Knicks Morning News (2025.01.18)

“Greetings from the 16U volleyball MLK Kickoff Challenge in beautiful York, PA.”

ess-dog, that brings back memories of my daughter’s first travel tournament, which happened to be in York for her 15U team! Little did I know at that time that she would go on to play in college. Now that it’s all in the rear view mirror, I can’t tell you how much I miss it. Enjoy every minute!

PS if you can get over to the tournament in Lancaster PA’s Spooky Nook facility, check it out. It’s the biggest indoor sports venue in the US, really cool to see. Maybe your kid will play there next year!

ess, at that time, my kid’s team was a scrub on second-level team from a pretty prominent club called Downstate. She was only on the team because two girls who thought they should have made the higher level team were cut. Because she was raw and undersized for her position (OH) (and a bit mouthy, go figure!) her coach played her sparingly. He was a nice enough guy, and would often talk about how his three daughters all played for the same SUNY school. Yet her anger at him for underestimating her was so great that she worked her ass off during the offseason (mainly via CrossFit) and advanced to the higher level team the next year. From that time forward, we spent our MLK tournaments in Lancaster.

The point is, if the love of the sport and the competition is there, moxie and hustlebunnyocity can go a long way!

“kat has never been the starting center for a good defense, and he’s had solid wings around him more than once.”

I don’t know how many times this has to be said before it sinks in.

“putting kat at the 4 with mitch for some of his minutes might be our best hope for gaining more on defense than we lose on offense, at least against the right opposing lineups”

There is zero chance that Minny makes it to the conference finals last year with KAT playing primarily at the 5. This is a truth that has to be reckoned with and addressed…if not by Mitch than by someone else not on the roster (or in the rotation if you want to wishcast on Huk). Otherwise, getting eliminated prematurely in the playoffs is a real possibility.

“at least some of our 3p% against is surely bad luck, just like some of the ism year 3% against was surely luck.”

“some” is a loaded (i.e. useless) term. Is it 90%? 50%? 10%? If you can’t quantify it, it dulls the senses.

geo, I think there’s a snowball effect from having two sub-par defenders on the court, particularly at the rim and the point of attack. Seems like the wings, especially Hart, are cheating over and the ball eventually outruns the defense to a situation where the close-out is non-existant or late. Nowhere was that more apparent than the last possessions of the Pistons game. Clearly the strategy there was not to leave Malik Beasley with a clean look from one of his sweet spots, but that started with issues in hiding Brunson and trying to keep Cade out of the paint.

Look, there is rarely a situation where a team has a defensive advantage at every position that doesn’t cost them dearly on the other end.

I do think that if we don’t acquire a legit 7′ rim-protector, either by Mitch returning or by an acquisition, a change in fundamental approach is merited. Meaning, figure out how many additional 2’s and FTs are you willing to concede for fewer 3’s….which is shorthand for helping/doubling less and soft-hedging/switching more, regardless of the matchup it leaves you with. But at some point it becomes pick your poison, and Thibs seems to prefer the poison with the variance antidote that works more often on 3’s than 2’s.

Long-term, I see only two viable alternatives: a) play KAT at the 4. or b) trade one of KAT or Brunson (obviously KAT.) I’ve been saying all along that we won’t be able to judge whether playing those two together with KAT playing mostly at the C can get us past the second round until we get to the playoffs. But the data is piling up that it is an iffy proposition at best.

“I’d add the question of whether we really think the wings on the great defenses don’t also have some degree of paint responsibility and also don’t actually help with paint defense as it shows up in the numbers.

Do we really think Lu Dort and Alex Caruso and Jalen Williams and Jalen Suggs are told to just focus on the perimeter and let others take care of the paint?”

But do they have to? They have iHart. I specifically remember Will Hardy (pre-Wemby) waxing poetic about iHart’s court coverage and how that impacted offensive efficacy. That was also a thing with Mitch…the ability to cover a huge radius both horizontally and vertically.

KAT is like the opposite of that. He plays significantly smaller than his actual size, and he doesn’t really defend a radius at all. He’ll get the modicum of “size/length” and even occasional well-timed contest/block/steal/disruption…but more often than not, opponents score over, under, or around him. He’s late, late, late on fucking everything…even when he is in a good defensive position.

At least at the 4, he will get more out of the “size/length”-type defensive advantage and have a 5 to back him up when he invariably gets blown by. That’s what worked well for MIN last year, and that’s what we should try to live with. KAT also had passing chemistry with Gobert and found him on many lobs…so while his offensive numbers might go down with Mitch at the 5, it’s possible that he actually generates just as many points per possession.