Clean wrote:

GustavBahler wrote:

Rookie wrote:

GustavBahler wrote:Burks and Bogs both shot 40 percent plus from 3 in Detroit. Stands to reason that once the starters get back, and they settle into their bench roles, that they will contribute more.

Makes no sense to complain about their performance this early, under these conditions. The best 2nd unit playmaker is Josh Hart.

Burks just played 11 min and Bogs 18 min, both with the bench. What game did you just watch? Neither one of them had any impact in their bench roles.

I watched a game with no playmaker in the second unit to get them easy looks. Whats your theory as to why their numbers have dropped? They're both very good shooters careerwise Got to be a better explanation than they just suck.

Look at Bogs numbers before tonight. They were damned good. Patience!

The no playmaker thing is huge. It is why I wanted Brogdan more than anyone. That situation is worse than before the trade because now we have point Burks at portions of the game and not much is worse than that.

I agree on the no playmaker but will add that watching Brogdon some this season he’s now more of an off ball player/shooter.

A guy like Tyus Jones or even Clarkson might have provided some of the breakdown playmaking we are clearly lacking.

LivingLegend wrote:

NYStateOfMind wrote:Cavs get to beat us up and score at will in the paint next game. Sims 0 blocks, he can't stop lay-ups 1 on 1. Kuminga clowned us all night, like he thought he was destroying our A-team. Tired of these punks acting the clown at MSG when they know we are big-time short-handed. Hard to watch and becoming the norm lately, especially when the refs don't give them a fighting chance. The NBA finally gets relevant basketball in NY and they allow this nonsense to continue. Call the games fair or what is the point in even playing the games? Sickening.

Biggest concerns right now over the losses are….

- Brunson moving sluggishly with no pep in step —- getting killed and lost repeatedly on D
- I-Hart is a shell of himself (not moving well and not impacting game anywhere)
- will Josh hold up
- to a lesser extent Donte has been taking some big hits under heavier minutes
- Burks.Bogey —— looking like TURDS and this could lead to Thibs cutting rotation to 7 or 8

Momentum is real in both directions. These guys have lost a bunch of games while shorthanded and have clearly lost a pep in their step. It happens to all teams throughout the season. It will shift around again. Ebbs and Flows. But if was clear when we lost 4 straight going into all star break that things were gonna slide hard for awhile.

DLeethal wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

VDesai wrote:Knicks offensive possessions are a joke

Agree on this - basically Brunson gets over 1/2 court ——- gets trapped and retreats to 1.2 court line pounding ball……eventually swings ball to,open Hart 30 feet out who dribbles into hand-off for Donte off balance 3 from 25 feet with 1 second in the clock.

Exaggerated- sure but still a mess.

The Knicks offense was phenomenal when our guys were healthy. Of course this current teams offense is gonna suck. We are missing our #2 and #3 scorers.

It’s the lack of flow and penetration attempts - we all get that we are missing some talent but even at full strength we are an extreme iso heavy team.

Hopefully we can get back to the look we had post OG trade but this type of stuff is fickle and not guaranteed to instantly return to that chemistry.

DLeethal wrote:This is a below .500 team without OG and Randle and Mitch. We sustained some good play off our positive momentum when those guys first went down for a few games. Eventually the magic of the 14-2 run wore off and they are playing like they should with DDV as your #2 scorer and Josh Hart playing 40+ mins a game.

90% of the teams in the league if you removed their #2 and #3 players and starting C would become a below .500 team. We are no different.

All valid but no guarantee we immediately bounce back to the post OG magical run we were on ——- I think we are all (most) just anxious for some guys to return and some guys (Jalen/I-Hart/Donte) to look refreshed.

OG return can’t happen soon enough and hopefully we click when he returns.

But, he has looked good getting boards out there and made some nice moves around the basket.

I would like to see him break the rim more when he’s open for a dunk. Don’t like when he guides it in. He needs to send a message!

EwingPSD wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

VDesai wrote:Why is Sims in at center over Precious ?

Sims offers no rim deterrent- if anything at 6’8” Precious much more impactful.

I think Sims had one of his best games. He finished around the basket, made his free throw, had multiple kick outs set up wide open 3s out the short roll, defended in switches really well. The team was even a plus 6 in his minutes. He is a 3 string center. I think he's good for that and played above that last night. I was surprised when I saw a lot people on twitter going after him. I almost feel like the last guy in the rotation is held to a higher standard for some weird reason.

He is invisible when players attack him off the dribble at the rim - he rarely stops anything. He is also mostly lost in pick and roll,- just watch Thibs yelling at him after every pick roll dunk.

I’m being overly negative here but Jerico is perennially late to contest at the rim.

EwingPSD wrote:

DLeethal wrote:This is a below .500 team without OG and Randle and Mitch. We sustained some good play off our positive momentum when those guys first went down for a few games. Eventually the magic of the 14-2 run wore off and they are playing like they should with DDV as your #2 scorer and Josh Hart playing 40+ mins a game.

90% of the teams in the league if you removed their #2 and #3 players and starting C would become a below .500 team. We are no different.

I agree for the most part. I think they could be around 500 with this group IF Isiah Hartenstein was healthy and playing at the top of his game for 30 mins a night. He's the injury that actually pisses me off the most right now b/c I feel like we might never ever get him right again this season.

+1 — big concern because it was I-Hart who was a huge part of our uptick offensively and defensively.

EwingPSD wrote:

DLeethal wrote:This is a below .500 team without OG and Randle and Mitch. We sustained some good play off our positive momentum when those guys first went down for a few games. Eventually the magic of the 14-2 run wore off and they are playing like they should with DDV as your #2 scorer and Josh Hart playing 40+ mins a game.

90% of the teams in the league if you removed their #2 and #3 players and starting C would become a below .500 team. We are no different.

I agree for the most part. I think they could be around 500 with this group IF Isiah Hartenstein was healthy and playing at the top of his game for 30 mins a night. He's the injury that actually pisses me off the most right now b/c I feel like we might never ever get him right again this season.

If we can get Mitch back and get back to platooning those 2, long term it might be a bit of a gift for his stellar play to have cooled a bit in terms of resigning them and keeping the platoon in tact.

Rookie wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

DLeethal wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

VDesai wrote:Knicks offensive possessions are a joke

Agree on this - basically Brunson gets over 1/2 court ——- gets trapped and retreats to 1.2 court line pounding ball……eventually swings ball to,open Hart 30 feet out who dribbles into hand-off for Donte off balance 3 from 25 feet with 1 second in the clock.

Exaggerated- sure but still a mess.

The Knicks offense was phenomenal when our guys were healthy. Of course this current teams offense is gonna suck. We are missing our #2 and #3 scorers.

It’s the lack of flow and penetration attempts - we all get that we are missing some talent but even at full strength we are an extreme iso heavy team.

Hopefully we can get back to the look we had post OG trade but this type of stuff is fickle and not guaranteed to instantly return to that chemistry.

Try watching Toronto. The ball movement and spacing are excellent. Missing talent hasn't caused their offensive game plan to break down at all. For whatever reason, Brunson looks like he is trying to do it all himself. Someone asked somewhere else what RJ's numbers are looking great again. You just don't see him going 1 on 5 in Toronto. They are running all kinds of motions to free players up. I just don't think 'next man up' works with us because we don't really have a team offensive game plan. It looks like it is just individual 'smart' players reading the game and freelancing.

You can win with talent, but when your talent is all on the bench it gets ugly. We are playing ugly basketball. We can't get stops and every offensive possession is a rock fight. If we had a 'system' to fall back on and discipline to stick with it we'd be better at the plug and play thing. Right now, all we can do is hope we can hang around the play in 7-8th seed until we get or starters back. We are 1 loss from the 7th seed. That loss is likely coming on Sunday. 3 of our next 4 games after that are against teams that are 1 game behind us in the standings.

It's going to get uglier before it gets any better. I'd expect Thibs to run the players he trusts into the ground over this stretch. It's the time of the year where everyone is looking at the standings and positioning themselves for the playoff run.

This is overly doomsday IMO. Knicks offense has been really good all year and despite this extended stretch where it's fallen off a cliff it's still nearly top 10 on the year. Also, we are close to at the "bottom" after missing our #2, 3, 4 guys for a months, it will only get better and Knicks will make another run.

Knicks ORTG is 11th on the year at its bottom, TOR is 19th on the year at its top lol.

Rookie wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

DLeethal wrote:

LivingLegend wrote:

VDesai wrote:Knicks offensive possessions are a joke

Agree on this - basically Brunson gets over 1/2 court ——- gets trapped and retreats to 1.2 court line pounding ball……eventually swings ball to,open Hart 30 feet out who dribbles into hand-off for Donte off balance 3 from 25 feet with 1 second in the clock.

Exaggerated- sure but still a mess.

The Knicks offense was phenomenal when our guys were healthy. Of course this current teams offense is gonna suck. We are missing our #2 and #3 scorers.

It’s the lack of flow and penetration attempts - we all get that we are missing some talent but even at full strength we are an extreme iso heavy team.

Hopefully we can get back to the look we had post OG trade but this type of stuff is fickle and not guaranteed to instantly return to that chemistry.

Try watching Toronto. The ball movement and spacing are excellent. Missing talent hasn't caused their offensive game plan to break down at all. For whatever reason, Brunson looks like he is trying to do it all himself. Someone asked somewhere else what RJ's numbers are looking great again. You just don't see him going 1 on 5 in Toronto. They are running all kinds of motions to free players up. I just don't think 'next man up' works with us because we don't really have a team offensive game plan. It looks like it is just individual 'smart' players reading the game and freelancing.

You can win with talent, but when your talent is all on the bench it gets ugly. We are playing ugly basketball. We can't get stops and every offensive possession is a rock fight. If we had a 'system' to fall back on and discipline to stick with it we'd be better at the plug and play thing. Right now, all we can do is hope we can hang around the play in 7-8th seed until we get or starters back. We are 1 loss from the 7th seed. That loss is likely coming on Sunday. 3 of our next 4 games after that are against teams that are 1 game behind us in the standings.

It's going to get uglier before it gets any better. I'd expect Thibs to run the players he trusts into the ground over this stretch. It's the time of the year where everyone is looking at the standings and positioning themselves for the playoff run.

I have been critical of how they hold the ball and rely on team's hard doubling etc. but I can't agree with how you are saying look at the Raptors they have similar talent and the ball moves more. Even if you don't think the talent is very good it is very different. 4 out of 5 starters on the Raptors can dribble, shoot 3s, and play make at least a little in PnR. You don't need great talent to share the ball more but you do need dependable passers, some shooting, and ball handling. Q, Barrett, GT, and SB just have more on ball skill then our current rotations.