Chandler wrote:IMO the issue is not D White. The celts have several guys who could just as easily hit walk up 3s or kick outs

We need to decide how to play pnr and dribble penetration

And we need To win the battle of the boards.

Also we need to punish their week defenders. They have them

To be it's all about containing Brown. He shoots the 3 worse than Josh does. Keep him in front of you and take away the drive and dish. If he hit's his 3s so be it. Make the other guys beat you.

Chandler wrote:IMO the issue is not D White. The celts have several guys who could just as easily hit walk up 3s or kick outs

We need to decide how to play pnr and dribble penetration

And we need To win the battle of the boards.

Also we need to punish their week defenders. They have them

fishmike wrote:

Chandler wrote:IMO the issue is not D White. The celts have several guys who could just as easily hit walk up 3s or kick outs

We need to decide how to play pnr and dribble penetration

And we need To win the battle of the boards.

Also we need to punish their week defenders. They have them

Who are their weak defenders? I thought KAT had stretches when he scored at will on Tatum or DWhite but those guys are still a pain. It's like McBride guarding bigs.

To be it's all about containing Brown. He shoots the 3 worse than Josh does. Keep him in front of you and take away the drive and dish. If he hit's his 3s so be it. Make the other guys beat you.

hauser, Pritchard isn't great. Horford is vulnerable.

they're busy hunting for switches on us; let's give them a taste of their own medicine.

VDesai wrote:We need to play Mitchell Robinson as much as he can tolerate. We're like +26 with him out there and -62 without him...over 5 games that means something. He is the key to the defense and by being an offensive rebounder makes a huge difference on that end as well.

Knicks also need to remember how to finish at the rim!

I agree he's key but so are Hart, Mikal and OG. And I don't want to sacrifice KAT (who is due).

We should not be afraid to use Mitch though. I'd be happier if we could throw him some lobs or otherwise use him on offense, because otherwise, it's like last year. We play 4 on 5 on offense and wonder why we lose.

We SHOULD WIN the battle of the boards, and we will want/need those extra possessions. SO Mitch needs to come in with some attitude that he will get every damn rebound

fishmike wrote:

Chandler wrote:

fishmike wrote:

Chandler wrote:IMO the issue is not D White. The celts have several guys who could just as easily hit walk up 3s or kick outs

We need to decide how to play pnr and dribble penetration

And we need To win the battle of the boards.

Also we need to punish their week defenders. They have them

Who are their weak defenders? I thought KAT had stretches when he scored at will on Tatum or DWhite but those guys are still a pain. It's like McBride guarding bigs.

To be it's all about containing Brown. He shoots the 3 worse than Josh does. Keep him in front of you and take away the drive and dish. If he hit's his 3s so be it. Make the other guys beat you.

hauser, Pritchard isn't great. Horford is vulnerable.

they're busy hunting for switches on us; let's give them a taste of their own medicine.

agree... we have seen some of that but maybe not enough.

I do feel like Boston did it to a fault. Biggest reason we won first two was Brunson/KAT did a good job challenging the shooter and Boston seemed happy to chuck any 3 if those guys were on you.

I mean seriously.... Hauser Pritchard and Kornet would probably not be in the league if not for the Celtics. they find a way to play to their strengths And we need to find a way to exploit their weaknesses.

DLeethal or Living Legend or VDesai or Ewing Glass or someone else who knows this **** needs to develop a plan, but we can't let their one-dimensional players get a free pass on the defensive end, because Brunson wants to go one-on-one against whoever is on him -- even if it's Brown or Holiday or White (all solid defenders)

KAT, OG and Mikal need to bounce back and play well and I believe they all will! Also believe in Thibs and you won't see White wide open for 7 threes or allow Kornet to surprise us. I have a lot of respect for Boston and it's not going to be easy. They are a proud defending champion and they will not lay down. We need to earn it!

And we will.

Chandler wrote:

martin wrote:I think I agree with the below. Communication between PnR defenders and then how well Jalen/KAT and others maneuver will be key.

Chandler wrote:IMO the issue is not D White. The celts have several guys who could just as easily hit walk up 3s or kick outs

We need to decide how to play pnr and dribble penetration

And we need To win the battle of the boards.

Also we need to punish their week defenders. They have them

Issue is D.White did not create his shots. He worked within their system. For whatever reason we let him have a lot of walk up threes. And J.Brown did a lot of penetration and sickouts. Sometimes the initial recipient would shoot but other times they'd flip it around and guys were getting open looks.

I'm not the basketball genius, so what I'm saying may be stupid. But if I were in charge, I'd try and keep OG or Mikal on Brown and tell the other guys to stay disciplined on their guys. Don't all collapse in the paint at the first sign of penetration. And don't allow those ****ing walking up threes. they have several guys who can shoot 2 feet behind the line. You need to get up on them

White got to the line 11 times and had 34 points. I get your point and don't disagree, but nobody else besides Brown can put up 34 points and get to the line at that frequency. We need to contain him and then their offense is severely limited behind Brown. They don't have that many guys who can score left.

DLeethal wrote:I think maybe even more than PnR issues is transition issues. We weren't scoring well and Boston was hitting the break and our ability to match up in those situations is abysmal. Also, half the time they are running 5 on 4 because Josh, KAT or Brunson hit the ground after missing a shot attempt. It's all interrelated and we need to be sharper everywhere. But sometimes I feel like you need to just focus on not letting one guy beat you and IMO tonight is that kind of night with Derrick White.

and the other half they hand behind arguing with the ref.

solution: hit those damn shots

fishmike wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

fishmike wrote:We play very well after a loss. I expect Thibs to have the crew fired up and hopefully we get off to a good start. Im very optimistic.

Really hard to expect anything specific from this group -- we've seen them in clutch situations completely not show and we've been down 20 in every game of this series. How does a solid team and having won 3 games already in this series play so sloppily to fall behind +20 in every game. So Jekyll and Hyde it is laughable. We just got slaughtered by a Celtics team without Tatum & basically KP.

Celtics..

- 10-2 without Tatum this year (including Wed blowout)
- 9-2 in elimination games past 4 years
- over last 25 years Celtics are 38-17 (69% winning) when playing at the garden
- the 69% win percentage is higher than the Celtics winning % on their own home court (65%) of same 25 years

Knicks....

- I'm sure Kat will be hacking
- Josh will be lost on every rotation
- Jalen will be getting posted and go to the locker room injured 3 times
- Mikal won't see the foul line AGAIN and will miss every layup in layup lines
- OG will coat his hands with 2 sticks of butter
- Mitch will go back to 0-6 FT shooting
- refs will screw us at every opportunity
- Thibs won't switch a single screen but will choose to drop and chase.

In saying all of the above -- my prediction is Knicks win tonight.

And I have ZERO CONFIDENCE in that prediction.

and yet defending champs are down 3-2 after blowing leads and not making adjustments when the underdog team and maligned coach outplayed and outcoached them.

Do you think Thibs had ANYTHING do do with this or it's pure luck Knicks are 3-2? Pretty sure this fanbase honestly believes he just runs em out there and hopes for the best.

You may have missed some sarcasm in my post.

But I stand by my WIN prediction and the up and down nature of this Knicks squad.

DLeethal wrote:

VDesai wrote:This is a good video breakdown of went wrong defensively. He recommends OG fight over the screen to stay with Brown. You can also see how Celtics hit the Knicks hard with Spain action pick and roll. Knicks losing too much discipline on these.

They should be easier to guard....OG should be able to contain Brown. White isn't gonna break you down with his dribble - he needs open looks. Pritchard is the biggest x factor at this point.

As I watch back the last game, I think one thing we have to take into account that they were doing what they always do - trying to get Brown matched up to Brunson. I think Brunson didn't defend it differently - what was different is they called him for 5 fouls. These were not the kinds of things the refs have been calling in the playoffs plain and simple. Taking Brunson out of the game and putting more pressure on him the more fouls he got was massive.

Going back to the offense for a second - Celtics adjusted DEFENSIVELY by benching KP and using Kornet. And Kornet flat out ignored Hart to play Help defense. Hart started the 3rd making 3 pointers, but started to hesitate despite his makes, and the Knicks failed to recognize Kornet playing off and kept driving it right into his help. It was pretty absurd. Thibs either had to take Josh Hart out for a few mins to force and adjustment or tell Hart to start shooting or attacking again. And neither was gonna happen they needed to recognize that Kornet was coming over to help. They didn't do any of the 3.

I think they are gonna live with Josh hitting 3s if it means Kornet can disrupt every 2 pointer that Brunson and KAT want to attempt down there. I don’t blame them either.

So either Josh has to keep shooting to the point where he's taking 15+ 3s or we take Hart out.

The Knicks in some of the earlier games were able to target Kornet as a 1 on 1 defender and exploited the crap out of him. If they let him just play help off a guy he winds up being Mutombo.