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New York Knicks Face Potential Playoff Gauntlet – Sports Illustrated
04/07/2025 11:00:00
Knicks Bulletin: ?It was good to have everyone out there again? – Posting and Toasting
04/07/2025 11:00:00
Delon Wright Ready For Different Role With Healthy New York Knicks – Sports Illustrated
04/07/2025 11:00:02
Knicks fans react to Devin Booker comments after his 40 point performance at Madison Square Garden, feel very optimistic – NBA Analysis Network
04/07/2025 11:00:00
OG Anunoby drops 32 points, Knicks’ fans credit Suni Lee – The Express Tribune
04/07/2025 09:00:00
Phoenix Suns vs. New York Knicks: live game updates, stats, play-by-play – Yahoo Sports
04/07/2025 08:48:00
The New Normal – Substack
04/07/2025 09:02:54
Pete Davidson and Elsie Hewitt Enjoy Courtside Date Night at Knicks Game – Us Weekly
04/07/2025 07:56:10
Celtics vs. Knicks Prediction: Expert Picks, Odds, Stats and Best Bets – Tuesday, April 8, 2025 – Bleacher Nation
04/07/2025 08:07:32
N.Y. Knicks 112, Phoenix 98 – Greenwich Time
04/07/2025 07:03:05
Pete Davidson & Girlfriend Elsie Hewitt Sit Courtside at New York Knicks Game After Scottish Vacation – Just Jared
04/07/2025 06:03:11
Knicks Notes: How Jalen Brunson fared in return from ankle injury – SNY
04/07/2025 05:13:43
Jalen Brunson returns as Knicks beat Suns – Newsday
04/07/2025 04:16:53
Knicks? OG Anunoby continues ?unbelievable? offensive tear to capture career-first mark – New York Post
04/07/2025 03:50:00
Pacers spoil Knicks plans to clinch East?s No. 3 seed on Sunday – New York Daily News
04/07/2025 03:25:12
Jalen Brunson back after sprained ankle a month ago as Knicks get healthy for season’s final week – Huron Daily Tribune
04/07/2025 03:08:02
Knicks? Jalen Brunson assesses return from ankle injury: ?Could be better, could be worse? – New York Daily News
04/07/2025 03:33:03
Fans React to Suni Lee?s Appearance at Knicks-Suns Game – Athlon Sports
04/07/2025 03:35:36
NBA postseason tracker: Four West teams tied for two playoff spots – ESPN
04/07/2025 03:31:00
Jalen Brunson back after sprained ankle a month ago as Knicks get healthy for season’s final week – Idaho State Journal
04/07/2025 03:00:57
57 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.04.07)”
Zzzz… Me the morning after recapping a Sunday night episode of TV without a screener is how it must feel for you lunatics who stay up to watch the West Coast games.
White Lotus Spoiler Alert
The Knicks need to win it all for Chelsea.
Hopefully the spell is cracked and I don’t have to look normal human beings(whom I generally like) in the face who are “singing” the opening song to that endeavor, thinking they are sharing a joy with me, but are sctually flicking a tiny painful pimple right on the inside of my nostril acquired during this horrible flu/norovirus/allergy season. I saw a meme comparing White Lotus to Ryan Murphy excepting it for people who can read, and while that may be, or not, The Normal Heartwas profoundly moving for me so I dunno.
OG Anunoby is a physically gifted man who might be figuring it out…
Still hard to believe it’s been so long since we had back-to-back 50 win seasons. Even though I remember the years in between Checketts and Leon painfully well.
I would really love it if he can do that against the Cavs and/or the Celtics. The increased variety and effectiveness in his game has been wonderful to behold, but it hasn’t been against the toughest of defenses.
He seemed pretty steady against the Cavs in that last outing. That eurostep around Allen was cute. The three ball was fluid.
Crazy part this is only the 15th time Knicks win 50 games out of 79 seasons. 10 of them have come since 1989 with the other 5 all belonging to Red Holzman although I was surprised that his final 50 win season came in 1981, didn’t realize he coached the Knicks into the 80s.
If OG can sustain this level of versatility and efficiency, even if it’s on slightly lower usage when Brunson is back to 100%, he’s underpaid. He’s playing at an all-NBA level.
It also opens the door to not worrying about keeping one of either Brunson or Towns on the court all the time. This OG can be a main option with the bench unit at times (as can the recent Mikal).
I still think a lot of what happens in the playoffs hinges on the defense (Towns and Brunson and what Mitch can add), but the offense should hum once we are at 100% as long as we are moving the ball.
Well we are finally approaching the “show me” time that most of us felt was necessary to truly judge this team and its full potential. Just about every important question leading in to the playoffs about the physical makeup of the team has been answered, and just about all of these answers have been positive. I suppose the biggest remaining question mark on the physical side is KAT’s health in relation to 100%. How much is his knee and assorted fingers/thumbs actually impacting his game? But Mitch is back and looking close to 100%, OG has fully recovered from that scary foot thing, Hart is looking pretty close to 100%, Brunson looks good, Deuce looks good….
In terms of quality of play, with the caveat that Brunson and Deuce need some reps to get right, OG and Mikal both look like their peak versions, would be hard to expect more…KAT has cooled off in the second half, but that could be injury-related, Shamet has picked it up, Payne had given you all that you could expect…Precious and Delon give us some situational depth…
Asssuming that nothing problematic happens in the next week, you really couldn’t ask for a better situation, both health and performance-wise, going into the playoffs. We won’t have to engage in what could have been conversations about “if only Randle was available and at 100%, etc. We won’t have to engage in conversations about whether we should purposely lose games 81 or 82 for the purposes of seeding. There’s really nothing left to wonder about!
There are a few games left and Thibs is the coach. 🙂
“…didn’t realize he coached the Knicks into the 80s.”
It wasn’t continuous…he tried to retire and Willis Reed was briefly the head coach in 1977-78. Then Willis was fired 14 games into the 1978-79 season and Red took over for a few more seasons.
Surprised the Hubie Brown teams with a healthy BK never won 50 games, they only won 44 and 47 games although they did win a playoff series each year.
There are very legitimate questions about whether this team was worth the asset expenditure, and I imagine much of the offseason will be spent litigating them, among other things (unless we win a championship in which case such talk is banned).
But I have to admit, for Knicks fans of my generation who rarely saw back-to-back 40 win seasons until recently, back-to-back 50 win seasons means something. YMMV.
OG post-Brunson injury watch:
16 games, 23.8 PTS, 5.3 TRB, 2.7 AST, 1.9 STL, 0.9 BLK, 49/42/87 shooting, .626 TS%, 109 personal DRTG.
We may have finally gotten revenge on Masai.
Yeah Z-man I should’ve remembered that, believe Knicks drafted Cartwright which lead to the 50 win season in 1981. I only remember Cartwright as a Bull but I know he was a 20ppg scorer early in his Knicks career.
So the non-Brunson stretch worked out exactly as I’d hoped, or nearly so, in that both Mikal and OG really spread their wings and flew.
What remains to be seen over these next few games is whether their wings stay spread as Brunson gets back into the flow. It’s a really different pace when Brunson slowly brings the ball up and dribbles in place while figuring out what to do, so it’ll be very interesting to see if that has a negative or no real impact on the flow of the team.
Also, they really need to utterly erase the ‘stupid stretch’ they showed early in the fourth last night when they took terrible shots and rushed things and basically played like shit and let the Suns back in. Didn’t matter in the end against the Suns, but even five minutes of that against a team like the Celts or Cavs could spell doom.
Having said all that, yes, 50 wins sure is nice…
I still think it’s a bit premature to pull the plug on this roster after only 1 season together.
Re: tomorrow night vs. Boston – part of me wants them to play their starters normal minutes and see how we measure up, and part of me is hoping the Celtics rest a few of their starters or have them play minimal minutes.
I don’t think I could stomach another Boston beatdown, so I guess I’m hoping for the latter
OG has been on a tear since returning from his injury:
TS% .609
eFG% .566
USG% 23.0
TOV% 7.4
BPM 3.4
If you look at his stat line for the season, it looks like a good OG Anunoby season, not a massive outlier or anything. So maybe this is a case of some positive regression to the mean.
Unless the playoffs are a full blown humiliation, I think this core has already earned the right to take another shot at it with some bench tweaks and the like. Even teams in the low 50s are pretty much always just a solid move or two away from being able to hang with anyone, even if they’ll never be the odds on favorite.
Some admitted cherry-picking that I think is bullish for the core:
-If you simply look at the 2024-2025 Knicks in non-Precious Achiuwa minutes, they already have what would be the 3rd best offense and 4th best net rating in the NBA
-With Mitchell Robinson on the floor, our defensive rating is 108.9 (would be 2nd in the NBA) and our offensive rating barely suffers at 118.6.
-Brunson, OG, and Deuce lineups have a 122.6 offensive rating (would be 1st) and 107.9 defensive rating (would be 2nd) in 369 minutes.
To be clear, these samples are all way too small to answer any serious questions, but I do think the numbers paint a generally accurate picture of a core that has the pieces to throw out excellent lineups on both ends. So if the playoffs don’t go well…I’d take a look at the coaching before the roster.
And in doing so, you’ve saved me from wasting 8 hours of my life, and so I thank you for your service. Now if only I could get back all those bad Knicks seasons…
Unless we somehow are able to flip KAT for Antetokounmpo we should keep the roster. All the main guys are in their prime between 27-29 years, we cannot expect much improvement, but we can expect them to keep this level for time to come. And we can always find that sideways move that takes us to the top. And that sideways movement might well be Mitch getting more playing time.
In 3-4 years time, then yes, we should worry about not doubling down on players that will be 33+, but now we have to keep them together for a few seasons.
Stared watching Kleo on Netflix, it’s pretty good. Killing Eve with a more coherent story so far.
Two things that annoy me this morning:
Reading this: “In the end, Guerrero accepted a deal for $265 million less than Soto.” I mean, what?
And that the Lakers have a non-zero chance at winning the chip.
I don’t think I’ve seen a player dislike being interviewed more than OG. Not a criticism, just an observation.
“Yeah Z-man I should’ve remembered that, believe Knicks drafted Cartwright which lead to the 50 win season in 1981. I only remember Cartwright as a Bull but I know he was a 20ppg scorer early in his Knicks career.”
Mr. Bill is a very underrated player in Knicks lore. He was truly excellent offensively, and this is even more exemplified by the new TS+ and eFG+ stats…he had a 116 TS+ for his Knicks career and was on a star trajectory, but missed two seasons due to a stress fracture in his foot. I was surprised to see that his usage hovered around 20%, always thought that he shot more than that. But he was very tough to stop in the post. Not very good as a rim protector or rebounder, but hey, the Bulls made it work!
Fun fact: back in that era, MSG used to play a theme song for some players when they made a basket. For example, a Gerald Wilkins basket brought on Chattanooga Choo-Choo because he went to college at Tennesee-Chattanooga. For Bill Cartwright, it was the theme from Bonanza!
“Also, they really need to utterly erase the ‘stupid stretch’ they showed early in the fourth last night when they took terrible shots and rushed things and basically played like shit and let the Suns back in.”
+1, they do this often, and not just in the 4th…sometimes it’s when they have a 29pt lead in the first half.
To me, it’s more about how he’s doing these things than the stats. Eye-test wise, his handle looks vastly improved, his aggression is way up, etc. Maybe there were similar bursts when he was in Toronto when I wasn’t paying much attention. But his offensive game feels substantially more impressive, even if the numbers are in line with some other stages of his career.
I don’t disagree, with the caveat that even with a reasonable loss (say, Celtics in 6, [pauses to vomit]) the calculus should be whether any significant internal improvement can be expected, given that other teams are likely to gain on us. The Cavs have some assets to deal and can further improve their SF spot and bench. The Celts have a brilliant FO and more tradable assets than we do. Orlando, Indy, Detroit, and Miami can all make a jump in the next two years. And that’s just the East.
This is not a limitless window. Leon has to be continually on the alert for big moves as well as small ones. That’s different from making wholesale changes, i.e. pulling the plug. My thing is, just don’t be complacent because we are really good compared to the past. Be bold, smart, and opportunistic, and don’t get too attached to players or chemistry. In other words, I don’t think an savvy GM would conclude that “this core has earned the right” to do anything if they get bounced before the finals.
He’s an interesting fellow. That shouldnt get in the way of him being an all nba demon if the skill and talent are available to him. +1 Alan. He drank Egg Shen’s potion. The guy is playing like he knows he’s the best player on the court on both sides of the ball. He is right now.
That comes to about 17M a year for Soto over Guerrero. That’s about 2 WAR per year in value, maybe less.
Soto is worth it. Soto has an 80 plate discipline tool, which gives him a very high floor. Hitters with that kind of pitch recognition tend to age very, very well. Soto draws walks in around 20% of his plate appearances over his career. Career OBP of .420. Tops out as an 8 WAR player and is a 6 WAR player in a typical season.
Guerrero walks half as much and has a career .360 OBP. That’s a solid number but it ain’t .420. He tops out at around 6 WAR.
Will Soto be worth 30 or so WAR more than Guerrero over the next 15 years? It depends on how they are looking at the back end of the contracts. Soto is pretty likely to still be drawing 100+ walks and racking up high OBPs late into his career, so his floor should remain high. You can easily see a scenario where Soto is still chugging along in his mid-30’s posting .400 OBPs and racking up 4 WAR while Guerrero is a 1-2 win player.
Plate discipline tends to be a skill that ages well, and outlier plate discipline guys like Soto are pretty safe investments.
“To be clear, these samples are all way too small to answer any serious questions, but I do think the numbers paint a generally accurate picture of a core that has the pieces to throw out excellent lineups on both ends. So if the playoffs don’t go well…I’d take a look at the coaching before the roster.”
The thing is, the only sample that really means anything is the playoffs, with the caveat that we continue to enjoy good health. Whether Thibs is the right guy to coach this squad is certainly on the table, but in making that judgment, one has to consider how much his coaching is responsible for the positive ratings you posted above. Is he holding them back or helping them overachieve? I don’t see a clear answer but would lean towards the latter. That’s why the playoffs will be a much more valuable indicator.
I haven’t said anything about the recent ban, but decided to weigh in briefly in case any of the decision-makers feel bad about it: over the last few weeks, as that poster made his heel turn, I had stopped really reading much here and was hoping every day to see that he had been banned. It was almost unbearable, even skipping his posts, because of how he dominated the conversation. Freaking Ted Nelson was better, because in all his tendentious tediousness, it was still about ball. This was some kind of performance art. Reading through the thread today, I am reminded that a nice place it is to read about the Knicks and other things when people aren’t polluting the blog with their intractable issues.
Anyway, just wanted to say Thanks. You did the right thing.
As for the team, I’m pretty much with Noble on this. I doubt Leon is considering blowing it up, but we have enough pieces as is; from here, it’s on the coach to make it work. Admittedly more challenging than OKC or Boston, who have two-way players in key spots that we lack, but I do think it’s possible. Knock on wood, we’re fundamentally healthy going into the playoffs, so we should get a real picture of what’s possible.
I’d be looking to convert Mikal into something more useful. He’s not really much of a needle-moving player for us. Just sort of a guy. He has been defiantly mediocre for a couple of years now, and doesn’t seem like a great fit culture-wise either.
The five 1RPs are a sunk cost and you’re not getting that kind of value back, but I wouldn’t miss him terribly if he got traded for something of value.
I’m thinking that Cohen overpaid for Soto, but in the way that one overpays to own a Picasso or Monet….when you’re that rich, all that matters is that you have it. That’s what it took to outbid the Yankees. So be it.
There will be other Guerrero’s out there. Maybe even Vlad Jr. himself, if things go sideways in Toronto.
My hope for Mikal is that he still has some juice to squeeze and will put on 10lbs of muscle in the offseason and work on his game to a) go to the basket more and get to the line more, and b) get over screens more effectively.
The midrange game is for real, and despite the decline in that shot league-wide, most of the great offensive players excel in that zone. But it seems like the great ones use the threat that shot to draw fouls and get to the rim. Mikal seems to never, ever do that.
He also is being used exclusively as a POA defender, which is sort of new to him. Maybe that will be a focus this offseason.
I’d ride with him another year unless an offer Leon can’t refuse comes up.
PS: I wonder whether he is to concerned about his Iron Man streak to risk getting injured by playing more balls-out.
Thanks for the Soto-Guerrero analysis, JK. I don’t follow baseball that closely anymore, so useful to see how folks view such things.
Honestly though, I was just gawking at the number. We’ve largely become socialized to these enormous sums, but something just struck me to the core when it said “$265 million less.” Like, nobody should ever make that much, much less have there be a difference that large between two stars. Even between a superstar and a scrub.
Now I have to come to terms with being a commie. Thanks, The Athletic…
As usual, JK47 spot on with the baseball analysis. Nothing to add.
Well, other than that Soto is incredibly young and extraordinarily gifted. They are both 26. Soto is a much better hitter and has been for a long time.
Rama, thank you for those thoughts.
That Vlad Jr contract is going to age horrendously. Long term contracts to 1B have been disasters and while he’s still only 26yo he’s already an awful base runner and defensive 1B.
Another way to look at it is that at the same age, Soto has a career 158 wRC+ to Guerrero’s 137. Soto’s worst season in the big leagues was his sophomore year, when he had a 143 wRC+.
Soto’s worst season wRC+ is better than Guerrero’s career average.
I missed the news from a couple days ago and was wondering why the blog seemed so much readable and lively. Sometimes a poster needs banning, just as I did once upon a time.
I’ve kind of stepped back from the Knicks with Brunson out, but recent events have me intrigued again. It seems like we might be on a trajectory to be at our best or close to it in April, which hasn’t happened since probably 1999. We’re categorically different from the December Knicks, which dominated a lot of weak opposition but lacked substance on the defensive end. Mitch and Wright move the needle on that in a big way — we have the ability to put lineups out that are elite offensively or defensively now, if not both at the same time. We can field a strong defender or plus offensive player at any given position as matchups dictate, even if Thibs will probably be a day late and a buck short on adjustments.
Our peak may be a puncher’s chance, but it feels like that puncher’s chance is live. If we’re ever going to be competitive against Boston, tomorrow’s game is a great chance to show that. A win would IMO because for some real hope.
I thought going into the 2013 playoffs the Knicks were primed to take a real shot at Miami in the Conference Finals. Unfortunately not finishing the sweep by blowing Game 4 in Boston was the beginning of the end.
Weird. I thought the same thing at the time, Had to shut up about it in the subsequent years…feels the same way now but a multi year window. If we get past Detroit quickly without injuries, – we have a similar shot at Boston.
Boston lives and dies by the three. Will light up ~2 games by hitting 20+ threes and blow us out the gym. They just need to be off one of the first two games and this will be a legit series. I have tickets to home game 3 where I’m hoping to close them out & shock the world.
Hopefully Doogie is lurking and is seeing the comments about how most here feel that the ban was justified and that the quality of dialog has markedly improved without his incessant bit gumming up the works.
Yeah not sweeping Boston fucked us in those playoffs. JR’s elbow to Terry blew our whole playoffs. We sweep Boston, Melo doesn’t get his shoulder dislocated by Garnett and isn’t compromised against The Pacers. The team gets more time off to rest and prepare for The Pacers. I believe the difference between sweeping Boston and going to 6 games was almost an entire week of rest and practice vs. one day turn around before game 1. If I remember correctly, Chandler was also nursing an injury and probably could have used the time off. Heck, maybe Kidd plays a little better with that time off.
I ultimately think Miami would have still beaten us but it would have been nice to have a shot.
More than anything, going into these playoffs fully healthy (knock on wood) is going to be so good for Leon to REALLY evaluate what the team has and needs to take the next step. That is all we can ask for.
Yeah, if Knicks hadn’t blown Game 4 in OT they would’ve had 6 days off. Hell just finish the job at home in Game 5 and they would’ve had an extra couple of days compared to Indiana who also went to Game 6 but were the much younger team.
Tyson Chandler even talked about this in a podcast, said since Game 6 finished late Friday night and Game 1 was Sunday afternoon they didn’t even have a walk-through to prepare for Indiana.
1. OG 20pt Game Streak
They said the other day that OG was on the longest 20pt streak of his career, and that was 2-3 games ago. Maybe that’s just opportunity—Toronto has always had a bunch of second tier scorers—but that would seem to indicate some improvement.
2. Recent Drtg
More importantly, our Drtg in Brunson’s absence is 111, which is good for 5th. The competition hasn’t been top notch, but there was a point in the season when we couldn’t stop anyone. Hopefully that doesn’t disappear with Brunson back.
3. Mikal’s Trade Value
And maybe Mikal wasn’t worth the five 1sts we gave up for him, as I immediately said he wouldn’t… but he is leading us in on/off with a healthy +7.4. At some point in the season I discovered he was an RAPM all-star prior to his Brooklyn stint, so perhaps I was wrong. Of course, his actual 3yr RAPM is terrible right now, but I’m attributing that to his time in Brooklyn for now.
All true about 2013 but we also were handicapped with a coach who didn’t understand why we were good – or to put it more charitably, didn’t trust it. Of he her made the right adjustments, we would have got through the second round. But as said, it probably wouldn’t have mattered in the end.
This is the first team since the suspension year that I genuinely feel has a puncher’s chance. How likely we are to land that punch comes down to coaching. Which does not leave me totally confident, alas.
Claw 1.0?
A shocking amount of our success that season was due to Jason Kidd playing like a borderline all-star (3.3 BPM!) at the age of 39. He fell off hard as the season wore on and was unplayable by the playoffs.
We still could have done better if Woodson didn’t play a braindead lineup against the Pacers, benching Chris Copeland and letting Roy Hibbert play like a DPoY against us when he was destined to be paced and spaced out of the league within the next year or two. But alas, the East was big, man.
Spot on but I think coaching weighs ~15% of the delta…rebounding will matter too but majority will depend if Boston makes or misses their timely threes.
3-point variance is definitely a factor, but a flexible coach could counter with certain lineups. Not sure Thibs has that in him.
E.g. with Deuce instead of Mikal at point of attack
Suspensions year: best player of his generation in his prime + great teammates = not losing to the Knicks whether they eke past the hustle bunny Heat or not.
Hibbert is bIg year: best player of his generation in his prime + great teammates = not losing to the Knicks whether they eke past the 7’2” scrub or not.
Thibs played OG into the ground year: path is kinda open, until you get out west. Go for it.
We played really well against the Heat in 13 if the wheels hadn’t fallen off Kidd and we had better injury luck I think we could have given that team a lot of problems and then the spurs would have fucked us up. But we’ll never know.
Of course. Makes perfect sense in any series these days and especially with a high volume 3 FGA team like Boston.
They will likely shoot 45 3s a game against us. If they make 13 or 20 will be the difference. Spo’s team got hot 2 years ago and shot their way to the NBA finals. If they get hot we have no shot.
I’m still where I’ve been all along.
I love OG and Bridges and want to keep them. I like Hart (love/hate), Deuce, Mitch, Kolek and Wright. I’m OK with Payne and Shamet. Precious is fine if he’s 3rd string. I want to see more of Huk, Dadiet, McCullar.
However, I still have defensive concerns about the combo of Towns and Brunson.
We haven’t seen enough of the Towns/Mitch combo to know if that will work with Brunson. What Mitch has done so far is upgrade the defense for the minutes he’s on the court relative to what it was when we had Precious or Sims out there at C.
Other than Mitch/Towns/Brunson working, I still think we should at least consider trying to trade for a unicorn PF we can put next to Towns to solidify the interior defense and rebounding. If we can’t find that unicorn, I think one of Towns or Brunson may have to go and it’s very unlikely to be Brunson.
And who would this unicorn be? I’d certainly “consider trying to trade for” him, but my impression is that unicorns don’t grow on trees…
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