Game Thread: NY Knicks at Phoenix Suns Wed, Nov 20 10:00 PM

[F N 11]

Payne and Mikal payback game
Knicks in the flow
Suns with injuries

We should smack these fools.

[Chanel Bomber]

Read on Twitter

CHICKEN

[TheGreenArrow]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

Towns and Jhart and Og wayyyyyy too low!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Riot Randolph]

Kat stops going airborne for every pump solves majority of his defensive/foul woes…dude bites

[3toheadmelo]

Both numbers are eye popping, though.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

Yep and those numbers don’t actually reflect the shots he’s actually contesting in the restricted area. DFG% does that. For the season KAT has a DFG% of 73% <6 feet, letting opponents shoot 9.5% better at the rim. That DFG% at protecting the rim is in the same territory as point guards. Hes worst than every starting big in the league, not hyperbole. People are really trying to act like he’s in the same territory as Chet, JJJ and Mobley on defense KAT is a good offensive player but his rim protection is historically trash. It’s not a coincidence that people in our FO are banking on Mitch to save our defense at the 5.

KAT is not historically trash as a rim protector, that's hyperbole, right now is his worst season of his career and those numbers are gradually coming down. You can go through his numbers as a center, and they were never historically bad, they were league average and below in some cases.


DFG%

21/22 - 61.6%
20/21 - 61.9%
19/20 - 58.3%
18/19 - 57.8%
17/18 - 61.1%
16/17 - 60.5%
15/16 - 56.3%


His last year at center the Wolves were 13th defensively, is he great? No, but he's never been the worst, and him having growing pains at C after not playing it for 3 years is to be expected. Also, Mitch was at 70% last season, so it's obviously scheme, Ihart was better at rim than Mitch but worse as a team defender. If Mitch had 70%, and KAT is at 73% right now then it should be pretty clear the scheme is leading to it.

All of those teams he played the 5 they never made the playoffs or they were a first round exit. KAT only had a winning impact when he was at the 4. He has to play the 4 in order for this to work. Also Mitch was injured last year so you can’t really hold that against him.

KAT at the 5 = terrible defense.

Regardless of the defensive personnel around him, Towns-centered teams were glorified turnstiles for a large part of his early career. Minnesota ranked in the bottom 10 in defense for six straight seasons from 2015-16 to 2020-21, with their best performance coming in the year Towns missed almost half of their games.

Right now he’s just absolutely terrible.

Just how troubling has it been? Opponents are shooting 70.8 percent at the rim when KAT’s on the court and 54.2 percent when he’s off it. (The league average is currently 65.7 percent.) More directly, according to Bball-Index, opposing field goal percentages at the rim when Towns defends a shot are 13.1 percent higher than the shooter’s expected average. This number is so terrible for a big man that the second worst starting center in the category is Vucevic at … 4.8 percent.

According to Cleaning the Glass, their offensive rating with Towns is 125.1 and they’re scoring 8.7 more points per 100 possessions when he plays—two marks that place him in the 94th and 87th percentile at his position, respectively. Meanwhile, the Knicks’ defensive rating is 119.1 and the team is 5.3 points per 100 possessions worse with Towns on the court, putting him in the 22nd and 24th percentile. In simpler terms: Towns ranks 15th in offensive estimated plus-minus and 270th in defensive estimated plus-minus.

[MrDollarBills]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

Unreal Talent Folksssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

elite triangle execution phil jackson's smiling somewhere

Having a stretch 5 makes things so much easier

[TheGreenArrow]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Yep and those numbers don’t actually reflect the shots he’s actually contesting in the restricted area. DFG% does that. For the season KAT has a DFG% of 73% <6 feet, letting opponents shoot 9.5% better at the rim. That DFG% at protecting the rim is in the same territory as point guards. Hes worst than every starting big in the league, not hyperbole. People are really trying to act like he’s in the same territory as Chet, JJJ and Mobley on defense KAT is a good offensive player but his rim protection is historically trash. It’s not a coincidence that people in our FO are banking on Mitch to save our defense at the 5.

KAT is not historically trash as a rim protector, that's hyperbole, right now is his worst season of his career and those numbers are gradually coming down. You can go through his numbers as a center, and they were never historically bad, they were league average and below in some cases.


DFG%

21/22 - 61.6%
20/21 - 61.9%
19/20 - 58.3%
18/19 - 57.8%
17/18 - 61.1%
16/17 - 60.5%
15/16 - 56.3%


His last year at center the Wolves were 13th defensively, is he great? No, but he's never been the worst, and him having growing pains at C after not playing it for 3 years is to be expected. Also, Mitch was at 70% last season, so it's obviously scheme, Ihart was better at rim than Mitch but worse as a team defender. If Mitch had 70%, and KAT is at 73% right now then it should be pretty clear the scheme is leading to it.

All of those teams he played the 5 they never made the playoffs or they were a first round exit. KAT only had a winning impact when he was at the 4. He has to play the 4 in order for this to work. Also Mitch was injured last year so you can’t really hold that against him.

KAT at the 5 = terrible defense.

Regardless of the defensive personnel around him, Towns-centered teams were glorified turnstiles for a large part of his early career. Minnesota ranked in the bottom 10 in defense for six straight seasons from 2015-16 to 2020-21, with their best performance coming in the year Towns missed almost half of their games.

Right now he’s just absolutely terrible.

Just how troubling has it been? Opponents are shooting 70.8 percent at the rim when KAT’s on the court and 54.2 percent when he’s off it. (The league average is currently 65.7 percent.) More directly, according to Bball-Index, opposing field goal percentages at the rim when Towns defends a shot are 13.1 percent higher than the shooter’s expected average. This number is so terrible for a big man that the second worst starting center in the category is Vucevic at … 4.8 percent.

According to Cleaning the Glass, their offensive rating with Towns is 125.1 and they’re scoring 8.7 more points per 100 possessions when he plays—two marks that place him in the 94th and 87th percentile at his position, respectively. Meanwhile, the Knicks’ defensive rating is 119.1 and the team is 5.3 points per 100 possessions worse with Towns on the court, putting him in the 22nd and 24th percentile. In simpler terms: Towns ranks 15th in offensive estimated plus-minus and 270th in defensive estimated plus-minus.

They made the playoffs with him at the 5, we're going to make the playoffs with him at the 5. The Wolves were 13th defensively with him as their C the last time he played it. This was about him being historically bad as a rim protector when the numbers have never said that. I went back to his rookie season, his numbers as a rim protector were never bad, they were either average or good in some seasons.


Right now, we have a +7.7 net rating with KAT on the court, the best number among the starters. Also, since we're using on/off DRTG, last season we had a 118.7 DRTG when Mitch was on the court, so his defensive stats were almost identical to the ones KAT has right now, right down to the rim protection DFG% which was 70%. That is a scheme issue, if two completely different centers have almost identical defensive numbers seperated by a year, that is coaching. And even then, KAT's numbers have been improving slowly, the last 5 games he's at 60.9% which is in line with his career numbers.

Nobody has ever said KAT is an elite defender, but he is not among the worst rim protectors ever, and the numbers clearly say that. We have 7 years of his DFG% at center, and they never went over 62%, so how can he be historically bad at that?

[The KnicksFix]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is he Back? IS HE BACK?!!!

[The KnicksFix]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is it me or does he look lighter? Maybe its the beard shape up?

[TKKnicks1]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is he Back? IS HE BACK?!!!

He is traveling with the team on the road trip but there has been absolutely zero news that he has been doing drills, practicing let alone ready to play.

[MrDollarBills]

Mitch is back. Time to burn the league down

[stuporman]

Once the Knicks get Deuce, Precious and Mitch their rotation becomes deeper again but it also means fans won't see the kids anymore.

[Chanel Bomber]

Yep and those numbers don’t actually reflect the shots he’s actually contesting in the restricted area. DFG% does that. For the season KAT has a DFG% of 73% <6 feet, letting opponents shoot 9.5% better at the rim. That DFG% at protecting the rim is in the same territory as point guards. Hes worst than every starting big in the league, not hyperbole. People are really trying to act like he’s in the same territory as Chet, JJJ and Mobley on defense KAT is a good offensive player but his rim protection is historically trash. It’s not a coincidence that people in our FO are banking on Mitch to save our defense at the 5.

KAT is not historically trash as a rim protector, that's hyperbole, right now is his worst season of his career and those numbers are gradually coming down. You can go through his numbers as a center, and they were never historically bad, they were league average and below in some cases.


DFG%

21/22 - 61.6%
20/21 - 61.9%
19/20 - 58.3%
18/19 - 57.8%
17/18 - 61.1%
16/17 - 60.5%
15/16 - 56.3%


His last year at center the Wolves were 13th defensively, is he great? No, but he's never been the worst, and him having growing pains at C after not playing it for 3 years is to be expected. Also, Mitch was at 70% last season, so it's obviously scheme, Ihart was better at rim than Mitch but worse as a team defender. If Mitch had 70%, and KAT is at 73% right now then it should be pretty clear the scheme is leading to it.

All of those teams he played the 5 they never made the playoffs or they were a first round exit. KAT only had a winning impact when he was at the 4. He has to play the 4 in order for this to work. Also Mitch was injured last year so you can’t really hold that against him.

KAT at the 5 = terrible defense.

Regardless of the defensive personnel around him, Towns-centered teams were glorified turnstiles for a large part of his early career. Minnesota ranked in the bottom 10 in defense for six straight seasons from 2015-16 to 2020-21, with their best performance coming in the year Towns missed almost half of their games.

Right now he’s just absolutely terrible.

Just how troubling has it been? Opponents are shooting 70.8 percent at the rim when KAT’s on the court and 54.2 percent when he’s off it. (The league average is currently 65.7 percent.) More directly, according to Bball-Index, opposing field goal percentages at the rim when Towns defends a shot are 13.1 percent higher than the shooter’s expected average. This number is so terrible for a big man that the second worst starting center in the category is Vucevic at … 4.8 percent.

According to Cleaning the Glass, their offensive rating with Towns is 125.1 and they’re scoring 8.7 more points per 100 possessions when he plays—two marks that place him in the 94th and 87th percentile at his position, respectively. Meanwhile, the Knicks’ defensive rating is 119.1 and the team is 5.3 points per 100 possessions worse with Towns on the court, putting him in the 22nd and 24th percentile. In simpler terms: Towns ranks 15th in offensive estimated plus-minus and 270th in defensive estimated plus-minus.

EPM shows KAT's impact on winning actually dipped after moving to the 4 in Minny.

KAT has always had a positive impact on winning. He just had crap teams around him except for that one season with Jimmy. How was he expected to make the playoffs with the likes of Andrew Wiggins, D'Angelo Russell or Dario Saric as his best teammates?

You're missing the forest for the trees by overly focusing on rim protection. It's a very specific issue, and rim protection numbers are affected by both personnel and scheme. But you can have a championship-winning defense without rim protection.

And the Knicks defense has been solid overall since the Boston game. With KAT at the 5.

[Guano]

Read on Twitter

CHICKEN

You're missing out on one of the best shooters in the NBA and Twitter because of your hate

Read on Twitter

[kNicksGmen]

Once the Knicks get Deuce, Precious and Mitch their rotation becomes deeper again but it also means fans won't see the kids anymore.

we'll see them in the countless blowout wins.

[Spree2Houston]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Damn look at how “fat” he got

[Spree2Houston]

Mitch about to come back before Precious lol

[KnixinSix]

Both numbers are eye popping, though.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

Yep and those numbers don’t actually reflect the shots he’s actually contesting in the restricted area. DFG% does that. For the season KAT has a DFG% of 73% <6 feet, letting opponents shoot 9.5% better at the rim. That DFG% at protecting the rim is in the same territory as point guards. Hes worst than every starting big in the league, not hyperbole. People are really trying to act like he’s in the same territory as Chet, JJJ and Mobley on defense KAT is a good offensive player but his rim protection is historically trash. It’s not a coincidence that people in our FO are banking on Mitch to save our defense at the 5.

Couple of things. KAT is not a “good” offensive player. He’s borderline elite as an offensive hub. OG to me is a good offensive player (3s, dunks, mid range, slashing) etc.

Number two, we truly got spoiled with iHart. His DFG% last season was 53% (outstanding) and KAT notoriously is around 62% (big drop-off). In fact, the only players who essentially graded out better than iHart owning the paint was Chet, Gobert, KP, Zubac and Kessler.

If you look at KAT in November (10 games) he’s back to that number I mentioned (62.8%). Again, not what you want out of your C, but you should be able to live with it if you get your defensive bigs back (timeline on these guys are still up in the air).

And if we’re being fair, one of the last parts of a defensive possession is (a) boxing out and (b) fighting for highly contested rebounds in traffic. It’s undeniable how good KAT is at both of these things, and a large portion of the fanbase really didn’t anticipate that.

I think part of the reason why people believe we have a high ceiling is because of how good our offense is starting to look. Yes, any fan/die-hard can look at last years team O-Rating and say “we were 7th and now we’re 3rd so it’s not a huge increase.”

Having said that, you have to go a step further and look underneath the hood. This year we are 3rd in assists per 100 possessions, 2nd TS% and 2nd in EFG%. Last year we were 28th in assist per 100 possessions, 16th in EFG% and 20th in TS%.

Here’s to hoping we can button up the defensive side of the ball as the year unfolds.

Great stuff Buttah this will largely come down to how good can we be on D with Towns at the 5 and then short of that how much better will we be defensively when we get Mitchell and/or Precious back.

Offense Im not worried in the least. Brunson still hasn't hit his stride yet and we look incredible.

[Jeff Van Gully]

Kat stops going airborne for every pump solves majority of his defensive/foul woes…dude bites

he also hand checks like it's 1994. there is no point in his playing life when that was legal.