martin wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:This Mikal Bridges guy is starting to look like he belongs in the league --- seems like a pretty good player.

Loved how easy offense came for Jalen (at least early) -- love that we are continuing to find Mikal/OG for open and some easy buckets.

Kat is frustrating because clearly most skilled guy on court but he gets caught up in all kinds of little distracting stuff -- with 100% focus he'd probably be avg. 35/15 on 60/50/90 shooting . And he still goes for 25 and 13.

Can't stand Moritz Wagner -- always waiting for him to hurt our guys like Embid.

On the Precious.Mitch returns. Noted on a show I listened to earlier - that Knicks have made 2 mid-season BIG time trades past few years (Josh/OG). Keeps me wondering if we are scouring the league for specific talent we want to add to the roster. Still feels like bench needs creation/scoring.

He had me worried there with some of his play but man when he is going like that we really become hard to defend for a defense.

When Mikal is moving and knocking down fadeaways and movement 3's my vision blurs and he starts looking like KD.

Clean wrote:One thing I am noticing is you can't know a player well enough if they don't play for your team. I have seen KAT play plenty of times but I had no idea I would love having him this much more than Randle. He is not soft. He rebounds extremely well. He might be a better passer than iHart. He is super efficient. If his defensive issues are not as big as I was led to believe. He is not nearly as good on D as iHart but way better than advertised. I would take his D over Randles any day of the week.

I have been pleasantly surprised too, didn't know much about his game.

I think there are 2 areas where I think the Knicks are really concentrating on with KAT. Turnovers and setting picks, both traits that iHart REALLY improved on over his time with Knicks. The PnR when KAT sets a solid pick will be a game over thing when he is with Brunson. I think the TO thing might even just be not committing so many offensive fouls, they want him throwing the passes any time he sees an open man or cutter.

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https://www.twitter.com/DJAceNBA/status/1864320499146240355

And this game pretty much cemented us as an elite offensive team. Orlando came in with the best rated defense in pretty much every category and we shredded them. Magic only allows about 102 ppg and we had that at the end of the third! Most impressive to me was our response to their physicality. Especially KAT against Mo Wagner. KAT has been the farthest thing from soft since coming here. He is actually a very physical player! Like he welcomes it! Great trade by Leon! So wished that between the legs wrap around pass to Mikal dropped!

Mikal was great again. Loved his energy on defense and aggressiveness on offense. Great pass from Hart for that buzzer beating 3 to end the half. Hart with another triple double. Leads the league in FG% from '2' and is the only player at 6'4" which is crazy. Glad to see OG's 3pt shot back after missing everything last few games. Loved how Brunson attacked in the 3rd and didn't allow them to make a run.

Deuce and Payne off the bench has been such a blessing and luxury. Both come in and provide that energy you are looking for and they def speed up the pace.

Great win! I honestly don't care much for that cup but it's competition so let's just get it!

Clean wrote:One thing I am noticing is you can't know a player well enough if they don't play for your team. I have seen KAT play plenty of times but I had no idea I would love having him this much more than Randle. He is not soft. He rebounds extremely well. He might be a better passer than iHart. He is super efficient. If his defensive issues are not as big as I was led to believe. He is not nearly as good on D as iHart but way better than advertised. I would take his D over Randles any day of the week.

Yes on all of this - SO TALENTED and he is typically in the right spots on D, making the right adjustments. Sometimes he loses focus I think because he gets bored BUT we've seen zero issues with just not giving effort or sulking pointed at teammates.

Biggest thing is super high efficiency with super quick decision making and he rarely misses the open guy - again SO TALENTED.

Clean wrote:

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Thibs is kind of genius for this move. Look at the 42 second mark of the video the whole paint is empty and it allows for Brunson to cut with no one to stop him. Thibs having Hart handle the ball more makes the defenders play up on him more when teams usually have their bigs play on Hart so they can play back and clog the paint. This has also done wonders for his ast numbers. Thibs is not known for his adjustments but I really like this one since he really wants to stick with this starting lineup. So he developed a counter to centers playing on Hart.

Spot. On.

I had been thinking that Hart would be better off bench and I'll Ix-nay that one, he has been the perfect compliment to the starting lineup, especially if some of the offense flows thru him. Mini-me iHart of sorts with the passing, rebounding, defense, and such.

Clean wrote:

Clean wrote:

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://www.twitter.com/nyknicks/status/1864147319156797825

Thibs is kind of genius for this move. Look at the 42 second mark of the video the whole paint is empty and it allows for Brunson to cut with no one to stop him. Thibs having Hart handle the ball more makes the defenders play up on him more when teams usually have their bigs play on Hart so they can play back and clog the paint. This has also done wonders for his ast numbers. Thibs is not known for his adjustments but I really like this one since he really wants to stick with this starting lineup. So he developed a counter to centers playing on Hart.

OK, now that I am more awake I took a pic of it. Bro! look how open that paint is!

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Clive! With Norm from Cheers entrance vibes

martin wrote:

Clean wrote:One thing I am noticing is you can't know a player well enough if they don't play for your team. I have seen KAT play plenty of times but I had no idea I would love having him this much more than Randle. He is not soft. He rebounds extremely well. He might be a better passer than iHart. He is super efficient. If his defensive issues are not as big as I was led to believe. He is not nearly as good on D as iHart but way better than advertised. I would take his D over Randles any day of the week.

I have been pleasantly surprised too, didn't know much about his game.

I think there are 2 areas where I think the Knicks are really concentrating on with KAT. Turnovers and setting picks, both traits that iHart REALLY improved on over his time with Knicks. The PnR when KAT sets a solid pick will be a game over thing when he is with Brunson. I think the TO thing might even just be not committing so many offensive fouls, they want him throwing the passes any time he sees an open man or cutter.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://www.twitter.com/DJAceNBA/status/1864320499146240355

I think half of his offensive fouls are for shielding off on his drives when he doesn't need to -- also think refs allow a ton of contact on Kat where other guys get a finger touch and whistle blows.

Clean wrote:One thing I am noticing is you can't know a player well enough if they don't play for your team. I have seen KAT play plenty of times but I had no idea I would love having him this much more than Randle. He is not soft. He rebounds extremely well. He might be a better passer than iHart. He is super efficient. If his defensive issues are not as big as I was led to believe. He is not nearly as good on D as iHart but way better than advertised. I would take his D over Randles any day of the week.

Second this! I was terrified we were getting Dominican Bargnani but KAT has put all those soft talks to rest. He is def not soft! You can't rebound like he does and play that physically in the paint if you are soft. KAT has been way better than I ever expected.

LivingLegend wrote:

fishmike wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:This Mikal Bridges guy is starting to look like he belongs in the league --- seems like a pretty good player.

Loved how easy offense came for Jalen (at least early) -- love that we are continuing to find Mikal/OG for open and some easy buckets.

Kat is frustrating because clearly most skilled guy on court but he gets caught up in all kinds of little distracting stuff -- with 100% focus he'd probably be avg. 35/15 on 60/50/90 shooting . And he still goes for 25 and 13.

Can't stand Moritz Wagner -- always waiting for him to hurt our guys like Embid.

On the Precious.Mitch returns. Noted on a show I listened to earlier - that Knicks have made 2 mid-season BIG time trades past few years (Josh/OG). Keeps me wondering if we are scouring the league for specific talent we want to add to the roster. Still feels like bench needs creation/scoring.

I honestly think it's already here and they are happy with it.
1) Establish new starting line up (going well being #1 in the league)
2) Get quality help so we can start reducing winter minutes. I think that comes in Precious/Shamat/Mitch

I like how things are panning out. Precious will cut into OG's minutes and that's important. If we can go into the playoffs with healthy OG/KAT backed up by Precious/Mitch I think we are in great shape to compete for a chip.

We are thin at PG. After Brunson/Payne it's McBride (really a SG) and he's got tendinitis in his knee

Tyler needs time

You may be right but I still think we need 1 more legit veteran that can add multiple things - if we have championship goals we'll have to get thru Uber talented teams like Celtics, Cavs, Mavs, OKC...etc. Particularly would like 1 more LEGIT defender to throw at other teams especially if an OG is injured or in foul trouble....someone that can step in and compete at a high level.

I may be wrong -- lets see -- but I'll be keeping my ears open for potential rumors.

NOTE: He didn't score last night and he ended up a -13 but I watched all of Marcus Smarts minutes last night vs Dallas. He played outstanding D on both Luka/Kyrie -- while guarded by Smart a few times Luka just moved off the ball because Smart was sitting in his shorts. Also showed nice passing --- he's an example of another vet we could bring in and someone we could throw defensively at guys like Tatum/Brown/White/Holiday/Garland/Mitchell etc. Not a perfect player but a playoff gamer that defends like an animal.

I'm of the opinion that the Knicks have one more move to go. Maybe it doesn't happen until off season, but it'll happen IMHO. It's why I'm a dead ass broken record on Herb Jones.