[CBS Sports] – Thu, 07 Nov 2024 18:46:00 GMT
- NBA Power Rankings: Warriors make bid for No. 1 by beating Celtics, Cavs remain unbeaten, Knicks tumble
- NBA Power Rankings: Edwards and Jokic hit early-season struggles while Cavs climb
- NBA trending up and down: What’s wrong with Bucks, Sixers? Can Cavs keep up hot start?
- NBA Power Rankings: Cavaliers soar, Knicks drop and a spin through every teams rotation – The Athletic
- Power Rankings, Week 3: Undefeated Cavs, Thunder keep climbing
[New York Post] – Fri, 08 Nov 2024 03:22:00 GMT
- Knicks Precious Achiuwa remains out as Jericho Sims woes have lingered
- New York Knicks Update Precious Achiuwa’s Injury Status
- Knicks Injury Tracker: Tom Thibodeau updates Precious Achiuwa’s status
- Stefan Bondy: Precious Achiuwa hasn’t been cleared for practice yet so assume he’ll be out tomorrow.
- Knicks try to fill hole inside with Robinson and Achiuwa sidelined
[The New York Times] – Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:33:56 GMT
- Pros and cons of the Knicks up-and-down start to the NBA season – The Athletic
- Barker: Knicks have looked bad, but it’s still early
- Knicks move up slightly in Week 2 Power Rankings
- Knicks Notes: Getting Karl-Anthony Towns more involved, plus what’s next for the roster
- The Knicks are better than their so-so start and theyll figure it out
[USA TODAY Sportsbook Wire] – Fri, 08 Nov 2024 06:14:00 GMT
- Milwaukee Bucks at New York Knicks odds, picks and predictions
- Knicks return home, hope to cool off Bucks’ stars
- Milwaukee Bucks vs New York Knicks Prediction, 11/8/2024 Preview and Pick
- Milwaukee visits New York on 4-game road slide
- Karl-Anthony Towns, Top Knicks Players to Watch vs. the Bucks – November 8
[hoopsrumors.com] – Thu, 07 Nov 2024 16:56:00 GMT
- New York Notes: Sims, Knicks Offense, Ryan, Finney-Smith
- Knicks must start phasing out developmental center from rotation plans
- Jericho Sims News: Minimal impact so far
- New York Knicks’ Backup Centers Receiving Key Opportunities
- Knicks’ Jericho Sims: Minimal impact so far
[New York Post] – Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:05:00 GMT
The Knicks know theres always someone listening
[Posting and Toasting] – Fri, 08 Nov 2024 11:30:00 GMT
Knicks Bulletin: I cant let that dictate my energy level or my mood
[Sporting News] – Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:25:56 GMT
- Knicks could trade for $30.3 million Wizards vet to address rebounding issue
- The clock is ticking on ideal Knicks trade target to relieve pressure on KAT
- Knicks Eye Jonas Valanciunas in Trade Move as Robinson Faces Extended Layoff
- Knicks predicted to acquire $41.8 million two-player package from Jazz in trade
- Proposed trade for center would set Knicks back with key bench subtractions
[Heavy.com] – Thu, 07 Nov 2024 16:39:10 GMT
Jalen Brunson Gets Honest After Knicks Loss to Hawks
[Sporting News] – Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:17:13 GMT
Orlando Magic called ‘best landing spot’ for Knicks’ $220.4 million superstar
61 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2024.11.08)”
Nice to get Bucks on 2nd night of B2B.
Cavs Warriors tonight is a banger. ESPN unfortunately going with Mavs Suns instead.
Might be the year I go with league pass. Will be good to watch other teams for a few months to get the joy I’m missing while this team gels.
Small sample set
We’ve played 7 games
In the last 6
*We handily won 3 (IND, MIA, DET)
*Were a bounce or two away from winning the other 3 (CLE, HOU, ATL)
I’m concerned for sure. And MIL has all the feelings of a trap game.
I think we will be just fine. The level of doom projected here is an overstatement.
I think the gelling thing and “it takes time” thing is a cope. The 2007-08 Celtics started 8-0 and 18-2, with their two losses being a one-pointer and an OT loss to LeBron. I’m sure there are other examples out there.
And it’s worse here because “gelling” is going to pretty much involve merely Thibs tinkering to Thibs-ify things.
They have three purportedly “elite/excellent” wing defenders, KAT is leading the association in DReb%, and Josh Hart is a great rebounder. Tinkering with things to chase rebounding and defense makes zero sense; it should be able to be improved organically.
They only way forward is to go for that organic improvement and ride with this roster. (*) Thibs-ifying things is pointless.
(*) It may not happen. That becomes a different discussion.
Julius Randle at the 5 with Edwards, Donte, Walker-Alexander, and Reid has a 119.4 ORtg and a 94.8 DRtg in 34 minutes.
It’s kinda hard to believe we gave Jericho Sims 2000 mins at center the last few years while refusing to try Julius Randle for a few minutes bc “it just wouldn’t work.”
I don’t think you can look at any one team either way and make some assumption about how long it does or doesn’t take a team to gel.
Hell, Gobert and KAT’s first season together was a disaster and then they went to the WCF. The Beatles started out slow and then went to four straight finals.
Every team is different bc they’re all composed of different players who are people. Maybe it will take time to gel or maybe we’re fucked. Either way it’s way too early to make that call especially when the last two seasons our teams under Thibs have started slow.
I think maybe you’re the one overstating things. Did anyone besides Pagliacci project doom?
I still think we’re a 50 win, second round playoff team. Mitch will fix a lot of problems.
Now if Towns & OG start to miss time, then I can see doom on the horizon. This team is not built to withstand as many injuries as last year.
During the first games we’ve seen glimpses here and there (hence the blocks).
Step 1, KAT defending with his arms raised would be a nice step forward.
Step 2, KAT jumping vertically on defense with his arms raised would be a very significant step forward.
They’re not difficult things to do if you just want to, while defending with you arms lowered at your sides is really a difficult thing to do*.
I hope Thibs and the coaching staff can convince him…
Step 3, scheming defense to be more flexible, require time and a flexible coach.
Or we could just wait for Precious/Mitch…
* And it allows your opponents to hit 27 of 30 shots at the rim against you.
We’re gonna need a Knickerblogger lexicography because from this precinct, dumping the entire asset chest on a 50 win, second round playoff team looks pretty much like the virtual definition of “doom.”
7 games may be too early but at least it’s based on watching the team for 7 games.
You guys declared this team a title contender based on press clippings and betting action.
That was premised on Mikal finding the sweet spot between 2023 and 2024 BKN and being a guy who could create and generate usage at high efficiency, as well as the plus or plus-plus defender he was purported to be.
That player is nowhere to be found, and I see no indication he will ever be found. (*) I’ve already resigned myself to the best-case description of this trade being: “Bad.” Firmly and safely within the Overton window is “one of the worst trades in Knick history, Billy King got Chernobyled for less.”
The Knicks have their own draft pick twice in the next seven years, once in the next six.
(*) And he is, without question, “redundant” with OG.
Is Naz Reid not playing C in that configuration? That seems like a Reid at the 5 lineup.
“We’re gonna need a Knickerblogger lexicography because from this precinct, dumping the entire asset chest on a 50 win, second round playoff team looks pretty much like the virtual definition of “doom.””
I don’t think the word “doom” should apply, but bitter disappointment is certainly in the conversation. The likelihood is that this team is a mostly finished product for the next couple of years. After that, there will be flexibility. Thibs is on the clock, and if the Knicks underperform he will jettisoned. KAT will still have market value and could be swapped out for either picks or good players. Hart will be near the end of his deal. If Mikal underperforms he will at least be signed for a non-max extension. Think about how many times guys like Riley and Cuban have retooled after appearing to have painted themselves into a corner. Cleveland looked like they might lose Spida shit last year and are all of a sudden making noise.
The main thing is that the Bridges and KAT trades are sunk costs and Leon now has to find that balance between making panicky moves and standing pat for too long. For now, it is way to early to make any kind of sweeping judgments about anything. Give it 20 games or so.
I think something is up with Brunson. He seems to be lacking some burst. He gets into the paint and just stops. He tweaked his ankle early on, I wonder if it is affecting him.
Moreover, the team seems vulnerable to speed and length. We are getting beat to the spot on both ends. Hopefully that is more indecision than anything else, and with enough film and reps we can slow the game down.
By way of possibly realizing some salvage value, I was kind of brainstorming the idea of putting the ball in Mikal’s hands more from time to time as a primary initiator (*), then I checked his career assist numbers and … well, no, that’s not really gonna work either.
In his BKN what looks now like adrenaline-filled mirage, he averaged fewer than 3 assists per 36. He basically chucked.
(*) And of course this would be pure tail-chasing anyway, because they already had two guys who would be and were way better in that quasi-role in the now-jettisoned RJ Barrett and Julius Randle.
“If Mikal underperforms he will at least be signed for a non-max extension.”
Isn’t he thinking he’s getting a full max, though? Didn’t he just turn down the two-year max? Serious, not rhetorical, question. I’ve forgotten the details.
In any event, he isn’t remotely worth a max.
Yeah, that’s actually a pretty big lineup compared to the configurations the Knicks would have been rolling out there. Edwards alone is a beast who plays much bigger than he is.
That said, I would have liked to have seen it tried here with Randle, OG, Bridges, DDV and Brunson, and think it would have if the trade didn’t happen.
I’d go back even further to the 2023 playoff team, with Obi swapped out for DDV. You can certainly make a case to swap out RJ for OG (*) in January given Randle crowding out the ball and Brunson needing the ball more, rendering RJ’s skillset kind of redundant — but now that Randle’s gone, that becomes a premise fail.
And then after that doubling down on low usage 3 & D (**) at the cost of five 1s looks positively ridiculous.
KAT for Randle/DDV is easily defensible on the merits, less so as part of a philosophical team build based on what had happened before. They’ve now lost all non-Brunson perimeter offensive creativity. And their depth is shit.
(*) But even then, not for adding IQ to the package going out.
(**) Or, in Mikal’s case, “D.”
In terms of that specific 5-man lineup, even assuming Thibs would have played it, OG and Mikal don’t rebound well enough, or even close to well enough really, for it to have worked.
The curiosity is perfectly understandable, but that’s the cold reality.
When we have Mitch and Precious back and are still playing badly I will get worried. Not worried at all now.
If we had Naz Reid to play center I suspect our team would be 5-2
Julius Randle at the 5 with Edwards, Donte, Walker-Alexander, and Reid has a 119.4 ORtg and a 94.8 DRtg in 34 minutes.
small sample cherry picking double whistle. 99 minutes randle on without gobert, neutral net rating below average defense.
1. I think we mostly all still agree the Knicks are good. Most of the conversation reflects a desire to be a top 5 team in the league that’s close enough to Boston to pull off an upset. So we are highlighting the weaknesses. IMO, we are going to be a top 1-4 offense. The question is can we be a top 10 defense and how do we get there.
2. There’s nothing wrong with Bridges on offense. He’s as good as he ever was. He’s 3rd option on this team behind Brunson and Towns. OG is going to get his looks and Hart is doing more scoring than expected. There are only so many shots in a game. If we need more from him at times, he can give it to us. There’s nothing at all wrong with the offense other than maybe too much dribbling by Brunson, working out the kinks and needing a little more scoring from the bench (which may be there once we get healthy and develop the young players).
3. My guess is Leon and Thibs are going to take a good look at this team until Mitch is back and we get close to the trade deadline and then they may decide to make one more move to improve the defense.
“dumping the entire asset chest on a 50 win, second round playoff team looks pretty much like the virtual definition of “doom.”
While others may take issue with your definition of doom, I take issue with “dumping the entire asset chest.” Every player on the roster outside of KAT and OG is on a value contract and we could flip KAT for equivalent assets in a heartbeat. We may or may not “gel”, Thibs may or may not be the correct coach for this bunch, but we have lots of options to fix the issues that may become evident as people settle in.
Fun thread so far, with three doomsters putting up most of the posts, sending most of the rest of us into curled fetal positions.
To be fair, I came on to note that Macri’s newsletter today was a really damning piece that the Doom Patrol would really appreciate. Normally I like to pull out a ‘best quote’ to put here, but there were about ten that were soul shocking. In essence, lots of things that need fixing.
I’d link to it but it comes to me as an email.
It’s just one year, E.
And we didn’t dump the whole chest. There’s still moves that can be made with Hart, Deuce, Mitch, Precious, Kolek, Dadiet.
Naz Reid is a 6’9” perimeter shooter. You can call him the center if you like, but I could just as easily call OG Anunoby or Obi Toppin the center in the lineups we refused to try.
Obi Toppin-Pascal Siakim lineups (which is about as close to an Obi-Randle pairing as one can muster) are plus 5.8 in 61 mins, btw.
“While others may take issue with your definition of doom, I take issue with “dumping the entire asset chest.” Every player on the roster outside of KAT and OG is on a value contract and we could flip KAT for equivalent assets in a heartbeat. We may or may not “gel”, Thibs may or may not be the correct coach for this bunch, but we have lots of options to fix the issues that may become evident as people settle in.”
This is mostly fair. The “outside of KAT” and “we could flip him for equivalent assets in a heartbeat” seems like a bit of sugarcoating to me. It is questionable that we could acquire a healthy 2X all-NBA player in his prime plus possibly one of the best pull-up 3pt shooters in the NBA who also plays D for KAT right now. Your assessment runs contrary to my feeling that there is not much of a gap between KAT and Randle, especially when salary is considered. Nothing I have seen thus far has changed my opinion on that. Throw in DDV and the pick and it’s a net loss.
Also, you could never, ever get back what we traded for Mikal by flipping him, probably nothing even close. True, he’s on a value contract, but he has to play orders of magnitude better than he has just to come close justifying that trade, and if he doesn’t, it will be a bitter pill to swallow. I am cautiously optimistic that he will, but if we need to pivot, he will not bring back much value.
Still, the larget point that we could pivot without having to go into long-term purgatory is valid. Someone like Ainge could swap out Brunson, KAT and OG for picks and go into tanking mode in the two years coming up that we have our firsts. Others could make coaching and personnel changes around Brunson, possibly including any of KAT, OG or Bridges, to fire up the hybrid method again. This is not “all-in” in the 2012-13 sense of the word.
“Naz Reid is a 6’9” perimeter shooter. You can call him the center if you like, but I could just as easily call OG Anunoby or Obi Toppin the center in the lineups we refused to try.”
Naz is the primary reason why Minny felt KAT was expendable. He is a versatile big who has played 77% of his career minutes as a C. He is not Sam Hauser. He is also not OG, who has not played C, like, ever.
Small sample set. Last 6 games: 3 convincing wins. 3 close losses that could have gone either way.
You (the most negative of you) are lying to yourself if you think you would be saying the same thing if 2 of the 3 close games bounced the other way…it’s sloppy to be so convinced in any direction given what we’ve seen.
Quote me predicting doom, troll.
Okay, I wasn’t going to do this as it just feeds the trolls, but I’m feeling quite apathetic today, so here are Macri’s main factoids. Apologies to Jonathan, and I recommend that everyone who doesn’t get the newsletter do so forthwith.
https://knicksfilmschool.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=menu&simple=true&next=https%3A%2F%2Fknicksfilmschool.substack.com%2F
Hart is averaging 2.3 turnovers per 36 minutes, up from 1.6 since he arrived.
Deuce hasn’t hit a shot from floater range: He’s 0-for-12 from between four and 14 feet.
KAT is shooting 49 percent at the rim.
Mikal is taking only 14 percent of his shots in the restricted area
while last year’s team held offenses to 63.8 percent shooting at the basket (good for 7th best in the league), this year’s team ranks 28th, allowing teams to shoot 72.4 percent in the restricted area.
only two teams take a lower percentage of their own shots at the rim than the Knicks (although last year wasn’t much better, when they ranked 22nd).
When Jalen Brunson hasn’t been on the court, New York’s defense has improved by 8.0 points per 100 possessions.
the Knicks have given up just 95.1 points per 100 possessions in the 111 possessions Bridges has sat and 122.7 in the 520 he’s played. There’s surely noise in those numbers, but still…woof.
the Knicks are taking 13.2 percent more shots at the rim when Hart plays, which is in the 99th percentile league-wide. When Deuce is in the game, they take 8.7 percent fewer shots in the restricted area, which is in the second percentile across the NBA.
New York ranked 21st in defensive rating. Worse yet, according to Cleaning the Glass, opponents have a 57.7 effective field goal percentage when facing Knick defenders, which is the third highest figure in the league.
New York also isn’t generating many turnovers (23rd overall), so opponents are getting comfy in more ways than one.
Jalen is second in the league to Trae Young in average time of possession and first among rotation players in average seconds per touch. That’s a far cry from last year when he was…
First in the league in average time of possession and first among rotation players in average seconds per touch.
Herein lies the problem. Brunson hasn’t really adjusted at all (and is actually holding the ball slightly longer and dribbling slightly more).
If you had asked me at the outset of this whether the player acquired in the big all-in, asset cash-out move should be Mikal Bridges, I would have said that was an absurd idea. Of course you don’t trade five 1RPs for Mikal Bridges.
Watching it play out in the real world though, it seems pretty clear that if there ever WAS a true cash-out superstar that became available, we’d be outgunned when it came time to trade for that player by one of the more asset-rich teams.
Mikal hasn’t been terrible on the offensive end, and I think at least some of his issues on defense are scheme-related. He’s long and wiry and a smart player, and he’s 28 and has always been healthy, so it’s not like he should be washed at his age. It would be Knicksy but unlikely if he turned into Jamal Crawford on the defensive end all of a sudden.
I just can’t get too worked up about the opportunity cost of trading for him, because that package of picks was always going to get beaten if a real top tier star ever came on the market.
Just to clarify, I’m far from doom and gloom right now, but neither am I a wide-eyed optimist. The best way to characterize my current mood is “show me” and by that, I mostly mean in the playoffs. That is the proving ground where fatal flaws get exposed and exploited. The Spida-Gobert Jazz are a great example. So are the 2022-23 Cavs, and to a lesser degree, the 2022-23 Celts.
Thankfully, there is still at least some room to maneuver. You never know when that trade for a Jrue Holiday can pop up out of nowhere. Or that unheralded draft pick or UDFA becomes a rotation stud.
“The “outside of KAT” and “we could flip him for equivalent assets in a heartbeat” seems like a bit of sugarcoating to me….Also, you could never, ever get back what we traded for Mikal by flipping him, probably nothing even close.”
Yeah, I probably should have made my point much clearer. It was not meant to be an opinion on whether we had a net asset loss on the KAT or Mikal trades (which by definition we did in the scenario where we need to make more trades since we paid out in part for their fit and that won’t be recouped) but rather we don’t have an empty asset chest.
Hart and Brunson continued on with the weekly thursday “Roomates Podcast” so they don’t seem to care much.
JK’s analysis reads as an indictment of the entire “hoard rather than use draft picks” strategy, which never made much sense from the get-go. Frankly, there’s probably some degree of Dolan involved in that being the “strategy” in the first instance.
We don’t need to revisit the entire litany of misses and incinerations here, but if this was going to be the end product (*), they should have just drafted in the normal course, as every other franchise would have.
(*) Not meant literally. Yes, of course they could luck into something like a Jrue Hollday trade. Although they no longer have the draft picks to do something like that, narrowing the plausible universe considerably.
Guilty as charged. I was watching Jericho Sims play basketball recently, though, and had a very hard time believing we would have been much worse giving Randle a go.
I’m now starting to see chatter about Brooklyn being a strong contender for the Giannis sweepstakes based on… All those picks we gave them for Mikal. Given that we’re already not much better than them, man, that would be a nuclear winter for us.
Regardless, it’s pretty clear that trade will go down with the Eddy Curry trade as an unmitigated disaster for the ages. We probably could have drafted two 3&D guys with those picks and they’d have been cheap and maube actually good on defense.
As I said last year, we had our peak team of the decade and our contender status left with iHart.
Except that they renamed it the Doomates Podcast.
So is Myles Turner, but I call him a C because he plays C.
Was Randle anchoring the defense or was Reid? I suspect it was Reid because he is usually listed at C and BK-Ref attributes a majority of his minutes to the C position. He blocks shots, he rebounds, and he’s taller than Randle. He seems like a C.
The idea that Naz Reid is actually a wing or something is low key one of the most hilarious things posted here in a while.
Of course, comparing the Bridges trade to the Eddy Curry trade, which was what originally brought me to this wonderful website, is equally hilarious.
Keep it coming, I need the laughs….
Glad you liked it bc you completely made it up!
The idea is that any forward is a center if you play him there.
Naz Reid, Isaiah Stewart, Draymond Green, Al Horford… all these guys are 6’9″ or smaller and would be considered forwards 99% of the time.
It’s been 7 games. We’ll be fine.
IMO, that’s over the top. We all agree he was big loss because we didn’t get anything back and he had a lot of value.
We basically swapped defense for offense at C.
Now, instead of having the 7th offense and 10th defense, we have the 4th offense and 21st defense. IMO, both sides will improve in time, but the goal is to get back to a top 10 defense with 1-3 offense.
This blog is a great example of why players have zero interest in playing in NY for the Knicks. The panic over 7 regular season games for a brand new team is amazing.
A lineup with Randle and Reid is a lineup with two PFs. Which one you call the center is arbitrary.
What is troubling to me right now is what JK pointed out yesterday…that the last two losses involved weaker teams just going after our defensive shortcomings, especially KAT.
That’s kinda like swapping wings for wheels on a plane, though.
The Warriors being the number one team in the league at the moment when their big change was adding Buddy Hield should tell you all you want know about not overreacting to early season results.
Ben Wallace and Julius Randle are both 6’9. Which one you call the center doesn’t really matter.
this is like some sort of intervention on twins-raised-apart experiment in the wild. second link is nsfw.
https://x.com/duanerankin/status/1854934720578027679?s=46
https://x.com/duanerankin/status/1854933958644912232?s=46
Precisely! Now just substitute Naz Reid for Ben Wallace and you’ve repeated made my point. Thank you.
The idea that Ben Wallace is actually a wing or something is low key one of the most hilarious things posted here in a while.
Not as funny as all the people who proclaimed we were a 60 win team after the KAT trade telling everyone to stop overreacting, though.
Moving OG to PF, adding Mikal and moving Hart into the starting lineup was supposed to be an offsetting PLUS to the defense relative to Randle. That has yet to materialize perhaps because defensive issues at C are more important than defensive issues at PF and/or Mikal is not defending so well so far.
It’s never going to materialize because you can’t offset zero rim protection with three perimeter defenders.
Can anyone classify the appendages coming out of Oso’s shoulder sockets? Have they grafted limbs belonging to an arthropod or starfish?
Easy to test through volatility of percentage attempts at the rim and the trifecta line and volatility of percentage allowed.
Just in raw numbers, if I’m reading it right, the Knicks are eighth in the league at allowing fewest shots between 0-3 feet and 22nd in percentage allowed once opponents get there. League average at the rim is .689, Knicks are allowing .710. (Interestingly, the Wolves are worse in rim% allowed).
Knicks are fourth worst in % of shots allowed that are trifectas…..
… and tenth best in 3pt% allowed.
But in any event, the thesis that rim protection is the most important part of defense is easily testable. Does it even statistically meaningfully correlate with DRat? If it doesn’t, the thesis is BS.
We’ll see over time if they can get the defense into the top 10 because I’m sure as hell not worried about the offense. It’s 4th now with a injury riddled bench, the slowest pace in the NBA and not much coherent offense yet. I’m pretty sure the offense is going to get better.
I refuse to despair this early in the season, but do we even have *one* lockdown perimeter defender? And by what measure?
Once upon a time, everyone said Frank was gonna be that guy, but no. Then Deuce was that guy, but I don’t see it. OG has looked promising in spurts, but Mikal has never looked like that guy to me — the guy who just shuts down the opposing team’s “Alpha.”
In the last game, Risacher seemed to just go off, and we had no answer, nor did I get the impression Thibs made any real adjustment. We can all say “our scheme was poor” and “nobody is gelling, yet” and blah blah blah, but, ultimately, shouldn’t we just put our best defender on their best scorer to stop the insanity when necessary?
By contrast, Brunson gets stopped all the time with similar adjustments from opponents. Do we not have that kind of plus-plus defender? Wasn’t one promised to us? 😉
(PS — or do they not exist, and I watched too much Dennis Rodman in my formative years?)
OG is about as good as it gets but there’s really no such thing as a guy who can lock down the perimeter anymore.
Mike Krzyzewski used to do this all the time at Duke: he’d take his top recruits, prime athletes, and tell them to stop him from getting to the rim. They couldn’t. He was in his 60’s, and he could get to the rim against 5 star recruits using simple motion offense techniques like “catching the ball on the run”. And he did this to teach them that no matter how good you are, guys are going to get past you, and you need to work as a team to play defense.
Brunson as you alluded to can be bothered by length, like when the Sixers put Oubre or Batum on him. But he got by those guys every time. It was the whole “now Embiid’s there” bit that made their length matter bc it helped them recover.
I must say that thank god Deuce discovered his offense, because his defense has never really developed. He’s not a bad defender by any stretch of the imagination, but nor is he a difference-maker.
A couple things on that from one with the same formative years:
1. There’s way more ball movement, screen/roll, three-ball now than then and way less iso. All else equal that would depress the weight of any particular individual’s defense.
2. The best offensive guys then and now can get their stuff off successfully even on the world’s best defenders. World class defense isn’t really worth anything close to world class offense.
In terms of the musings above, this obviously isn’t definitive, but the Knick defense overall in the 2023 playoffs was outstanding overall, best in the league. It had little to do with rim protection. They were 14th out of 16th in percentage of rim attempts allowed, and only 6th in rim percentage allowed. League average rim shot percentage allowed was 686, the Knicks’ was 678.
KBA, we don’t have that guy. We paid far, far above market for him and didn’t get him. There are 100 better defenders in the league and most of them were drafted or acquired for peanuts.
Thibs doesn’t seem to want to accept that we die on every screen and can’t protect the rim. Maybe once we fire him we’ll see if a switching defense will work.
And fire him we very likely will:
-MIL has their stars back on track and is not as bad as their record
-IND we won’t beat on the road
-PHI will have Embiid back
-CHI is a SeGaBaBa schedule loss
We’re very likely 3-7 and he’ll be feeling like Biden after the debate.
This site uses User Verification plugin to reduce spam. See how your comment data is processed.