2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ the Brooklyn Kyries

It’s the second game of the season and Fizdale’s starting lineup actually makes sense!

Elfrid Payton will start at the point alongside RJ Barrett, with Marcus Morris and Julius Randle paired with Mitchell Robinson returning from an injury to take the starting center spot. I knew Fizdale couldn’t be so dumb as to start Portis over Mitch (well, okay, I was pretty sure).

That’s the most competent Knick starting lineup in YEARS!

It’ll be interesting seeing the Brooklyn Kyries in action. If Minnesota could beat them, the Knicks can beat them!

Let’s go, Knicks!

231 replies on “2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks @ the Brooklyn Kyries”

Thank God ! Starting 5 that makes perfect sense.
Someone had sex last night !

It would be so sweet if the Knicks could win this one…but…

Nets 112
Knicks 106

Before RegSeason started i predicted a L for this one.
After the SA game I’m optimist we can get a W.
But We should bring the A Game for 48m.

Kyrie: “Tonight I’m gonna make the Knicks pay for me not wanting to play there!”

Frank plays from 0 to 20min on Kyrie
depending on Elf’s D & on Frank’s TOs.

Couldn’t watch much opening night, looking forward to being able to watch this back-to-back vs BK and Boston. Would be nice to at least win 1 of these 2 this weekend.

If Joe Harris is gonna be covering Morris he has to be able to punish him down low.

It’s also my first time I’m able to watch. My first impression, the Knicks are not very good on defense, but it’s still considerably better than their offense at the moment. I’m not complaining, but it’s certainly different from recent past teams.

mitch is doing mitch things but he’s still at square negative one with some fundamentals. kyrie coming at him one on one to the hole the absolute last thing he should be doing is reaching down with both arms.

Walt comping Mitch to Willis, both from Louisiana

Also notes he saw snow for the first time in Denver last year….

taurean prince is oddly strong. randle morris and portis have all failed to move him in the post

This is not a good defensive lineup

Payton-Trier-Knox-Randle-Portis

Good luck with that shit

that was knox’s man but randle had plenty of room on the dho to help on the switch; his help D is just not going to be there consistently

DSJ is from Fayetteville? I know some dear friends from North Carolina in the Army where Ft. Bragg is located in that city. They call it FayetteNam.

Knox is looking like a legit 3-pt threat. Now if he can play tough D.

Knox can’t defend worth a shit but he sure can knock down that 3. There’s a real future for him when he fills out, matures and shows the strength to play power forward.

Pretty funny to watch the nyets open up a 15 point lead with Kyrie on the bench….

Knox looked completely unable to do anything on that fast break. No stutter step or use of his length, just barreling into traffic like always.

Taj Gibson should get all of Portis’s minutes.

Nice to see the Nets run a modern offense with good guards and tons of shooters, maybe one of these days the Knicks will join the 21st century and do the same.

Our team looks so clueless compared to the Nets. Its insane how little of an idea our players seem to show on both ends of the court.

Apparently I haven’t watched DSJ shoot enough like yall have. That j has no chance.

Payton with a worse post pass than either of the two Frank made that everyone lost their shit over …. No real reason to believe Payton is better than Frank. Fizdale doesn’t like foreigners and thinks Frank has a lower floor, there’s no more to it than that.

BKN’s gonna score 60+ in the first half, all the while one of the best defending PGs in the association stays glued to the bench for Elfrid Payton and Dennis Smith, Jr.

Who said earlier that the national media thinks the Nets are taking over NY? These Laker heads are buying the hype hook, line and sinker… until I let them know what’s really good.

Pels 15-18 from the floor. 3/4 from 3 and 12/15 inside the restricted area…. zero mid range stuff.

the big shot blocking rim protector has one block and 0 boards

I’d watch more of this, but it’s Friday Night Soccer here in East LA. No Robert Randolph band playing in the background here, tho.

Like Greg Anthony used to say, we might lose the game but we aint gonna lose the fight.

It’s amazing how little of an offensive system we have. Our offense is just isolation based on who wants to shoot it at the moment.

Not a good half. Some bad shooting. Missed a lot of layups but give credit to the Nets for tight interior defense. RJ and Randle are a combined 4-16.

It’s amazing how little of an offensive system we have. Our offense is just isolation based on who wants to shoot it at the moment.

That’s because Fizdale is a bad coach.

“Randle malfunctioning, coughs it up.” Clyde sums up Randle unforced error. He’s fumbled the ball away at least three times this half. Tighten up dude.

This team is not going to be any good until we clean house of Mills, Perry and Fizdale. None of the three knows a damn thing about basketball. Fizdale is so bad I’d rather have Isiah Thomas coaching. The ultimate responsibility is Dolan’s because he keeps surrounding himself with incompetents, but it’s his team. We aren’t likely to get rid of him. Our best hope is that he lucks into some basketball people that know how to evaluate talent, prioritize the right things, and ultimately play the right players. This Nets team minus Durant is not especially good or talented. They just play good basketball. The problem is they are playing against a team coached by a snake oil salesman that has no idea who his best players are, how to fit them together, or how to create anything coherent on either side.

Fizdale alienated his best player, widely-respected throughout the league and in Europe, after little more than a year.(*) Yet somehow Mills and Perry have tried to pitch him as some kind of master culture-builder with a great rep throughout the league who a bunch of people would rush to play for. Bizarre.

(*) And didn’t move Porzingis’s needle even an iota.

Trier has such a bizarre skill set, can only hit long threes on the move and get fouled near the hoop, nothing else.

Payton with an iso near airball and then a loaf job at the three point line on defense to start the second half. He sucks.

Fizdale is so bad I’d rather have Isiah Thomas coaching.

Fuck you, strat. Just fuck you.

I’m watching Knicks/Dallas simultaneously.

Porzingis looks great on offense tonight given he’s not getting double teamed and the coach is actually getting him the ball in good spots. lol However, he looks a little slower on defense. You can’t tell much from 2 games and pre season, but it looks like he came back in much better shape and more confident in his body than most players coming back from an ACL injury.

Fizdale is so bad I’d rather have Isiah Thomas coaching.

Fuck you, strat. Just fuck you.

Thomas was a horrible GM and president, but he’s a better coach than Fizdale.

Payton just did his Derrick Rose imitation.

Shit foray into the lane then loafed back on defense leaving Harris wide open for a 3. He’s barely even trying on defense at this point.

I hate tanking from both a sports and strategical perspective except in rare cases, but this may be one of them. The worse we are the quicker we might rid of the numb skulls in charge.

LOL it was 16 point game and Clyde says, “RJ has a knack for making shots when the game gets tight.”

Wut?

Fizdale is going to have to tell Randle to stop.

He’s really sloppy and careless with the ball.

Strat joins us tankers??

Really, I’m just trying to enjoy RJB and Mitch developing (hopefully) into major pieces. And maybe one of Knox/Frank becoming a decent bench piece going forward. Randle can score a bit, but he doesn’t seem to do much else. Lots of bad defenders on the team, again.

John Schmeelk
@Schmeelk
So far tonight, Fizdale’s three DNP’s are two of the team’s best perimeter shooters and two of the team’s best perimeter defenders.

lmao

So far tonight, Fizdale’s three DNP’s are two of the team’s best perimeter shooters and two of the team’s best perimeter defenders.

He’s completely clueless.

Do the Knicks even have plays? They clearly don’t have anything that could possibly be called “an offense,” but do they even have plays?

I agree about Fiz. He falls in love with scoring and picks players on just that.

Yeah, Fiz likes to go with hot hands, but Trier is pretty hot, so sure, play him!

It’s clear that Fiz wants his 3-pt shooters to bring the Knicks back into the game … I hope.

Knox still has major flaws but he’s slowly winning me over and giving me some hope for his future.

Did that bounce in off Knox or Taj?

Great layup by Kevin on the other end. No way he makes that shot last year.

It’s a good thing RJ is good a lot of things because he’s not going to turn into a shooter.

Randle continues to look as terrible as he did in the preseason. He played well last game, but oof…

Pretty high number of dumb fouls per minute for each team. Yet, a strangely entertaining sloppy game.

Knox still has major flaws but he’s slowly winning me over and giving me some hope for his future.

Same. He really could be a solid stretch 4.

It’s a good thing RJ is good a lot of things because he’s not going to turn into a shooter.

You mean the guy who’s 2 for 4 from 3?

The reffing is so different this year. Better I think. Morris never would have been hit with that foul last year….

great job by knox calling for the randle mismatch

It was, wasn’t it? Kid’s learning a little bit.

Feel like we aren’t going to go 17 for 25 from 3 every night… Could be wrong…

Man I’m getting irrationally attached to Barrett already, someone help me. Wayne with the HUGE 3s too, Morris with great defense, damn. Julius needs to step it up.

Randle’s been a disaster down the stretch. Feeding him when everything else was working is kind of vintage Fizdale.

Only play Knicks know how to run is Ellington off screens, when that doesn’t work its hero ball.

Man, in crunch time every play was iso ball. If Fiz has no clue how to do team offense, maybe that’s why he always chooses offense in his line up choices.

it’s gonna be hard to trade chris paul when he’s leading his team to a wizards L despite beal shooting 7-22

The Knicks look really sloppy. If they didn’t hit 70% of their threes it would have stayed a blowout.

Randle looks terrible out there. I’m not sure what he did different in LA or NO, but Randle needs to start playing better.

The closing lineup makes more sense for playing alongside RJ. You have players who can spread the floor and two players, in Randle and Morris, who should in theory take their man off the dribble.

I really hate any rotation that requires Portis to be out there without a rim protector at center.

It’s tough in today’s NBA to try to win games without guards who can handle the ball. Knicks trying to win games down the stretch with all forwards handling the ball is a recipe for disaster.

30 missed FGA+TO between Randle and Barrett. It’s like this team is literally built and coached to derp away games where it goes 70% from 3.

Knicks went scoreless almost 4 minutes to close the game. It might have been nice to have that timeout that Fizdale used on the failed challenge. Don’t be surprised if RJ and Trier are the starting backcourt tomorrow night.

Despite sucking hard in both O & D we manage to find a way to have a chance to win.
That’s the only +

I’m pretty impressed with RJ’s defense. He was advertised as a bad defender but he competes and stays with his man, and is looking to disrupt plays. He’s not a shitty defender, so that’s a big plus.

RJ has 8 steals two games into the season.

That will play with his solid effort out there on defense.

not a bad loss either tonight…. scratched and clawed to make it competive…

we probably wont ever have a better night from 3 for the rest of the season….

I’m pretty impressed with RJ’s defense.

I though the guy was gonna be a bum, but looks like I was dead wrong. No great shakes on defense but fairly solid, no dumb over reaches that I remember.

I’d like to see RJ do a little more playmaking, but it’s early days. So far he’s been better than I expected.

I think RJ has to be the primary ball handler. He’s already on another level than the rest of the guards, even though he’s 19 and a work in progress. Idk who plays the other guard spot, but hopefully someone who can close out on threes and shoot.

Randle looks terrible out there. I’m not sure what he did different in LA or NO, but Randle needs to start playing better.

We can’t really blame Randle for the TOs and occasional bad choices. He’s more of a 3rd option being asked to be the primary option in an incoherent offense run by an incompetent coach.

Knox has been good from 3 over the first two games. We can live with bad defense as long as he’s good on offense and only coming off the bench. If he can get that far, it would be a major leap given how terrible he was last year on both ends.

The only real disappointment for me (other than Fizdale) was Payton. The question marks on him are defense and shooting. He was such a pest on defense in the opener I was getting encouraged. But he was weak on defense tonight. He probably still deserves the starting job, but it’s less clear if he can’t or doesn’t want to put out the energy to defend.

I might trade DSJr straight up for Mudiay if I could. lol I’d at least think about it.

Smith needs to go down to the G-League and work on his shot- it wasn’t a thing of beauty last year by any means but it’s flat out busted now.

He’s already on another level than the rest of the guards

He’s done okay in that role, but in traditional PG terms Payton is still better. That could change! Payton is a solid backup 1 but he’s not a good starting 1. I think best is to move forward like tonight: Payton starts, the other guys get some backup minutes depending on play, and RJB gets some amount of time based on how it’s going. It’s the second game, this all needs to play out some more.

Smith needs to go down to the G-League and work on his shot- it wasn’t a thing of beauty last year by any means but it’s flat out busted now.

The problem is Fizdale, management, and probably the pressure of playing in NY.

Smith was bad his first 2 years. Dallas put him on the market and couldn’t give him away. The whole league knew he was bad. Knicks management likes athletic scorers. They were probably impressed by his ability to jump and make the occasional highlight play. They are idiots, but that’s a given.

However, now that we are here, we can’t keep doing this same crap every year where we bring in another mediocre young PG, have them all compete, and yank them as soon as they make a bad play or have a bad game. If I was trying to be a basketball terrorist that would be my strategy. We totally annihilated Frank’s development that way and now we are doing the same thing to Smith this year (and Frank again after he made great progress for France with competent coaching) .

You have to give young players roles based on merit (which in Fizdale’s case is a major problem to begin with because he has no idea who his best players are or how to fit them together) and then stick with them so they are relaxed, comfortable, and can grow into the job. If they fail after a reasonable amount of time and/or the backup is obviously better, you can make a change after awhile and then stick with that.

But this in/out of the doghouse nonsense, 2 TOs and you destroy everything that was accomplished in Europe, busting DSJr out of the rotation altogether now because he missed some shots, making Trier the starter, etc.. is flat out idiocy. Besides being bad, Fizdale is also destroying Smith’s confidence and terrorizing him. Smith knows going in if he misses a few shots or turns the ball over he’s out. No one can or should ever have to play like that.

It is utter coaching malpractice to be up 3 points with a minute to go with 2 time outs and not go Offense/defense substitutions leaving your best 2 defenders on the bench and ESPECIALLY because you KNEW Kyrie was going to shoot the dam ball.
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Fizdale is a worse flim flam man than Robert Preston in the Music Man!

It is utter coaching malpractice to be up 3 points with a minute to go with 2 time outs and not go Offense/defense substitutions leaving your best 2 defenders on the bench and ESPECIALLY because you KNEW Kyrie was going to shoot the dam ball.

Great point.

They only give lip service to defense. They do not value defense anywhere near its intrinsic value to winning basketball games. That’s why we never get anywhere. Good defense matters a LOT. Great defense wins ball games and helps create better offense. They keep acquiring and playing scorers that can’t defend and then expect a team with 3-4 weak links in every lineup to actually defend well because they are talking about it. We only have a handful of guys that can contribute on both sides or defend at a high level. None of them have major roles except Robinson and he’s so raw he fouls himself out of minutes a lot of the time.

While I don’t disagree about the offense/defense thing, I’m almost more put off by how there just doesn’t seem to be any plan out there in the closing minutes. What is Fizdale even doing?

While I don’t disagree about the offense/defense thing, I’m almost more put off by how there just doesn’t seem to be any plan out there in the closing minutes. What is Fizdale even doing?

Yeah, but Barrett had been doing a decent job against Irving to that point and Frank was cold. And Mitch was fouling as often as not against Irving drives. I’m less concerned about this defense centured around disrupting passes and creating turnovers as I am the offense where there the plan was to isolate a turnover prone Randle underneath in a halfcourt set. Trier was hot as shit, at least run him out as an option! Randle is obviously solid in the flow but he’s equally obviously bad in the iso post game. You’re down 2 with ten left, Trier Barrett and Ellenson need to be on the floor with Mitch and Morris, last as a distraction.

The Nets only scored 7 points in the last 3:45 and two of those were on an intentional foul. Offense was the problem. Trier probably should have gone back in given that whatever offense they were running wasn’t generating quality looks. Randle was so bad that swapping him out for Mitch and trying to run pnr’s down the stretch almost certainly would have produced a better result but Randle was brought here to be the focal point of the offense so I think that as early in the season as it is you need to see what you have in him down the stretch in close games.
This team isn’t nearly as bad as last year’s team but they still have little to no margin for error- they’re going to have to do everything right to get wins against decent teams and that wasn’t the case tonight.

Yeah, but Barrett had been doing a decent job against Irving to that point and Frank was cold. And Mitch was fouling as often as not against Irving drives.

I meant just mixing things up on offense/defense period, during all of the stoppages in time (like maybe bring Trier in for offense on the offensive possessions). I agree that it would have been weird to put Frank in cold at that point (although, the argument would be then “Why not try Frank earlier, so he wouldn’t be cold later?”).

That’s fair, but when you’re chasing points Frank ain’t your go to guy. But yeah, a little finesse in the possessions would have been welcome. Was Fiz alergic to that in Memphis as well? But, game two. Staying with the squad that erased the deficit isn’t the worst long term play there.

I’m holding judgement until we play a few more contests, but this turnover chasing defense I don’t hate. It’s fun even if it’s not effective and it seems like the sort of thing that’ll improve going forward. Transition offense looks solid, half court seems like a lot of the old motion shit that isn’t that effective. There were some kick out flashes and some ‘build a lane’ drive plays, but it’s unconvincing.

I’m team realist, but I’m holding out hope that last year’s shit was more personnel than coach.

Looking around the NBA, man, it’s shocking just how many holes there are out there on so many teams. The Jazz are voluntarily starting Jeff Green. The Lakers were relying on Troy Daniels last night. For a league that is filled with so much talent, the salary cap has really led to a weird situation where the mid-level guys just don’t have jobs any more and teams are just saying, “Eh, we’ll just fill things out with minimum pay players.”

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