PG - this is the opposite of fun

[Jeff Van Gully]

Knicks win: Thibs deserves a statue outside MSG!

Knicks lose: Trade for this all time great, the roster isn't good enough to beat a lower playoff seed. All hail Thibs!

And I'm not even doing much hyperbole

you have to be describing like 2 people.

[dakomish23]

Been our offense for 5 years...

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Even when we get a guy in motion, it’s just for him to get a matchup to go one on one versus the defender.

When was the last time we hit one guy with a pass then another guy moved off the ball to get an open shot?

[MrDollarBills]

Jalen getting the ball across half court on every possession

Let Hart bring the ball up. Just don’t let him jump pass

Bridges and Hart should be aiding with ball handling.

Like why are guys watching Brunson being pressured. This is 8th grade stuff!!!! Come to the ball, get it up court and get into your sets ffs

[TheGreenArrow]

Blaming Thibs for everything is getting so boring

Sometimes the truth is boring.

So none of the players are culpable at all ? It’s all just coaching. Cmon guys lol

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This is his offense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They run nothing but isos no matter who’s in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He has to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jeff Van Gully]

Been our offense for 5 years...

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Even when we get a guy in motion, it’s just for him to get a matchup to go one on one versus the defender.

When was the last time we hit one guy with a pass then another guy moved off the ball to get an open shot?

mikal baseline from josh hart in game 4 comes to mind.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Jalen getting the ball across half court on every possession

Let Hart bring the ball up. Just don’t let him jump pass

Bridges and Hart should be aiding with ball handling.

Like why are guys watching Brunson being pressured. This is 8th grade stuff!!!! Come to the ball, get it up court and get into your sets ffs

Hart handles the ball the second most on the team, the problem is and always will be that he cannot shoot and doesn't put pressure on the rim when he's not in transition, so you really lose track of just how much he actually has the ball because it's mostly ending in a pass or a DHO.

When he was with the Nets Bridges ran the PnR 2x as much as he does with us, this is largely because Hart HAS to be on the ball often or else nobody would ever guard him. It's the Ben Simmons situation on a smaller scale, Hart is at least willing to shoot sometimes, but he doesn't shoot enough for the opponents to really worry.

[Appleshampoo]

I don't understand the play where OG was called for a foul while fixing his shoe. Pistons knocked him down and then ran into him. Also, the late whistle on Bridges who stripped it from Cade and passed to OG for easy dunk. Both killed momentum when the Knicks were about to go on a run.

[Jeff Van Gully]

I don't understand the play where OG was called for a foul while fixing his shoe. Pistons knocked him down and then ran into him. Also, the late whistle on Bridges who stripped it from Cade and passed to OG for easy dunk. Both killed momentum when the Knicks were about to go on a run.

we got hosed on some calls. still could and should have won.

[3toheadmelo]

Blaming Thibs for everything is getting so boring

It’s because the Knicks traded for players that these posters wanted for years but since they were wrong about those players (and the ones we got rid of) they’re just going to blame everything on Thibs. And look I get it, Thibs has his flaws and I want to get JVG as head coach, but acting like Thibs is holding us from being a championship contender is nuts.

[Wildcat]

Knicks win: Thibs deserves a statue outside MSG!

Knicks lose: Trade for this all time great, the roster isn't good enough to beat a lower playoff seed. All hail Thibs!

And I'm not even doing much hyperbole

you have to be describing like 2 people.

There very little Thibs supporters out here.

[MrDollarBills]

Let Hart bring the ball up. Just don’t let him jump pass

Bridges and Hart should be aiding with ball handling.

Like why are guys watching Brunson being pressured. This is 8th grade stuff!!!! Come to the ball, get it up court and get into your sets ffs

Hart handles the ball the second most on the team, the problem is and always will be that he cannot shoot and doesn't put pressure on the rim when he's not in transition, so you really lose track of just how much he actually has the ball because it's mostly ending in a pass or a DHO.

When he was with the Nets Bridges ran the PnR 2x as much as he does with us, this is largely because Hart HAS to be on the ball often or else nobody would ever guard him. It's the Ben Simmons situation on a smaller scale, Hart is at least willing to shoot sometimes, but he doesn't shoot enough for the opponents to really worry.

I love Josh. I believe he plays with the best intentions in mind. But he needs to be a 6th man and not a 40+ min player.

Mikal....meh. He's reminding me of the Mikal i saw versus the 76ers a few years back with the other team. I'm over it. I thought coming here would light a fire but this year has just been too disappointing. Tom isn't using him right but it's not like he's helped his case either.

[Stannis]

All the good teams seem able to knock out their opponents in 5 games or less

Knicks are struggling with the Pistons. This just isn't a good sign

[nedleeds]

Imagine a world where THJr hits the game winner in MSG after we drafted him, traded him, then signed him, then salary dumped him to trade the 2nd best player on Boston for nothing.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Bridges and Hart should be aiding with ball handling.

Like why are guys watching Brunson being pressured. This is 8th grade stuff!!!! Come to the ball, get it up court and get into your sets ffs

Hart handles the ball the second most on the team, the problem is and always will be that he cannot shoot and doesn't put pressure on the rim when he's not in transition, so you really lose track of just how much he actually has the ball because it's mostly ending in a pass or a DHO.

When he was with the Nets Bridges ran the PnR 2x as much as he does with us, this is largely because Hart HAS to be on the ball often or else nobody would ever guard him. It's the Ben Simmons situation on a smaller scale, Hart is at least willing to shoot sometimes, but he doesn't shoot enough for the opponents to really worry.

I love Josh. I believe he plays with the best intentions in mind. But he needs to be a 6th man and not a 40+ min player.

Mikal....meh. He's reminding me of the Mikal i saw versus the 76ers a few years back with the other team. I'm over it. I thought coming here would light a fire but this year has just been too disappointing. Tom isn't using him right but it's not like he's helped his case either.

Josh is a good player, but he's an easy way for the opponents to completely muck up our offense, he also makes entirely too much money for what he is. He makes 2x as much as Aaron Nesmith, who averaged 14/5 against the Bucks and shot 52% from three on 5 attempts per game. The hustle stuff is cute, but I'd rather have a guy that makes threes and doesn't allow Duren to become a free safety on defense.

Mikal's problem is that he changed his shot for no apparent reason, the only thing I can come up with is that he wanted to be able to take more contested mid range jumpers. But he ruined his above the break shooting ability, and it's going to take an offseason to fix that and hopefully get back to where it was when he could make threes off a high screen.

[kNicksGmen]

knicks actually had a very good 3rd quarter net rating in the regular season and a terrible 4th quarter net rating. playoffs have actually flipped.

[JayTWill]

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This is a great breakdown of the offensive struggles, now is this a coaching issue, for sure could be, or is this a group of players that don’t give it 100% all the time, there is no excuse to be playing at 1/2 speed no less in a home playoff game.

i appreciate this opportunity for good nuanced conversation. but i unfortunately merely expect it to just be coach bashing, like this is what he tells them to do (when he speaks out against it all the time).

regardless, coach is responsible for how it goes. but, no. he's not being lazy or missing open shots and free throws. so it's unfair to look at moments like these and maintain a "coach bad, players good" extreme agenda. it's always a shared thing. and both can be better. why do they start halves flat? why is mikal out here talking about layup lines for cohesion. that's unsettling.

and again, detroit deserves credit for not making it easy to execute the things. they not gon LET you. so some of this comes down to heart and... marble.

This is a player issue. This is a designed set. People get mad at Thibs and thinks he doesn't run plays. This is a play and the players just moved through it at half speed like it was a pregame walkthrough.

That lack of urgency the team plays with has been an issue all year. That's on the players and the coach but on this play i'm not even sure what they are trying to accomplish. The fact that the play is being initiated by 6'1 guard almost 40 ft away from the basket in a stationary position with a longer defender playing up on him essentially takes away most of the passing options that are not also 30-40 ft away from the basket

The first pass was to KAT who was 30 ft away from the basket who handed it off to Hart just to throw it back to Jalen 35-40 ft away from the basket. They ran a little wedge screen for KAT which basically got blown up with Duren not paying attention to Hart and then switching. Even if they somehow got KAT on the block I have no idea how the entry pass would be made into him.

Mikal definitely could have come off that screen with more energy but I have no idea where else he was going to catch the ball other than near the half court line and why would you run a play just get the ball in Mikals hands that far away from the basket with more than half the shot clock ran off? No matter how hard they ran that play it seems like it was just going to end up with Mikal trying to take someone off the dribble which is terrible offense. Does anyone see any other outcomes for that play?

[snadler]

Let me say this as a big Thibs defender, can this team be better than they are absolutely. But some of you think a team full of nba players are like a bunch of high school kids that wait/listen to a coach on every possession and or just follow every direction the coach tells them. No nba team/players does this. Teams run sets, players at this point should know each other by now and realize their teammates strengths and try to get them the ball in their spots. This team still goes through stretches as if they never have played together before, is that a coaching issue that they don’t play well enough as a unit, it sure is, but should this team full of vets being to run their sets with better precision, know each other better..absolutely. So to say it’s all on thibs is wrong, to say it’s all on the players, it’s wrong, but the players are the ones out there, they control what they do, NOT the coach.

[Guano]

Need play calling to actually see if you have a secondary shot creator. Mikal on paper should be able to do it. He was doing it in the early part of last season with the Nets. It's the **** system. I literally want to start a 2K season and fire Thibs immediately.

Sure, but we still need a guy who can cook 1v1. That's playoff basketball. The reason this series looks so bad is there are 2 guys in the whole series who are really 1v1 players. their coach runs some PnR with baseline cuts. But those are the only plays were seeing in the whole series. Its just bad basketball with misused talent on our side. Though we need someone outside of Brunson who can create.

Team doesn't need a secondary creator as much as they need a coach that can maximize this offense.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree, mate

[Knicksfan1992]

Sometimes the truth is boring.

So none of the players are culpable at all ? It’s all just coaching. Cmon guys lol

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This is his offense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They run nothing but isos no matter who’s in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He has to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I mean KAT has two easy reads there that he ignores to take a contested two. He has Payne open in the corner because Duren is cheating to help the drive. Also Ausar kind of falls asleep and Deuce is open at the top of the key. KAT hits either of those two passes and maybe it's a different outcome. Ultimately Thibs can't make KAT make the right decision there. It's why Brunson is so valuable because when he's in a groove he's a threat to make the pass or hit a crazy contested shot in that situation. KAT isn't really a creator like that.

You could make the argument that setting the play up so that KAT is receiving the ball at the top of the key is already inherently flawed. That really KAT should be getting it closer to the post to make those reads. I would somewhat agree with that take. But you have to remember KAT had 5 fouls. You don't want to necessarily put him in a situation where he picks up his 6th because then you're totally effed without Brunson on the floor. A drive from the top of the key is way less likely to get KAT in a situation where he gets a stupid foul whereas Tobias has been trying to sell fouls in the post all series long.

KAT makes no contact on his screen so it took away any chance at a mix up on a switch or any pop option which Thibs may have been trying to get a quick hitter out of. And also when you're best pick and roll ball handler is Mikal instead of Brunson it makes it easier for the defense to not have to worry about the ball handler too much. There's just not really a ton of great options in end of game scenarios if Brunson isn't in. Our best advantage is KAT on Tobias IMO. Maybe OG on Cade? But OG isn't a good passer either.

[sol537]

All the good teams seem able to knock out their opponents in 5 games or less

Knicks are struggling with the Pistons. This just isn't a good sign

That's because we're not a contender and we'd get hosed by BOS/CLE. I don't get why people get surprised by our struggles under Thibs. The signs were there all season long.