SergioNYK wrote:Not much you can do when Young is hitting 30' threes but the defense overall was really poor. Especially on closing out on Bogdanovic and Huerter. And the lack of a closer continued to kill us. We just cannot get a good shot in the final 5 minutes. It's either a turnover or RJ/Randle forcing a bad shot. 
Very disappointed in Obi. He wasn't 'bad' but he didn't take advantage of the opportunity. It's kind of embarrassing to get outplayed by a 100 year old Taj Gibson in was supposed to be your personal 'Game 7'. I just continue to lean on Obi just simply not being that good. He's very limited. Too limited for his age and where he was selected. We were supposed to get an NBA ready player and he just doesn't do enough to warrant big minutes.
10 more to go. 
I think too many people feel like Toppin playing (instead of Randle) is a statistical competition and that's really not the point. Sure we want him to contribute by scoring, rebounding, etc... but it's about how the team plays and if they overall - perform better or worse. Did they play at a faster pace? Hustle more? Did that positively impact or not?
I would say they performed slightly better with Toppin - but they need more playing time together to conclude anything with substance. Toppin seems to be more of a S.Marion type (without the stellar defense) in that he runs the floor consistently, rebounds a bit, finishes well athletically and occasionally hits the wide open 3. He doesn't seem to have any individual game (yet?) that would necessitate the team feeding him the ball to offer stats to argue against Randle. He can post a little but really needs to work on more individual moves if he wants to become more.
That said, the end result was we lost to the Hawks by a similar number compared to when Randle plays. The Knicks clearly struggle when the game slows down and Randle simply doesn't help much in that area. There have been moments when Thibs prob yells at Randle to play fast - and he does well for short spurts (before falling back to his default of slow/iso play).
What I like about Obi is he doesn't force things and still accumulates 10 pts just from running the floor, hustling, etc... I think it's realistic he can develop and few moves and bump that to 14-15 pts with 30 minutes of playing time. Either way, Randle is becoming less of a fit on this team and hopefully there will be some change this offseason.
