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2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks @ Celtics: Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance

The Knicks head to Boston to try to finally win a goddamn game against one of the three best teams in the NBA.

I think we all know that, generally speaking, the rest of the regular season is mostly meaningless, and more about just keeping everyone healthy (and I guess getting to the #2 seed, in theory), and it’s weird, because it really shouldn’t be like that, as we should still be able to expect the Knicks to show up and beat the other top teams. The 1991-94 team, you felt that they could hang with anyone, even the Bulls. Even if you figured the Bulls would ultimately defeat them, you knew the Knicks had a shot, and that was shown in the regular season, as the Knicks showed up in those games, even in 1991-92, when they went 0-4 against the Bulls (one of those losses was a one-point loss). They went 3-1 against the Bulls in 1992-93, and 3-1 against them in 1993-94, as well (sans Jordan, but whatever, it counts). They split four against the Bulls in 1996-97.

So, well, come the fuck on, dudes, just show up today and kicks the Celtics’ ass! Please!

Let’s go, Knicks!

The Dylan song, of course, is “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance.”

251 replies on “2024-25 Game Thread: Knicks @ Celtics: Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance”

Going to miss this one, but OG is a game time decision. Seems like he was rushed back .

Anyways in this game – just watch how many open threes Boston gets. You would hope by now Thibs would have an adjustment..mark this down and see how it plays out.

TheRant here, reporting from Behind Enemy Lines (Courtside TD Garden). The very good news is Josh Hart is working out on the court right now. I have not seen OG yet, but I think our starting lineup will be mostly complete today.

“Anyways in this game – just watch how many open threes, dunks, and FTA Boston gets.”

fify

Regardless of play result — just watch how many times KAT looks like a toddler who doesn’t know how to walk and just let go off mommy’s arm, specifically in the PnR

I was gonna say just watch if KAT jumps on the opening tip (the Celtics have stolen it twice against him this year).

Could be the critical adjustment we need to turn the season around.

Fuck it, I’m betting the Knicks +7.5. Stephen A and Windhorst talking shit sealed it for me.

We’ve gone too far the other way. This many people are never right.

I’m securely in a section with about twenty Jersey-ed Knicks fans in my immediate vicinity.

Jersies range from Divo to Shumpert to Sprewell and, of course, Brunson.

I feel safe here.

Root hard, TheRant! Do you have a jersey on?

One of the worst parts of having the Knicks be good (outside of increased expectations) is having them on national tv all the time (I don’t have MSG). So I have to spend time muting SAS, as I refuse to listen to him.

I am watching based on the premise that you don’t want to be a forest ranger and miss seeing Bigfoot because you took your two week vacation.

First live game since umarrel classes started in December at Politecnico di Milano.

Let’s go!!

KAT, I wanna see hands up!

Maybe the adjustment Thibs needs to make is to sit Towns so everything’s not so fucking easy

A bearish indicator for us is that after a series of major transactions over the course of multiple years, the offensive set I have the most confidence in is the same as it was in 2022: Let Brunson Cook.

Bridges is in my crosshairs…guy is freaking invisible…wtf does that guy do?

He was really good on Christmas, so I can’t say the spotlight is to bright for him

So far I’ve seen Brunson get cooked twice, KAT fall asleep on KP, and Towns miss a layup and get blocked.

Brunson will always be a defensive liability like every small guard, but you can overcome it if you have somebody like a Hartenstein. Two really bad defenders is bad news.

This team is a mirage. We pumped up our record by playing our starters 45 minutes against the Charlottes and Portlands of the world and now everybody is broken down, tired, and disinterested. This is like watching five Luol Dengs

They get anything they want and either make or miss. We take contested or rushed shots with the shot clock expiring.

our plan to have og repeatedly drive toward a shot blocker planted in the paint is going great

“This team is a mirage. We pumped up our record by playing our starters 45 minutes against the Charlottes and Portlands of the world and now everybody is broken down, tired, and disinterested. This is like watching five Luol Dengs”

Right, if only we were fresher and less banged up, we’d be kicking their asses.

We rushed OG back. He was a game time decision. Isn’t playing effectively. Will probably play 40+ minutes in a 20+ point loss

Read the first sentence again, Z-Man. We’re a mirage. We were never as good as our record in the first place.

We rushed OG back. He was a game time decision. Isn’t playing effectively. Will probably play 40+ minutes in a 20+ point loss

he’s moving pretty well

Another almost 40pt quarter. Once again, it looks like it’s gonna be over already in the second quarter. Jeez! I don’t mind losing to those teams. They are better than us. But being embarrassed and humiliated time after time is tough to swallow.

I don’t think we’re getting to the magical 31 or more assists mark that leads to beautiful basketball and Knicks wins. Right now we’re on schedule for about 11 assists…

Boy…this one and the last one are going to have a bunch of folks in this organization looking in the mirror…this isn’t really even remotely competitive…

Boston takes away everything the Knicks want to run and no counter is available

With like five seconds left, what do you think goes through Brunson’s head when he holds it for three seconds, doing nothing?

I would honestly give Delon Wright minutes and let the young guys play, you have to send a message as the coach

I take it back. Even the first part is silly.

We are a very good team, and our record is what it should be. However, the Celtics are possibly a historically good team who has largely been coasting. The difference in records between ours and Clevelands or OKC’s is what it should be, and the Celts are better than both of those teams. It there’s a mirage, it’s in the Celts not having a better record than those teams.

Nothing is happening today that wasn’t foreseeable on opening day. This is a personnel issue.

This is fucking pathetic. At least last year’s team put up a fight. Nothing is going to change too. KAT’s defense is still terrible. Thibs can’t make any adjustments and has been pretty terrible coaching this year despite our record.

We’re not even competing against the best. It’s a blowout, low-effort, no fight each time. KAT, Bridges, OG disappear every time.

Not watching this garbage

This is fucking pathetic. At least last year’s team put up a fight

Mikal and KAT are both emotionless

Back to being down by 11, which is not a disaster. Just sad that it’s Shamet and Payne doing the hard work…

Thibs should just put 5 shooters on the floor for the rest of the game. The defense is what it is but it’s the offense that keeps getting dominated and we do have the personnel to fix that.

If you don’t think our record has been inflated by:

1. Playing a baby thighs level soft schedule
2. Playing a playoff rotation for the entire season

Then I don’t know what to say. We’re 28th in strength of schedule and the absurdly short rotation is obvious to all.

We can brute force our way to wins against crummy teams by acting like it’s perpetual game 7 but the good teams tend to beat us without any issue.

We’re on a 54 win pace but this team does not have the talent level of a 54 win team.

If you don’t think our record has been inflated by:

1. Playing a baby thighs level soft schedule
2. Playing a playoff rotation for the entire season

Then I don’t know what to say. We’re 28th in strength of schedule and the absurdly short rotation is obvious to all.

We can brute force our way to wins against crummy teams by acting like it’s perpetual game 7 but the good teams tend to beat us without any issue.

We’re on a 54 win pace but this team does not have the talent level of a 54 win team.

They can’t beat the 3 top teams, but they do have some wins against non crummy teams . They’ve beaten Memphis, they’re 2-0 vs Denver. They just can’t beat the true contenders

Porzingis is insanely good, which makes me mad for many, many reasons. How the hell did the Celtics get him for Marcus fucking Smart?

SOS doesn’t make a huge difference at this point in the season. It’s like 1pt from average.

I’m going to pretend an 11 points difference is the textbook definition for “close game”, maybe I’ll feel better this way…

The bench brought more energy and hustle to start the second. We slowed Boston down a bit. Only KAT is doing his best to give them opportunities, like that wide open Porzingis 3-pointer.

I hope OG is actually dealing with something, because that’s better for us than the alternative explanation, which is that he sucks

I hope OG is actually dealing with something, because that’s better for us than the alternative explanation, which is that he sucks

He was a game time decision which leads me to believe he isn’t healed

I love Josh Hart, but he should not be our leading scorer.

It’s usually Brunson is these games, while KAT is locked down..

Alright not boxing out Luke fucking Kornet is the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. I’m furious.

If you don’t think our record has been inflated by:

1. Playing a baby thighs level soft schedule
2. Playing a playoff rotation for the entire season

Then I don’t know what to say.

I don’t even know what you are trying to say that we don’t already know and that hasn’t been true for the last 5 years under Thibs. The fact that you repeat it over and over again, very much in E-like fashion, doesn’t make it any more or less true. We all know how Thibs rolls, so that’s baked in. It’s been a bit more pronounced this year because of our bench being not so good. Mitch hasn’t played a game yet. Precious and Shamet both missed a lot of time. Deuce missed some games.

But the suggestion that we are some kind of mirage is just wrong. We are exactly what most of us thought we would be. Below Boston and OKC. Now that we know how good Cleveland is, we are clearly below them. Pretty much what our record says we are against everyone else.

There’s no mirage, no illusion. It is what it is.

Second quarter summary. The bench came in, showed some grid, and cut into the lead. The starters returned and we gave it all away.

I’m going to pretend an 11 points difference is the textbook definition for “close game”, maybe I’ll feel better this way…

Maybe I should raise the bar to 20 points…

That the Celtics can also go big and pound you inside with two former Knicks is … well, it’s annoying.

One of the reasons I’ve been posting a little less lately is because I just started dating a beautiful, brilliant woman who went to MIT and shares a lot of my interests and values. Happiest I’ve been in a while!

There’s a good chance that all comes crashing down soon though, because giving up offensive rebounds to Luke Kornet sent me into a rant about why spending two full seasons with a team should trigger full Bird Rights.

Agree with Tim Legler that the Knicks lack grit/toughness on the starting unit( with the exception of Josh Hart). I accept the talent gap, but not the grit gap.

How can Thibs not see that we need to try putting 5 shooters on the floor?

This is the guy who says the game tells you who to play. It is fucking screaming at him right now.

What the hell is he listening to that’s telling him the game needs Precious Achiuwa?

Agree with Tim Legler that the Knicks lack grit/toughness on the starting unit( with the exception of Josh Hart). I accept the talent gap, but not the grit gap.

THIS

Kornets journey from being a sort of stretch big to being a useful big who never shoots threes is pretty interesting. Good for him I just wish he did it somewhere else

Perk just pointed out the Brunson-KAT conundrum in very stark terms. You can’t be a contender when your two stars are bottom-5 in defense at their respective positions.

And since the Celts have numerous ways to attack those deficiencies, as well as ways to bottle those stars up and make other guys beat them on offense, well, this is what you get.

I’m sure the players are seeing the truth here, and it’s demoralizing. They dig in and get beat. They dig in again and get beat. They claw back and go on a run to narrow the gap, but then the bottom falls out. Rinse and repeat.

Well in fairness to Thibs, I see we’re getting outrebounded 30-18, too.

This team is like Hydra. Fix one problem, two more pop up.

noble congrats on the quest 3 it was a smart purchase. don’t forget even hot avatars who deny it like flowers.

One of the reasons I’ve been posting a little less lately is because I just started dating a beautiful, brilliant woman who went to MIT and shares a lot of my interests and values. Happiest I’ve been in a while!

Good luck!

Z man, KAT needs to be moved off Center. I think he completely collapses the defense and how players on this team might think of how they need to defend.

Perk just pointed out the Brunson-KAT conundrum in very stark terms. You can’t be a contender when your two stars are bottom-5 in defense at their respective positions.

We’ve known this from day one of the trade for Towns. We swapped a plus defender for a negative defender when we lost I-Hart for nothing (the far and away biggest blow of the off season) and Mitch has been out for way longer than hoped.

In a few weeks Mitch should be playing and in close to game shape. Then we’ll see if Mitch/Towns works well enough to cover for eveything on the defensive end without killing the offense. If not, there are only two obvious solutions and one of them is off the table. The other is to trade Towns. He’s still worth more than Randle to someone.

giving up offensive rebounds to Luke Kornet sent me into a rant about why spending two full seasons with a team should trigger full Bird Rights.

LOL. Congratulations on the relationship, sounds great.

Well, the golden lining is maybe no more ESPN Knicks this year…

As long as the NY market tunes in they will show them

KAT/Mitch will not work against these C’s, other than a minor band-aid effect. It may help against Cleveland and OKC.

I may have to adjust my defense formula from -1 + -1 = -3 to -1 + -1 = -3.5

No, you’re just wrong about calling them -1s

KAT is similar to OBI on defense. A guy Thibs couldn’t wait to get off the team.

I don’t know what difference Mitch will make, I hope it’s big, but the Mitch-KAT combo is the Knicks last card. They will take a look and, it is does not work out well, they will have a few tough decisions to make in the off season.

Why is Hart the only Knick who can drive to the basket? It’s bizarre.

“Why is Hart the only Knick who can drive to the basket? It’s bizarre.”

Partly because Hart’s man (KP?) is sagging off of him on every play.

Towns 11 points on 12 shots

He hasn’t been a factor against any elite team all season

Mikal is a generic wing, nothing special about him. Makes you really question the talent evaluation abilities of this FO

noble congrats on the quest 3 it was a smart purchase. don’t forget even hot avatars who deny it like flowers.

This is the hardest I’ve ever laughed at a Knickerblogger post, and it’s especially funny because on Valentine’s Day I got her Lego roses as a bit due to her engineering background (she loved it, or said so anyway)

Mikal went to Nova and was on the great Nova teams. The price was always a overpay for a non star. I also think this may not be his type of system. He needs a much quicker pace.

A bearish indicator for us is that after a series of major transactions over the course of multiple years, the offensive set I have the most confidence in is the same as it was in 2022: Let Brunson Cook.

Still this

This is the one time I actually want to see Thibs keep the starters (and Deuce) in for the whole second half

None of this looks unsustainable! Why can’t we just play like this from the jump?

Classic Stupid Guy take, I’m aware, but it feels true.

I swear I saw KAT raise his arms.
He made it in a totally random way but you know, progress…

I swear I saw KAT raise his arms. He made it in a totally random way but you know, progress…

Thing is: KAT can either raise his arms OR box out. Not both.

Avoid defensive break downs, contest the shots, get stops, and run your offense preferably before their defense is set. Break their rhythm and confidence while boosting yours. I wish the Knicks could do that more consistently.

The trick is to maintain this when KP and Jrue come back in. Tatum’s 2-8 from 3 is helping.

Most of Celts’ starters well rested. Hopefully, Knicks have the fuel to finish strong

Tatum’s 2-8 from 3 is helping

Shooting with a hand in your face instead of being wide open also helps.

The trick is to maintain this when KP and Jrue come back in.

The trick is to maintain this when Bridges comes back in.

Towns just yelled and flailed his hands at Josh Hart to shoot it when he was open from 3.

The effort is so much better, or at least looks that way. Offensive rebounds still driving me insane.

Derrick White just seems to lurk in the shadows of the bigger names, but holy shit is he good.

Offensive rebounds still driving me insane.

It doesn’t happen every night but when the other team attacks the offensive boards we almost always have issues. It’s one of the most annoying things in the game when you defend well for for the whole possession and then give up an OREB. It’s almost as bad as when someone throws up a desperate 3 as the shock clock is winding down and nails it.

Brunson still on the bench???

That was the ball game.

We play the guy 45 minutes against the Hawks but now we manage his load 🤬

No Brunson here is malpractice by Thibs

Edit: too little, too late, I’m afraid.

So many unforced errors by Thibs here: bad challenge, no Brunson, Mikal over Hart, KAT coming back in when the game is already over. Not a coaching masterclass.

The starters gave it all they had in the third. The bench played well in the second quarter. That is not enough, obviously. Boston is deeper and more balanced while the Knicks defensive problems were on display again in the fourth quarter.

Glad we’re keeping an injured KAT in the game with 2 minutes left and the game well out of reach.

Get KAT out of there what the fuck is wrong with Thibs

Towns still being in is a fireable offense all by itself.

He’s a fucking idiot. He should never be a head coach ever again after Leon finally comes to his senses and realizes that Thibs hasn’t learned a damn thing and fires him.

Thibs once again showing her is a mule

(P.s. who scheduled this game? It’s 7am here k Melbourne Australia)

118 pts is a good performance for a bad defense but for the 7th time in 7 games against the three contenders the offense got dominated.

I didn’t watch the second half but at least there was a stretch of decent play. A 13 point loss to the Celtics is chalk. Right about what you’d expect.

Call me a crazy optimist but it feels like a respectable loss.

It would have felt better if we played them closer the whole way and then lost by 13 after a little run here or there, but it wasn’t as bad as some of the other losses to top teams.

The Celtics are an all time great team, they are rolling again and we played them at home at less that 100%. It was very unlikely for us to win.

We’ll see what happens when Mitch is back, but I think there will tradeoffs. I think we are going to have to start thinking about trading Towns or figuring out a way to get “the perfect” PF to be next to him because that Towns with Brunson combo is simply not going to work defensively against elite teams.

Count me as officially off the Thibs train. He’s a great coach in some ways, but he’s too either too inflexibile, learns too slowly or as I always say is on the spectrum and finds it difficult to change even when it’s freaking obivious. Playing Towns late? MORONIC!

Although it looked like it in the first half, Boston didn’t run as out of the building this time.

Offense comes and goes and it can afford to be “loosey-goosey” at times. This cannot be happening on the defensive end! Alas, it does happen to the Knicks all the time, and they cannot become contenders until they solve this problem.

“Call me a crazy optimist but it feels like a respectable loss.”

To your earlier point, it was a game that gave us information. Maybe there is a little something we can use against them in the playoffs.

But beyond that, I agree with Pags in that it sort of felt like a fake comeback against a team that relaxed for a minute.

The good: they finally showed some collective pride.

The bad: it’s confirmed we’re not in their class and Thibs is beyond madness.

I think we are going to have to start thinking about trading Towns

I mean, see how the playoffs go obviously, but if we get swept by Boston in the second round as seems likely, I think Towns, Bridges, and OG should all be dealt. We don’t need 3 years of wait-and-see here.

To your earlier point, it was a game that gave us information.

In the end I don’t think it gave us anything. But at least it wasn’t humiliating.

Actually… I think it did tell me something… Thibs has no good options. You can kill him for not using that Deuce lineup if you want but after we got it close Derrick White just started shooting over Deuce like he wasn’t even there and the Celtics pounded us on the boards. The man is frustrating and I wanted to strangle him for resting Brunson but this is a team with no solutions for the problems teams at this level create. There is no adjustment he can make, no lever to pull. It’s just bend over.

I think you have to move some combination of Towns/Bridges/OG. Not sure how much value Bridges has left after playing a whole season of defiantly mediocre basketball here though. OG and Towns are the more marketable commodities.

The positive I take from this game is that the Knicks can get stops and slow down top teams. I don’t think this happened only because Boston relaxed. We simply broke their rhythm and confidence for a stretch of the game. The big remaining question is why we don’t do it more. Thin roster? Bad habits?

I think you have to move some combination of Towns/Bridges/OG.

Or we could just love a team that can’t win the title. There’s only 3 more games against Boston & Cleveland so there’s gonna be lots of good times. And this is still probably the 2nd or 3rd best Knicks team of the century.

We shouldn’t blow up the core until we see Mitch next to KAT at C. Not really sure how that’ll help against Boston, as they can still target KAT & Brunson on the PNR, but most teams don’t have that many ball-handlers. Maybe we can kill them on the boards or something.

Mitch changes the offense quite a bit, but his rebounding can do a lot to offset the lack of spacing. If nothing else, he’s heads and shoulders above Achiuwa both literally (I’m pretty sure) and figuratively.

It’s getting really boring to hear, but Mitch is the answer. We need a C next to Towns. Maybe we can move a wing and Mitch in the offseason for a high-level C who isn’t perpetually injured.

but if we get swept by Boston in the second round as seems likely, I think Towns, Bridges, and OG should all be dealt. We don’t need 3 years of wait-and-see here.

If you are going to do something that extreme, you might as well trade Brunson and Hart also because there’s no way you are going put together a better team quick enough with all the right pieces for keeping them to make sense. You might as well do it all for picks instead and make 2032-2035 the early target date for contention. Guys like me may have died from old age by then, but at least a few people here will finally be happy to live through lottery hell for 3-4 years.

Maybe we can move a wing and Mitch in the offseason for a high-level C who isn’t perpetually injured.

The center we want is probably in the draft, not the league.

Four really good ones came in this year (Clingan, Edey, Ware, Missi). Four good ones came in the 2 years before that (Lively, Duren, Kessler, Williams).

I haven’t studied this draft but recent history suggests if you can trade into it you’ll probably find a good center to pair with Mitch.

Rough, I tend to agree with you, but there were a few things happening. We didn’t have a lot of turnovers but the ones we had often were costly and killed our momentum. Boston is a killer three-point shooting team and most of their players are taller and can get good looks even when we bother guarding them (KP/anyone, Tatum/OG, White-Jrue/Brunson-Deuce, etc.).

We also played only intermittent stretches of defense because reasons, and I was amusing myself with assists all game because in fact when they pass the ball around good things happen for the Knicks, and when they play hero ball or one-and-done bad things happen. This was a game stuffed full of the latter, outside of the third quarter.

you might as well trade Brunson and Hart also because there’s no way you are going put together a better team quick enough with all the right pieces for keeping them to make sense

That makes no sense. KAT could fetch a fortune from someone. OG and Bridges have value. And you can build a good team around Brunson, Hart, Deuce, and Mitch in like 3 days.

We have one significant problem!

Our two best offensive players are our two worst defensive players. We need both on the court to have a top 3 offense, but if they are both on the court we have bottom 10 defense.

We’ve tried various combinations of defense oriented players around them other than Mitch, but that hasn’t worked.

So next we’ll try Mitch.

If that doesn’t work, you trade either Brunson or Towns. Since we aren’t
going to trade Brunson, the goal should to trade Towns as the core piece for a PF that’s an upgrade over Randle.

Then we are Mitch, New Guy, OG, Bridges and Brunson. That’s closer to the formula from last year but with Mikal as an upgrade over DDV, New Guy as upgrade over Randle, and Hart on the bench on improve death.

IMO the idea that we should trade Bridges or OG is way beyond silly. What we paid for them of what they make now is mostly irrelavant. Both can be wings on a serious championship contender and we have them at their peaks. They are not the problem and neither is what we paid or how much they make. The problem is Brunson/Kat doesn’t work.

If you are going to do something that extreme, you might as well trade Brunson and Hart also because there’s no way you are going put together a better team quick enough with all the right pieces for keeping them to make sense

Well, you’d trade them for other win-now pieces, in theory at least. If you could move KAT and Bridges for players of similar quality but better fit, maybe you’d have something cooking.

The only real problem I see with this is that Bridges is just not very good. You’d be getting back way less than what you gave up to get him, and I don’t know if that’s something Leon would be willing to do.

There is also the option of firing the coach, which should probably be looked at pretty seriously. This does not seem like a great personnel/coach fit either.

Raven, The absolutely worst thing that can happen to a defense is the wide open shot. When you keep the opponent in front, even if this means switching more than you would like, when the opponent feels you in front, shooting percentages go way down. We even saw Deuce pushing Porzingis and making it difficult for him today! But it is not just that. Aggressiveness on defense is huge. Positioning is huge. A few inches closer or further from the paint when trying to help make a tremendous difference. Anticipation is huge. Quickness of recovery is huge. And so on and so forth. KAT, for example, has a lot of problems with all of those. We see it every game.

That makes no sense. KAT could fetch a fortune from someone. OG and Bridges have value. And you can build a good team around Brunson, Hart, Deuce, and Mitch in like 3 days.

I’m trying to be nice.

If we could fetch a fortune for KAT then why trade OG and Bridges?

Just get what we need for him?

We would need a two way player that’s an upgrade over Rande at PF.

You seem stuck on what we paid in picks for Mikal and OG’s salary and it’s clouding your thinking. The only question to ask is whether they can be the wings on a championship contender. Definitely! Believe me, most of the NBA would love to have those two players.

If we cleaned house we would not get the right pieces quickly. It would take time to get what we need , observe how it all fits, build the chemistry etc…

I don’t think this happened only because Boston relaxed.

— @ 5:53 of Q3 with Celts up 80-60, Pritchard enters for Holiday, Kornet enters for Brown, Horford enters for Porzingis, Hauser enters for White. ~ Full 2nd team with Tatum.

— @ same time Knicks keep starters on the floor + Deuce in for Bridges. This lineup claws back to 89-82 by end of the quarter. Looks good on paper.

— But Celts return starters to begin the 4th, and win going away, especially after Payne comes in for OG and Bridges replaces Brunson.

— In fact, Knicks are down by 7 when Bruson sits. They are down by 14 when he returns ~ 4 minutes later.

Inexplicably, Towns gets hurt enough to need a sub and to go to the locker room, but then he is subbed back in with 4 minutes left and the Knicks down 18.

Notably, Mikhal Bridges goes scoreless for three quarters, then drops 14 in Q4, scoring 8 in the last 90 seconds to complete his (garbage) game.

I’ve reached the point of thinking there’s low-hanging fruit to be scooped up from a coaching change, and potentially a lot. I will always appreciate Thibs because I was born in 1995, meaning the pre-Thibs Knicks were a joke in every sense of the word for pretty much my entire life.

But it feels like he’s not maximizing this group on either end. I know he talks a lot about how much he values threes, but 27th in attempts speaks for itself. That’s just not an acceptable figure, full stop. It’s not as simple as just chucking some more up–you have to generate good ones–but we went to great lengths to acquire personnel who can shoot the ball and that effort and those assets are basically going to waste.

Defensively I’m less certain because Towns at center does handcuff you in many ways, and I concur with EB that a healthy Mitch would solve a ton of problems. Not much to say about the latter other than we just have to hope we get a reasonably healthy Mitch, but I still don’t think we’re getting everything we can from the current group. We don’t do anything particularly creative to try to mitigate the Towns issue. I don’t have access to Synergy etc. so I can’t say how often we switch, but it feels like we stay in a traditional drop way more often than we should.

There is of course also the whole minutes, injuries, etc…thing. I try to be humble about what I can say definitively on this front, but there are way too many blatantly awful decisions e.g. bringing Towns back in today. I don’t think any other coach in the NBA would’ve done that and it ain’t an isolated incident.

Far be it from me to say coaching is the only thing keeping us from the top tier. We should assume we have personnel issues as long as we’re not there. I mean we’ve basically been playing without a center all season, so there’s that.

But if this season ends in a second round flameout, I think Thibs has gotta go.

Well, you’d trade them for other win-now pieces, in theory at least. If you could move KAT and Bridges for players of similar quality but better fit, maybe you’d have something cooking.

This is not fanstasy league.

It takes awhile to target and get very specific players that fit together well, to build some chemistry with them, see what’s still missing or not working, make some more moves. It would basically be Leon starting from scratch. That makes no sense at all especially when we already know what the problem is now.

The problem is we lost I-Hart for nothing, Mitch was hurt, we needed a C, were willing to move on from Randle anyway and took a shot with Towns because it was a great deal – even though we knew defense could be an issue. Well, defense is a bigger issue than hoped for unless by some luck Mitch works at C without sacrifcing too much on offense. If not, address the mismatch between Brunson/Towns and move on.

You don’t blow the whole thing up when you are 4th-5th best team in the NBA, young enough to compete for several years and one trade away from being where you want to be.

Adding to what I said above, I should also mention a healthy Mitch. (I know, this sounds like an oxymoron). Mitch not only protects the paint and rebounds, but he is also good on the pick and roll, almost never out of position, and anchors the defense with talking and directing. This makes it a whole lot easier for everyone else. I know there is a trade off on offense, but it is the exact reverse with KAT at the five: good looking offense along with ridiculously bad at times defense.

IMO the idea that we should trade Bridges or OG is way beyond silly. What we paid for them of what they make now is mostly irrelavant. Both can be wings on a serious championship contender and we have them at their peaks. They are not the problem and neither is what we paid or how much they make. The problem is Brunson/Kat doesn’t work.

Bridges might actually be a problem, though.

You seem stuck on what we paid in picks for Mikal

I never mentioned them.

I’m stuck on how he is superfluous, not very good, and I don’t want to extend him.

The picks are a sunk cost.

The only question to ask is whether they can be the wings on a championship contender. Definitely! Believe me, most of the NBA would love to have those two players.

You’ve overrated those two from the get-go, strat, and now they’re being let off the hook because JB and KAT — two clear, unequivocal all-stars — aren’t all that great defensively. Neither is doing their fundamental job of *ensuring that the two clear, unequivocal all-stars’ meh defense doesn’t spread more widely to the whole team*.(*)

Putting aside salaries and cost — cost is sunk for both; Mikal’s salary is avoidable — I think you can probably squint and see a continuing role for OG here. Mikal is a lost cause. He’s an expiring this summer and should be moved. (You should certainly see what you can get for OG, but he’s under contract for four more years and isn’t a lost cause.)

(*) Let’s please not continue to pretend their defense is so bad as to be irredeemable. Brunson was on the ’23 playoff top defense; Towns was on the association’s top defense last season.

Mitch might help, that’s certainly possible, but what isn’t in doubt is that he is now being called upon and hoped upon to do for the team’s defense what Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby were supposed to do for the team’s defense. (Precious was the first hope in this vein, but the defense has continued to suck even with his full health.)

I’m actually a bit fascinated by Towns. He’s huge and incredibly athletically gifted, as shown by his offense. Yet for a decade he’s been castigated for being shite on defense.

If people kept coming up to me and saying, “You’re great at strategy and working with others, but you can’t write your way out of a paper bag, and lucid reports that can be easily understood are a big thing we do around here,” I would be highly motivated to improve my writing just out of professional pride.

that’s where we are in this season….one Mitchell Robinson is now the equivalent of the Knights of the Vale coming over the ridge with Sansa and Littlefinger…

and Raven…i often think the same thing of many guys in the league who never develop their obvious weaknesses and yet are in the league for years…like…what the heck are you doing all summer?

As I said, Mitch will make a huge difference….but not against the C’s. In fact, I think teams with a non-spacing 5 are easy pickings for the C’s. The problem is, as we saw today, they have KP and Al, both of whom can be 2-way all-stars in 5-minute spurts, and Kornet, Queta, and Tillman, who can eat minutes vs. varied not-elite bigs. Since all of the starting 4 non-bigs can guard 1-5 reasonably well, whoever is guarding Mitch can just hang around the paint and either block shots or box him out. When Hart in on the floor, that’s two guys you either sag off of or you can rotate off of without worrying that the 1 second he is left open is 3 points.

The smartest thing we could do right now is rest KAT for two weeks, go on a losing streak, let Indiana catch us, and get into Cleveland’s bracket. But it should be crystal clear right now that nobody is beating the healthy version of the C’s we saw today, certainly no one in our conference.

As I said, Mitch will make a huge difference….but not against the C’s. In fact, I think teams with a non-spacing 5 are easy pickings for the C’s.

Unfortunately I think everyone is easy pickings for the C’s right now.

But I think it’s worth pointing out that before they formed like Voltron, the Miami Heat gave them fits every year by using zone defense.

You don’t have to have your center play man defense on a stretch 5. Spoelstra figured that out in 2 seconds. Thibs, alas.

Chatter out of Philly seems to be pointing towards Joel giving up on the season and getting surgery

We don’t win on Wednesday I’m pulling my head in like Yertle the Turtle.

Bridges and OG have to rebound better if we are sticking with this lineup. Past month or so teams have been able to grab offensive rebounds at will and I see all the few good defensive sequences end up being a dud because no one grabbed a rebound.

Mitch isn’t going to solve all our problems but having a genuine rim protector/rebounder would help the cause. But I still think the scheme and rotations are still bad.

This is not the Celtics that the Heat used to give fits with zone defense. They didn’t have KP or Jrue then and the bench has developed internally.

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