They are wildly talented, but we need to prevent health breakdowns going forward and he helps solves the ball movement we are lacking. He is a better IHart which is where this team excelled in the playoffs last year.

You’re paying $40MM to a guy you literally don’t feature offensively and has another level.

I’m hoping this loss to the Pacers will be an opportunity for Brunson, the FO, and coaching staff, to reflect on how to get JB to be more of a traditional PG. And make more of an effort to get his teammates going. Jalen is doing amazing things, but sometimes we need more of a floor general. Because that’s the only way JB and KAT is going to work.

GustavBahler wrote:Brunson had only 5 assists to KAT during the ECF. That’s not good enough. Most of the time that Mitch played this season Brunson looked Mitch off for alley-oops, like last season. I know the 7 assists JB dished out is respectable. But he leaves so many passing opportunities on the table, especially with KAT.

I’m hoping this loss to the Pacers will be an opportunity for Brunson, the FO, and coaching staff, to reflect on how to get JB to be more of a traditional PG. And make more of an effort to get his teammates going. Jalen is doing amazing things, but sometimes we need more of a floor general. Because that’s the only way JB and KAT is going to work.

It's either JB iso and no one else is very much engaged, or its the Villanova dudes passing amongst themselves pretending like the other 2 players don't exist. You see the other players just stand around and watch knowing they aren't getting the ball. What is the advantage of the bringing the Villanova group together when you traded the 2nd best player out of the 4?

GustavBahler wrote:Brunson had only 5 assists to KAT during the ECF. That’s not good enough. Most of the time that Mitch played this season Brunson looked Mitch off for alley-oops, like last season. I know the 7 assists JB dished out is respectable. But he leaves so many passing opportunities on the table, especially with KAT.

I’m hoping this loss to the Pacers will be an opportunity for Brunson, the FO, and coaching staff, to reflect on how to get JB to be more of a traditional PG. And make more of an effort to get his teammates going. Jalen is doing amazing things, but sometimes we need more of a floor general. Because that’s the only way JB and KAT is going to work.

I don’t know if we change JB but we could pair him with a more traditional pg.

One can expect many more teams next season are going to deploy detroits and pacers approach to JB

I recall one sequence last night where announcers made the point it took 17 seconds to reach the hash mark. Of course we’ll have turnovers trying to execute half court offense in 7 seconds. Turnovers and difficult shots are assured

houston20 wrote:

Gudris wrote:Knicks got lucky by beating Boston, Knicks are not ready to win it all. Brusnon is too small and Kat too slow

We beat Boston fair and square there was no luck about that.

And now Tatum might miss all of next season.

Chandler wrote:Does anyone remember Phil Jackson criticizing the melo-amare roster as awkward?

That’s kind of stuck in my head at the moment. Seems like we have all the pieces but they’re disjoint at the moment

I’m more in favor of making this unit work than swapping out guys, trading one set of issues for another.

We need more balance and movement on offense. Guys need to touch the ball. Seemed like so so many of our shots were difficult ISO

I’m not sure who we’re trying to mimick or model our team after with so much reliance on JB and so much ISO: Allen iverson’s sixers? The shorter isiah Thomas and Celtics? D.rose bulls?

I’m not ready to punt on Thibs but I do think the best area for improvement is our coaching more so than roster. We have a lot of dinosaurs as assistants

I’m also struck w Thibs approach. Time and again he’d say we’ll look at the tape and make adjustments. On its face, that works if the opponent continues to play the same way, but it doesn’t work if tomorrows plan is different from today’s.

Carlisle won this series as much as anyone of a half dozen other Pacers who seemed ready to contribute when their moment arrived. We lost last night IMO because of Pacers defense not offense. They were picking up everyone 10 feet beyond the arc and if we dawdled we might soon be blitzed or double teamed. IMO we weren’t ready for that

We are probably stuck with the roster as is. Yes we can make minor changes with a $5 million tax exemption when more than half the league has the $12.8 million starting salary MLE. Yes maybe we can flip precious for a draft pick or 2. Those are not significant changes this roster is what it is and we have another 3 years left in this window to win a championship before blow it up time.

Chandler wrote:

GustavBahler wrote:Brunson had only 5 assists to KAT during the ECF. That’s not good enough. Most of the time that Mitch played this season Brunson looked Mitch off for alley-oops, like last season. I know the 7 assists JB dished out is respectable. But he leaves so many passing opportunities on the table, especially with KAT.

I’m hoping this loss to the Pacers will be an opportunity for Brunson, the FO, and coaching staff, to reflect on how to get JB to be more of a traditional PG. And make more of an effort to get his teammates going. Jalen is doing amazing things, but sometimes we need more of a floor general. Because that’s the only way JB and KAT is going to work.

I don’t know if we change JB but we could pair him with a more traditional pg.

One can expect many more teams next season are going to deploy detroits and pacers approach to JB

I recall one sequence last night where announcers made the point it took 17 seconds to reach the hash mark. Of course we’ll have turnovers trying to execute half court offense in 7 seconds. Turnovers and difficult shots are assured

Reminds me of Kyrie Irving in Cleveland. Moving off the ball was the best thing for him at the time. Didnt have to worry as much about getting teammates involved. Just had to get buckets.

It worked in large part because LeBron was one of the best PGs in the league at the time. Cant be just any PG, and we would still have to give up some talent.

It would be great if Kolek's D took a big leap over the summer. I'm guessing that would give Kolek/Brunson time to gel. Maybe as a starting unit down the road.

Otherwise I still believe that with JB, it just takes some determination to get his teammates more involved.

VDesai wrote:If you read the above article it becomes clear that no one knew what KAT was gonna do half the time defensively. OG didnt always lock in defensively when he didnt get touches on offense. Bridges maybe did speak out of turn.

I remember reading once, when he was Toronto and a year or two before the Knicks/Raptors trade, that OG was upset that he wasn’t involved in the offense more and rumored to sign elsewhere (at the time) if he wasn’t featured more on the offensive end.

Knicksfan wrote:Knicks played with their food on Game 1, giving life to a team that wasn’t sure if they could win but had nothing to fear, while giving the world a narrative they wouldn’t let go.

Instead of using that as fuel to confirm their status as championship contenders, they slacked their way to another loss, both at home, where they proved somehow overwhelmed by the pressure.

From there, the bad Knicks trends of the season had proved to be here to stay this series. A solid win in Game 3 wasn’t replicated like they should’ve in Game 4. The coaching in the series from New York was seriously inconsistent.

Game 5 showed us finally what this team could do, but too little too late as the monster had been fed and only a perfect game would’ve stoped it. The Knicks proved incapable of a consistent effort from game to game, sometimes even from quarter to quarter.

They lost as the talented but maddeningly inconsistent team they were throughout the whole season. I really expected them to finally come together as a team and this loss disappointingly proves they aren’t that close to it, but they could get there.

The thing is, I’m not confident this team will make the right decisions to improve and reach the NBA Finals next season. Something was definitely wrong on the coaching staff, but this run might stop changes from being made.

In the players front, while the Towns trade was heavily maligned and his defense is a cause for concern, I think the Mikal trade was the move too much we made. Kidd all you want about the “high schoolers” who wouldn’t have made a difference, but actually two of those could net you a guy like Walker Kessler, who would be a significant contributor to this defense. And either Deuce takes the step forward we expected from him but didn’t really get, or we need a scorer off the bench. Kolek and Huk need to be prioritized as pieces next season. That means having a coaching staff willing to develop AND use them.

Overall, I’m more disappointed than hopeful. Why? Because this team seems mostly built, while still not being the most ideal mix. Still the impression if that a new direction could improve the direction and consistency, but again, I wonder if the right decision are made or not.

I think you're being too hard on the Knicks. They're not that far off. I do question if Kat is the right complimentary piece to Brunson, but the defense can be figured out. A lot was given up for Bridges and you need to get a better return out of him. But overall, the Knicks had a very good season and they played the Pacers tough. A stat that I came across this morning is that the teams with the 2 best records since 1/2025 are OKC and the Pacers. OKC is 53-13 and the Pacers are 45-17. The Pacers got hot at the right time and just happens to be playing their best ball right now. Despite the thoughts going into the series, losing to them isn't a sign of doom and gloom. It shows you some of the areas that can be improved upon for a run next yr {hopefully a rematch}.

Pacer1fan wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:Knicks played with their food on Game 1, giving life to a team that wasn’t sure if they could win but had nothing to fear, while giving the world a narrative they wouldn’t let go.

Instead of using that as fuel to confirm their status as championship contenders, they slacked their way to another loss, both at home, where they proved somehow overwhelmed by the pressure.

From there, the bad Knicks trends of the season had proved to be here to stay this series. A solid win in Game 3 wasn’t replicated like they should’ve in Game 4. The coaching in the series from New York was seriously inconsistent.

Game 5 showed us finally what this team could do, but too little too late as the monster had been fed and only a perfect game would’ve stoped it. The Knicks proved incapable of a consistent effort from game to game, sometimes even from quarter to quarter.

They lost as the talented but maddeningly inconsistent team they were throughout the whole season. I really expected them to finally come together as a team and this loss disappointingly proves they aren’t that close to it, but they could get there.

The thing is, I’m not confident this team will make the right decisions to improve and reach the NBA Finals next season. Something was definitely wrong on the coaching staff, but this run might stop changes from being made.

In the players front, while the Towns trade was heavily maligned and his defense is a cause for concern, I think the Mikal trade was the move too much we made. Kidd all you want about the “high schoolers” who wouldn’t have made a difference, but actually two of those could net you a guy like Walker Kessler, who would be a significant contributor to this defense. And either Deuce takes the step forward we expected from him but didn’t really get, or we need a scorer off the bench. Kolek and Huk need to be prioritized as pieces next season. That means having a coaching staff willing to develop AND use them.

Overall, I’m more disappointed than hopeful. Why? Because this team seems mostly built, while still not being the most ideal mix. Still the impression if that a new direction could improve the direction and consistency, but again, I wonder if the right decision are made or not.

I think you're being too hard on the Knicks. They're not that far off. I do question if Kat is the right complimentary piece to Brunson, but the defense can be figured out. A lot was given up for Bridges and you need to get a better return out of him. But overall, the Knicks had a very good season and they played the Pacers tough. A stat that I came across this morning is that the teams with the 2 best records since 1/2025 are OKC and the Pacers. OKC is 53-13 and the Pacers are 45-17. The Pacers got hot at the right time and just happens to be playing their best ball right now. Despite the thoughts going into the series, losing to them isn't a sign of doom and gloom. It shows you some of the areas that can be improved upon for a run next yr {hopefully a rematch}.

Appreciate your contributions here to deliver some objectivity. Fans are a bit frustrated even as the team won. Seemed one if three was a nice game with others being a knife fight were we had to claw back.
While the full court press Pacers did was effective one might also say it fatigued them as well. Game 5 Pacers looked wiped out.
Pacers and OKC were the creme of the league for most of the later part of the season and they were coming on behind us very fast. I recall our series vs. ATL it was similar. ATL was the hot team that finished a game behind us.
Siakim was a great pick up for your team and I believe he won that silly ECF MVP thing 5-4 over Halliburton. I think it could have gone either way and been justified.
Good luck with your team and series. Im sure somewhere Slick Leonard, Big George McGinnis, Downtown Freedie brown adn others are smiling down on Pacers and wishing you well.
As for Reggie, I can almost live with his past but the issue is as an announcer he is redundant with his comments which makes this viewer feel as if we are all idiots and not watching the game. yes Reggie, We know Kat gets the "Silly fouls"..............
Good luck and thx for stopping in!!!!! Your a gracious winner!