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martin
Posts: 74863 Alba Posts: 108 Joined: 7/24/2001 Member: #2 USA |
1/4/2025 1:11 PM
Knicksfan wrote:I’m so tired of this narrative that you have to wait until you have all stars on the bench too for it to be useful. FTS. That’s not what the current great teams are doing. They have actually been progressively playing decent players, mixing and matching with their current stars as they keep them both in rhythm and contributing. This idea that we have to keep the trading carousel going until you hit the jackpot for the bench is really misguided. At a macro level, how do you develop the Knicks bench? The key guys are Deuce, Mitch, Precious, Shamet, Payne, Sims. After that, it’s rookies: Kolek, Huk, Dadiet. I don’t think the initial bolded is an accurate detail of what’s going on. The second bolded regarding Deuce if flat wrong, he has gotten a very consistent 25 minutes a night when healthy. I think that playing all the starters 40 minutes is stupid. I also think that playing your bench minutes when they are sucking is also stupid. Gameflow: https://popcornmachine.net/gf?date=20250103&game=NYKOKC The Knicks were up like 13 midway through 3rd, and that’s when the bench substitutions start. It was the Brunson, Mikal, Precious, Payne, Shamet minutes that lost the lead from mid 3rd to early fourth, and then it was a free fall after that. I guess you could bring back in those guys that lost you lead or staggered them even more later in the 4th and hope they don’t **** up again? Love it or hate it, the rookies are on a development program. Folks just don’t love it cause maybe they can’t kinda sorta see them play and be involved? Are you a win at any cost fan or do you believe in developing the young kids at the expense of losing games like OKC? Seems like the Knicks have an old school way of doing their dev thing. You think they should change it up against a team like OKC and the like? That would be beneficial to the young guys or just the watching audience? After that, the Knicks best bench players have missed a ton of time. Mitch, Deuce, Precious, Shamet. I think we can agree on that? It’s hard to develop the bench when they not around. The ball movement does not flow with Payne on the floor for whatever reason, he is kinda slow to react or a bit sticky or looks for his own. Brunson ****ed up the second half and hunted for his own and failed. We’ll keep falling behind the crop of the league if we keep having this limited mindset regarding the bench. No, you develop it just as OKC, Boston, Cleveland and Memphis have. The Knicks have recently developed iHart, IQ, Deuce off their bench. Official sponsor of the PURE KNICKS LOVE Program
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martin
Posts: 74863 Alba Posts: 108 Joined: 7/24/2001 Member: #2 USA |
1/4/2025 1:18 PM
Not good
Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL: Official sponsor of the PURE KNICKS LOVE Program
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martin
Posts: 74863 Alba Posts: 108 Joined: 7/24/2001 Member: #2 USA |
1/4/2025 1:24 PM
Nice article
Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL: Edwards: Knicks can’t grab signature win vs. Thunder but are heading in right direction OKLAHOMA CITY — This wasn’t the Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards, Utah Jazz or other bottom-feeder team the New York Knicks have faced in recent weeks. This wasn’t the blah Minnesota Timberwolves or OK San Antonio Spurs, either. This wasn’t the mangled Orlando Magic. The New York Knicks’ opponent Friday night, with a nine-game win streak on the line, was one of the NBA’s best. A Knicks-Oklahoma City Thunder early-January matchup was as important of a regular-season game as you’ll find in the dim days of the NBA calendar. No one wanted to acknowledge that, but it was. New York needed to prove its lengthy win streak, most of which came against teams that have the worst offenses in basketball, was more than just a really good team playing bully to some really bad ones. The Knicks, who were 0-3 against the top three seeds in either conference going into the game, needed a signature win. New York didn’t get that, losing 117-107 to the ultra-impressive Thunder, who played the night before. However, the Knicks showed they can play with any team in basketball. A month ago, I didn’t believe that. New York didn’t lose this game because it wasn’t as talented. It spent much of the night displaying the greatness of one of the best starting units in the game. The Knicks didn’t lose because they were out-coached. Tom Thibodeau and his staff did a good job of creating a game plan to contain the likes of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, just like Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault did a good job of trying to make life difficult for Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. The turnovers were nearly identical on both sides. So were the rebounds. The free-throw attempts weren’t far off. This was a slugfest between a great team and a really good team that was decided in the game’s trenches. “There were two or three scramble plays where they got the loose ball and it converted into 3s,” Thibodeau said about what he thought was the difference. “The last part of the defense has to be the strongest. That was probably the biggest thing. It was a hard-fought game, and in the end, it’s getting the loose balls and making effort plays.” Thibodeau has talked ad nauseam about daily improvements, a cliche yet reasonable objective for a team that underwent such a huge makeover this offseason and has title aspirations. And it is possible to show that progress without winning. You don’t have to win a measuring-stick game to inch closer to where you have to go. For the first 42 minutes, the Knicks were as good as or better than the Thunder. The Knicks’ second quarter was as good of a stretch as they’ve put together all season, and that’s saying something for one of the league’s best offenses. Those elite 3-and-D wings — OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges — the team spent the past year acquiring were everything New York expects and more. By halftime, with the Knicks leading by 12, Anunoby and Bridges combined to go 13-for-21 from the floor for 34 points. The duo along with Josh Hart stifled the Thunder, holding them to 8-of-21 shooting in the second quarter. Few teams have done that to Oklahoma City this season. The Knicks offense can be as scary as it gets. Anyone can get you at any time. At halftime, every starter except Towns had double-digit points, and he went into the locker room with 8 points and 13 rebounds. Nothing to sneeze at. Bridges was brought here to make shots and slow the NBA’s best guards. There’s no stopping someone like Gilgeous-Alexander, but Bridges did as good as anyone this season at making life difficult. He was the primary defender on Gilgeous-Alexander and helped hold him to under 50 percent shooting. The Oklahoma City star has done that only five times since Nov. 27. The early-season concerns about Bridges are so far in the past that I shouldn’t have even brought them up. “Whoever we’re playing, whoever I’m guarding, I just watch their film,” Bridges said. “I think Shai, guys like that, who I’ve played against multiple times in the West, going against multiple times, have more reps guarding him. Shai is really good.” In the third quarter, the Knicks did what the great teams do: take a jab and uppercut back. The NBA is a game of runs, and New York gave the Thunder a boost by turning the ball over four times within the first few minutes of the second half. Yet, the Knicks still led by double digits with just over three minutes to play in the third quarter. Ultimately, New York lost because of the loose balls, timely second-chance points by the Thunder and great players like Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams being able to muster up just enough late in the game to help their team see it through. Oklahoma City flashed all of the characteristics of a team with continuity and added a player in Isaiah Hartenstein who, as Knicks fans know, can fit on any team. You could point to Oklahoma City’s bench production versus that of the Knicks, who were without Miles McBride, I guess. The Thunder’s bench outscored the Knicks’ 44-5. But if there was a game to play your best players big minutes in, this was it. Unleashing the second unit wasn’t going to change the trajectory, especially with McBride out. I had no issue with Thibodeau playing all of his starters 40-plus minutes in regulation, something that hasn’t happened in New York since 2013 and last happened a year ago when the Golden State Warriors did it. The players didn’t, either. As far as regular-season games go, it rarely gets bigger than this. “At the end of the day, the fourth quarter is the time for you to go out there and win the game,” Hart said. “At that point, it’s just competitiveness and adrenaline pushing you through. I’ve always said that I want to be out there as much as I can. So at that point, we just have to make sure we execute.” Defensively, New York did enough for 40 minutes. That wasn’t always the case earlier in the season. Offensively, it had an uncharacteristically bad 3-point shooting night (9-for-32) and still nearly took down the Western Conference’s top seed. Only one team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, shoots the deep ball with more accuracy than the Knicks this season. From a national perspective, a victory over the Thunder would have validated a nine-game win streak against weaker foes. It would have shifted the narrative to include New York among the league’s elite. The Knicks aren’t quite there yet, but Friday showed they’re closer than they once were. And at the end of the day, as it pertains to basketball in January, that’s what matters. The Knicks are going in the right direction. Official sponsor of the PURE KNICKS LOVE Program
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Knicksfan
Posts: 33336 Alba Posts: 27 Joined: 7/5/2004 Member: #691 USA |
1/4/2025 4:33 PM
martin wrote:Knicksfan wrote:I’m so tired of this narrative that you have to wait until you have all stars on the bench too for it to be useful. FTS. That’s not what the current great teams are doing. They have actually been progressively playing decent players, mixing and matching with their current stars as they keep them both in rhythm and contributing. This idea that we have to keep the trading carousel going until you hit the jackpot for the bench is really misguided. First of all, what I'm talking about here isn't rocket science: make better player pairings in certain spots during the game where you can take more advantage of the guys on the bench. Not saying play the whole bench for longer minutes, but combining them with some starters for stability while some starters can rest. It's basic yet not how we mostly operate. Talk about how teams like the four I mentioned use their bench and their rotations. Developing a bench means finding lineups where you can significantly use a bench player long enough to rest a key starter. The initial bolded is in reference to the believe here that we don't have anything of value to actually relief starters of some of their minutes and we need trades to get there. You are entitled to your opinion, but when you see the level of talent that is performing in some of the elite teams you really have to wonder why do we have to rely so much on our starters playing heavy minutes. Anyone wants better talent on their bench, but sometimes you get that by developing, case in point Deuce. The second bolded regarding Deuce is flat out wrong if you fail to understand that I'm just alluding to the recent fact that he has been injured in the last few games and that has disrupted our bench. No idea how that can be a point of contention other than you misunderstanding. He definitely has been getting healthy minutes but probably this injury problems have limited some of the impact we expected from him before the season started. Your third point, again, call it however you'd like, it doesn't change the fact that very often you have our starters playing close to or past the 40mins mark. Just check the boxscores. Three of the top 10 leaders in minutes in the whole association are in NYK and that doesn't happen out of nowhere. Stupid? Good argument. And playing your bench minutes when they are sucking is also stupid. Ok, I'm glad you aren't the coach because that should be a reason to make adjustments and not just have a simplistic view like that one. That mentality for the bench of one mistake and you are out leads to what? Overuse of the starting lineup. And Im talking about the whole season. I think my posts regarding this subject have been general enough to not be taken as a simple response to last night's game. We had diverse problems that many here have correctly pointed out. But my points are regarding a huge concern that I have, that is definitely not new, but when facing a great opponent like OKC it definitely pops up and reminds you of past defeats against the elite teams. And the fact that all of those teams seem to be thriving at doing what I'm mentioning just highlights the issue. It's kinda funny that an example of this can actually be traced back to the first month of the season. Our best backup big was Sims. He was needed, and while we can all agree that he made mistakes and had issues, he mostly outperformed anyone's expectations providing solid defense and rebounding. Now he's vanished, not even a brief stint until he is taken out after making a mistake. At least back then it was good the commitment to using him even if his leash was ultra short. The thing is that this is a long season and while some matchups will need more time from the starting lineup, many times you will have the chance to play people through their mistakes as they adapt into the gameplan. We did that with our starters, but not extending this to other pieces of the bench is shortsighted. We are dead last in bench minutes average at 11.9. This is crazy for bench usage especially when many of our starters have had injury issues before. The second worst? Sacramento at 14.3 while the rest of thr league is between 14.5 and 21.7. The Knicks have been up by a lot in many games and the starters have remained there. The chances to use more of the bench have been there. This isn't about OKC, its about the whole season so far. We are already seeing signs of health issues from our starters. Knicks_Fan
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DLeethal
Posts: 22093 Alba Posts: 0 Joined: 7/19/2023 Member: #9126 |
1/5/2025 6:07 PM
OKC just held Boston to 27 points in the entire second half today
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