This is a weird little road trip here, right?
One Western Conference team, and then two Eastern Conference teams.
Hopefully the Knicks sweep this road trip, that would be pretty freakin’ sweet, especially as all three teams are nominally “up and coming” teams that it would be nice to say, “Well, you haven’t gotten here yet, newb.” Then maybe give them a toilet swirley or some shit.
Let’s go, Knicks!
222 replies on “2023-24 Game Thread: Knicks @ Thunder (Weird Road Trip Opener, Not Really a Thing)”
Skapintsev! Skapintsev!
Is that for the first quarter or for the whole game?
Either way I’m taking the over
Someone said the Thunder might go small. But they don’t have anyone under 6 foot 6!
Holmgren trying to set a pick is kind of amusing
“Barrett lines it up” is about the extent of it. No arc.
Unfortunately, I can’t watch this game. But I do want to comment on our wide open two point shot percentage noted in the last thread. This sort of shot is either a long two or when someone beats everyone down the court on a fast break. Shots at the basket are always done near an opposing player. If you look at our in game shot charts we take almost no long twos and open breakaways are very rare. It doesn’t matter if our percentages are low on shots we almost never take.
Yes, pass it to the one guy who can shoot (DDV).
Man I wish we had had the opportunity to draft a guy like SGA
Oh wait… 🙁
SGA didn’t show these moves when playing 3 on 3?
Checking the score, maybe it’s not so unfortunate I can’t watch, but I’d watch anyway if I could.
If only a poster, any poster, had been wise enough to suggest we take SGA because of his potential to become a star…
SGA probably wiped the floor with Knox in 3 on 3.
Thunder carving up our defense
Taj has got to alert Randle on that
Gonna be tough to compete when we’re shooting like this
No defense and stupid decisions on offense. Is that going to be a successful strategy?
Lady Raven says the OKC dancers are quite corn-fed…
I don’t think there’s a team who’s situation I would want more than okc. All young players with tons of upside and they’re already good. Man I’d be in heaven
OKC sending late help on the iso’s .. similar to what we saw earlier in the year and it’s causing similar problems….
That RJ drive on Holmgren was like the one-armed guy in Hot Tub Time Machine. You know what’s gonna happen, just not how or when…
Exhausted from just watching this game
Special thanks to the OKC coach for leaving SGA out of the game so long
Back down by five. Let’s be sure not to have Quickley get too many minutes…
For once I agree with Wally – refs have been solid tonight
Exactly
Mitch would have a field day against this team
Please take RJ out
Exactly
Thibs takes Hart and Quick out, OKC increases lead from 4 to 11 in a couple of minutes.
Randle in dumb turnover mode tonight
Defense could use a little work in the second half
I Hart’s a really good player, he’s better than Mitch in some matchups but he just doesn’t have Mitch’s sheer physicality
RJ is very good at killing our momentum
RJ
There are no words
You could tell he was about to do something stupid as soon as he got the ball.
Super glad IQ’s not in the game. He needs the rest.
This team man….
This is why I don’t give up on Randle. Not a good game until this half, then he just dominates.
Well damn we’re tied.
I love Josh Hart.
And there’s the obligatory one-man Josh Hart fast break. Unreal.
Randle and Brunson are fine. We just need a 3 who doesn’t completely suck.
❤️🩷🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🖤🩶🤍🤎❤️🔥❣️💕💞💓💗💖💘💝💟❤️
Randle is a man among boys out there
Brunson got Brunsonned
If RJ doesn’t see the floor again tonight they might have a chance.
It’s amazing the turnovers are 16-4 and we’re only down 4
Not one of Brunson’s better games tonight.
Turnovers being somewhat mitigated by the Knicks being a plus 12 on the boards so far.
Feels like OKC is shooting 90% tonight on contested jumpers.
Please get RJ the fuck out of there
This is going completely to the script. We’re killing them on the glass but they’re forcing so many turnovers
Another game where it feels like RJ is singlehandedly costing Knicks the game.
RJ is incredibly useless 60% of the time
Narrator: he did see the floor again.
We really ought to trade either Randle or RJ, two equally good players
Finally iHart is up
I’m so tired of watching RJ clank shots.
Is 3-10 with 4 turnovers good?
I’ve tried to stay away from the RJ discourse for the most part but I think I’ve officially gotten to the end of my patience with him, it’s clear that he’s the main player holding this team back and upgrading him is by far the easiest way to true contention.
They could upgrade on RJ simply by playing one of their good players instead.
RJ needs to understand he is the break in case of emergency option his confidence is killing us.
I think they called that foul on SGA
Foul on SGA after the Giddey slap
Playing this team is super depressing. They’re just so much better at the bottom of their win curve than we are near the top of ours. Holmgren and SGA are both better than anyone to play for us in 30 years.
It really bugs me when people question the value of tanking when OKC did it 15 years ago for a fraction of the time we were bad and they get to be asset billionaires for the rest of my lifetime just from that.
We on the other hand have to pretend RJ Barret is and NBA player.
For real. Get a dude who shoots even average from 3 to replace RJ and this team would be so much better.
I try not to post so much because when I’m into the game I inevitably begin to criticize RJ. I’ll try not to…but Jesus F Christ he is just terrible.
They could upgrade by playing 4 on 5
that sub did not happen
And he takes Quickly out for RJ. This is so maddening.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL at RJ coming in to do that
What the fuck is thibs doing taking out IQ for RJ
JFC are we seriously bringing RJ back in for IQ??????
Oh thank god they replaced Quickley with Barrett. We needed Barrett to commit a turnover, and Quickley definitely needs his rest. The elevation might kill him.
I think RJ’s migraines were contagious I’m feeling one coming on…
IQ playing low minutes is so bad on many levels. Hurts both our offense and defense. Makes no sense.
Tbh the IQ minutes issue is becoming a serious coaching problem of Thibs’. It’s one of the main things holding us back along with RJ’s guaranteed 30 mpg
Totally inexplicable substitution Thibs gets an F just for that
How the fuck does anyone watch this game and decide that swapping IQ with RJ is the right move?
Another RJ garbage time stat “padding”
Rowan the Garbagetime Man Barret strikes again
Thibs sucked tonight.
Jalen Williams is no RJ….
so there were people who said that ihart was better than jalen williams…
I can’t think of legitimate basketball reasons why IQ is playing less minutes this year. He does so many good things on the court.
RJ was responsible for nearly every bad thing that happened from the time he was subbed in. They have to trade him or bench him–it’s genuinely untenable to have him starting if what we’re interested in is winning games.
Oh good, IQ back in for the last 52 seconds…
Thunder are fast and good. We hung with them for a while but couldn’t overcome too many bad player minutes in the 4th quarter and spotting them the early lead.
First half defense and the last four minutes of the fourth, after RJ came back in, is the major reason we lost tonight. It’s just painful to watch RJ. The Knicks cannot take a step forward from where they are right now unless they move him or at least stop playing him. I can’t understand why Thibs keeps giving him all those minutes. Size on the wings cannot be an excuse given how bad he is.
Barrett was 3-12 for 9 points before those two garbage time buckets.
OKC drafted 3 of the best players in NBA history and couldn’t keep them together. The same thing may happen this time. When it comes time to pay everyone we’ll see if they are willing to make it rain. Their window may not be as long as everyone thinks. I have a funny feeling a long term thinker like Presti is already planning his next rebuild using all those picks. 🤣
those second contracts aren’t even that much… they can very easily resign anyone they want….
I said this tongue in check one time, but maybe I should have been serious.
Watching Thib’s patience with RJ going on years now has been painful at times. It’s is even worse this year when there are clearly 3 players on the bench better than him.
Watching his handling of Quickley when he’s arguably the best two-way player on the team is beyond painful. It’s torture.
The man is either on the spectrum and can’t handle change or he’s a sadist.
Which team’s draft picks does OKC still control in the immediate future? Their own 1st rd picks aren’t gonna be that high anymore.
The rotation isn’t easy to navigate, but Tom Thibodeau gets paid a lot of money. There are simply no excuses for not making Quickley a 30 MPG player. It’s self-sabotage to not do so.
That’s an average, so against teams with the size to exploit him it can be a little less, and when he’s cooking it can be a little more.
Figure it out. If you can’t do something more creative, we’d be better off if we simply took all of the missing minutes from RJ.
if there was a draft for Knicks POBO, Presti would be my #1 pick. Aside from the unforgivable Harden blunder, he’s been absolutely brilliant.
A month ago, on a whim I bought tickets for the Knicks-OKC game on March 31. Sees like that might be a rocking Sunday night game.
I started typing out all of OKC’s picks but it was too much work. They have an absolute fuck ton, and some very good ones too.
On the post game, Thibs predictably explained away playing RJ over IQ based on OKC’s positional length.
I understand the long leash in seasons 1 through 4, while waiting for a young pick, third in the draft in this case, to develop and have a breakout season. By year four, it is clear where a player is. It is very rare for someone to take a leap after that. In his fifth season in the NBA, RJ Barrett is who he is and he is unlikely to change.
Other teams see what we see. My view is that it will cost draft picks or taking back a really bad contract when the Knicks finally move RJ.
They have some Houston picks, some Denver picks, some Clippers picks… I think they’re owed 9 guaranteed first rounders and a bunch more that might not convey. Plus a million second rounders.
They still have plenty of young players on the roster with legitimate upside too. Chet is a rookie, Giddey can play better than he has been playing, Cason Wallace is a rookie…
They’re in good shape. My spirit animal team.
Plus a bunch of pick swaps. Forgot about those
i don’t know what anyone else is gonna do against okc… chet is probably slightly better than KP right now and williams is about to become another tatum for them…
and SGA… man SGA is probably the most impressive guy we’ve faced all season… probably the best non-big in the league.. yes over doncic…
giddey is sort of holding them back… in a couple different directions but as soon as anyone desirable is on the block i imagine they have no problem including him and any number of their picks to get it done because they are already one of the league’s elite and their time is now….
RJ had the highest USG% tonight. His actual numbers look like crap but he’s closing in on the all-time moxie record.
Despite RJ, we managed a 120 Ortg against a top tier defense.
Taj played ~10min and managed an 88.9 Ortg and a 160.0 Drtg on the NBA.com boxscore. Small samples and all… but holy crap!!
Is there any reason to believe the Thunder can’t win the West this year?
I don’t think there are any teams that are clearly better.
OKC needs a true PF. Williams obviously killed us offensively but in 33 mins he had 0 rebs and when he was matched up with Randle had no chance stopping him. He was actually the only member of the OKC starting lineup with a negative +/- tonight.
If OKC gets a true big to play next to Chet with SGA-Dort-Williams on the wings they’ll truly be a championship contender.
OKC is very good, but I think they are going to need a couple of playoff runs to get the seasoning necessary to get to the finals and then beat an equally or more talented team that has more veteran experience.
i don’t think there is any question that the only solution to this situation is to move the 3 point line back about 3 feet or so, eliminate corner threes altogether…
Unless you also made the court wider at the same time
“According to RAPTOR….”
Saw some clips of Taj on Twitter. Didn’t look good.
Chet was really impressive. He is physically holding up much better than I expected, and is looking very much like a guy who should have gone #1 even though Banchero is no slouch.
RJ is a lemon. Time to move on. His stat line looks eerily similar to his stat line from last season. There’s really nothing left to debate about at this point.
Salary dump time.
Wow, Macri jumped up and down on Barrett’s burning corpse this morning. Not a word I wouldn’t have written, but still. KB-level diss.
The next question is what team would take a chance on RJ? Without us attaching a pick, of course.
Toronto would be the most comfortable place for him, but Ujiri isn’t doing us any favors. Maybe Detroit would take him for a journeyman or two? Maybe he could help replace LaVine in Chicago? Maybe to the Jazz for an Olynyk package. Maybe gift him to LA to be with his buddy Cam? Salary dump in Washington? Maybe New Orleans bites so he can play with Zion?
Knicks’ defense is going rapidly into the shitter. Djphan called it correctly when he said the team’s defensive TOV% from early in the season was likely to collapse. That was keeping our defensive rating afloat for a while but now we’re below average in defensive eFG% and TOV%, and good-not-great in DRB%.
Mitch is out for the season and the trend line does not look good on the defensive end. We just don’t have enough good defenders, and our “big 3” are all below average on that side of the ball.
One reason our defense sucks, courtesy of Macri:
Not great, Bob: With the score 113-106 and 3:19 remaining, Chet Holmgren rejected Julius Randle on a shot at the rim. Julius thought it was a foul, and instead of hustling back on defense, stuck around his own basket with his arms raised in a pointless display of childish histrionics. OKC had a 4-on-5 and J-Dubb walked into a wide open three.
Ball game over.
THEY NEVER WOULDA DRAFTED HIM ANYWAY!!!!
Macri is such a baby, he wanted the Knicks to give RJ even more money than they actually did and RJ was more or less the same player then that he is now.
If you want to improve the 2023 Knicks the two very easy fixes are to play IQ more and trade RJ for an actually productive NBA player. Now look, this isn’t a title team barring some very weird shit, so maybe you don’t want to improve the 2023 Knicks, and that’s also defensible if you think RJ is going to be valuable at some future point. But I am not sure why you’d be very confident he’s going to get there (and I think he’s probably going to get better, just not significantly)
Also I guess you could get a real backup big and let poor Taj just be a vibes guy.
It was Mitch that lead the team in steals. He was also responsible for others even though he didn’t get credit for them in the boxscore.
That’s at least one contributing factor that was not predictable.
This team needs a shakeup— the starting C is out, we have an unproductive player in a key role, and one of the better players on the team needs more minutes. We’re using a guy who is essentially retired as a regular rotation player.
The team needs a shakeup, and some creative moves need to be made. Time to step up and get something done, Leon.
I don’t want to be a hater because I like Macri, but he’s just a fan like the rest of us. I don’t he has any special insights into basketball that we should be holding above what we all see.
They need a new coach and a new, improved philosophy of player acquisition and roster construction
With regard to Thibs comments about going back to RJ last night, imo matching players up on size, speed and strength matters, but sometimes the gap in overall skill outweighs the matchup issue. IQ is so much better than RJ, I’d way rather have a slight size and strength mismatch than play RJ. Thibs must understand this on some level, but I think he’s overweighting the matchup or underestimating the gap in productivity between RJ and IQ. Between guys of similar ability you go with matchup, but there’s a big gap here.
Jeez, didn’t know there were feelings about Macri — I only started reading him a few weeks ago. I have no opinions, to be honest, except that today’s posting could have been written by me.
Also probably worth keeping in mind the Thunder are one of the best teams in the NBA.
Finding potential destinations for RJ is um, not easy, because while there are 30 teams who could use the idea of RJ (big versatile scoring wing), there are 0 teams who could use the actually existing RJ (big wing who is below average or worse at everything including scoring).
You have to find a team that, at a minimum:
1) is not trying to win, because RJ doesn’t help with that
2) doesn’t have a clearly better wing, because if they do they’re not interested in giving RJ ~$83M over the next three seasons
Utah doesn’t really have a wing per se and could make it work with Olynyk and THT’s salaries (I’d cut THT before he got on the plane). Sadly I think we’ve reached the point where they’d prefer even a middling first for Olynyk though.
Maybe Washington wants to buy low? I doubt they’re concerned with his impact on their ability to sign free agents. 3 teamer:
NYK gets: Gallo, SloMo
WAS gets: RJ, Leonard Miller
MIN gets: Tyus Jones
Portland kinda theoretically fits, but no chance they want to let RJ take reps from Simons, Scoot, and Sharpe.
Memphis is trying to win, but nothing has really stuck for them on the wing and they’ve never been a high efficiency offense anyway. We could take Kennard off their hands and try to extract LaRavia, who is a long shot to do much of anything but is at least theoretically a stretch 4.
Macri has never been high on RJ, he’s one of the primary guys the RJ truthers pile on when RJ has one of those legendary 7 game stretches.
This feels a little bit like hiring Mike D’Antoni then giving him Ray Felton and Mike Bibby as point guards and saying “here, make this work.” We hired a defensive oriented coach then gave him a bunch of players that can’t defend. We’re not a bad team but there’s not a whole lot of synergy going on here, and there’s some jamming of square pegs into round holes.
True — but you can’t build a contender around Thibs and a roster of his guys.
“Like I’ve said, you’re gonna finish with different guys. It’s what the game needs,” Thibodeau explained after the Knicks lost 129-120 to the Thunder. “Sometimes, it’s matchups. Sometimes, someone’s got it going. Sometimes, you need size; you’re looking at the switching you’re doing.
“You’re asking guys to sacrifice, because you can only put five out there. And so that’s the way you roll with it. We need everyone. We need everyone to play well. So that’s what we did.”
oy vey….
He’s been making these bizarre decisions for bizarre reasons ever since he got here.
Just to drive this home… IQ & Grimes were 6-7 from 3 yesterday. Does that mean we had good spacing in the starting lineup, or that Taj Gibson opened up the floor in the second unit? Of course not. Bc 3P% is not a stand in for spacing.
Wow, this reaction to a mostly competitive road loss to a top-5 team in the NBA is pretty dramatic. That would have been a significant upset to beat them on their home court. OKC is very, very good!
This board is so predictable after losses.
In December so far we’re 6-6, with wins over the Suns, Lakers and Nets on the road and the Bucks at MSG. The only bad loss was to the Jazz, (and they haven’t been horrible lately)
Last night we lost on the road to one of the NBA’s offensive juggernauts who the night before beat the best team in the West and we were right in the game until about 4 minutes left
Not saying all is well in Knicks land, we’ve definitely got defensive issues and Mitch’s absence really hurts, but we all said going into December that the schedule was going to be brutal.
Not really a time to panic.
The question as always is who the fuck would trade for RJ Barrett, because everyone else has access to the same stats we do.
I do think there is some merit to revisiting the Bogdanovic idea with the Pistons. Maybe we could offer Barrett for Bojan + Isaiah Stewart, who is pretty mediocre but could probably give us more than Taj at this point of his career. The issue is that Stewart’s extension kicks in next season and he’s definitely not worthy of it.
I’m lost for ideas, because there really doesn’t seem to be any real easy way out of this. The season is still going well, we’re still losing to most teams we’re supposed to lose to and beating mostly everyone we should be beating, so it’s fine I guess…
The loss in and of itself isn’t concerning, but I think JK is right that a few different problems that have been bubbling for a while are starting to reach the surface.
Trying to win now while also “developing” RJ Barrett has always been an uneasy marriage, and we might be reaching the point where it makes sense to lean more into the former as the latter may well be, well, done.
The counter argument is that if we bench RJ or seriously eat into his minutes some other way, we’re waiving the white flag on his trade value. I’m sympathetic to the concern, but I don’t think there’s any trade value left to speak of. Who knows, maybe a different i.e. downsized role is his path to recovering some. Probably not, but I’m not sure what we have to lose.
“This feels a little bit like hiring Mike D’Antoni then giving him Ray Felton and Mike Bibby as point guards and saying “here, make this work.” We hired a defensive oriented coach then gave him a bunch of players that can’t defend. We’re not a bad team but there’s not a whole lot of synergy going on here, and there’s some jamming of square pegs into round holes.”
Thibs and D’Antoni are cut from the same cloth in many regards. Different philosophies, but equally stubborn, egotistical, and rigidly adherent to certain principals. The IQ vs. RJ stuff is mind-boggling right now….it just doesn’t make any sense other than Thibs being stubborn and winning just enough to roll with it.
But Thibs is probably going nowhere unless this team either goes on a regular-season bender or gets embarrassed in the first round or before. Both of those things could happen this year. Beyond that, all I can do is sigh and live with it, just like I did with D’Antoni.
not sure if folks have noticed but we’ve only beaten 4 teams over .500 this year… that was against the bucks (good win)… but also against the heat where we needed a miracle 4th and they went ice cold… the clippers with harden’s first game .. and the lakers who are reeling and techically out of the 8th seed… so really it’s only 3 of the top 8 teams in each conf…
like i get these teams are good… and we’re not better than a lot of these teams we’re getting blown out by.. but… when do they start counting? we also spend an inordinate amount of time patting ourselves on the back when we beat the pistons.. hornets… spurs and wizards… why are those more representative than these games?
there’s a lot of good teams in this league.. and if you wanna say that we’re a good team but not quite a contender.. you have to do better against these guys…. like seriously… i am seeing this mentality all over…
‘we can play and beat just about anyone’… no we cannot…. and it’s not exactly congruent with… ‘well we played okc tough by losing by 9 pts on their tail end of a b2b’….
There’s a pretty wide gulf between “panic” and “make some adjustments.” Quickley needs more minutes, RJ needs to have his role severely curtailed, and we need a real backup 5 and not Taj Gibson.
Sorry but discussing ways in which the team could be improved seems like fair game.
RJ needs accountability, and Thibs isn’t holding him accountable. Maybe he’s thinking that he doesn’t want to shatter his confidence and truly believes that first 7 games RJ is the real RJ. Or maybe he just doesn’t believe in going small against bigger teams but doesn’t have any alternative “biggish” wings to throw in there.
Spo benched Duncan Robinson for a long stretch last year and DR has become a better player for it. I’m pretty certain his leash for RJ would be much shorter than Thibs’.
I think part of the reaction to last night’s game is yes, we ran into an offensive juggernaut, but it also felt like we lost the game because stupid (as is so often the case), not just that the Thunder beat us.
Playing RJ is stupid. Playing one of our three best players 24 minutes is stupid, not to mention that the actual subbing pattern was, well, stupid. Julius was awesome as usual and did stupid things like repeatedly losing the ball on triple-teams and arguing with refs that left his teammates 4-on-5 more than once. And that’s not even mentioning our fourth-best player getting 20 minutes despite going 5-9 from three (and 1-1 from two).
I like rooting for this team but man oh man.
Yeah, I don’t think this “predictable board” should be lumped into one entity.
Most agree this is a good team that hung with an excellent team last night, but it’s incredibly frustrating to see one guy so obviously hold the rest of the team back.
DDV, IQ, and Grimes all defend and shot very well from deep last night. I can’t imagine playing 6’5” Grimes at SF instead of 6’6” RJ would really affect the team size much.
Just fucking deleting RJ and giving more minutes to Grimes, IQ, and Hart would be better than this! It’s honestly maddening after 4 years.
I agree with everyone who is saying that the Knicks should be actively trying to improve this clunky roster. The did that last year with acquiring Josh Hart. They need to do that again. My guess is that Leon’s crew is aware of this and is continually working the phones. Suffice it to say, other teams are underperforming as well and need to make moves.
The problem remains that as long as Thibs is infatuated with the idea of RJ, it comes down to which non-C in the rotation gets replaced. We all would hate for it to be IQ. It’s probably not going to be DDV or JHart.
Seems like the odd man out might be Grimes. His minutes are already taking a major hit and he is in a decision year. The only path to more playing time for him is to start replacing RJ’s minutes, which doesn’t seem likely given Thibs’ proclivities and stubbornness.
The upcoming Orlando game is a better measuring stick than this one. They are a team that we should match up very well with.
i know RJ is our favorite whipping boy… and he was pretty bad last night…. altho hitting some open 3s probably would’ve helped…. but if we really want to see tangible improvement… the bigger problem is the defense… and taj…
taj is cooked…. he’s slow to react… doesn’t get after the boards nearly enough that we need on both ends…. and just late to contest everything…. the mind is there and he can make heady plays like he did against giannis a couple times… but when the ball whips around like it was yesterday you can see where taj has lost something….
if you want the biggest improvement… it needs to come from the defensive end… because any offensive improvement is going to be really expensive and probably not worth it…
NBA teams and their staffs are optimistic. RJ is not a bum, he would be at least a pretty good player with some slight improvements. They see a talented 23 year old and say ‘look we’ll get him away from that dinosaur Thibs and his gimmick moneyball offense of hustlebunnies’ and get him better.
DJ everyone knows Taj is cooked. He’s our 4th string center. Our 4th string center is not the teams biggest problem.
Edit: when I say everyone I mean everyone except the front office
Sorry, I shouldn’t have used the word “panic” in my last post, my bad.
RJ is obviously a big problem for this team, and Thibs exacerbates it by giving him more minutes than he deserves (and at the expense of IQ). I love the idea of dumping him on the Pistons for Bojan and Stewart, but not sure why Detroit would do that?
Anyway, agree that Leon has to make some moves, and that IQ needs to be on the court more. The latter unfortunately depends on a stubborn tiger changing his stripes.
ptmilo’s posts on Discord also included a couple of still shots where all five OKC defenders were in the paint and RJ and Josh Hart were being left wide open. It just seems like unless RJ becomes a consistent threat from 3, that’s a smart defensive choice. In fact, in the lineup we had out there, the only guy that needed to be paid attention to on the perimeter was Brunson.
You simply can’t have RJ and JHart on the floor against teams like OKC. You are basically daring opponents into making us live or die on those guys hitting 3’s, and most times we are going to die. In the meantime, Holmgren and other shot-blockers can have a field day inside.
I wish ill on no man (well, outside of some clearly satanic politicians), but if RJ were to for example cut his hand unwrapping some last Xmas bling, then IQ, Josh, and Donte could all play ~30 minutes and Grimes could get 25. Think we’d be worse off, or is the west just big, man?
We are just not built to handle teams that can go 5-out and have elite penetrators, plus good defense and rim protection on the other end. In that way, the Thunder and Celtics are very much alike.
I’m sure RJ has negative value now. It will cost at least 1 first rounder to move him. I said at the time giving him that extension was Rose’s biggest mistake. I still feel that way… I’m not worried about backup center, we did well enough with IHart and Sims last year. We’ll be ok there as soon as Sims comes back.
Mensa, Context Warrior
@morelikemensa
Immanuel Quickley & Jalen Brunson have been on the court together for 713 possessions. They have a net rating of +13.6 which is in the 97th percentile of all lineups.
But RJ barrett needed to get his minutes as he’s taller so the lineup with him makes more sense
Its very clear at this moment
The knicks best wing duo is quickley and hart or you can try quickley and donte or even quickley and grimes. Anything is better than Bust J
when you have the league’s 20th ranked defense… and maybe the league’s worst since mitch went down… every minute from the most important defensive position matters…. everyone wants to trade RJ for scraps… but our biggest problem is making stops..
it was ball pressure… it was rotations… it was contesting rim shots… there’s a lot of bigs that could be had for pretty cheap… in fact there’s probably some dudes in the gleague that could do better than taj right now…
the offense is a longer term problem that’s probably not going to get fixed with one transaction or one lineup move or whatever… it’s all rearranging chairs on the titanic…. the acute problem is fixing the defense and the highest impact move is to get someone passable to replace taj and for that matter sims… the longer we don’t do that the season could be lost on that basis alone….
How could anyone watch RJ and think the problem is Thibs’ bad offensive schemes? He literally clangs wide open three after wide open three. He’s the problem.
Would it be cool to have a more free flowing offense? Sure. But RJ literally misses wide open threes that his teammates create for him and also constantly misses easy baskets at the rim or gets stuffed driving into the paint with three defenders.
In so done with this dude. Bench his ass.
Knicks won’t bench him , I think Rose is just going to have to trade him for whatever value he has left or attach assets to get an upgrade
This time i was able to catch the game by the end of the 3rd quarter. All was going ok, we were behind and it didn’t look easy, but we’re known for putting up a fight until the end. IQ was cooking. And then came the first moment i thought of turning off the game.
Followed by this:
The defense didn’t get better with the change, and the offense got worse. I understand the motives, but can’t Thibs see that it didn’t work and that he shouldn’t be doing this?
And then i finally gave up when they were up by 12 with 52 seconds left. Only reading the box score i’ve noticed that i didn’t get to see DDV in action? Why? His stats seem to point that he should have been there when we were trying the comeback.
The offense is good, and has one bad high usage player, who is named RJ Barrett. RJ is also not a good defensive player, so it would help on that end too.
Cyber, you missed the last brilliant move of Thibs — subbing IQ in to replace Barrett during that timeout at the 52 second mark. Because…
Djphan, I’m not arguing that our current backup center is a problem. But the defense also suffers because Brunson is small, Barrett’s not really good on that end either, and Randle takes consistent plays off either to argue with refs under his own basket or to contemplate his navel until a too-late, half-ass close-out.
My feeling is that Mitch’s truly superb defensive play earlier this year masked a lot of that. We’re not replacing that with a junk yard dog, even if it’s a better option than poor Taj.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkOw9fQdVOQ
those are crazy numbers, and how he gets there just looks so effortless
we really need Kyrie to get back into youtube videos
This is a roster issue though, as we basically need one of these guys on the floor at all times to not be painfully small. In Katz’ (excellent as usual) article today he notes we’re -19.6 with neither of them on the floor. Now, realistically that comes in a sample size so small the number doesn’t really matter, but there’s a reason we avoid that look like the plague. Having 3 of Brunson/IQ/Grimes/DDV on the floor is untenable against any semblance of size.
We need a big wing who can shoot and defend.
Any guesses to when expansion will take place? If it’s in 2025-26, that might present an opportunity to leave RJ unprotected in the expansion draft…
JK47’s favorite albums of 2023, in no order:
My albums of the year, in no order:
Janelle Monae – The Age Of Pleasure
100 Gecs – 10,000 Gecs
Liquid Mike – s/t
Blake Mills – Jelly Road
Andre 3000 – New Blue Sun
Oneohtrix Point Never – Again
Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World
Arthur Russell – Picture Of Bunny Rabbit
There’s a reason I’ve been screaming for OG or someone like him for what seems like forever at this point. We have quite a few very good role players, but we don’t have a 6’7″ or 6’8″ wing that can defend some of the best offensive players in the league. And we could always use better spacing.
That complicates trying to get our best players on the floor at the same time. It can create matchup issues “some” nights even when we aren’t facing one of the bigger elite wing scorers.
IMO, whoever it was in the front office that pushed for Cam Reddish despite him being so disappointing in Atlanta was hoping he would fill that role.
That’s exactly why I was also hoping he would develop. He had some injuries that seemed to slow down his development in college and in Atlanta. So there was at least hope he would make a leap. He did not and Thibs hated him anyway.
But this wing issue was obvious a long time ago.
I actually feel for Thibs a bit. The best teams in the NBA are so big now and Thibs’ best guards are Lilliputian. His logic for putting RJ back in was sound even if it was a bad choice.
We should just take all four of our picks this year and draft wings between 6’6” and 6’9”. Stack the roster with options, hope one or two of them sticks.
“In Katz’ (excellent as usual) article today he notes we’re -19.6 with neither of them on the floor.”
Right, but you also can’t have BOTH on the floor with Randle and either Mitch or iHart against long, athletic teams who can pack the paint and make interior scoring impossible.
Of course it’s a roster issue, but until the roster changes, Thibs needs to be more wary of the pitfalls of having a lineup with only one plus 3pt shooter out there, expecially if that guy is Brunson.
Unless they have a trade lineup up, I’d go shotgun with those picks this year also but make it 6′ 7″. 😉 It’s not like we’d be emptying the barrel of ammo for a trade at a later date anyway.
You and everyone else who even loosely follows the New York Knickerbockers, but there’s no indication OG is being shopped, we are currently suing his employer, and the Raptors have operated so weirdly as of late it’s anyone’s guess as to if/when OG changes teams.
I definitely have some grace for the whole RJ Dilemma. We really do need a player like the RJ that shows up for a few games every couple of months. Holding out hope that he could become that guy more frequently is at least defensible.
You just have to draw the line at some point and if you aren’t willing to do it in year 5, will you ever? At this point we probably have more to lose trade value wise by continuing to play him so much…
I said it earlier, but I like to repeat myself.
Matchups matter, but sometime the gap between the player that’s a better defensive matchup and the guy on the bench is so large, you are better off with the bad matchup. IMO, Quickley and RJ qualify. I think Thibs is overrating the matchups relative to the Quickley/RJ gap in productivity. It’s not like RJ is some stellar defender. So maybe someone shoots over Quickley or J-Hart here or there. It’s not like they are going to make every shot and be killing us on that matchup. Plus, they add other things on defense RJ does not.
He said it in the press conference: he feels like needs to match up with the length of these teams. That’s why I have empathy for him.
I don’t think he’s doing it bc he expects good RJ more than he should. He’s probably holding his nose wishing he had a better option. But Brunson, IQ, and a 6’4” guard is a bridge too far for him against these big teams. That’s where there is some soundness to his logic.
My major point there was that this issue was obvious from the moment they switched RJ from SG to SF but they still haven’t done anything to address it other than take a flyer on Cam.
None of this is new.
I was screaming that we were going to get creamed by teams like Boston a long time ago and well before they got KP and maximized their space. We have no one that can defend Tatum and Brown is another nightmare for us.
It became more of an issue when we added Brunson.
That’s why I was saying the Donovan Mitchell trade was suspect.
If we had a long wing defender maybe we could get away with Brunson and Mitchell or maybe Thibs would be OK with Brunson and Quickley.
But this is going on years and they still haven’t added the right kind of player.
Now, realistically that comes in a sample size so small the number doesn’t really matter, but there’s a reason we avoid that look like the plague. Having 3 of Brunson/IQ/Grimes/DDV on the floor is untenable against any semblance of size.
last year we played 890 minutes without rj, hart or reddish. the overwhelming majority of these minutes were 3 of brunson/quick/grimes/deuce. they were +6.9 /100 with neutral 3pt shooting and a 108 defensive rating; 30pct-60pct of those minutes were against opposing lineups with a major wing size advantage (so i say). it’s not ideal, but it’s a far from untenable and probably optimal in many cases.
the sample this year is truly miniscule when you consider that a huge chunk of the minutes have come in garbage time blowouts
I think they have to bite the bullet and get Grimes back to playing 25+ minutes a night and hope he can get himself right. While he’s overmatched against some stronger wings he’s the only guy who can consistently stay in front of guys. IQ and DDV are both excellent helpers but Grimes is solidly better at the point of attack than either. Without Mitch being a one-man lane clogger on defense it’s just too easy to generate good looks against them.
100% agree.
I’m simply arguing that sometimes the productively gap between two players is greater than what you would be giving up because we’d be too small. I could be wrong in this case, but imo he should at least try.
I was OK with trying Grimes off the bench initially, but I changed my mind after seeing just a few games. They just have to make an effort to get him involved.
“You keep using that word [logic]. I do not think it means what you think it means… ”
‘When Quickley, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Julius Randle share the floor — whether that fifth guy is Isaiah Hartenstein or Mitchell Robinson — the Knicks vaporize whoever stands in front of them.’
Katz:
The Knicks outscore opponents by 26.5 points per 100 possessions this season when Brunson, Quickley, Hart and Randle share the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass. The defense is elite. The offense turns into the Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors if they had invented a time machine and added Michael Jordan.
Beyond just the point differential, which is the best in the NBA among four-man lineups, the numbers are staggering.
They are scoring 134.5 points per 100 possessions. That’s also the best in the league. Think about it like this: A 134.5 offensive rating is the equivalent of a team taking a 3-pointer on every possession and hitting 45 percent of them. Or to frame it another way, Zion Williamson, a boulder disguised as a human, is shooting a hair above 67 percent from the rim this season, which means this group is scoring well as if every possession ended in a Williamson layup.
RJ wasn’t good but I agree with dj that the problem was the defense. Shai is unstoppable and Jalen Williams was exploiting the smaller guards time and again.
Off (today’s) topic, it’s great to see Randle’s development in the paint. He was always a bully there but now he’s also crafty with his euro step and and in drawing contact and getting to the line. He’ll never be a top 10 player, but he’s become a real star.
Yeah but RJ Barrett’s wingspan is 6’10” and Quickley’s is 6’8”. So, you know. Gotta keep Rowan out there.
No, he’s probably not being actively shopped, but his team is bad and he’s going to be an unrestricted FA this offseason. So unless something drastic changes in Toronto he should be available. The problem is he’s the type of player every contender is going to want and other teams probably can offer more than we can.
A lot depends on whether OG will extend with whoever, including TOR. Who know?
Speaking of who know, turns out we have a G-League Showcase MVP in Westchester guard Brandon Goodwin.
Too bad he’s only 6′ 0″. No run there!
It looks like NBA.com is missing last night’s game (not sure if CTG is) but swap out Brunson for Hartenstein in that four-man “vaporizing” lineup and it’s barely lower in net rating.
Those lineups are primarily vaporizing other team’s benches.
Randle/J Hart/Brunson/Quickley — 170 minutes, net rating +22.7
Randle/J Hart/I Hart/Quickley — 167 minutes, net rating +21.7
Not really, particularly if you’re running a high volatility strategy.
The Knicks just announced that the 2/26 game vs the Pistons has been switched from a road game to a home game
As a season ticket holder, that’s very bad news lol.
I’m all about the small lineups but my sense is Thibs only plays them against other small teams and the sparingness of its use is probably why the numbers are so staggering.
I find myself in the weird position of sympathizing with Thibs, but I can understand, for instance, why he might not want to put Brunson, IQ, Hart, and Randle on the floor against the Celtics when they can counter with White, Brown, Tatum, Horford, and Porzingis.
When RJ puts up a 3, I never think it’s going in. I have a surge of hope when Grimes, Brunson, DDV, or Quickley shoot from deep. Those shots always look pure. But RJ always looks off balance and flat.
I’ve totally lost faith in the guy. Just like when he drives directly at a shotblocking center, you know with 100% certainly what’s about to happen.
Particularly in high-leverage possessions when teams target switches on certain opposing defenders.
Thibs doesn’t want IQ switched onto the Tatums and Georges and Butlers of the association in important possessions. He’s completely right about that. (He’s wrong about a lot of things, but he’s right about that.)
But wouldn’t these teams prefer to switch onto Brunson anyway? It’s not like they are actively hunting Quick like they do to JB.
The problem with RJ is the volatility mostly goes in one direction. It’s exceedingly rare for him to have genuinely great games. The scale is pretty much terrible-to-tolerable.
During his much vaunted playoff run, he put up 19/5/3 with a 55 TS%. Those were way better numbers than he normally puts up! They are also, more or less, Kyle Kuzma numbers. I’m not sure how much terrible play an NBA team should put up with if the purported upside is Kyle Kuzma numbers for short stretches.
I know this is sacrilege, but if Thibs wanted to bring in RJ for size, considering the way JB was playing on defense, it might have made more sense to sub him in for Brunson…or to have gone with IHart, Randle, JHart, Grimes, and IQ.
I guess what I’m saying is that last night also brought into stark relief the downside of having a defensively-challenged PG. He’s smart and can draw charges and all that, but there are a billion guys he can’t handle without help, and that tilts the whole defense. When he’s going off on offense it doesn’t matter, but on nights like last night, it hurts.
Very fair, we should go to it more and the fact that we don’t is likely just a product of Thibs’ bugaboos. I still don’t think it’s something we can rely on much over the course of a full season though, as any team with a halfway skilled wing can probably punish it.
You and everyone else who even loosely follows the New York Knickerbockers have noted that for a very long time we have needed a wing who can score efficiently and defend other wings. The problem is every team in the NBA wants those guys, so they’re not easy to get.
I wish we had Jalen Williams but I can only do so much bitching about that in good faith because I didn’t have him identified as a standout in that draft (though I also wish, admittedly to a lesser extent, we had my 2022 guy Tari Eason).
I wish we had Jalen Johnson, and I can bitch about that in extremely good faith because I was pounding the table about him on draft night.
In any event, there’s not a quick fix here. We should obviously be in on an and all two-way wings on the trade market, and I honestly love the idea of making all 4 of our top-40 picks with this in mind even if that’s suboptimal draft strategy.
Justin Edwards was a very high profile wing recruit for Kentucky who has disappointed…seems like fate.
I didn’t know there was a release of Arthur Russell’s work last year. I was a big fan of his in the 80’s. I’ll have to check it out.
It’s reality. They’re always going to be imperfect defensively, and at times dreadful, with JB as their point guard.
They really should be building the team around outscoring people, including smallball when necessary, but Thibs is never going to go for that. So then the problem becomes that the team is a philosophical hodgepodge.
If you put truth serum in him, you’d likely hear Thibs snarl about having to have JB as his main guy. If he wasn’t a fantastic player, he’d have been Kemba-d long ago. This is a guy who started Alec Burks at PG rather than “risk” a shorty in the lineup.
To go all-in Thibs, you have to basically go all-in 2021, only with better versions of the same prototypes. And a bouncy long vet rather than Obi.
“If you put truth serum in him, you’d likely hear Thibs snarl about having to have JB as his main guy. If he wasn’t a fantastic player, he’d have been Kemba-d long ago. This is a guy who started Alec Burks at PG rather than “risk” a shorty in the lineup.”
I don’t think this is true. Derrick Rose was not exactly a defensive stopper and Thibs ground him into dust….twice!
God E is so insufferable.
I agree that we should try to find some long, lanky guys who can shoot a bit in the draft. A Tari Eason-type would be just fine by me. The key is, so long as we have Randle, that player HAS to be able to competently play the 3. Obi was not that guy.
A long, lanky guard wouldn’t hurt either!
Thibs is not a flexible get the most out of your players type of coach. He is great at building good habits. Leon’s mistake was that he didn’t move away from Thibs last summer when he could have had Udoka, Nurse, Monty or Bud. He could have stayed as an assistant with Rick.
The thing about RJ is even his good games are just good, not great. Has RJ ever gone off in a game where he himself was the reason we won? Brunson has done it many times, so has Randle. IQ has done it. Even Mitch has done it in his own way grabbing so many boards and getting so many put backs and just shutting down the other team defensively.
But RJ even when he’s good he’s not THE reason we win. You’ll be like “oh and RJ was pretty good too.”
Even when he’s good he’s an afterthought and he’s insanely inconsistent except that he’s consistently bad.
He’s the reason we’re not at the next level right now.
Yeah don’t think I’d take Monty Williams over Thibs.
Dejounte.
It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I’d go to war with JB, DJM, Randle, OG, and Mitch, with the Hart brothers and DDV as the main guys on the bench. That would put some serious scare in teams. If Leon makes that happen, he’s succeeded.
https://theathletic.com/5166089/2023/12/28/knicks-best-lineup-immanuel-quickley/
When Quickley, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Julius Randle share the floor — whether that fifth guy is Isaiah Hartenstein or Mitchell Robinson — the Knicks vaporize whoever stands in front of them
But on Wednesday, whether because of Barrett’s presence or not, the Knicks cratered upon the exit of Quickley. A sloppy inbounds pass and a clanked open 3 — both from Barrett, who was 0 of 6 from there at that point — did not help the cause. The Knicks lost. And 30 games into the season, it’s fair to wonder, is it time to give their best lineup more burn?
The numbers, if Quickley knew them, might shock him.
The Knicks outscore opponents by 26.5 points per 100 possessions this season when Brunson, Quickley, Hart and Randle share the floor, according to Cleaning the Glass
If you’re a fan of Arthur’s album World Of Echo, you will probably like the album Picture Of Bunny Rabbit that came out this year, as it was compiled from hundreds of hours of music he was working on during that same period. It’s basically World Of Echo II.
His estate has done a really amazing job of curating his posthumous releases.
Cranjis McBasketball
@Tim_NBA
·
Dec 27
Dejounte Murray’s defensive metrics look a lot worse than they did a year ago. Is he playing hurt or something?
Among those metrics: he’s had a lower defensive impact than DLo so far this season, per his D-LEBRON.
This harping on Brunson’s poor defense is a little overblown IMO
How many PG’s in the NBA would you consider good or great defenders? Jrue? Marcus Smart? Certainly not Lillard, Trae, Luka, Ja, etc. etc.
In today’s NBA, almost every offense starts with a high screen and then usually a switch; it’s almost impossible for a PG to stay with his man.
Not saying in any way that Brunson is a good defender, but I guess the guys he torches on a nightly basis kinda suck too, right?
I also heard a different pundit talk about how DJM’s defense had slipped. I’m not so sure we should be hot for him
It’d be nice if Brunson was at least okay on defense and didn’t look so slow in rotation or closing out on shooters.
I’m really not sold on Dejounte unless he’s purposely dogging it in Atlanta, and that brings its own issues. He’s probably too small to play the 3 anyway.
Trying to comp the news bot to a similarly injury prone NBA player. Not sure what the right mane is. Maybe Grant Hill?
The news bot doesn’t make any sense half the time & it disappears suddenly for days on end… comp’s got to be Kyrie Irving.
Greg Oden?
Brandon Roy?
Can the Pistons do it?!
It’s been years though and nothing has been career ending like with Roy or Oden. Giancarlo is a baseball name that works.
Tatum has been awful in the 4th quarter.
Kristaps
The Pistons lost in overtime. I was really rooting for them but scared to watch given what happened the last time I watched them in a then close game.
There are guys out there that could do a better job than RJ now even if they aren’t the ultimate solution we’d like.
Plenty of Knicks fans have been negative on RJ for a long time and wanted to replace him, but there has been very little discussion about us being too small with certain combinations other than me pounding the table on it going way back or Z and I making it a major issue during the potential Mitchell deal.
I think the front office has been very aware of it though. And now Thibs is making it an issue with why he won’t play Quickley in some lineups.
i didn’t remember chris paul doing this in 2016, 20 assists with no turnovers just seems like a highly unlikely occurrence…tyrese just did it, and he is only getting better too…
i can’t wait for the once a knick always a knick thing to start with RJ…
ha, once RJ leaves (if he does ever leave) i wonder whom will get the brunt of our community wrath…seems like mitch would be the next weak link after we upgrade at small forward…
so amazing we’re getting by with a 12 million dollar shooting guard…definitely getting good value from our point guard and power forward spots…