Philc1 wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:I’m not gonna panic about the last two losses, although they are unnerving. What I’m really panicking about is our suddenly vanished defense. We didn’t have a lot to begin with, but it was improving, at one point becoming a top 10. Now it’s just embarrassingly gone, like the team is just content with making a late run and winning, or else just accept the loss and move on.

I was liking the progress made in all facets, especially mentally. But this regression defensively is alarming. And on a related note, what’s wrong with OG? He has been horrible defensively lately. He seems to really be our defense and that’s scary because even though he’s a great player, he’s very inconsistent.

Yabu sucks. Dude can’t defend a stop sign I know he’s not the only reason but the hawks were picking on him

Yabu is expert at handing the high screen ball hand-off to the other team and then throwing his hands up in air as other team scores on other end. Regardless if he hits a few buckets he is getting roasted defensively and he rebounds like OG/Mikal (both very poor rebounders).

Panos wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:I;m not gonna panic about the last two losses, although they are unnerving. What I;m really panicking about is our suddenly vanished defense. We didnt have a lot to begin with, but it was improving, at one point becoming a top 10. Now it;s just embarrassingly gone, like the team is just content with making a late run and winning, or else just accept the loss and move on.

I was liking the progress made in all facets, especially mentally. But this regression defensively is alarming. And on a related note, what;s wrong with OG? He has been horrible defensively lately. He seems to really be our defense and that;s scary because even though he;s a great player, he;s very inconsistent.

Not only defensively. OG has shot 35% FG over the past 5 games and 5 for 28 from 3pt =18%.

Maybe he needs a rest - not sure but he's forcing too much. Maybe he misses some of what Josh does for him -- Josh does some of the ball handling/rebounding that OG/Mikal aren't so hot with.

LivingLegend wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:I’m not gonna panic about the last two losses, although they are unnerving. What I’m really panicking about is our suddenly vanished defense. We didn’t have a lot to begin with, but it was improving, at one point becoming a top 10. Now it’s just embarrassingly gone, like the team is just content with making a late run and winning, or else just accept the loss and move on.

I was liking the progress made in all facets, especially mentally. But this regression defensively is alarming. And on a related note, what’s wrong with OG? He has been horrible defensively lately. He seems to really be our defense and that’s scary because even though he’s a great player, he’s very inconsistent.

I think both Mikal/OG have got ALL-STAR in their heads and neither are all-stars in my book ---- primarily because they are both limited offensively. OG all of a sudden is trying to do too much - reckless out of control drives to nowhere, terrible passes and taking a number of forced mid-range & 3s. He's doing too much offensively and maybe it's hurting his D. In the Spurs game we had a double digit lead and on consecutive times down the court OG fouled Olynk who wasn't even in a scoring position or rebounding the ball. Those fouls helped put us in early penalty and Spurs ended up shooting 20 more FTs than us.

I just think both are concentrating too much on offense rather than letting the game come to them and making clean decisions.

Last night first defensive bad sign showed up with us up 11-2. Risacher gets ball in awkward spot on left wing, rises up for very tough 3 pointer with clocking running down and Brunson hacks him for no reason. Another dumb foul in a long line of dumb plays by what should be a smart team.

For me, all stars are too heavily focused on one side of the ball. OG and Mikal are not able to sustain being go-to offensive engines, they are different cats and are more 2-way balanced players. As maybe an example, Trae Young is a 4 times all star but I feel like OGs impact could be considered near the quality of Traes offense but that doesn’t resonate for all star stuff. Trae is a siv, that should limit him from all star consideration in the same way you suggest for OG, Mikal offensively?

Bottom line for game, Knicks played poorly, let the kids have minutes, and were down 4 rotation players and up to 2 starters. This is the bizzaro Thibs years and we gotta appreciate the extended rotations with kids and take the lumps from it.

KEEPCAMBYNY wrote:

Knixkik wrote:This almost felt like a scheduled loss. Also Hawks are way better without Trae. Their offense flows better and the defense is lockdown. I would like to see some more Diawara. He sort of got demoted and not sure why other than just Mike Brown trying different things and Diawara just being a rookie.

We had no choice but to start Huk at center. I think he didn;t like the idea of starting both Mo and Huk. Im not going to stress about Diawara;s minutes until after the deadline. I;m not totally against allowing Yabu to statpad himself out of here until then.

I don't understand how Leon was willing to pay this guy $6m. Did he watch him before signing him? He's a turd