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Knicks 137, 76ers 98: “Really surreal” – Posting & Toasting
Mike Brown embraces Knicks’ NBA Finals-or-bust mandate: ‘That’s what I expect’ – SNY
Knicks determined not to follow up blowout win with a Game 2 letdown – SNY
Bullseye on Joel Embiid? Knicks successfully target 76er inside and outside the paint – The New York Times
Knicks Bulletin: ‘When we do that, we’re playing our best basketball’ – Posting & Toasting
2026 NBA playoffs: Conference semifinals takeaways – ESPN
Knicks at 76ers (Game 2) – Recap & Reaction | POSTGAME SHOW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
Knicks Go Up 2-0 On The Sixers In A Gritty Game 2 Win | Post Game Show EP 730 – Knicks Fan TV
KOT Pregame Knicks Vs 76ers Game 2 – Knick of Time
The Run.down Knicks vs Sixers R2G2 Postgame Show – The Strickland
As Knicks catch fire in playoffs, the vibes around the team are high | The Putback with Ian Begley – Begley Putback
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204 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.05.07)”
And then have enough left over to power a spaceship to Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.
Re OG, assuming it’s a hamstring strain (and it looks like nothing but that):
1. If it’s a Grade 2 (Luka), he’s done for the playoffs. Luka was told “eight weeks” the day after he strained his and it looks like it’s going to be something like that.
2. If it’s a Grade 1, that’s what Jalen Williams did (allegedly anyway). He injured himself April 22 and still isn’t back yet. That’s 15 days, and he’s still “not in high-intensity workouts,” according to Daignault. Fifteen days is a massive best case, which would put OG at a May 22-23 return, or roughly Game 3 of the ECF. That scenario is highly unlikely.
3. He wasn’t even in the same stratosphere as “ready” when he played those few minutes against Indiana in Game 7 two years ago, 11 days after the hamstring strain there. So he’s not going to be ready for a Game 7 here if it goes that far and if you use that data point, reasonable speculation would be something like three weeks from today, or something like Game 4-5 ECF.
I don’t speculate on hamstring strains and the bullshit bad luck and timing of this led me to exercise good Moneyball form, and take profits at the current +800.
Couldn’t watch last night, trying to read the box score tea leaves today… it seems to be telling me they did the wing-on-KAT / center-on-Josh thing and we struggled with it again… is there more to it than that?
That was nice of you to power up Jupiter for Strat’s landing.
KAT mostly dominated but couldn’t play enough minutes due to foul trouble.
Sixers had to play Barlow due to their own foul trouble, and he ended up being the best defender on Brunson. They were switching P&Rs and he held up one on one leading to long 2s. George bothered KAT a bit with a steal, and I think it made them go away from KAT as the focal point.
It wasn’t crisp. But I think their rhythm was affected in a major way by the crazy calls in the first half and then they had to play less aggressive.
Also, they couldn’t hit anything from downtown.
Horrible officiating last night by the way.
I NEED OG DIAGNOSIS RIGHT NOW PLEASE I DONT KNOW WHY IM YELLING
The lack of news is destroying me.
Knicks will keep us in the dark about the injuries, won’t they? Is there any strategic advantage for acting like we do?
There was also Hart’s thumb, but i don’t know if it’s bad or good, he drained the next 3P. LOL
Thanks for the color, Marechal!
I feel the opposite. Right now I can still pretend everything might be ok. Once the news comes…
Alan, the team didn’t look as focused as i (we?) wanted to prove we’re really going all the way. What do you think?
But maybe this is who they are, when they feel it’ll be hard they come 110% focused and when they feel it won’t be that hard, they come kind of sloppy.
My vote for game 3(as if it matters lol), is that we sit OG and play both of Sochan and Diawara regardless of the severity of whatever injure Anunoby has. And if Embiid isn’t back, that will make me feel better about it. This postseason, OG has been, without a doubt in my mind- THE best Knick despite Brunson’s scoring and KAT’s skill when the offense is run through him. To take it a step further, Hart and Bridges have stepped it up this postseason enough to make me want to put them at 2 & 3 ahead of Cap and KAT so far. Maybe Bridges is a little bit of a stretch, but Hart isn’t IMO. Hart’s been great. Since game 4 of the Hawks series, this team has played like a modernized version of the 90’s Knicks. Tough, physical, urgent defense, but with more weapons than those teams ever had- except for maybe when we had Ewing/LJ/Spree/Houston leading the charge. It’s definitely close. But even those guys couldn’t score in as many different ways as this team can.
The refs sometimes are bad, but yesterday they were… well, this JK comment says it all:
“If you’re going to call a really tight game you gotta at least call it both ways. There were several plays in that quarter where the Knicks should have earned and 1’s based on how this was called at the other end.”
The one thing that has me feeling optimistic is this:
OG… with a hamstring injury… in the second round… up 2-0… against a low seed that upset their first round opponent… when it looks like it could be our year…
I mean come on. That’s like getting struck by lightning twice.
Same house? Or have you moved since the first strike? 😉 😀
I think there was no way we were going to completely match Philly’s energy, given the desperation of their circumstance. But it was mostly about Mitch being out, the Sixers having a shooting anomaly game, and the refs calling a shitty game. The main focus issue to me was KAT committing stupid fouls — the one early in the 2nd quarter especially — but that’s been one of his Achilles heels forever.
Sochan is sort of our version of Barlow, so I could see him getting an opportunity to muck things up by aggressively switching 1-5. He has that irritant quality to him as well. He kinda kills our spacing though. I was shocked to be reminded by his b-r page that he is only 22 years old! And that his middle name is Juliusz.
Diawara? Kid’s got moxie coming out of his ears, but that would be a very tall order for him.
Thing is, pulling out game 2 gave Brown some wiggle room to try these things out. I hope he gives both guys ample time in game 3.
Here’s a physician speculating and giving time-frames:
https://x.com/DrJesseMorse/status/2052322486176428436/photo/1
Says he may not get an MRI until this morning, so we’ll know reasonably soon.
I think we’ll be fine. Getting Mitch back will help, and we have so many different looks we can throw out there now, thanks to Brown:
– We can still use the double-big lineup.
– Hart or Sochan at PF for extra speed/defense.
– go small 3-guard lineup with either Clarkson/Alvarado/Shamet/Deuce.
– Diawara to eat innings if absolutely necessary.
“The main focus issue to me was KAT committing stupid fouls — the one early in the 2nd quarter especially — but that’s been one of his Achilles heels forever.”
The one that bugged me the most was that illegal screen early the first Q. He so blatanbtly threw his leg out that 100% of referees make that call. A savvy player simply never does that, especially under those circumstances. Who the fuck cares if a guy gets over a screen 2 minutes into the first Q?
And that is the most confounding thing about KAT. He is as ADHD of a player as I’ve ever seen, with horrific lapses of concentration that tarnish his otherwise all-NBA play. He is a 10-year vet that still makes rookie mistakes, and we are lucky that he didn’t cost us the game yesterday. But he may have had a role in costing us OG, who was on his way to playing a grueling 40 minutes, including several as KAT’s backup due to Mitch being out and Huk being a foul machine.
Maybe I’m being too hard on him considering that he has played mostly great thus far in the playoffs. This OG business has me in a state of deep despair.
“I think we’ll be fine. Getting Mitch back will help, and we have so many different looks we can throw out there now, thanks to Brown:
– We can still use the double-big lineup.
– Hart or Sochan at PF for extra speed/defense.
– go small 3-guard lineup with either Clarkson/Alvarado/Shamet/Deuce.
– Diawara to eat innings if absolutely necessary.”
Detroit, tho’.
I won’t say “if I had to bet” because I already effectively did bet, but I’d be shocked if it was anything other than a Grade 1 or 2 hamstring strain.
He did it on virtually the same place on the court as Luka with virtually the same motion and speed, the only difference being Luka had the ball and OG didn’t. Luka “hopped” slightly worse, but OG definitely immediately hopped. Luka was on-ball and so kind of stopped and didn’t play on; OG was off-ball and played on and tried to explode on it again, which probably worsened it, and at that point hopped badly and threw in the towel.
Really piss-poor shitty luck.
“Maybe I’m being too hard on him considering that he has played mostly great thus far in the playoffs. This OG business has me in a state of deep despair.”
I’m with you, Z-man. The OG thing is at least tempering my joy of winning that tight game last night, maybe even to the point of being more than it.
“I think we’ll be fine.”
Hate to be a wet blanket, but I don’t think we’ll be anywhere in the vicinity of fine. We should get throught this series, but our chances of winning a championship without OG are slim to none, and slim is at the gate scanning his boarding pass.
OG has a playoff leading .755 TS% on moderate usage and a 10.0 BPM thus far in these 8 playoff games. How the fuck do you replace that?
I guess you can counter that maybe we only win games by 10 instead of 30+ points?
My delusional hope is that OG is actually fine and it’s just Rose and Brown doing their tight lipped thing, “let’s not give the Sixers any sort of information”.
But if he’s out of the playoffs we are screwed, his production so far just simply can’t be replaced, he’s playing at mega star level.
Hard to imagine that Philly can win 4 out of 5 even with OG out.
So I feel fine about this series, but I think it’s pretty much zero chance of advancement without OG thereafter.
I think we will see a big dose of double-big assuming Mitch is back. Philly is one of the only teams that we can get away with going super small also (center + Hart at the 4 + 3 guards).
I would not be opposed to giving Diawara a few minutes if we need someone to give PG a different look. Sochan maybe also but he probably can’t be on the floor at the same time as Hart.
I actually thought overall we played well last night considering no Mitch, the absolutely ridiculous officiating, and that we had a very bad 3 point shooting night (compared with Sixers who had a reasonably good shooting night especially for the first 3 quarters). For some reason there’s no tracking data on last night’s game on NBA.com but feels like we missed a fair number of open 3s.
I would also like to see how many miles Maxey ran last night. He really had no legs left at the end. And PG is 1000 years old and no longer allowed to take PEDs so no surprise that he was dog tired at the end too.
One faint bright spot is that Leon’s good work at the trade deadline in trading for Alvarado and picking up Sochan off the waiver wire gives Brown at least some options that he would not have had if he stood pat. Yabusele was totally useless and likely would still be, whereas Sochan can give positive minutes as a switchable defensive big wing who can dribble and pass a bit. Alvarado puts Deuce and Clarkson back into their natural positions.
Holding onto this as long as I can…
But I strongly disagree with this:
We can beat either Cleveland or Detroit without OG.
We’re not getting far in these playoffs without OG, but at least we have guys like Diawara who’ve played decent NBA minutes and won’t have the deer in the headlights look when they step on the court
(Remember last year when Thibs was getting desperate vs. the Pacers and started putting guys out there who hadn’t played all year?)
Brown might also have been leaving some money on the sidewalk by not playing KAT and Mitch together, which can now be rectified.
It’s really kind of crazy…
There have only been 4 moments times in the last 30 years where this team looked great:
1. The 1999 playoffs — Patrick Ewing gets injured in game 2 of the ECF
2. January 2024 — Randle gets taken out by Jacques
3. Up 2-0 in the the second round of 2024 playoffs — OG pulls hamstring
4. Today — TBD
I mean come on. Not again. I’d rather just watch them lose at full strength.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Jeremy F-ing Sochan could become an important contributor for us in the remainder of these playoffs if he needed to be in case of an OG absence?
To be at least somewhat fair to Thibs, in 2024, Mitch was already gone and his OG replacement was Precious Achiuwa, who had played 1200 regular season minutes and some playoff minutes, and who started alongside iHart in OG’s role. His bench at that point was Deuce, Burps, Sims, Shake, Daquan, and Diakite. The only one that it could be argued was a bonafide option who had not been playing was Binks, and he was a vet who hit the ground running.
Then last year, the only guy who could have replaced OG was again Precious. But there were no injury issues to blame for losing to Indiana, only that the bench was very shallow. Thibs had moved Hart to the bench, so it was him, Deuce, Precious, Delon, Shamet, and Payne plus basically useless rookies like Huk (back from knee injury), Kolek, and Dadiet.
So Brown deserves credit for expanding the rotation but he also has had a lot more to work with.
Leaving OG out of the conversation for a second, it was actually a really good win yesterday. Nothing and I mean nothing was going our way— the officiating was maddening, Philly was hot from outside, and we were cold. They were killing us with free throws and threes, but to the Knicks’ credit, the Sixers never really got a lot of separation. The Knicks would continually claw baskets back.
In the fourth quarter the Sixers got tired and went cold, and Brunson and Bridges hit shots when we needed them to. A lesser team would have let this game get away from them but the Knicks really battled.
I still can’t believe Nurse played Maxey for 47 minutes.
I’d gladly sign up for OG sitting out the rest of this series if I meant he was 100% after. I’m old enough to remember 2024, so it’s not like I’m taking a 2-0 lead for granted. It’s just a deal I’d make in a heartbeat because regardless of the outcome of this series we’re doing anything remotely interesting without OG, and a 100% OG at that.
It’s such a huge bummer particularly because of how locked in he was. We can only hope he stays in the zone if/when he returns, because him being in Demon Mode is the difference between us being a toss up to come out of the East and a bona fide competitor to OKC.
They looked great when they blew out the Cavs in the 2023 first round and that too was kinda ruined by Randle’s worsening ankle injury.
They’ve had shitty injury luck.
Pretty sure they are going to say he is “day to day” with a right hamstring strain, which will be “accurate.”
I believe we will be very fortunate if he is whole by the start of the NBA finals.
The good news is even without OG with Bridges and KAT playing so well along side Brunson, there is a very good chance to finish off Philly.
Detroit/Cleveland will be difficult but they are flexible to go with double bigs a bunch, small with Hart or bridges at the 4 or use Diawara who isn’t afraid to shoot and has size and length and he won’t cause the spacing to collapse. Losing OG sucks… but we have viable options.
To paraphrase Wesley from the Princess Bride, “We are men of action, whining does not become us!” ( https://imgur.com/gallery/we-are-men-of-action-lies-do-not-become-us-rIvZL16) Injuries are a part of hoops and they happen to many teams during a long playoff run. Stop complaining FFS!
The complete lack of lift when he tried to dunk is the thing that has me in “expect the worst, hope for the best” mode. Dude’s one of the best two-foot standing start dunkers in the association and even pumped with adrenaline he barely got his hands over the rim.
JK, on your point, and to get away from worrying about something none of us have any information about, Edwards summed it up well:
“The Knicks beat the 76ers 108-102 despite being outscored by 18 points from 3, taking fewer free throws and getting outrebounded.”
Horrible game to watch on multiple levels, but a hell of an impressive response.
For the record, I was only talking about the Sixers series. After that all bets are off!
Thibs’ bench was loaded in 2024. The January Knicks 6 thru 11 was Josh Hart, Deuce McBride, Quentin Grimes, Precious Achiuwa, Jericho Sims, and Evan Fournier, and he was still playing OG & Hartenstein 42 mpg in both ends of back-to-backs 5 months before the playoffs. He played Josh Hart 48 mins in a game 2 with Bojan, Burks, Duece, a healthy Mitch, and Precious on the bench. He gave no fucks.
We’ve played eight playoff games and we’re 6-2. Five of the six wins have been by double digits, and three of those were monster blowouts. The two losses were by a single point.
This has been a very impressive run. We’re playing the way a genuine title contender plays. If we get good news on OG’s leg, the sky is the limit.
I’m praying for cramping issues because I’d be staring at train tracks longingly if it’s a hammy.
Good thing is hart continuing his “rookie of the the year” where he fucks his hand and then magically becomes 2016 Curry.
+1
Recap from that series (https://www.nba.com/news/knicks-pacers-takeaways-game-7-2024-nba-playoffs) has two sections that read:
There’s also this from March 25 of 2024. The Knicks are up 17 at the half, 26 with 8 to go in the THIRD quarter, 29 by the start of the fourth. He played
McBride 43 mins
DDV 41 minutes
Hart 40 minutes
and didn’t empty the bench until 3 minutes left!
ADDED: 2 days later they beat Toronto by 45, and McBride plays 40 minutes again!
C’mon
Ewing got injured in the playoffs in 99. In 98 he missed 56 games with a broken wrist injury. In 99 he missed 12 of the 50 game season games with mostly chronic knee injury. He was 36. He injured his calf the game after playing 40 minutes. No big surprise when a 36 yr old 290 pounder with chronic knee issues has a leg injury after playing 40 minutes the game before.
Randle was a pure accident. Yes, unlucky.
OG in the 24 playoffs pulled a hammy after this minutes allocation in his previous 5 games: 39:21, 46:48, 50:20, 45:15 and 42:05. Plus the game he was injured he already logged 27:54 in the 3rd quarter and was heading to another mid 40’s game. That is bad management, not bad luck.
No one sheads a tear for injury which is part of every sport. The Lakers must be sad with Luka and Reaves getting injured. Golden State was sick when Jimmy Butler’s injury ruined their season. GS was denied a 3rd ring when Klay blew out his ACL and Durant tore his Achilles’. Et ceterar, et cetera.
March 12th against the Sixers. (no Embid)
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202403120NYK.html
Knicks up 26-14(!) after 1Q. 18 at the half. He plays Hart & DDV the whole 3Q, OG plays 11 minutes of the 3Q! Up 26 points to start the 4Q, he plays Hart another 6 minutes.
Why?
Must be no clouds in Neptune Beach to yell at today.
Bob, you’re comparing this to the Warriors losing Jimmy Butler? That was the difference between winning and losing the play in game.
The Lakers with Luka might have lost to OKC in 6 instead of 4, and they blow their nose in banners.
Give me a break, dude. Many folks will shed a tear if it ends this way.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/202401290CHO.html
January against the feared Hornets (10-34 at the time). Knicks drop 44 points on them in the 3Q alone, up 23 to open the 4Q. DDV & Hart play 10 of 12 4Q minutes. They play 42/39 minutes respectively in that game. Three scrubs only play 2 minutes that game (Flynn, Aricidiacono, Charlie Brown Jr.).
OMG the poor Warriors only won 4 titles instead of 5 bc Klay got hurt. Yeah that’s just like this.
Currently building a computer vision model that is trained on all hamstring injuries and compares it against OG’s movement from last night.
If I finish before the announcement I’ll let yall know.
To be clear, I was only referring to the playoffs, and particularly to the series’ that Thibs lost. If one wants to blame that on Thibs’ decision-making earlier than that point, that’s fair. But the reality is that in both 2024 and 2025, Thibs had a much weaker bench to work with…especially after OG went down in 2024.
It should also be noted that Thibs’s team beat the Celts who were much more circumspect about using its bench and load-managing during the regular season, and were as healthy going into and throughout the conference finals as any team left standing despite having a 2026 Sixers-like bench.
Mike is on one today – not that he’s wrong! People forget just how insane Thibs was about regular season games. He would not give a decent bench reasonable minutes. You can say today’s bench is better, but that’s in part because we’ve seen rookies like Diawara play actual minutes! Tyler got meaningful run during the Cup game! Clarkson was benched and then recalled to duty once he proved he would play defense!
Night and day.
Remember when the argument was that it was in fact good to play the starters 45 min in meaningless regular season games because they they’d be ready to play playoff workloads?
Maxey led the lead in min/game and was totally gassed last night.
https://x.com/MSG_Rocking/status/2052415303439589737
So the possibilities and probabilities are:
a) cramp or slight tweak – 10% – out 1 or 2 games
b) strain I – 65% – out 2-3 weeks – earliest return, ~ game 3 of ECF
c) strain II – 25% – out 4-6 weeks done for the season
Leon and Knicks will not be truthful and they will report a slight tweek, list him as doubtful and say he’s on day-to-day status. So, us fans won’t really know anyway…
“Tyler got meaningful run during the Cup game!”
Tyler was unplayable as an undersized, unathletic, terrible shooting, no-defense rookie. He had an offseason to work on his game with some NBA experience under his belt.
“Clarkson was benched and then recalled to duty once he proved he would play defense!”
Fournier was never remotely effective as an NBA player after being benched in 2023. If he was, Thibs likely would have played him. Kemba was shot. Bojan was perhaps the worst defender in the NBA. Burks is the only example that makes sense in this context, and he was ready when called upon. Delon was never good, and is still not in an NBA rotation.
“…but that’s in part because we’ve seen rookies like Diawara play actual minutes!”
Diawara is 100X better than any of Huk, Kolek, or Dadiet were as rookies. Thibs played rookies Obi, IQ, and Grimes more minutes than Diawara and played rookie Sims almost as many minutes as Diawara. He played Deuce in 40 games despite him playing so bad that some KB posters considered him a bust.
The most valid criticisms of Thibs re: young players was that he didn’t trust IQ, Obi, or Grimes enough and that he trusted RJ way too much. He also had non-negotiables that boxed him in to suboptimal lineups, e.g. always having a rim protector in the game, always starting the game with a (theoretically) strong POA guard (see: Elfrid Payton.) But to say that he had as strong of a bench to work with as Brown does now because of regular season decisions sounds like a reach to me.
I’m choosing to be (ignorantly) positive.
OG will miss the rest of this series but will be ready for the ECF.
The Knicks will finish off the 76’ers in a sweep or 5 games.
Cleveland will battle Detroit to at least 6 games, hopefully 7, and will give our boys some extra time off.
Hart has played great overall but has shot poorly. He will step up his shooting in OG’s absence. Shamet will have a resurrection. Diawara’s minutes during the regular season will pay off. Mitch just had an illness, so he will be back.
The remaining games against Philly will be tougher without OG but we can still take care of these guys. If we can win game 3, they will lose their fight and roll over in game 4.
I’m choosing to believe his injury isn’t that bad because he didn’t completely keel over and was able to hobble off. There is no easy path to a championship (unless you’re the 2024 Celtics). It was bound to happen that someone would have some sort of injury at some point but we’re not out of this yet. Leon and Brown are going to be cagey about this because they don’t want to give Philly any sort of edge.
Hubie… I merely stated the obvious that injuries are part of the game. It isn’t “unlucky” when a 36 yr old large human with chronic knee problems with tens of thousands of minutes on his legs gets injured when he his forced to play minutes that gives a 26 yr old trouble.
When you play OG crazy minutes in 24, his legs might explode. That is not “bad luck”.
When Randle falls backward, that is Bad Luck.
Many teams this season have had their seasons wrecked by injury. The Knicks aren’t special. There are a bunch of teams that are struggling with injury in this seasons playoffs, including the one we are currently playing.
Possibly True.
Certainly False.
Nothing irks me more than that the argument “if they were any good, the coach would have played them.” I won’t go into the Ben Wallaces or Wayne Chrebets, because probably there are few Star/HOF caliber players that are languishing on benches. However NBA coaches aren’t infallible, and there have been plenty of examples of bench fodder that turn into starters/rotation players.
And more importantly those players can have good games and give you wins. Jeremy Lin. Kolek & the cup game.
Well they can if you take the risk to play them. And they are likely to get better if they play, so that if you need them when players get hurt in the playoffs, they’ll be better acclimated to their teammates, the coach’s system, etc.
From a coach’s perspective, their job is really not to get fired. And the best way to not get fired is playing their best players all the time, because who will fault them for “playing to win the game!” But as we have learned in other sports, often the most obvious thing (kicking on 4th down) isn’t the most optimal thing. And taking those risks, if they don’t work, will likely get you fired quicker than not.
I thought that was an impressive win. Coming off a win by such a big margin, everyone knew the Sixers would be motivated and play much better. Factor that with missing Mitch, and that the 3 ball wasn’t falling for us, especially in the first half. The Sixers played well, and we sort of took one of their best punches and stayed close until we took control of the game in the 4th. I bet the Sixers were disheartened to only be up 1 at half-time.
To take another example, Z-man, Thibs seemingly deliberately destroyed Kemba Walker after getting criticism that he wasn’t playing. After a long stretch of DNP-CD, Thibs played Kemba 40 minutes or so five games in a row. He played hear during that stretch, but predictably his knees couldn’t handle the minutes and that was pretty much the end of his career. It was the most reprehensible thing I’ve ever seen from a coach – and I was a fan of Thibs before that. Was Kemba great? No. Was he washed? Apparently not. Was he better than Kolek, for instance? Seemingly so. If Thibs hadn’t wanted to prove that he was right, there’s no reason Kemba couldn’t have been one of those players providing 20 minutes of cromulent play off the bench.
I agree that it was a good win. The Knicks were super exposed early due to foul trouble, and could never really implement their plan/approach because all of a sudden you have Huk/Sochan/small ball forced on you. That they managed to survive those minutes to win at the end was pretty impressive.
My main criticism is that the end of game was not managed super well. Mostly it was Brunson isos with KAT being pretty ignored – aka their usual offense pre Game 4 against Atlanta. Hopefully they learn from it. They could have gone to KAT in the post when he was guarded by PG and decided not to do it. Sixers also missed a number of open shots at the end, which could have made a difference.
Oh, also: PLEASE PRACTICE INBOUNDING THE BALL. It was insanely bad.
After watching the replay, I still don’t think it’s a serious injury. He tweaked it, tried to continue playing through it and even tried to dunk. Then when he came down from the dunk and started to run. That’s when he felt it and pulled up. If it was a serious hamstring injury he would have gone down immediately and never even considered jumping to try to dunk. He also wouldn’t have continued to try to run through it.
We are up 2-0 going into Philly. It’s not impossible we steal a game without him. Assuming I am right, if we come back from Philly 3-1, there’s no reason to play unless he’s 1000%. If it gets to 2-2 or worse 2-3 that’s when you have to gamble.
It was actually a great win. We overcame insane officiating and a massive shooting variance headwind. I was particularly proud of the way we held them to 12 4Q points, though some of that was obviously their fatigue.
I’d trade that win for a healthy OG any day of the week. I’m not abandoning my redemption arc or anything, but losing OG is a fucking disaster. He has been the 2nd best player in the playoffs at 10 BPM. He has been on a Linsanity-esque run. Even if it’s a grade 1 strain and he has a shot at playing in part of the ECF, it’s very hard to imagine him picking up where he left off.
Our equity for this playoffs has undoubtedly plummeted, and the comparisons to 2024 seem very apt. All there is now is to brace for the news, and given MSG’s traditional mendacity, said news will only be credible if it’s bad.
Yeah, we were due for some bad injury luck. But on a longer time scale we’re also due for something great to happen, and it feels like that just slipped away.
It doesn’t have to be 20. Just like 10 minutes.
* 10 minutes so your starters don’t turn into dust.
* Maybe 20-24 minutes in a night you’re up by 30 against a 10 win team.
* Maybe 10 minutes because you’ll find they have talents you didn’t see in practice or synergize with other teammates
* 10 minutes so that if injuries decimate your team they can maybe play 15-20 in a pinch without feeling like it’s the first time ever playing with these people in this system.
Again, hypothetically speaking if OG is out, isn’t starting Mitch the right replacement for him?
This would get Mitch in at the start of quarters, when Hack-a-Mitch isn’t an issue. And you’re going to go big at some point. Might as well begin the game with it. Then you can sub in Shamet or Diawara or whomever you want, based on matchup at that point.
OK but you’re using quotes around unlucky and I didn’t actually say that. All the times we could have won, we didn’t get beat with our best. I’m not suggesting we’re cursed, I’m suggesting that sucks.
And nothing irks me more than assuming that there were good minutes to drain out of specific players who time has shown were totally washed. Good players being totally out of the rotation under Thibs are the exception, not the rule. In fact, I can’t think of a single player who didn’t play at all under Thibs who went on to be a useful player elsewhere.
In Fournier’s case, in 2022-23 he got off to a godawful start and was perma-benched after 20 games or so. He had some opportunities to play later that year and was incapable of seizing the moment the way Clarkson did this year. And after being traded, he played 500 minutes of -3.8 BPM ball, the very essense of a no-3/no-D wing.
Kemba Wakler lasted a whole 144 minutes after being liberated from Thibs.
Burks is probably the best example of a vet who should have played more during the regular season in 2023-24. But he was obviously ready when his name was called vs. Indiana. Not that he went on to be a vital player elsewhere.
You could argue with minutes distribution, but that is true for pretty much all coaches who fall short in the playoffs. 2X COTY and championship coach Joe Mazzulla is being raked over the coals as we speak for his minutes distribution in Game 7 vs. Philly.
Anyway, I blame Leon way more than I blame Thibs for our bench/minutes distribution issues prior to this year, and to a degree, including this year. Extending Fournier, signing Kemba, trading Grimes, getting suboptimal value with draft picks, fucking up the original iHart signing, dealing a pick for Cam Reddish, etc. magnified the Thibs effect. Similarly, former KB fave Daryl Morey is somewhat to blame for Nick Nurse playing his starters Thibs-like minutes (including running a severely compromised Embiid out there for 146 minutes in 4 consecutive playoff games) because he failed to fortify the bench at the deadline, and in fact weakened it by dumping Jared McCain for peanuts to the most savvy GM in the NBA.
Yes, because Thibs destroyed him for good!
Swift, maybe I too am an idiot, but that doesn’t seem overly positive, much less ignorantly so. Right now those are all what I would call most likely scenarios. Various of them could be proven wrong with new information, but based on what we know right now, these are all very plausible.
And Steveoh, I’ve always wanted Mitch in to start just for the jump ball, as well as no hack-a-mitch. He can’t really replace KAT as a starter because politics, but in a non-political world there’s a good reason to start him even if he ends up playing just 18-20 minutes a game and KAT getting 35.
I’m guessing if OG is out that Shamet starts in his place.
The thing I disliked the most about Thibs is that he clearly didn’t listen to anybody. Dolan, for all of his egregious character flaws and lack of smarts, said as much in that recent (Jan 2026) interview, when he said that lack of collaboration was the main reason why he was let go despite his “success.” He was a combination of stubborn and risk-averse, and was vindictive towards anyone that challenged his thinking. Examples:
Brock (et. al.): Maybe we should focus on getting a good pick this year.
Tom: Okay, Hinkie…
Leon: Hey, we just traded a draft pick for Cam Reddish, why aren’t you playing him?
Tom: Sorry, our rotation is set.
Leon: You need to play Kemba.
Tom: Ok, let’s throw him out there for 40+ minutes 3 games in a row.
Mikal: Yeah, I talked with Thibs about maybe letting the bench play more minutes so that we can be more rested.
Tom: I never talked with Mikal about that.
So yes, good riddance to that mindset. But be fair about it.
If the implication of this was that I’m a short term thinker, I couldn’t disagree more. I haven’t changed my opinion on any player on the team or the overall talent on the team all year through all the individual ups and downs.
The one thing I’ve changed my opinion on multiple times is Brown.
I started out wanting Taylor Jenkins because I thought we needed to take a risk at coach to win it all.
I settled into thinking he was doing fine and then started liking him when he made some productive defensive adjustments mid season I thought would be impossible with KAT and Brunson.
I thought he did a horrendous job early in the Atlanta series with minutes, lineups and not yelling about the Brunson/KAT issue (he did) but now he has finally made some great adjustments using KAT.
I’ve been all over the place with him because this is the first year and I’m still evaluating him. I think his performance has been very good in some ways and a little suspect in others, but he seems to eventually figure it out.
I would give him a B+ overall even though at times I wanted to ring his neck for idiotic lineups,too much Brunson ball against bad matchups and not using KAT well.
“Yes, because Thibs destroyed him for the good of the team!”
FIFY
But he wasn’t called upon.
As per Bob above:
Burks played zero minutes in those games.
It’s just false to say that in the 2024 playoffs Thibs didn’t have a bench to use, or that “Brown has a lot more to work with”, and “Thibs’ OG replacement was Precious Achiuwa”.
Thibs had a hired gun on the bench in 2024 and he ran OG into the ground anyway.
I don’t think Diawara is ready for this, but I’d love to be proven wrong on that. I think we are going to have to play big (Mitch and Towns) or very small (Deuce or Shamet). We don’t really have an in between lineup if Diawara is not ready for this unless we want to go with Sochan. I’m actually good with that as long as the rest of the lineup with him makes sense. I like Sochan’s energy and defense. We just have to make sure the rest of lineup is correct or the spacing could be a disaster.
What Thibs did to Kemba those few games was not good professionally or personally. It was stunning to watch it as a fan. Most people knew what the result was going to be.
I think Brown experimented more with player usage and different types of lineups. Thibs wouldn’t even sit players when the game was over. He didn’t do that once or twice, he did it consistently.
OG diagnosed with hamstring and is day to day, listed as questionable for Game 3.
BBA beat me to it. That’s relatively good news, right?
I would sit him for Game 3, no matter what. House money.
Grade 1? Grade 2?
Good news if they’re being honest with us. Give him as long off as possible
The diagnosis suggest at worst a grade 1 injury, which is the best possible news I think!
Thibs’ bench in the 2023 playoffs:
6 – Immanuel Quickley
7 – Josh Hart
8 – Isaiah Hartenstein
9 – Obi Toppin
10 – Deuce McBride
11 – Derrick Rose
12 – Evan Fournier
(And remember our season ended that year bc Deuce McBride wasn’t ready to play 3 minutes in Game 6.)
Thibs bench in January 2024 (after the OG trade):
6 – Josh Hart
7 – Quentin Grimes
8 – Deuce McBride
9 – Precious Achiuwa
10 – Jericho Sims
11 – Evan Fournier
12 – Taj Gibson
Thibs bench at the start of the 2024 playoffs:
6 – Deuce McBride
7 – Mitchell Robinson
8 – Bojan Bogdanovic
9 – Precious Achiuwa
10 – Alec Burks
11 – Jericho Sims
12 – Shake Milton
I doubt there’ll be any official word on the actual severity of the strain. If he’s day to day assume its probably a 1 which means he’ll miss a week or 2 but will be listed as questionable every game.
Good call, Bob. What did you give up for Lent?
So basically the real sweat now is that we absolutely need DET/CLE to go 7 games to delay the start of the ECF as much as possible.
We also need to wrap up the Sixers quickly so we don’t try to play OG in G7 like we did agains the Pacers in 2024 as that was clearly an awful idea.
Do we know if his ’24 injury was Grade 1 or 2?
Question 1: OG was having a great playoff run before he tweaked his hamstring early in Round 2 in the second half of a game he was dominating. Which season was it?
a) 2024 with Thibs
b) 2026 with Brown
c) none of the above
Question 2: Under Tom Thibodeau, OG Anunoby:
1) had the healthiest season of his career
2) played the max 18 playoff games (most of his career) while playing 39 mpg in the playoffs
3) all of the above
Tom Thibodeau did not run OG into the ground. He had a common hamstring injury that happens to players all the time.
I don’t necessarily think this is great news. Yes, it probably rules out the worst case scenario of a 6-8 week recovery, but I wouldn’t read anything beyond it.
Edit: someone on Twitter pointed out that when he had his injury against the Pacers, he was immediately ruled out of Game 3. So maybe it’s some good news, even if I think it’s more likely than not that he doesn’t play in this series.
Either way, it’s such a shame. He was on a historic heater.
I think we know as little now as we did before.
That “update” rules out some awful scenarios but does little beyond that. I’d still eagerly sign up for having a healthy OG by the time the next series starts, which is not me guaranteeing we’ll be a part of that series.
Mo Mo!
It also ruled out the best case scenarios, i.e. it not being his hamstring.
He seriously injured his hamstring with us up 2-0 in the second round again. Unbelievable.
I’ll take ready for game 1 of the NBA finals. We can win the East without him.
Via Shams
This is approximately what I was expecting based on the visual evidence.
He should sit game 3 regardless given we are up 2-0 and then see how he’s feeling. I’d way prefer to not be in a 2-2 series with this team and have to worry about 3 point variance over the next 3 games, but maybe we can steal one in Philly and maybe he’s feeling fine for game 4 anyway
Here’s the ESPN report: OG Anunoby Hamstring
Doesn’t say much beyond what everyone was expecting. Doesn’t assign a grade, just
Ok, Ian Begley reporting that there’s optimism that he could even play in Game 3 is definitely good news. He has better Knicks sources than anyone.
https://x.com/sny_knicks/status/2052451632122638767?s=46
There’s a viral clip going around of Jeremy Sochan and Kevin McCullar mocking Edgecomb, Oubre, and some other Sixers after the game by clapping and congratulating them for not getting blown out. Not a good look.
This is more interesting, but I wouldn’t play him in game 3 even if he wakes up feeling like god. That was the point of winning the first two!
I mean, I’d be ecstatic if he is back healthy for Game 5.
I would not. I want this over in 4 🙂
Injuries Do happen all the time. If you don’t believe averaging 45MPG in his previous 5 starts had anything to do with his ’24 playoff injury, there should never ever be any load management and all the starters should play that much every game because they are the best players to maximize out come. No chance of increasing the probability of near future injuries.
I believe that would be a minority opinion among NBA coaches, trainers , doctors and management.
Carson Benge is starting to hit, putting up some nice numbers over his last 40 or so plate appearances. It looks like he’s seeing the ball better and getting into a groove.
Today Carlos Mendoza has him on the bench, and is instead playing not one but TWO 33 year old journeymen waiver wire pickups in the corner outfield slots, apparently because reasons.
Please fire this man
Kind of a straw man here, Bob. It’s entirely possible playing 45 minutes does not maximize your single-game outcome by making your guy tired and ineffective in high-leverage possessions down the stretch.
See Maxey, Tyrese last night.
Yeah that Begley report was way better than anything I expected to see today so I’m legit optimistic that it’s truly not that bad. I’d still hold him out this weekend though.
Well we now know it’s a hamstring strain, whereas we didn’t before.
He missed three weeks with one earlier this season, he wasn’t close after 11 days in 2024, J-Dub still isn’t back from his two weeks in, this injury risks reinjury unless fully healed, the Knicks’ odds jumped immediately from +800 to +900 on the strain news … anything less than 2.5 weeks would be a miracle.
All the rest is noise, and “optimism” from the “locker room” is worse than noise.
They’re going to give away the bare minimum in the playoffs and the bare minimum is “day to day with a hamstring strain” and leaking “optimism from various sources” that it “isn’t that serious and he could return soon” to fuck with the other team’s planning.
I appreciate your unwillingness to cede any ground in any argument, but this is now the wrong argument. It has nothing to do with OG beyond the injury being cause to play the bench. The argument is that the bench is better prepared because they played legitimate minutes during the season. Your counter is that Thibs didn’t have a bench to play. Aside from the roster Hubert posted above – better than our current bench except in 2024 – the response is that the current players are also flawed, not likely much better, but certainly more prepared because Thibs didn’t grind their knees into dust, didn’t wait until 1:30 left in a game up by 40 points to put them in, didn’t refuse to experiment in regular season games and risk..well, anything.
I find your position quite quixotic, because you’ve been clear in the past that you aren’t a Thibs stan, you see his limitations, etc, but for some reason you won’t acknowledge that Brown has done a better job involving his bench in meaningful minutes so they’d be better prepared. Odd.
I feel terrible for Jasson Dominguez, who was really starting to hit and looks to have suffered a concussion while making a great catch. I hate to even bring this up, but it reminded me of the concussion Clint Frazier got right as he was finally starting to come along too. Hopefully it’s minor and Jasson isn’t a podcast takester in a few years time, because that’s what happened to Frazier.
Getting a look at Spencer Jones would be fun, provided Dominguez is fine in the long-term.
Kyle Korver 2 seasons in Chicago, 20-22mpg
Kyle Korver 4 seasons after Chicago, 30-33mpg + 1 All Star
Ahead of him on the depth chart in Chicago was the corpse of veteran Richard Hamilton and Ronnie Brewer, who the Knicks got in 2012.
Jasson also getting an MRI on his left shoulder which also crashed against the fence.
We went from Thibs doesn’t play his bench and Brown does and that’s a good thing — to injuries could happen under any coach and because they happened under Brown it validates Thibs. Also Thibs never made a mistake evaluating players. Goalposts moving faster than in techmo bowl.
Shams now reiterating the good news comment and saying that OG avoided a significant grade strain.
Good news is relative, though.
I’m with E and Bob on this. I’ve never heard of a hamstring injury that a player recovers from in less than 2-3 weeks. The idea that he might play actually worries me. Anthony Edwards is playing sooner than expected and he doesn’t look good at all.
I would limit OG in game 3 to 48 minutes, given that there is no correlation whatsoever with minutes played in the NBA and injuries.
We had to get rid of Obi Toppin for like ten cents bc Thibs hated him. That dude’s still good and on a great contract.
Part of the reason Thibs had such a shit bench last year is because he hated so many of the bench players Leon got him.
I didn’t know we had to many doctors on here. Also, enough about Thibs. He didn’t get it done for whatever reason. Let’s see how do now.
Not buying this good news at all. I don’t expect OG back until at least game 5 agaist Detroit. Leon just using Begley to try to confuse Nurse.
From Bondy:
Maybe we have the Mandate of Heaven?
He attempted the dunk but had no lift.
It’s Clarkson’s Shaman-like healing powers.
Let’s see if we can take one in Philly. If so, OGc should take the time he needs to be fully healed.
But to be fair, we have an actual good medical team now, so if they give the OK he’s probably fine
I think the question becomes:
Do we bring OG back if Philly wins a game, or wait until Philly wins two games? (Of course, hopefully neither of those will happen, but the former at least is probably likely.)
our med staff has been reacting pretty conservatively the last few seasons…
fingers crossed they get the OG call right…
I would wait until he is needed
watching replay of today’s yanks/rangers game…
absolutely loving the deluge of games available thru MLB network and ESPN unlimited…
noticed MLB season league pass is only $60 a year…
which made think of course – I sure do hope the NBA league pass price gets reduced next season now that there are sooooooooo many games that are not available thru that subscription…
Sources are now saying that OG’s hamstring strain is actually a reverse hamstring strain, and its performance is actually significantly improved — not only will Anunoby be playing in Game 3, but during postgame press conferences he will make himself available to any fans who have brought coconuts to the game, which he will crack open for them by placing them at the back of his right knee and squeezing.
Let’s just win tomorrow without him. I know so many people going to philly tomorrow, it’s going to be MSG South.
Hopefully Mitch will be back and be impactful, Mikal continues his upswing, and a bench guy steps up and replaces OGs offensive output.
Still pounding the table to at least give Mo a real shot at it. If he can’t do it, hell, use Sochan there.
I remember when reading the Knicks medical staff diagnosis of “day to day” basically meant “on his death bed”, so I’m glad we’ve moved on from that.
I hope Diawara gets some minutes, but stuff like this is why we got Shamet and Clarkson, plus Deuce. Obviously no one can replace OG’s impact but this is a chance for them to step up, maybe one of them gets hot and it could help towards the rest of the playoffs if it happens.
I’m fairly confident last game was only as hard as it was because Mitch was out and KAT kept getting baited into fouls, hopefully he plays smarter this time around and understands that he needs to preserve himself and prioritize staying in the game.
wait a second..i just paid 149 bucks (i think) for the MLB.com streaming full season all games (except for the shit ton of games on 50 thousand other outlets that don’t get on MLB.tv on those “special” nights…also don’t get the Diamondback games since that is local)….if I just wanted Yankees only it was 129
i will say the nice thing on the MLB app is this “condensed game replay” in like 15 minutes you see every out/run scoring play…it makes it so I don’t have to sit there and keep fast forwarding through the replay using the box score to make sure I see all the key plays..
What seems manageable to me — if not optimistic — is that Mikal can increase his impact to fill OG’s shoes, and one of the other guys you mentioned can step into Mikal’s shoes. That strikes me as a more reasonable set of steps than Clarkson or Shamet filling in for OG, and even if they all fall 10-20% short that should be enough to finish off the Sixers in 5.
Yeah, this is Mikal’s chance to step up and show he’s worth what we paid. He’s supposed to be capable of being a 3rd option.
Clarkson should stick to defense and rebounding.
I noted earlier that we should wait until we actually know news is bad before we react like it is bad, and now, we’ve got actually GOOD news, and we’re still assuming the worst.
Let’s just accept that sometimes non-awful things can happen for this organization.
let me check again pepper to make sure I was reading it right…
you are correct sir…
it was simply the MLB network subscription that was $6 a month purchased separately, and if not already included in some streamimg service like hulu/espn unlimited…
the game pass, minus other streaming exclusive rights stuff is around $140 for the season…
ugh, guess the NBA league pass won’t be getting any cheaper any time soon, even though they stream less games…
shrinkflation is e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e…
The Cavaliers are unleashing their brand of anodyne mediocrity on the Pistons right now.
It’d be nice if they could avoid a sweep
If OG doesn’t play, it may be that Diawara gets a start. I think Borown’s done that before. It means they still have two relatively big defenders. He could start Mitch instead, but then there are going to be minutes where he had to play Huk because Mitch bd KAT are both resting. He could start Mitxh and have him play a lot of minutes, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.
let’s just call it different life strategies BC…
the universe is out to get us all, and there is not a damn thing to be done about, except to effectively worry in order to simply prolong the process…
i stand with donnie’s dame…
This Cavs team is infuriating.
The problem with starting Mitch is if KAT goes into foul trouble again, and the Sixers can just force Mitch out with the hacking shit they do. I think I’d rather either just start Diawara and see what he can do or start Deuce and switch him to the Maxey assignment while Bridges picks up George.
Harden is definitely in playoff form…
I feel like it’s at least 50% Mobley’s fault this Cavs team always underwhelms.
This isn’t just being a bunch of negative nancies. It has something to do with the fact that Dolan’s org has a track record with the truth that is positively Trumpian at this point. When they make self-serving claims, skepticism is a much more reasonable stance than credulity.
Insane that they thought he was the cure to their ills.
wow, harden totally frightened of going to the hole against cade, even with both running past half court about even…
james harden is just the worse…happy now the cavs picked him up…
schroder was a better add for them…
Detroit reminds me a lot like OKC in that they mug you on defense and are always surprised when a foul gets called.
When Tobias Harris is hitting up and under reverse layups against you, it’s time to go home probably.
Truly pathetic stuff from the Cavs.
neat move by jenkins going for a layup, last step or so held the ball low by the ground so no one could swipe at it…
PATHETIC
hopefully the cavs defense shows up at some point this series…
really surprised to see both mobley and allen getting worked over around the rim…
I don’t disagree. If it was just the Knicks saying “questionable,” then I think it’d be fair to be suspicious, but when multiple independent reporters are saying, “No, seriously, you guys, he’s not as hurt as you think!” then I don’t think we should assume, “Okay, but they must all be fooled!”
SQUIRREL!!!
love taylor’s hairstyle…very very nice…
Cavs look like they don’t want to be there.
But where do you suppose those reporters are getting their information? Are they having OG’s hammy examined by their independent medical experts?
No, they’re getting their information from “sources.” Sources familiar with the situation. By definition, those sources would be inside the Knicks’ organization, with strong incentives not to leak information adverse to the Knicks.
I certainly hope the optimistic prognosis is borne out, but I’m not placing a lot of faith in it.
I think Mitchell demanded a trade at halftime.
Pags Shams isn’t going to just publish false information because the Knicks gave it to him.
James Harden has 44 playoff games where he has more turnovers than made FGs
This looks like 45
Shams sources are generally agents, not teams.
I bet brown starts Landry if OG is out. Leaves rest of bench alone, doesn’t make us rely on a talented but untested kid, and Philly isn’t big enough to punish a lineup where Hart is the PF.
How does Shams know if they’re lying?
Reporters for actual news organizations just uncritically repeat lies from government sources all the time. There isn’t much reputational cost for doing so if they’re already famous, and if there is, it’s outweighed by the cost of losing access.
I’m not saying it’s definitely a lie, I’m just saying it’s not definitely not a lie.
Harden is 2-11 for 3 TOs, but at least he is a traffic cone on defense.
Let Mitchell run the show and play Ellis or something instead.
The Knicks also aren’t going to burn shams, either, just to get one over on nick nurse.
Why would the Knicks want people to think that its not a serious injury and OG could be back any day so when he doesn’t return soon he’ll look bad and people would say he’s soft?
Thibs’ bench in the 2023 playoffs:
6 – Immanuel Quickley (.481 TS%, -3.7 BPM)
7 – Josh Hart (started 5 of 11 games, injured his abdominal muscle)
8 – Isaiah Hartenstein (averaged 2 points and 4 rebounds in 20 mpg vs. Heat)
9 – Obi Toppin (should have played more but no great shakes either)
10 – Deuce McBride (sucked all year for over 700 minutes, .423 TS%)
11 – Derrick Rose (injured, shouldn’t be on this list)
12 – Evan Fournier (sucked all year, never didn’t suck afterwards)
Both benches at the time were worse than current bench by a country mile. Except for Mitch, who got hurt in round 1. Burks was out of rotation for shitty play during regular season post-Grimes trade. Yet he was ready when called on in the playoffs, possibly because he knew he had to be (see: Jordan Clarkson). Do folks seriously not even remember how shitty Precious was? Or Deuce? The Knicks finished 3 games out of the play-in that year, was there really that much developmental wiggle room?
“If you don’t believe averaging 45MPG in his previous 5 starts had anything to do with his ’24 playoff injury, there should never ever be any load management and all the starters should play that much every game because they are the best players to maximize out come. No chance of increasing the probability of near future injuries.”
OG had a day of rest between the first 3 games and 3 full days off between game 6 vs. Philly and Game 1 vs. Indiana. Load management is generally about resting players on back-to-backs. Considering that hamstring injuries are among the most common injuries at any point in any season in any sport, I’m not pinning that one on Thibs.
“I would limit OG in game 3 to 48 minutes, given that there is no correlation whatsoever with minutes played in the NBA and injuries.”
Hmmm…Bob and Mike on the same sarcasm wavelength. Interesting.
Ok, ok, I’ll believe that OG might be okay by the ECF. Y’all have convinced me.
Equally important for our fortunes, Cavs showing signs of life!
That was a nice fake comeback
Tobias Harris, man. Remember him in that 2024 series against the Sixers. How does it go from that to this?
Z-man said:
Knickerblogger responded:
This response is flawed in two regards. First, you missed the part about “didn’t play at all under Thibs” and pointed out a guy who played 20-22 mpg under Thibs. Second, we were discussing Thibs’ tenure with the Knicks and you had to go back to 2012 for an example that didn’t even meet the criteria.
But I’d be happy to hear examples from his Knicks tenure that meet the criteria! Always time to learn!
Atkinson keeping Mitchell on the bench here is so stupid. He’s played 32 min, can max out at 38. How does he not push him more?
I’m kinda digging the nostalgia of a Laphroaig-fueled Z-Man standing up for Thibs in the playoffs with blindingly stupid arguments.
The Cavs are exactly who we thought they were.
4-0 at home, 0-5 on the road. Maybe they take 2 in Cleveland.
Utterly pathetic all around.
Cavs would be better right now with Garland instead of Harden.
If only Lent lasted longer…
Cavs management: “we keep getting bounced early in the playoffs, what do we do?”
Answer: Bring in James Harden!
Man, Cavs are truly terrible. And the defense is awful, no one can guard Cade or Tobias
Evan Mobley has ONE rebound in 35 minutes, this is completely insane.
One thing I think we can all agree on is that it was an incredibly lucky break that Ainge rebuffed Leon’s offer for Spida.
I truly think Mobley is THE main reason the Cavs suck in the playoffs.
How can you be 6’11” and not accidentally grab a couple of rebounds? They really need to trade this guy while he still has value.
I guess when they get eliminated Mitchell is probably going to want out so a bigger rebuild is coming, but the Cavs truly made some baffling decisions.
“I truly think Mobley is THE main reason the Cavs suck in the playoffs.”
It’s weird because Mobley’s BPM in the playoffs was 5.7 last year and 6.0 so far this year before tonight. But he does seem to not have any real playoff-level juice.
It’s hard to get a read on the Pistons.
I was watching with my Michigander wife and she was getting nervous in the fourth quarter. I said don’t worry about it, the Cavs will fold. She asked how I knew that would happen. I said they have this guy named Evan Mobley who is supposed to be this great player but melts in the playoffs and then one of their other supposed stars is this old guy who loses the ball all the time and just dribbles too much, and then the rest of the guys are kind of scrubs who always find a way to lose.
When it played out exactly like I said it would she was like wow, how did you know that, and I said I’m also hereby predicting that the sun will rise tomorrow.
That’s pretty funny!
45 playoff games for Harden, more turnovers than FGM
if I was a betting man
Cronin calamité c’est calme, cherchez Clicquot champaign cet chez clarkson et chez cdiggy.
By the way, Detroit obviously matches up well with the Knicks, no doubt about it, but, well, I mean, come on, look at this Cleveland game. Detroit just isn’t THAT good.
I’m convinced the Magic would be doing similar things to the Cavs right now, they just can’t handle those physical teams.
I guess we should be glad that Philly bailed on Jared McCain…
…unless and until we play OKC…
crazy huh?
no jalen williams, shai on the bench and here comes ajay mitchell and jared mccain…
and they more draft picks coming…
Yes you are correct that my example doesn’t directly contradict the exact words you chose to describe Thibs.
No you are wrong that your statement was meant only for his tenure with the Knicks. We are talking about his character flaw. It’s not a flaw we are stating only occurred in NY, so there’s no reason to limit it thusly.
But the essence of the topic at discussion was whether Thibs gave playing time to players who deserved it vs. Thibs relies too heavily on his trust circle and overplays those players to the detriment of his teams. I (and others) gave multiple examples of this, including specific games in a season where a rational coach would rest his starters and give his bench players more run. This would, as multiple people have noted, likely made his players less worn down/injury prone for the playoffs AND give those end of bench players better ability to perform within this team, their teammates, and his system.
So if you’re going to defend Thibs with this most narrow interpretation possible, then I’ll say having to find a superstar from his bench players is not an adequate enough argument to refute the facts and accusations already laid out.
I don’t need an All Star from Thibs bench players to show he doesn’t play his bench guys enough and isn’t infallible with regards to evaluating players. (Although I literally do with Korver.)
I thought the thing with austin rivers was weird, that was the first clue…had bought in on the narrative that thibs’ was a hardcore players coach…and softees like KAT just weren’t dedicated to the game enough…
then the kemba walker thing happened…reprehensible, seemingly spiteful…
two good things reference to just how deep the thunder are:
– they can only carry 15 players on their roster
– they can only put 5 guys on the court at the same time
The Lakers gave it all they had. A bunch of scraps and their grandpa… Lol. Nihil novi in that Thibs discussion. The fact that people still discuss Thibs at this point says a lot, but one can’t argue with the irrational. The irrational shows up out of frustration and says Why? Why didn’t we do better? Alas, the irrational is dark, impenetrable, and has its own truth. The irrational knows no dialectic and refuses to see both sides of one and the same. It’s all black and white. I’m only glad that Brunson, Hart, and Bridges can still walk given all those minutes they played under lucifer’s command. Hey, it’s weird that OG still got injured despite not playing consecutive millions of minutes and so on, isn’t’ it? Oh well. I have no interest in getting into it. Anyway, it is almost certain that OG won’t be available for the two games in Philly, but I hope we will find a way to get one win. We have the bench, and Philly has its own issues. We shall see.
“No you are wrong that your statement was meant only for his tenure with the Knicks.”
Actuallty you have no way to judge what my statement was meant for, and since I am definitively telling you that it was meant for the context of his tenure with the Knicks, it’s kind of rude for you tell me otherwise.
“We are talking about his character flaw. It’s not a flaw we are stating only occurred in NY, so there’s no reason to limit it thusly.”
The character flaw you refer to is not even one that I am disputing. In fact, I have agreed ad infinitum that Thibs should not have played his starters as much as he did, specifically in games that were clearly decided. I don’t know how extensively you lurk, but just the other day I made a comment during a blowout about the o/u on how many starters would still be in the game late in the 4th of a 40+pt blowout.
What I’m arguing is that our bench actually was pretty thin every year before this one, and our margin for error in winning competitive games was pretty thin.
To suggest that Thibs should have played our better bench players should have played more minutes in non-blowouts is something I wholeheartedly agree with. Obi is a great example. The blowouts thing is a character flaw, no argument there. But that isn’t what this discussion is about.
Alec Burks? He played 300+ minutes after the Grimes trade and he was beyond awful (look at his stats!), but sure, maybe he should have been given another shot earlier than Thibs did, as Brown did with Clarkson. But Fournier was beyond washed. So was Kemba. So was Derrick Rose in 2023. Deuce was absolutely terrible in 2023 (but improved and averaged 20mpg during the regular season and 27mpg in the 2024 playoffs, should he jhave played more than that?) Sims was terrible. These guys didn’t suck at that time because they didn’t play enough minutes and weren’t prepared. They sucked because they sucked, either because they hadn’t developed (e.g Deuce), were washed up (e.g. Fournier), or just bad (e.g Precious).
I don’t see how anyone in their right mind could say that either the 2023, 2024, or 2025 rosters (starters and bench) were as good as the current one, especially post-trade deadline (with the possible exception of pre-Julius Randle injury in early 2024, although I would still probably take this roster over that one.) It just wasn’t. I think we all agree that Deuce 2026 is light years better than Deuce 2024. KAT pushed Mitch to the bench, so was iHart 2024 better than Mitch 2026? Was the remnants of Bojan better than Shamet? Was Burks better than Alvarado? Was Sims better than Huk? Was Precious better than Sochan? Was Shake better than Diawara?
I would take this year’s bench every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Unless, of course you believe that iHart 2024 is a massive upgrade over Mitch 2026.
Yeah geo, I agree, it was reprehensible what he did to Kemba. Thibs was a weirdo with lots of things to criticize. Minutes distribution and playing every regular season game like it a critical playoff game is certainly one of them.
But I also think that the minutes thing is mostly overblown by haters, and all of those teams got about as far as they should have gotten and lost to either better teams or similarly good teams with better coaches. No one (certainly not me) has ever disputed that Spo and Carlisle are better coaches than Thibs. I don’t blame the rash of injuries in Rounds 1 (Mitch, Bojan) and 2 (OG, Hart, Brunson) vs. Indy in 2024 on Thibs, any more than I credit him for having a healthy playoff roster in 2025. If folks want to fantacize about how much farther another coach could have taken those rosters, whatever.
What was that now, geo? Something about champagne at my house?? lol
My French isn’t any good and Google Translate ain’t that much better…
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