DLeethal wrote:

nycericanguy wrote:

DLeethal wrote:

nycericanguy wrote:

DLeethal wrote:

nycericanguy wrote:two games without OG, 97.5ppg allowed.

That's why I struggle to say OG was the only reason our defense got so much better. Sometimes a long season is just ebbs and flows, and we just happened to have a much easier schedule after the OG trade. but it does make me keep wondering if RJ was a problem on both ends.

Crazy how bad we looked the 2 games Brunson was out, and how great we look even without Randle... Feels like you can surround Brunson with some shooters and defenders and he's good enough to win even without a 2nd star. he's just a winner, period. Amazing watching this guy night in and night out.

we have winners on this team, high IQ guys that just make the right plays, very refreshing. Brunson, DDV, Hart, you just can trust them.

This team without Randle can really load up on defenders at every position. If OG was out there we would have held CHA and UTAH to 80 points.

ehh UTAH came in averaging about 118 per game, no one's holding them to 80.

Something has clicked with this team, maybe it was the OG trade, but we are back to defending now regardless of whos on court.

can't discount Grimes, Miles and DDV playing more, those 3 can really defend.

This would have never happened without the trade. Just accept it. Of course subtracting Randle, RJ, IQ with heavy doses of Precious/Hart/DDV/Grimes/Deuce will make our D better. OG sat when Randle sat, and we all know Randle is the biggest weak link in our defensive rotations. They have 8 defense-first guys playing with Brunson right now.

OG is responsible directly and indirectly, but my main question was, there's no way one player alone changes our defense that much. There's alot of indirect correlation going on right now.

Right now us playing so well without Mitch and Randle... I mean Randle is due a new contract in 2 years, and maxing him at 32 years of age for his declining years is something that we may not have to do. We might be well positioned to just move on from the Randle era at that point unless the money makes sense.

Yea, there is a lot of direct and indirect things occurring simultaneously to lead to this run and our defensive dominance for sure. Some addition by subtracting (with RJ and now with Randle), then you have our best defensive guys eating up all those extra minutes, then you have adding an all NBA wing defender at a position we had no defense previously. It's everything. But the trade was the catalyst, we don't have this defensive transformation without it.

I think the Randle situation is pretty simple. If Knicks are legit contenders you can re-sign him and keep making title pushes. If we aren't, we can move him. But I don't think you give him a max deal at 32 y/o unless you are heavy in contention and will be in those years you sign him for. Teams get to a point where they are contending and over the cap and it's worth overpaying their guys to keep in contention. Kinda like MIL with Middleton. They aren't in a position to let key guys walk because they don't have the path to replace them with the same level of talent. So keep them and keep pushing for a title while you can.

agree, we are a in a great spot. And who knows if we use one of these picks to find a Randle replacement by then.

Also Randle has always seemed more valuable to us than around the league so that will probably work in our favor come contract time.

And I keep reading and seeing great things about Rokas. Hope we bring him over this summer, would suck for Miles but Rokas with his high IQ/hustle would fit right into this team. Would be like adding another 1st rounder and an NBA ready player.

VDesai wrote:On defense I just also think its an effort thing. We were playing great defensively in November - allowing the fewest ppg in the NBA. And then for some reason the wheels just came off in December - I can't explain why we were playing so badly, but we went from allowing like 106 ppg to 120+ ppg and we were having teams like Utah drop 130 on us. OG was a shot in the arm and he's clearly one of the best individual defenders in the NBA with rare abilities, but the intensity is back.

You wanna know why Thibs doesn't take starters out? In both of the last 2 games we had large leads at the end of the 3rd/early 4th and let both teams make inconsequential runs to get into the teens. But both were as a result of some intensity slippage on D. Uncontested layups, free cutters etc. And being in the arena yesterday, I could see Thibs WAS PISSED. He was barking at the team to pick it back up and he left them in the game IMO because he wanted them to make sure they kept working.

Its a culture, its a mindset and it has to be something that you keep doing consistently. I don't personally AGREE that the Knicks needed to have Brunson, DDV, Hart out there for close to 40 mins on the 2nd of a back to back, with a mathmetically insurmountable lead, but at the same time I think I see exactly why he did it.

I think the biggest thing was Mitch getting hurt. We had one game where MIL scored a ton of points on us while Mitch was in there, but then he got hurt and the definitely completely fell off a cliff right after that and never recovered until the trade. Mitch can clean up a lot of junk, iHart is amazing but not the same type of anchor as Mitch is.

The Thibs minutes thing is much ado about nothing. Thibs is getting the props he deserves for cultivating a culture and a team that plays their asses off every night for the entire game. It's giving us great results. It's part of his philosophy to play until the buzzer and if he sees his guys letting up in garbage time he is gonna reem them out and coach them like he would if it was a tie game. That's just Thibs, it's part of what makes him great. We are really talking about him keeping his guys in for like an extra minute most of the time, it's kind of silly talk.

Anyone saying Randle should have been sitting when he got hurt is flat out wrong. Not one coach in the league would empty their bench in a 12-14 point game against a heated rival with 4-5 mins left.

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martin wrote:Knicks taking analytics to a new level, Jesus look at this

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thibs is old school, he only coaches defense.

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martin wrote:

nycericanguy wrote:two games without OG, 97.5ppg allowed.

That's why I struggle to say OG was the only reason our defense got so much better. Sometimes a long season is just ebbs and flows, and we just happened to have a much easier schedule after the OG trade. but it does make me keep wondering if RJ was a problem on both ends.

Crazy how bad we looked the 2 games Brunson was out, and how great we look even without Randle... Feels like you can surround Brunson with some shooters and defenders and he's good enough to win even without a 2nd star. he's just a winner, period. Amazing watching this guy night in and night out.

we have winners on this team, high IQ guys that just make the right plays, very refreshing. Brunson, DDV, Hart, you just can trust them.

OG was +23 in the game. From the lockerroom. It's OG that transformed the team and you know it

You also know that RJ sucked ass cause I kept telling everyone that. Except that one month pre migraine where RJ fooled me again - wink wink - but that was more to make nice nice with Nalod, I had bruised egos out there and had to pump up my RJ buttercups

Oh, so it was about me!

Had no idea I was renting space in your head. Like a squatter! Your like my Uber, Im in your head and Im tellin you whereto go.....just messing. I appreciate the soft touch. It made the Trade so much easier to go down.
Have to admit, I thought I took RJ thing really well.