only way we can get him is if we give them KAT and whatever picks we can plus some of our young guys like Diawara, Kolek, etc. It will basically be an emptying the cupboard move that will get us an aging, injury prone superstar and we’re going to enter the decline phase of this era (sort of like the last few Melo years) with no picks to rebuild, no young talent to hope for, etc. Dolan won’t be happy with just being a respectable, good team”.
They will demand OG in any trade since they are bargaining from a Higher position . They can then move OG in a separate deal over time for more value . They will also want the picks in this draft. 24 and 31.
Maybe they come back and win this series and go on a deep run.
But probably not, and if that’s the case then really have to think about doing the hard work and pivoting to a more youth-oriented team, as these guys are beginning to head into their decline phase individually as players.
I can’t think of a worse guy for that job than Leon Rose.
youth oriented team” . Dolan will have zero interest in that.
I believe the Knicks will show up in game 4. I don’t think we played that great and still could have won the game. I know the Hawks probably also feel they can play better too.
I would change the starting lineup and go with Deuce. I think he will help with the perimeter defense which helps everyone on the court.
Long-term, I hope they at least look to move Mikal. Maybe someone who is a solid/good team would give some valuable stuff up for him. Wizards? They just got Tray and AD. So maybe they are dilutional to think they are closer.
I like how KAT has been playing recently (for the most part), but I would at least still explore trading him.
Swifty, my friend, you’re new to the “I never want to watch this team again after these playoffs” bus that I’ve been driving — in fact, it’s looking a little crowded in the back now, do you guys have enough room? — so let me tell you how this goes:
You hate Mikal Bridges today. That’s fair. But know this: he’ll be very good in game 4, and the Knicks will win.
Then, either in game 5 or game 6, KAT — who was great last night — will shit the bed instead.
If at some point they both play well together in the same game, that very night OG Anunoby will lose the ability to dribble or catch a pass.
And if all three of them somehow play well together, well, then the season is over, because that only happens when Jalen Brunson’s injured.
Enjoy the ride my friend. Have a seat next to Director NYC — he’s figured it out.
Before last night I’d have been willing to try it because that should be the biggest mismatch by far.
Mikal better come up big the rest of the series (I doubt it) because that was inexcusable.
Other notes:
* Brunson spent his most minutes on Dyson instead of Mccollum for the first time. Mccollum still managed to get the Brunson matchup enough to go 3-4 against him.
* OG was everywhere on defense. 3 blocks. 1 stl. Forced another 2 TOs. Looked like a 4th block but KAT fouled on the play.
Brown has OG giving help at the rim a lot, which might be his best defensive role. Thibs didn’t do it enough, imo
* Clarkson is pulling a Mitch-esque 26.6% ORB% on the series but his .473 TS% is a problem. Personally, I think Kolek should get some burn.
Mikal has been by far the worst player of the bunch, but Brunson isn’t having a great series by any means and seems to get off pretty easy compared to KAT who gets shxtted on whenever he is bad . Brunson hasn’t been close to putting in an all star level performance. https://x.com/_prezidente/status/2047692029392457772
Were there any signals that Mikal was this soft?? Hard to believe that he underwent such a drastic change after coming over from the Nets. His game has steadily detoriorated and it seems that a large part is his mindset. He is the polar opposite of Mason, Oakley, and Alvarado. The trainer should put Chile pepper up his arse before the next game
Mikal was playing for nothing on the Nyets. Low fan turnout and not much care. The pressure cooker turns up and he wilts.
“He is the polar opposite of Mason, Oakley, and Alvarado”.
Those guys have a personality. Mikal is a too cool for school type of guy. Laidback and chill. Mikal is very west coast. It amazes me he is from Philly. Has zero Philly in him. Not what you want when pressure turns up.
It’s like a Draymond. Draymond personality helps him be who he is. Marcus Smart, Dillon Brooks etc..
Brunson and Randle fit very well.
Brunson and Hartenstein were extraordinary.
KAT fit very well with Cam Payne last year, and Delon Wright when he replaced Cam in the playoffs.
And frankly KAT and Brunson were incredible together for a few months before the league went to the wing trick. That trick works not just because KAT struggles with a wing but also because Brunson doesn’t want the wing who is on KAT to be switched on to him. I used to believe it was Thibs’ who abandoned the play but I think it’s pretty clear now it’s Jalen.
Let’s not overlook that Hart was a +3 and Mikal a -26.
Hart was a part of the Knicks best lineup.
oh man, our first round match up is not going the way i’d hope…
2 close losses stinks, worse yet though is how some players are performing and the seemingly god awful job of coaching that mike brown is doing…
hard to believe if all stays the same we will not just get a repeat of this season next season…
So prime has some un-professional people
Behind the desk
https://x.com/PeterVecsey1/status/2047512890865840264
That’s the great mystery, isn’t it? There had to have been signs at some point.
As long as we’re in airing of grievances mode, all Leon had to do was negotiate better with Masai Ujiri for OG, and hang onto one of the two pieces he gave up. He had two-plus months to hang tight, multiple draft picks in his quiver, and a player who was without question going to leave TO. You put either of those surrendered pieces on this roster and this team looks way different and way better and we’re sitting here rightly thinking championship.
OG can play for my team anytime no questions asked, but that was piss poor work by Leon.
Zero chance this team stays the same if they lose this series . When the owner says you need to make the finals on a Radio show . Anything less than that isn’t pleasing him.
More points in the series
– Knicks
Wins to show for it – 1
I feel like the Knicks lack a specific identity too. I know they are highly ranked on offense and their defense improved later in the year, but what is their true identity. They are sort of like in-between and haven’t figured it out the last few years.
Before the KAT and Mikal trades, they were a strong defensive and physical team. I am not sure what I would say they are right now.
Does this seem true or am I totally way off base?
“Before the KAT and Mikal trades, they were a strong defensive and physical team. I am not sure what I would say they are right now.
Does this seem true or am I totally way off base?”
In the two years before the trades, their playoff defense was the best in the league spring 2023 and then in spring 2024, it wasn’t as good but was missing Randle for the whole playoff season and OG for several games and so it’s kind of an “incomplete.”
Both were beyond any serious doubt better than the KAT/Mikal era playoff defenses.
Nick-erbocker3
The identity was supposed to be an elite offense.
I was pretty anti-Leon from the jump, but his actual results have exceeded my expectations. We’ve been better than we’ve been for decades. So a hat tip there.
He has run the team pretty much exactly how I figured he would, he just did a better job of it than I thought he could. At the end of the day he leaves a lot of value on the table because he’s only interested in known commodities. All of the key players on this team, you knew who they were before we acquired them.
There was just no need to pay that premium for Mikal Bridges. There are plenty of Mikal Bridgeses around the league. But Mikal was a “star” to Leon, a known commodity. So to Leon he was worth that premium in a way that a “journeyman” like NAW was not.
You really get the feeling that he chooses players based on reputation, and there’s a very small margin of error and limited ceiling with that kind of approach. There’s a high floor, but a low ceiling. In Mikal’s case, Leon got burned. Mikal is nowhere near as good as his reputation. A more shrewd basketball mind would have probably figured this out. The starfucking agent didn’t really get it, so here we are.
We held the Hawks to 21 in the fourth quarter once we glued Mikal’s Charmin-soft ass to the bench. It wasn’t fluky either, you could easily see with the eye test how much more difficulty Atlanta was having scoring with one less crummy defender on the floor for NYK.
I guess in retrospect, there were more than a few inklings of Mikal being a whiny unhappy bitch that last year in Brooklyn, but consensus opinion kinda gave him a pass and chalked it up to him being wistful at seeing his Nova buddies across the river playing together and burning it up.
But in reality, that wasn’t it at all. He’s just a soft, chronic whiner.
How many times does Mike Brown call for the Pick and Roll
It’s simple. Our identity is that we choke in the playoffs against inferior teams, mostly the Hawks & Pacers:
2014: Lost to 3rd seed Pacers as 2nd seed
2021: Lost to 5th seed Hawks as 4th seed
2023: Lost to 8th seed Heat as 5th seed
2024: Lost to 6th seed Pacers as 2nd seed
2025: Lost to 4th seed Pacers as 3rd seed
2026: Lost to 6th seed Hawks as 3rd seed
Not only do we lose to these teams, we often do so via epic collapses in situations where other teams would be guaranteed to win.
Our G1 collapse against the Pacers last year was the worst by any team in all of NBA history. Our G2 collapse this year would have been among the worst in the history of most teams, but for us it was only about the third worst in the last 30 years, because again: this is our identity.
On this blog, likely everyone has seen this.
But FWIW on the Hoop Collective, Brian Windhorst has a good explainer (starting at 17 minutes) as to how (my editorial) it is the Knicks Coaching that’s failing us miserably against the Hawks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW3A1D28lC0&t=17m20s
You got ice cream, quit yer whinin’
*Windhorst says Synder set up a play to isolate OG and Bridges away from the action on that CJ shot
He doesn’t say why Mitch wasn’t even on the court there .
Bontempts – “CJ walks into a practice shot
Synder then sets up a perfect defensive play on the other end
I’m really not. I’m just out on Bridges.
I don’t think getting rid of Bridges magically makes us contenders. But I’m also totally fine with us not being real contenders as long as we’re a 50 win team that I can reasonable expect to win a playoff series or two.
I’m so mad today, though, because the Bridges experience is now threatening even that lower bar. Dolan is going to force Leon to do something drastic and it’s probably going to be Giannis, which we can’t really afford to do. I would take the gamble on Giannis if we still had all those picks but since we don’t and since Mikal is a negative asset, we’re only going to get Giannis by getting rid of the youngsters and whatever picks we have. We’ll be a team with Brunson and Giannis and not much else and then when Giannis gets hurt, we’re going to then be a team on the decline with no picks.
At least if we’re smart and just get rid of Mikal, we can ride out this core for another year or two and be good and fun.
KAT gets blamed for stuff but funny we’ve never gotten to see KAT on this team WITHOUT Mikal.
Counterpoint: Our youngsters are largely garbage so if we can acquire Giannis without losing multiple core pieces that is a huge win.
Trouble is we can’t afford him with our bare asset cupboard and there is no way for us to be the top bidder.
There is nothing exciting about the current group plus whatever we can get for Mikal’s fair market trade value, which would current be roughly 1 pair of smelly socks.
Diawara is not garbage. Sorry but that’s just you being you. He’s like 20 years old and has shown great promise this season.
Kolek, Huk, etc…maybe. But we have no pipeline for young talent right now and if we push all the chips in on an injured Giannis, it’s going to backfire spectacularly. I’d rather Leon and Dolan lower the bar and expectations for what is possible and keep us relevant for a few years while we ride out the drafts without picks than double down on the mistakes they’ve made by going after Giannis.
Huk is a boderline NBA Player / Jericho
I think Diawara has potential and is somebody worth giving actual legit minutes to find out
Kolek has an elite skill which is his passing so I think he can help a team. I could see him fly around the league as a backup point guard
Fine, Diawara is not garbage. He could someday become a viable 3&D wing. Hell, he’s probably better than Bridges now but that’s a low bar, and it isn’t very Juche in Kim Jong Leon’s org.
However, we are all in ever since the Bridges trade catastrophe. It doesn’t make sense to be 95% all in instead of 100%. Holding back one okay prospect that won’t be close to peaking until our core is in heavy decline doesn’t make sense. If Giannis costs us Diawara and every other young quasi-asset, it would be absurd for us to blink.
I enjoy watching Diawara play. He never stops moving and giving effort. He also has a nice left hand off the drive. Hopefully we see him take another step next season. He is fun to watch.
All Tyler Kolek lineups in the regular season had a positive net rating although most of it was garbage time I assume.
Craziest stat- starting lineup with Kolek in place of Brunson had a 22 net rating. 122 off rating and 100 def rating. It’s obviously not that good over a longer period of time, but caught my eye. Kolek is also great with Towns and the players seem to move around from the eye 👁️ test. Kolek is also the complete opposite of Brunson as player . Pass first and shoot later. It’s why he comes in at times and racks up 8 assists in 20 minutes and has a huge net positive in the game despite having 2 points.
Some links
Screaming A https://x.com/FirstTake/status/2047691057198981369
It’s Paulina pierce
KAT needs to be the Knicks best player
https://x.com/NBA__Courtside/status/2047655132955857168
Seriously…….anyone have any idea why Diawara is getting 0 minutes in this series? It might even be more egregious than how little Mitch has been playing. Is Mike Brown *trying* to lose?
The main reason last year’s roster made it to the ECF is the same as the main reason this year’s improved roster may well bounce out in the first round.
And also, as someone pointed out above, Diawara might leave BECAUSE we aren’t playing him. Like he plays well and gets punished bc Leon is too afraid if he plays too much another team will sign him in FA, so he’s like F that and decides to leave anyways, regardless of the money situation.
It seems to be playing with fire. You play your best players now and worry about FA consequences in the off-season.
Post all-star break, Diawara was shooting .328 from 3 with a .522 TS%.
Clarkson’s TS% was .583 during that same span.
The answer is boring and it’s that Diawara lost his spot in the rotation.
Every Diawara lineup in regular season had a positive net rating
Diawara size could be useful in spots
Mitch on the other hand…
Mitch was playing 20 minute a night minimum the last few months, sometimes 25 and the last few weeks of the regular season he was getting closer to 30.
It’s like Brown saw them do Hack A Mitch in game one and Mitch missed a free throw and he lost his nerve.
LET THEM HACK A MITCH AND LIVE WITH THE MISSED FREE THROWS! It gets them in the penalty.
It’s fucking absurd.
Hack a Mitch is a huge reason the Knicks were able to score in game 1 quarter number 3.
“And also, as someone pointed out above, Diawara might leave BECAUSE we aren’t playing him.”
Yep, that was me. I also added that if this keeps up the bloom on the rose might also disappear for Mitch and he’d be more likely to want to get on up out of here, too…….for the same reason.
Sigh… oh how I long for October/November:
– “So far this year, Mikal has easily been our second-best player.”
– “Oh for sure! By far. Bridges is probably our most consistent all around player considering Brunson’s shot isn’t yet falling at its natural clip”
– “What Brown has done with OG and Mikal is so impressive”
– “He’s essentially been the idealized version of Mikal Bridges”
– “Beyond the rebounding and playmaking, the biggest difference I see in Mikal is his confidence in shooting above-the-break 3’s. Obviously the shooting is gonna calm down a bit, but that’s the Mikal I was hoping for, and the one we only saw in short stretches last year.”
All too soon we’re going to be longing for October/November 2026.
Yup. This shouldn’t be hard. You play Mitch when they’re not in the penalty and you can play Mitch with KAT if you want (just not with Hart also). Then you take Mitch out when you’re in the bonus and you feast at the line.
The other benefit of this is that if we get FT’s then we get to set our defense. We had multiple plays last night (same against the pacers last year) where we’d score but it would be Brunson or KAT who would score but also fall down and then Atlanta would get out and run while we were a man down. This is especially bad when it’s KAT because he’s slower to get up and he’s our rim protector and big man.
So get them in the penalty with hack and mitch and get to the line. OG, Brunson and KAT are all over 80 percent free throw shooters.
and 2 games in a row Brown has gone with a no big line up when he takes KAT out. Like why are you not playing MITCH?
How many will care for the start to the season? Very strong vibes this team could be completely tuned out all regular season. More and more people realize the regular season is 82 games of nothing.
If only this were the case. This year it looks they’re tuned out all playoffs instead
It was always gonna be nothing more than a dead cat bounce for Mikal because he was feeling temporarily spry because of the new coach.
well, not too much any of us can do about this situation…
time to switch focus and find some happiness were we can…
More so talking the fans. 82 games were I don’t think you will see close to the same interest as during this season.
This sounds like when KAT e says he doesn’t know his role but he really means he doesn’t like his role.
We know what this team is. They have as clear an identity as any team in the NBA.
Mikal was certainly playing better earlier in the season. STILL not worth the opportunity cost we paid for him, but was playing well for at least a third of the season.
At some point he basically lost interest and just started playing like the lazy loafing Mikal he was under Thibs. In the playoffs he just looks like he wants to go home. Everybody is harping on the guy for good reason. That was an incredibly feeble performance.
I don’t think he thought Mikal was a star. I think he focused on him because the Brunsons wanted him and that’s what agents do — they make their stars happy.
We need a different approach. I actually think it would be relatively simple for a competent GM to execute a Celtics-like pivot and retool this team on the fly. But Leon doesn’t have that in him.
That’s a really good breakdown.
I don’t think I’ve seen the Knicks run a play that good for the last shot since the 1999 playoffs (JVG was good at that shit).
X
https://x.com/IanBegley/status/2047750931874267344 Mike Brown with more non sense. How about you let the hawks adjust to the double big lineup and stop putting Hart next to them.
He admits he needs to adjust to Synder .
Yeah, it’s annoying. Like it works without Hart, should be simple!
Also, start Deuce. Let Mikal sub in for Deuce in teh first half. But if Mikal does nothing, second half you sub in Diawara.
Or just don’t play Mikal and let his dumb iron man streak end.
I don’t think it’s any more complicated that the idea that Mike Brown’s a Golden State smallball, ball movement, flow, touch the paint and spray guy, and simply has no interest in playing two bigs together. He’s trying to turn KAT into Sabonis or Draymond on the offensive end and it says here 80%+ that’s why things never really got off the ground with the two of them.
This just really isn’t the roster for him. Never was. The coaching fraternity likely knows this and he’ll come out of his short time with Dolan with a fatter bank account and without much reputational damage.
In fact, I wouldn’t be massively shocked to see Brown replace Kerr at Golden State. That won’t happen if Dolan somehow manages to get Kerr here, but if things are just baseline normal, Brown has a better than decent shot at getting that job.
We might want to consider here the possibility that Brown, like more than one of his players, is phoning it in a bit.
https://x.com/SbondyNBA/status/2047750285980786978?s=20
I think Dolan might not give a shit about the knicks and rangers anymore…he’s let Drury muck up the Rangers and not fire him…if the Knicks get bounced in 1st rd…he’ll probably keep leon and brown and tell Leon to fix it…so he doesn’t have to expend any energy on it…
In the latter part of the season, I think KAT actually did manage to incorporate elements of Sabonis’ game into his own to some good effect. It was on display a bit in game 1.
Sports franchises are about making a profit. Many owners don’t care about anything else.
I am absolutely guilty of overlooking some concerning things about Mikal’s Brooklyn tenure because I assumed he was dogging it for an astroturfed, and for-all-intents-and-purposes, fake, NBA franchise and would revert back to his earlier career habits on the Knicks. There were some positives to glom onto also–having watched him for two seasons now I have no earthly clue how he averaged 7 FTA/36 for his initial Brooklyn stint, and even the 4 he followed it up with in the full one feels like an impossibility for the guy we’re subjected to.
In hindsight, I probably employed some motivated reasoning there, but in my defense he came to New York and immediately made one of the most baffling, seemingly conscious, decisions I have ever seen a professional athlete make, that being to start actively avoiding the free throw line. He justified this with a highly dubious theory that this would benefit him in the playoffs. Welp, how’s that goink?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone more deserving of the “soft” label. The dude is one of my least favorite players I have ever watched.
It doesn’t take a conspiracy theory to understand why Leon went after Mikal. A majority of people thought Mikal was a perfect fit and the last piece of the puzzle.
It was bad GMing of the most vanilla sort.
At a minimum, we can dispense with the idea that benching Mikal would hurt his trade value. That feels a bit like worrying about your Enron stock losing value in 2002.
It would be poetically just if Mikal Bridges got a DNP – unplayable.
OG did everything for us to win
I put Mikals value at 3 first when he was in Brooklyn . Between my thoughts of a two way wing, solid contract and very durable .
I can’t believe you guys don’t know that bridges is going to start and play well tomorrow.
The sky isn’t falling. We’re just watching a lame TV show that keeps recycling the same stupid story lines over and over.
We have experience with costly wings falling off a cliff here, and if you look at Evan Fournier’s BB-ref page, you’ll see a very similar dropoff in getting to the line from his prime to the extremely abrupt ending of his prime and then career.
The year before he got here, throwing out his cup of coffee with Boston, he got to the line 5.6 times per 36 at age 28. His first year here it was 1.7 in full-time duty, at which point he played a grand total of 61 more, cliff-plummeting NBA games at much lower than peak FT rates (high 1s-low 2s-ish) and then was done.
It’s a very good proxy for “this guy is losing all his pop, athletically.” Fournier was never any good defensively so there was no signal on that end, but Mikal from all insightful indications has fallen off a cliff defensively, too — another not terrible proxy for athleticism.
I’d be shocked if Mikal recovered and he very well might be falling off the cliff as we speak. He probably is. That doesn’t mean he can’t occasionally play something approximating “well” — and he might even do that tomorrow. But the trend line is heading inexorably down, probably rapidly.
“Also on the last play where CJ gives them the lead
How do you as a head coach
Not put more size on CJ? Why the f is OG on Onyeka when he isn’t going to take the shot ? Everybody knows where the shot attempt was coming from except the idiot holding the clipboard .Why the hell is OG on Onyeka. Why not bring in Mitch for Onyeka and let OG defend CJ. You also have Sochan, Diawara sitting on the bench who can bring more height in. Why use Deuce to just have CJ shoot over him. Horrible coaching job “.
From above – If Brown could do the bare minimum as a head coach his team would be up 2-1.
I’m looking forward to watching some good teams play tonight.
Spot on, E. There are some well known proxies for athletic decline: stocks, unassisted 2fg%, and FTA rate. FTA rate is probably the strongest and most consistent of these signals, and the evidence is brutal.
Another one to watch: Brunson FTA rate declined from .373 last season to .285, the lowest mark since Dallas. TS+ down from 105 to 100, lowest since his sophomore year. Another drop like that and he starts looking pretty average.
NAW gets MIP!
Mikael gets DNP?
Scheierman might be the best Celtic now.
Deuce should get starter’s minutes. Bridges should not. I have felt this way for a while.
I bet MB is going to make that happen.
Pretty amazing what a 41 year old LeBron and JJ Redick have cooked up. That mind games podcast working well.
This Philly/Boston game is so much more enjoyable goddamnit why can’t we have nice things?
Is there a more stereotypical Celtic than fucking Payton Pritchard?
Lucky 3s by the Celtics at the end. They really live and die by that shot.
Damn I was rooting for Sixers
Sixers have played better than I thought they would
Golden opportunity being wasted by Mike Brown and his crew . Celtics team is beatable
Vuc played 31 minutes in this game – and they won
Rockets make us look clutch
Rockets holding true from the regular season.Sometimes there is no switch you can turn on.
Sengun wtf
Holy sheet the refs just threw the ball to LeBron during the jump ball lmao
timelord still got “it”…
trying to think of another player past or present who drove to the hole like deni does…
reminds me sort of like what rj used to do, only deni can finish…
Silver is scripting another Lakers/Celtics Finals I see…
is it me, or is scoot rocking some eye liner…
if so, bold choice sir…
Kind of looks like eye liner…but i cant believe dude would sport that in an NBA game
dylan harper taking over…
checked pepper, seems like scoot’s eye thing is au naturel…
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