Knicks Morning News (2023.03.23)

I’ll start with the mitigating circumstances:
we were hosed by the refs. They were bad all night but were particularly awful during the decisive stretch of the 4th, when we had just took the lead back and they start whistling a string of bogus fouls, starting with an incredible fake moving screen on I-Hart.

Refereeing has been a leaguewide problem all year long (and last year too), I’ve never seen such a low level of officiating in the NBA (it’s more or less the norm in Europe), I hope they’ll be able to straight it up before the playoffs.

Excuses exausted.

Good Things:

– They fought despite being 5 vs 8 for most of the night.

– Grimes. He had a good game, then someone sit him too much on the bench just when he was hot.

– RJ. He makes me mad at least 4 times every single game but he’s playing much better lately.

Bad things:

– Our defense, or to be more accurate, Julius Randle’s defense has fallen off a cliff. Brunson is a sieve and was targeted all night (and even abused one-on-one by the ghost of Kyle Lowry), but Randle’s (and sometimes Barrett’s) slow rotations killed us.
You can live with one lousy defender, you can’t with multiple traffic cones.
If every game is going to be a shootout we’ll need everyone to be his best sharpshooting version and that rarely happens.

– IQ is Bench Mob’s scoring punch and he’s been bad in the last 5 quarters, we can’t count on Obi or the Hart Foundation to bear the offensive weight.
In games like this I’d rather try Fournier for 3-4 minutes. If he’s hot he can stay in otherwise you’ll send him back to the bench, but having a good shooter on the bench and not using him when other’s shots don’t fall is masochistic.
Same goes for Deuce. Can’t you just try him for 5 minutes on blossoming All-Star Gabe Vincent? Do you rather let Gabe Vincent screw you? Gabe Fucking Vincent?

Next:
if you’re not worried after home losses to the Charlotte Dregs and the Minnesota Skeleton Crew, if you’re not worried that our last two opponents shot 57% from 3, if you think everything’s okay and this team is sailing into warm caribbean waters, you’re more optimistic than me. 😀
No matter the strenght of schedule I still think we can beat anyone and we can lose to anyone so I’m not in prediction mood, and tonight back-to-back against the feisty Magic isn’t a cupcake, I hope we’ll be ready.

Brunson B-
Offensive numbers are good, turnovers (5!) and matador D are not.

Randle C
9:4 TO/AST is better than usual, but 6 rebounds are too few plus he didn’t shoot well (6-15 before his copyrighted stats stuffing basket). And the defense… excuse me, what “defense”?

Barrett A-
Efficient shooting, good from the line (7-7) and 5:3 AST/TO is acceptable, plus 6 boards. He defended better too, not well, but better.

Grimes A
Relatively to role expectations the MVP of the game. 12 shots after the single in the last game. Too long on the bench in the 4th.

Mitch B-
Question: is he back block-chasing too much?
On the other hand he and I-Hart can’t move without been whistled for something (I’m pretty sure I heard a call for “broken rear light”).

Quickley C-
In a mini-slump, I’m positive about a revenge tonight (fingers crossed).

Hart B
He did some goods things, but we’re spoiled.

Hartenstein C
He has by far the worst whistle in the League, half of his fouls are not called when someone else does them. But it wasn’t a good game and he had 3 turnovers.

Toppin C
This is like reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
Former NCAA Player Of The Year Obi Toppin has become Emmenthaler* Bertans.
Transformation complete.

McBride NA
Gabe Vincent and Kyle Lowry sent a thank you note.

Thibs B
Didn’t like his game calling tonight, it’s the kind of game that exposes his idiosyncrasies (no Deuce for defense except the 26 seconds cameo to preserve Brunson at the end of first half, no Evian for offense when the bench couldn’t score, no optimal use of Grimes’ hot hand). To be fair his team as usual didn’t quit and was killed by the refs all night long despite his relentless effort and loud screams, hence the “not so bad” grade.

* He was a generic swiss cheese coming out of college, now he’s… matured 🙂