2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Spurs

After their close loss to the 76ers, I am officially ending the Coaching Death Watch for David Fizdale. He might very well still get fired this season, but it’s no longer imminent.

Anyhow, this game looked like a tough one on the schedule to start the season, but the Spurs have completely collapsed since their last game against the Knicks. It’s funny, during that game, I remarked that I was stunned by how I didn’t get what the heck of the point of the Spurs team was, as they looked almost as thrown together as the Knicks, roster-wise. Then, as I was saying that, they went on, like, a 21-0 run or something like that to blow the Knicks out.

But yeah, they still look like a mess and they’ve been losing a ton.

So this is very much a winnable game at home.

Add in Kyrie’s injury and this could theoretically be the Knicks’ first winning streak of the season, if they beat the Spurs and the Nets!

Let’s go, Knicks!

106 replies on “2019-20 Game Thread: Knicks vs. Spurs”

The knicks want a top 5 draft pick.
The spurs want to make the playoffs and it shows.

Pop is out to snap our necks.

Well so much for the Knicks, back to the acting thread…

So anyway, Lea Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos from Blue Is the Warmest Color both turned in fantastic performances, imho

The Knicks are 5 on 4, and they end up with a 2 pointer from Knox standing on the 3 point line

Amazing

Death Watch II
“Dead Man Coaching”
Starring Robert De Fizo !
Coming soon to a blog near you !

You know which female performance I especially loved in this decade? It wasn’t a lead role but but’s Tilda Swinton’s work in Snowpiercer was so damn underrated.

Probably removed the FizDeath watch title too early

You know which female performance I especially loved in this decade? It wasn’t a lead role but but’s Tilda Swinton’s work in Snowpiercer was so damn underrated.

I’ve been on the fence of watching that, overall is it pretty good?

This 30+ year investment is really really starting to become worthless to me. To think I’m looking forward to this all day. I’ve been looking forward to games for far too long… And I’m stuck with what … shame on me.

snowpiercer is a fun time. some might call it the unofficial sequel to willy wonka.

I’ve been on the fence of watching that, overall is it pretty good?

Its probably my favorite film of this decade. I think Bong-Joon Ho is as good as there is right now.

Well I’ll definitely check it out then.

Also, Willy Wonka is still one of my all-time favorite books and movies so that definitely seals it.

*flips back to Knicks/Spurs*

“Still down 20? @!$#”

I really enjoyed Saorise Ronan in Ladybird and I’m forgetting who played her mother, but I remember liking her performance as well.

Forgot to mention. If you are watching Snowpiercer now you probably can pretend you’re watching an unofficial captain America movie where cap is undercover.

@28

I gotta say, Chris Evans really showed me something in that film. That monologue of his (I won’t spoil anything else) was powerful. I really didn’t think he had it in him.

I hate that we’re getting sell the team chants instead of Fire Mills chants.

Maybe if fans chant sell the team every game for the rest of the season Dolan will oblige. Sell the team, keep your seats like Shelly Sterling did, and let us be miserable with Bloomberg as our owner or something.

I watched Parasite yesterday and was thrilled. It’s really as incredible as everyone says. And it pairs well together with Burning, one of my favorite films from last year, as thematically linked masterpieces on Korean class issues, but also universal. Good stuff.

How about animal performances ?
Hachiko was heartbreaking !!!
Deserved a DOgscar !

That was an embarrassing first half. They didn’t show up on either side. They should bring Wooten up from the G league. At least he’ll play hard.

@32

So want to see Parasite. Have you seen The Host?

I’m really into what’s coming out of Korea right now. They’re producing some of the best stuff on TV and cinema. I highly recommend a horror series on Netflix about a zombie breakout during the Choson dynasty titled Kingdom. Its really fucking good, ten times better than Walking Dead.

Sell the team chants are probably more likely to lead to firings than fire Mills chants.

Does anyone out there track “potential” assists?

By that I mean a pass to a player that then takes a shot that would have qualified as an assist if the player made it.

The only thing of note is that RJ has been playing the 3 for the last few minutes, as DSJ and Frank and now Ellington have been in.

I didn’t like snowpiercer all that much but it’s an interesting film and definitely worth watching.

Frank has Prigioni’d an inbounds pass, dunked and gone to the line, all on different plays. We have that.

This team has been struggling defending the 3 point line and I keep reading about how we are focusing on defending the paint. May I ask why?

But also not having Mitch in right now is a fireable offense

Edit: Randle is utter trash

This game got exciting after Frank stoned three different Spurs. Alas, the Spurs went to Aldridge who Randle clownishly fouled.

Frank has to work on his open court offense/passing on the break. It’s a clear weakness. When he’s coming down court leading the break I think he’s giving the ball up too soon and they don’t get as good a shot as they should. I think it’s part of his weakness finishing. He’s afraid to have to actually finish and gives it up instead of trying to break down the defense. That’s something for him to work on for next year.

Randle with a 5-16 night where he commits 4 turnovers. Why did we sign this guy again?

We’re at game 16 of the season, and game threads are generating 60 comments, 40 of which are about Korean horror movies.

#Knicks

It’s so clear when the momentum turned after Randle started forcing shots and fouled Aldrich twice. Why is Mitch not in? He’s worse than Knox.

We have a few too many low basketball IQ basketball players. Some bad shots and decisions down the stretch or we may have made a serious run at this one. I wonder if they came out flat tonight because they were thinking about the Nets tomorrow?

So the idea that Mitch coming off the bench is fine because he’ll get starter’s minutes anyway is officially dead yeah? Just no excuse whatsoever for his minutes tonight.

Actually, the Knicks are scarier than a South Korean horror movie.

Decades of watching this shit is like the extra circle of Hell that Dante never dared write about.

The tenth circle of hell?

Dolan presides over it, with Isaiah and Mills as his demon underlings.

I couldn’t watch the game. How could Ntilikina have 9 assists, 6 steals and 9 points on 9 shots and still have a -10 +/-?

I’m not sure what we should do about Randle, but his stock and value is going down. It would also be too embarrassing for Mills/Perry to play him off the bench, but that’s probably where he belongs. Mitch, Morris, Barrett, Frank, and ?. I’m still a Dotson fan, but he doesn’t have his shooting stroke yet. Bring up Kadeem Allen!!!! He CAN play with Frank and defends. I’d also bring up Wooten. He has energy and defends.

I think Wally is making a veiled critique of Fizdale’s offense, but I can’t tell. Whatever his point I am sure the front office has signed off of it.

I couldn’t watch the game. How could Ntilikina have 9 assists, 6 steals and 9 points on 9 shots and still have a -10 +/-?

He played most of his minutes with Julius Randle.

@73

He didn’t have a very good first half and the rest was mostly noise. He was just on the court while they were kicking our asses. He had a very good 2nd half and kind of spearheaded the attempted comeback.

DSJr is playing a little better than he was, but I’m still not a fan.

What’s going to happen when Payton comes back?

I’m 100% convinced that Fizdale loves DSJr (like Mudiay) and secretly would rather play Smith over Frank but Frank playing well, the fans, and the media won’t allow that now.

Randle with a 5-16 night where he commits 4 turnovers. Why did we sign this guy again?

Advanced stats are never wrong……

I’d really like to see:

Mitch
Gibson
RJ
Dotson
Frank

It might be a little rough scoring points but at least they’d compete….. I’d rather lose 60 games watching that….

Julius Randle’s FG% has taken an insane dip for the Knicks. I know people here blame the lack of a traditional PG, but he’s shooting the ball poor everywhere on court. Positionless basketball is failing.

Maybe in a couple of years the Knicks can grab the 10th seed and sneak into the playoff play in games.

The only thing I can say about Randle is for him to have been a good statistical offensive player last year AD must have had the gravity effect of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy!

Julius Randle’s FG% has taken an insane dip for the Knicks. I know people here blame the lack of a traditional PG, but he’s shooting the ball poor everywhere on court. Positionless basketball is failing.

It has little to do with our PG play.

The problem is that he was the 2nd/3rd option or coming off the bench elsewhere and in NY he’s the 1st option on a team often lacking in space inside where he operates best. He was never a good 3 point shooter. That was always one of the knocks along with his defense. Last year was the aberration.

Teams are focusing on stopping him inside and our lineups are making it that much harder on him.

Sure, if Steve Nash was our PG his FG% would be a little higher but he’d still be struggling given his specific skill set, the too big role we are giving him, and our lineups. He’s a THIRD option on a team with a lot of spacing. He’s not a 1st option on a team with no spacing.

I’d really like to see:

Mitch
Gibson
RJ
Dotson
Frank

It might be a little rough scoring points but at least they’d compete….. I’d rather lose 60 games watching that….

Seriously, why can’t we have a team we can seriously root for? Is that so hard to ask? Instead, it’s the Randle/Morris/Portis show while losing to a shitty Spurs team. Where’s the fun in that?

Advanced stats are never wrong……

This is really one of the dumber things I’ve seen posted here in a while.

Randle was a productive player last year. If he had the same advanced stats this year, he’d be a productive player here too. He has sucked, so he doesn’t have good advanced stats. He’s missing a fuckload more shots and turning the ball over all the time. I don’t know what’s causing it, but I do know he’s playing shitty. I don’t know if it’s his new role as main scorer, I don’t know if it’s the shitty guard play, I don’t know if it’s Fizdale’s lack of a game plan, but I do know he’s playing way, way worse than he did last year.

It’s not the stats’ fault he’s having a shitty season. The stats just describe what happened. If you think he was this shitty last year for New Orleans but the “advanced stats” just papered it over, well then you’re a fucking idiot.

I actually think Strat is mostly correct here– the bad spacing is hurting Randle. He also has the ball in his hands way too much. He’s not a first option kind of player, that is pretty clear.

He’s also not being paid like a first option, he’s making $18M, which is really third option money. But there are only so many shitty players to spread around all the shots to. Take shots away from Randle, and it’s just gonna be some other shitty player taking the shots. This is a terrible offensive team no matter how you rearrange the pieces.

To me, its not even that the shots Randle passes up will be missed by someone else but that poor quality shots are being taken. I can live with poor results if the process is good, but the process is terrible. Shit, we don’t even have a process it seems.

He’s also not being paid like a first option, he’s making $18M, which is really third option money. But there are only so many shitty players to spread around all the shots to. Take shots away from Randle, and it’s just gonna be some other shitty player taking the shots. 

the not so sexy truth…

Even when we’ve played Randle with Portis, who at least should spread the floor, Randle has sucked. He needs to be the roll man more often and that definitely has to do with our lack of a point guard. The lack of shooting doesn’t help either, but getting Payton back should make Randle look better if he’s willing to give up the godawful iso attempts.

Even given the different role, you’d hope to see a bit more from Randle. He’s not just bad, but unplayable right now.

Hopefully Bullock comes back and can be a legitimate floor spacer for us. Tho we’ll probably be in full-on tank mode by then.

I think it’s getting close to time to put RJ on the bench for a bit, we need the extra shooting in the starting lineup. Either Ellington or Dot should get a chance, it would also help alleviate the issue where RJ, Morris, and Randle all demand the ball in their hands. I mean ideally we just run the young guys out there, but as long as were pretending to win and paying the $$, I think that’s a lineup that could make some sense.

The problem is Fizdale. Randle should be rolling to the paint in the box and not bringing the ball up court, hovering around the 3pt lineup.

Randle is shooting 34% of his shots at the rim this year compared to 44% last year and over 50% from the year before that.

Instead Randle is shooting a bit more from 10-16ft and 16ft – 3pt line. He’s actually shooting insanely well from 10-16ft, but that’s not sustainable.

More importantly Randle is taking over 25% of his shots from 3, and he’s shooting a terrible .259 from there. Last year he took 18% of his shots from 3 and hit 34%. The year before that he only took 5% of his shots from 3.

So yeah, the problem with Randle is that he’s not getting layups and instead shooting 3’s at a godawful rate. Also he can’t hit free throws, because Knicks. Seriously if Keith Smart is their shooting coach he should have been fired a month ago. I doubt there’s ever been such a complete drop in individual player FT% on a single team in the history of basketball.

Also our defensive problem is clearly our inability to check 3pt shooters. Against any other team the opponent’s 3pt% wouldn’t be sustainable, against the Knicks it would not surprise me.

A player goes from being highly productive to totally non-productive and a turnover machine.

It’s not about Randle being the first option, it’s that he has the ball way too much. For some reason Fiz has made him the playmaker and he has no idea what he’s doing; plus, he’s actually a poor ball handler.

Put him with a true PG and a smarter coach and I’m sure his stats would be much closer to last season.

I mean, it’s not like the league has figured out his game, he’s just being used totally wrong.

Has the ball too much/is the first option/team has no PG

Those things all seem like the same thing really.

Pretty glad I wasn’t able to watch this one. Wish I had seen Frank dunk though. I do like that this:

He didn’t have a very good first half and the rest was mostly noise. He was just on the court while they were kicking our asses. He had a very good 2nd half and kind of spearheaded the attempted comeback.

Is a pretty perfect explanation of why raw +/- is so useless. It doesn’t tell you much at all about an individual player’s performance and the way in which it fails to do so means it doesn’t improve much with increasing sample size.

I completely sympathize. I’ve worked on shows that had around 300 hours of footage for an hour long episode. It can get ridiculous.

Totally insane. Really does take courage to go through so many rushes.

Talking about great actresses, Barbara Stanwyck lights up any film she’s in. One of my all time favorites.

Randle’s numbers last year were pure contract year fluff cotton candy, the textbook thing that fools a dreadful and desperate organization into paying top dollar for him and handing over the keys to the team. Other than as a bench guy who can do a couple things ok, he sucks.

I spent all day and night yesterday at a Sopranos convention in the Meadowlands. I am mostly relieved I missed that game, but it sounds like Frank had an impressive night. Which, sadly, at this point in the season, maybe the thing I care about most. How’d he look?

Is a pretty perfect explanation of why raw +/- is so useless. It doesn’t tell you much at all about an individual player’s performance and the way in which it fails to do so means it doesn’t improve much with increasing sample size.

Frank had a pretty terrific game last night. I’m trying to think of the last time a Knick player had 9 assists with ZERO turn overs and 6 steals……

And to taunt the haters (the dump Frank crowd who “knew” players don’t improve after 20)….. a word from the noted philosopher Satchel Paige…. “Don’t look back…. someone might be gaining on ya!”

Frank’s WS/48 = .065 VORP = 0.2 (second to Mitch on the Knicks)

As to Randle the difference between this year and last year is the lack of the floor listing to the port beam every time AD had the ball and commanded double/triple teams.

He is miscast in the Land of the Misfit Toys as a primary option in any sense of the word. He should look at Oakley tapes. He has the body to set stout screens and the strength to be an offensive rebounding machine. He also has the skills and hands be be adroit around the basket. Launching contested 3’s isn’t his bailiwick nor is posting up when double teamed.

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