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53 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.02.05)”
Good morning, fellow Knickerbloggers!!!
Regarding the Grimes trade:
“gkhenman says:
February 4, 2025 at 22:49
I was working hard all day and missed it Dr. Clueless.”
I don’t think *that* was justified. LOL
What a win for the Nets. What a loss for the Rockets. A couple teams seem to be cooling off.
Winning last night will make getting blown out by the Celtics slightly more acceptable
Don’t worry, the new Dylan lyrics headline motif will carry the Knicks to another win!
Celtics game should be fun, maybe we can put elite wing defender Ariel Hukporti on Tatum
I missed most of Hukporti’s minutes, seems like he got blown by a few times in the 4th q, was he good before that other than converting wide open dunks?
He played surprisingly good defense on Scottie Barnes in the first half
Was looking at yesterday’s box scores and saw Portland rolled over the Pacers. Hali was 0-3 in 20 odd minutes and Obi was 0-2 in 8. Maybe we should have drafted Desmond Bane in 2020
Portland is on a 5-game win streak:
* Bucks
* Magic
* Suns
* Suns
* Indy
They’ve won 9 of their last 10 and passed Wemby in the standings. Their defense over that span would be 2nd in the league. Their offense 3rd.
Portland has won 5 in a row! Not sure what’s going on over there.
*EB truly is the early bird.
Brooklyn has won three in a row, including the Rockets twice.
Portland has a lot of talent. They are clunky and some of their players are young and/or low b-ball IQ. When guys like Anfernee, Shaedon, and Scoot are feeling it, they can beat anyone.
Brooklyn had some extra motivation to beat the Rockets. Ime Udoka called the Nets a “low-level” team and they took it personally.
Ime is a good coach, but he’s kind of a dick. I don’t think he is beloved in the non-Rockets NBA community.
Scoot, once written off as a hopeless bust, is now playing well. The real story there is Toumani Camara – who has quietly emerged as one of the game’s top wing defenders. He was tasked with guarding Hali last night and held him to zero points.
Not ready to go crazy on the Big Wing Huk thing but it’s funny and he looked ok in the first half. Some of that may be Barnes just missing some shots. The thing I noticed last night is that Huk genuinely is a little nimble for a big. When he comes to set a screen he covers ground quicker than you would expect and his lateral movement is the same.
Watching him I am generally kind of just mapping him to Mitch. They have very similar dimensions. Same standing reach and Mitch has 2 inches of wingspan on him. I don’t know what it is but Mitch just seems to occupy and command space more in the paint. I think that was true when he came in and true after he beefed up. Maybe he has wider shoulders? I don’t know. Mitch also was much faster end to end, although he slowed down after bulking.
The biggest difference is that Mitch got off the court so much quicker and higher both on his jumps and his second jumps. Mitch was really special in that aspect as a rookie. He gave a little back when he got stronger but still had truly dominant athleticism.
Very excited with what Huk has showed although at a low level of expectation and anxiously awaiting Mitch’s return. I can’t say he’s my favorite Knick anymore but I still love him.
Day’Ron Sharpe had 8 points, 3 rebounds, and 4 assists (3-of-4 shooting) in 20 minutes off the Nets bench last night.
Glen Gondrezick of the Nuggets. Wow. (Yes, I know he started with us. But he played almost twice as many games with Denver as he did with us, and when I think of him I think of him with the Nuggets.)
RIP
I thought the most encouraging aspect of last night’s game was Towns seemingly accepting that the thumb is impacting his shooting and adjusting accordingly. He took the open ones, but definitely indexed more on drives.
This is of course the opposite of the approach I normally want him to take–when he’s capable of hitting 40% of his 3s I want to see 8+ per game. But he’s pretty clearly compromised right now, so this seems to be the next best thing.
Nikola Jovic averaging 15.4 points per game over his last five. Where do the Heat keep finding these guys?
NBA.com has Scottie shooting 1-9 against Hukporti. Seems like more than a fluke.
The first round of the draft
Matas Buzelis averaging 13.8 points per game over his last five games, on 71.1 percent field goal shooting (27-of-38). 10-of-10 last night.
Yeah, but 27th overall (for Jovic), and no college film.
FROM SHAMS:
“Breaking: The Milwaukee Bucks are trading Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson and a pick swap to the Washington Wizards for Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and second-round draft compensation, sources tell ESPN.”
Huk definitely looks like he has the potential to be a legit NBA backup C. That’s a nice find with the last pick in the draft. You could say the same about Sims, although his development seems to have topped out at replacement level big.
Brunson continues to amaze. He literally won the last two singlehandedly, and both involved two pull-up in your face 3’s in the crunchiest of crunch time. Now he was also part of the reason that the Raptors came back in the first place, but still, to own them like that in the last 2 minutes on the 2nd night of a B2B when they had all the momentum and fresh legs was awesome.
Biggest game of the year coming up Saturday. Going with a couple of my besties who I used to share season tix with, which we acquired when we won the Ewing lottery. The Celts are healthy, playing well, and I’m sure fired up. Hopefully we will be ready to put up a valiant effort and I can watch the the many Massholes who will surely be there slink out of MSG.
“Was looking at yesterday’s box scores and saw Portland rolled over the Pacers. Hali was 0-3 in 20 odd minutes and Obi was 0-2 in 8. Maybe we should have drafted Desmond Bane in 2020”
It was actually a little worse than that. Haliburton was on the floor for 25 minutes.
““Breaking: The Milwaukee Bucks are trading Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson and a pick swap to the Washington Wizards for Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and second-round draft compensation, sources tell ESPN.””
It’s pretty bad when a team *receiving* Kuzma can be considered to have won a trade.
I think it’s a desperation trade for the Bucks. Kuzma is at least relatively healthy and can defend, while Middleton is totally washed on D. Kuz also is on a descending deal making Fournier money, so he can be salary filler in a trade, while Kris’s $34M player option for next year is ugly and would probably require sweetener to dump.
I really enjoyed watching the synergy between huk and jalen…it’s like they’ve really just kept driving home the theme to huk of playing with energy…
seems just like AD, KAT would rather play at the four…
seems KAT was making a point that him as a power forward is the way to go…
the wrap/bandage on his left ring finger was more noticeable last night…
Dylan, hailing from northern Minnesota, playing with a Canadian Band for years, and writing over a thousand songs, only mentions Canada once?? That might be the hardest fact for me to accept this year. The guy even refers to Pat Riley more than once in his songs.
Kuz is not the answer smh. The Bucks really shitted up that team.
Just a reminder that this is tonight, and I have some spare books with me: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alan-sepinwall-james-poniewozik-saul-goodman-v-jimmy-mcgill-tickets-1107367097799?aff=oddtdtcreator
Also, I think I’m the only Jersey guy here, but if that’s not the case, this is in Maplewood on Thursday night: https://wordsbookstore.com/events/44460
Z-Man, there was a stretch early on when Huk blew up three Barnes possessions in a row with great defensive footwork to stay in front of him, then blew up a driving layup by some random anonymous Raptor, bothered a three-pointer from someone into a miss, and blocked a drive (and eventually got the rebound). After that Barnes wanted nothing to do with Huk and basically passed the ball to anyone to avoid doing something himself.
Maybe random, but lovely to see.
Trading for Kyle Kuzma is a weird thing to do if you are trying to win basketball games
I thought that Huk looked very good for a short stint last night, but wanted to point out that he was not credited with any blocks. Doesn’t mean that he wasn’t disruptive on defense, though. (Please pardon the double negative.)
I’m glad we won and get some time off before the next game. Saturday, I think? But I wonder if I’m alone in thinking this- was the offense better when we fed KAT early? I like the was this team plays when KAT is in a groove. When that happens, Brunson has to save us less often, and in money time the reasons he got his bag really shine through
Durant on Houston or Dallas would be kind of scary—less so back in Golden State or in Miami. Considering how much (and for how long) he wasn’t able to play, gotta credit the guy for not missing a beat on his dominance now that he’s back. He’s just working in relative anonymity on a boring Suns team. I don’t think that he *significantly* upgrades Miami, but I still don’t want him back in the East. If Dallas can manage this after the AD trade, kudos to them (depending on what they give up).
Interesting, Doogie, thanks. There was a drive to the right side that he blew up, it was missed badly so I assumed a block. A good defensive sequence anyway, plus coming up with the loose ball in a scrum.
Haven’t seen much of the Bucks, so I don’t know how washed Middleton is, but I can see that being a decent trade based on salary and availability alone. Also, Doc has/had them playing good defense, so maybe they can endure the Kuz on that end.
That is a weird trade. I’m trying to figure out the rationale. Looking at Milwaukees slim stock of picks Washington maybe acquired swap rights on Milwaukee’s 2031 first. That’s a nice swap. Washington should be better by then and Milwaukee worse. I also suspect that Johnson is a much better prospect than Baldwin. I know almost nothing about them, but Johnson was the 23rd pick in the last draft while Baldwin was the 28 th pick in the 2022 draft and is still spending some time in G league. But neither looks great by their numbers. Is that swap really worth taking on Middleton’s contract?
The Rocket have had some injuries lately, but I’ve been expecting them to be one of the teams to drop in the standings. They have some good young players, but they are not that good.
He wasn’t credited, and maybe the angle is just bad, but it sure looks like he blocked a shot on Barnes. Maybe KAT got his hand on the ball first, as he’s credited for a block during the same sequence, but that’s on a Poeltl tip and not the Barnes layup despite the announcer yelling he got denied.
There was a steal by OG the other day that didn’t get credited either. He jumped in front of Jokic(?) on a pass from Murray(?). Murray was credited with a bad pass, which was definitely more of the cause, but someone was still needed to cut in front of Joker and grab the ball.
Either the NBA intern is getting lazy or they need to replace chatgpt with deepseek before it’s banned.
Thanks, Raven. I really like him as a project. Great motor, great size, being a lefty helps, has more offensive upside than either Mitch or Sims. He’s still only 22 and has ample room for development. Hard to really put a ceiling on him beyond “he’s not Giannis.” Can he be a Capela? A Looney? A healthy RWIII? An iHart? A Poeltl? A Zubac? These are all defensive-minded starting Cs with some offensive capability.
Here’s a detailed scouting report from Vecenie from last year at this time:
https://nbl.com.au/news/nba-draft-expert-praises-hukporti
Barnes missed a ton of shots against Huk for sure. Again, I don’t know if Barnes was forcing it because he had a big on him, or whether he ran bad, or just great defense. Either way, great result.
I kind of feel like Towns will be asking for trouble playing this kind of smashmouth ball on a permanent basis. The guy rarely gets calls but he is generally driving into a thicket of arms, legs, and feet and almost always takes a lot of contact. The reason guys shoot threes more as they establish themselves is that it’s a lot easier on the body.
He’s a warrior though. No doubt about it. On offense.
My feeling is that whoever gets Kuzma lost the trade unless they are tanking and got some picks to take him. I’m glad I have no action on the Bucks. He’s a scorer. He’s going to have nights where he’s hot and helps the Bucks win, but he’s generally a two way negative player.
The biggest mistakes Giannis made were extending with the Bucks and opening his mouth on trades. He has to get out of there and keep his mouth shut on trades. He’s been pushing for and approving bad ideas.
Early Bird,
I never used to do this, but lately I’ve been focusing on a single player at a time during a game to get a better feel for their skills. I’ve been noticing some missed rebounds, steals and blocks. Maybe I’m missing some subtle things, but not in every case.
Wow. Payne had 6 assists in his 13 minutes last night? Who said he’s not a point guard (besides myself 🙂 )?!?
Giannis deserves more credit for his patience and loyalty.
The most underdiscussed aspect of the Luka trade was that Milwaukee said no. I imagine they did so bc they knew there was no way Luka would stick around like Giannis is seemingly willing to.
Kuz probably will suck, but Middleton sucks and has a huge player option next year. There’s a greater than zero chance that Kuz benefits from playing for an actually good team where he can pick his spots on offense and play decent defense. And if not, at least he can be moved without sweetener.
i liked huk’s all around contribution last night…he didn’t look out of place on the offensive end, especially around the rim and we need some additional presence in there…his dee was solid…moved his feet well…just one game but if he can give us some quality time off the bench…that will be huge…
Hopefully OG is up for it Saturday night…would like to see our full squad against theirs…
What about Kel’el Ware?
I brought him up last week and now he’s starting and just won rookie of the month.
The most underdiscussed aspect of the Luka trade was that Milwaukee said no.
I wonder deep down how Giannis feels about this. Also wonder if the Bucks told him about the offer.
I didn’t see a lot of the game last night. I was watching some of the Celtics/Cavs game also.
Precious had a great stat line 17 points (7-11; 1-3; 2-2); 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals but somehow he wound up with a +/- of -14. He was the only negative on the team.
Did I miss something significant?
“What about Kel’el Ware?
I brought him up last week and now he’s starting and just won rookie of the month.”
Yeah, I brought him up a few weeks ago when he was especially on a tear.
I don’t think so. Teams go on runs. The Raptors went on theirs after we went up 20 while Precious was in the game. Probably a coincidence.
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