LivingLegend wrote:

shinmen wrote:I cannot imagine how proud Rick Brunson must be of seeing his son becoming a Knicks legend in front of his eyes.

Agreed but what I reallly love is when Deuce hit big 3 and Rick flew off the bench pumping his fist for Deuce.

I think Rick is low-key adding toughness to this squad.

Rick is also the one guy who can truly talk to Brunson in a way no one else in the world can. Literally. And when his son is not heading in the right direction, he can pull him aside and TALK.

martin wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

martin wrote:

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://www.twitter.com/thestrickland/status/1784675432459055547

I-Hart has been great all year but stinky past few games.

With Precious, OG, Josh, Deuce we have 4 outstanding defenders on a string and moving feet bodies with Jalen lurking to draw charges.

Thibs to Jalen: "Do SOMETHING anything on D and that'll be AOK with me"

haha maybe I'm wrong and he is a defensive genius

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://www.twitter.com/KnicksMuse/status/1784944331435934035

SergioNYK wrote:I am still in shock over that game by Brunson! Highest scoring playoff game by a player in NYK history! We are so blessed! Think about how much and how long we waited for that PG and I honestly never in my wildest dreams expected him to be this good! The play that will stand out for me is the one on one iso on Embiid. Was such a momentum changer!

Such a blessing when Hartenstein got those 5 dumb fouls on Embiid in the 3rd and Thibs was forced to go with OGA on Embiid. OGA shut him down! Embiid didn't even hit a shot in the 4th! Just elite fronting defense, ball denial and physical play without fouling! Embiid was so shook! Props to Precious too! He was outstanding! Loved that block on Embiid's 3!

Only Josh Hart can have such a big game without hitting a single shot. He took the hearts out of the Sixers with his rebounding in the 4th! He's very Rodman like in that sense. Deuce hit some timely shots too!

Fingers crossed Mitch and Bogey can go tomorrow or soon. We have to take care of business and send these crybabies on vacation after tomorrow. We will.

I would strongly consider keeping Mitch out. Precious brought a look that Philly really struggled with. Not only did him and OG play terrific tandem defense but nobody has contested Maxey's drives as good as Precious yesterday. That extra foot speed made a world of difference in that Maxey help defense.

martin wrote:

technomaster wrote:This is a seriously deep Knicks team. It's like a player is forced to leave the game due to foul trouble or injury, and the Knicks just get even better. That's gotta piss off the Sixers.

Our two 7 ft centers were out of the game against a taller team with their MVP-level center - no prob, we proceed to out-hustle and out-rebound them the rest of the way.

The brand of defense this team plays is really different from the Patrick Ewing Knicks - those Knicks dominated with size, muscle, and toughness. These Knicks are so quick - we're a little undersized but we have tough guys that play larger than their heights.

Modern 90’s defense.

Knicks did it, and Brunson isn’t a weak link IMHO, not stout but not weak link either.

And it’ll be even badder next year

it's gonna be an interesting offseason. Starting to think we lose IHart. It's gonna take his wife saying "Im not going to OKC" to stop it cause I think they offer him a good bag and my god he would be a crazy good fit.

So for us I think it's something like Mitch/Precious and we make a move for someone. I like Naz Reid. He's 24 and could be a great fit under Thibs as a 3&D big with some other skills. Minn is going to be an apron team so something Burk's expiring (can we still do that around the draft?) and say pick 25 and 36 (we keep and draft someone w/ 24)

Wow... our squad
Brunson/DD/OG/Jules/Mitch
bench: McBride/Josh/Bojan/Precious/Reid
end of bench: Rokas? Drafted player at 24, Jericho under contract at $2mm ish

That's looking really phucking nasty

fishmike wrote:

martin wrote:

technomaster wrote:This is a seriously deep Knicks team. It's like a player is forced to leave the game due to foul trouble or injury, and the Knicks just get even better. That's gotta piss off the Sixers.

Our two 7 ft centers were out of the game against a taller team with their MVP-level center - no prob, we proceed to out-hustle and out-rebound them the rest of the way.

The brand of defense this team plays is really different from the Patrick Ewing Knicks - those Knicks dominated with size, muscle, and toughness. These Knicks are so quick - we're a little undersized but we have tough guys that play larger than their heights.

Modern 90’s defense.

Knicks did it, and Brunson isn’t a weak link IMHO, not stout but not weak link either.

And it’ll be even badder next year

Brunson has been a huge positive surprise on defense. I think he's good. Has some obvious limitations but a legit asset. Makes tons of plays, is very strong and physical, plays his role perfectly on switches and challenging jumpers. Legit part of an elite team defense.

it's gonna be an interesting offseason. Starting to think we lose IHart. It's gonna take his wife saying "Im not going to OKC" to stop it cause I think they offer him a good bag and my god he would be a crazy good fit.

So for us I think it's something like Mitch/Precious and we make a move for someone. I like Naz Reid. He's 24 and could be a great fit under Thibs as a 3&D big with some other skills. Minn is going to be an apron team so something Burk's expiring (can we still do that around the draft?) and say pick 25 and 36 (we keep and draft someone w/ 24)

Wow... our squad
Brunson/DD/OG/Jules/Mitch
bench: McBride/Josh/Bojan/Precious/Reid
end of bench: Rokas? Drafted player at 24, Jericho under contract at $2mm ish

That's looking really phucking nasty

The odds of losing iHart are extremely slim IMO. Mitch and his non stop injuries cannot be relied upon, Knicks will make iHart top priority. I think our odds of keeping Mitch/iHart tandem together are high, given Mitch's injuries he probably has more of a willingness to come off the bench. I think both guys probably have come to the realization that they are 25mpg guys and not 35mpg guys. Both have stated that their platoon is the best tandem in the league. I think they want to keep it together. No one will trust Mitch to be full time C with his injuries. He needs to be part of a platoon.

DLeethal wrote:Also as much as DDV did not play a great game, but Knicks were down 70-63 deep in the 3rd and things were starting to look bleak. He blasted B2B 3s to make it a 1 point game. If both of those don't go down that game could take a much different direction. We've gotten those B2B 3s from somebody in every game pretty much, Deuce a few teams, Bogie, DDV. That was a critical juncture of the game.

Yes those were massive shots. Deuce did it in the first half.

Formula for the Knicks is usually Brunson for 30-40 and then someone else is making 3's - Donte has 4-5, Deuce has 4-5...someone else. Yesterday was a struggle as no one else could score. OG did a great job of attacking the basket and he has a pretty nice 12-15 foot shot.

Embiid is not rim protecting and the Sixers don't have any other interior defenders. We actually blew a lot of layups (not all of them easy) yesterday.

VDesai wrote:

DLeethal wrote:Also as much as DDV did not play a great game, but Knicks were down 70-63 deep in the 3rd and things were starting to look bleak. He blasted B2B 3s to make it a 1 point game. If both of those don't go down that game could take a much different direction. We've gotten those B2B 3s from somebody in every game pretty much, Deuce a few teams, Bogie, DDV. That was a critical juncture of the game.

Yes those were massive shots. Deuce did it in the first half.

Formula for the Knicks is usually Brunson for 30-40 and then someone else is making 3's - Donte has 4-5, Deuce has 4-5...someone else. Yesterday was a struggle as no one else could score. OG did a great job of attacking the basket and he has a pretty nice 12-15 foot shot.

Embiid is not rim protecting and the Sixers don't have any other interior defenders. We actually blew a lot of layups (not all of them easy) yesterday.

Basically every game we've fallen behind double digits and have gotten those 3 point barrages at different stages to get us back in the game. I'd like to see the starters hold serve better in the 1st and 3rd Q's and not have to rely on those types of role player heroics to get us back in the game.

DLeethal wrote:I think we most definitely give iHart the bag. No reason not to keep Mitch unless it's part of a bigger trade. Precious will be tough to convince to stay when he's clearly only part of rotation when Mitch is hurt. So the decision becomes whether you want a more reliable Precious or the best ORBer in the league in Mitch.

our defensive rotations are also just much faster with Precious. and we can switch easier, he's def a different look.

but Mitch is clearly not 100%, he's a beast otherwise.

I could see a scenario where we trade Mitch and keep Precious. but we dont have to do anything.

DLeethal wrote:But in this modern NBA it's such a "game of runs" style with big point swings in every game. I think we've gotten comfortable in this series making our pushes late and letting Philly blow their loads early. I've gotten comfortable as a fan, in this series in particular, watching this team dig an early hole knowing they will position themselves for the late run.

embiid wears down as the game goes on

nycericanguy wrote:

DLeethal wrote:I think we most definitely give iHart the bag. No reason not to keep Mitch unless it's part of a bigger trade. Precious will be tough to convince to stay when he's clearly only part of rotation when Mitch is hurt. So the decision becomes whether you want a more reliable Precious or the best ORBer in the league in Mitch.

our defensive rotations are also just much faster with Precious. and we can switch easier, he's def a different look.

but Mitch is clearly not 100%, he's a beast otherwise.

I could see a scenario where we trade Mitch and keep Precious. but we dont have to do anything.

Knicks have prioritized depth every year. Each year going in we argue about mins distro because of all the depth. I would not be shocked to see Knicks try hard to retain Precious for that reason alone. Just not sure Precious will be that interested. But going into this season they had DDV, Grimes, RJ, IQ, Deuce. They wanted the depth so they could make trades and also survive injuries. Obviously it paid dividends. So I could see them wanting to have iHart, Mitch, and Precious, and Sims all come back. You have to bank on Mitch getting hurt at this point. Precious might also be comfortable knowing that. He's gonna get his time throughout the year even as a 3rd big.