GT: Knicks vs Pistons GAME 1 4/19/25 @ 6 PM on ESPN

[Wildcat]

Malik Beasley talking spicy about KAT. Ima need KAT to average 25/12 against them.

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I find this so obnoxious. This is not even cute confident. It's down right disrespectful. They need to humbled AF.

[spree2kawhi]

If Randle wasnt the laziest sportsman on earth and iHart wasnt afraid of Mitch taking his starting spot (with that the chance of even bigger paycheck in 2025-2026) we wouldnt have these issues

Hart / Mitch / Hukporti
Randle / Hart / Achiuwa
OG / Grimes / Dadiet
Donte / Deuce / McCullar
Brunson / Payne / Kolek

And 7 more picks in the stock

But he is and he was and we’re better now.

[spree8]

This dude really said “they’re scared” and then referred to DET as “the bad boys”?

Guy must’ve stood up all night trying his best Connor McGregor impressions in the mirror. Corny

[TKKnicks1]

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[Adelheid]

why do they need to air their stratagems out there in social media??? what the heck

[Jeff Van Gully]

This is like, kind of the whole issue

If you're gonna run a defense the way Thibs is, you need all 5 guys to be perfectly in sync at all times

And we're not. It's largely on the coach, Thibs has not adjusted to the fact that teams now have 4 or even 5 shooters on court, we're still trying to rotate as if there's only 1 or 2 real threats from 3 off the drive. Plus, all the crazy minutes we've played leads to guys getting tired which leads to little concentration slips, little mistakes which pile up over the season

In theory, you could run what Thibs wants. But in practice, it is unrealistic

Also, I just gotta say, at this point in his career Mitch is just not that guy any more. His rookie/sophomore years, before the injuries and the bulking up, maybe. But now he's lost so much of his athleticism, he's noticeably much slower. And he hasn't been a good rim protector the past 2 seasons (70% dFG both years)

With that being said, it shouldn't hurt us too bad this series. Their only good shooter comes off the bench, Duren is a complete non-shooter, and Ausar Thompson is almost a non-factor from 3 too.

It's really strange to see a coach be so blind to such an obvious issue.
The winning really does hide a lot of clear flaws.

The additional bit is that since Thibs usually coaches the regular season like it's playoffs, we don't have a dial to turn up whereas other teams do.
If the refs let both sides play more physical who does that help more?

Last year physicality was heavily in our favor because we had guys like Randle and iHart who weren’t afraid of throwing their weight around

This year more physicality benefits the other team because in most matchups we have the softer players and more easily rattled players

Physicality bothers Brunson a lot as well and the more physical they allow his defender to be can heavily impact his game

i pretty much agree with all that. we had the metal bats out early and often last season. it was maybe my favorite part of our identity. (which is why i am a thibsian maniac.)

i think i get where you're coming from with the bold but don't know how much i agree. it always looked to me that contact is an important and expected part of Brunson's game. i think he gets bothered by the lack of calls when he's getting his braids smacked around in the paint. but he's kind of a bully ball PG. he's got a post big's footwork and use of physicality.

[KnicksGadfly]

It's really strange to see a coach be so blind to such an obvious issue.
The winning really does hide a lot of clear flaws.

The additional bit is that since Thibs usually coaches the regular season like it's playoffs, we don't have a dial to turn up whereas other teams do.
If the refs let both sides play more physical who does that help more?

Last year physicality was heavily in our favor because we had guys like Randle and iHart who weren’t afraid of throwing their weight around

This year more physicality benefits the other team because in most matchups we have the softer players and more easily rattled players

Physicality bothers Brunson a lot as well and the more physical they allow his defender to be can heavily impact his game

i pretty much agree with all that. we had the metal bats out early and often last season. it was maybe my favorite part of our identity. (which is why i am a thibsian maniac.)

i think i get where you're coming from with the bold but don't know how much i agree. it always looked to me that contact is an important and expected part of Brunson's game. i think he gets bothered by the lack of calls when he's getting his braids smacked around in the paint. but he's kind of a bully ball PG. he's got a post big's footwork and use of physicality.

Yah, I also disagree. I feel like people haven't watched Brunson for the first few seasons on the Knicks, when they keep saying this stuff. Like...are we seriously thinking that teams wouldn't have played Brunson physical if that was his weakness? It took the whole league 3 years on the Knicks before they figured it out? Or maybe his 32 ppg in the playoffs last year was cause teams were locking him down and he should have had 40?

Brunson has been getting played physical his whole career and he's never let it stop him. It's KAT I'm more worried about. Brunson is cold-blooded.

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[LFGK]

Malik Beasley talking spicy about KAT. Ima need KAT to average 25/12 against them.

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I find this so obnoxious. This is not even cute confident. It's down right disrespectful. They need to humbled AF.

Delusion at its finest

[Jeff Van Gully]

Malik Beasley talking spicy about KAT. Ima need KAT to average 25/12 against them.

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I find this so obnoxious. This is not even cute confident. It's down right disrespectful. They need to humbled AF.

Delusion at its finest

this is one of my least favorite players in the league. i don't rate domestic violence.

if i recall correctly, he and KAT are former teammates and cool. i don't think it's serious. could be wrong. but he's still a POS.

[Wildcat]

I find this so obnoxious. This is not even cute confident. It's down right disrespectful. They need to humbled AF.

Delusion at its finest

this is one of my least favorite players in the league. i don't rate domestic violence.

if i recall correctly, he and KAT are former teammates and cool. i don't think it's serious. could be wrong. but he's still a POS.

I don't know much about him. I'll look into it. But he took shots at the Knicks on top of the KAT comments. Said the Knicks are scared.

[KNICKS007]

I find this so obnoxious. This is not even cute confident. It's down right disrespectful. They need to humbled AF.

Delusion at its finest

this is one of my least favorite players in the league. i don't rate domestic violence.

if i recall correctly, he and KAT are former teammates and cool. i don't think it's serious. could be wrong. but he's still a POS.

he said this joking around with a smile.

Media needed click bait headline

[Gravy]

Hate to admit; KAT and Mikal put the soft label on the team this year. They need to begin to change that in the playoffs, mostly on the defensive side.

[god shammgod]

Hate to admit; KAT and Mikal put the soft label on the team this year. They need to begin to change that in the playoffs, mostly on the defensive side.

yes but it's not just a label. we've seen it. the knicks were a team that made you feel them in the past. now we're the ones who get bullied. it's going to be up to guys like og, mitch, hart to up the intensity. can't expect guys who've never done something to start now.

[Wildcat]

Delusion at its finest

this is one of my least favorite players in the league. i don't rate domestic violence.

if i recall correctly, he and KAT are former teammates and cool. i don't think it's serious. could be wrong. but he's still a POS.

he said this joking around with a smile.

Media needed click bait headline

I suggest you listen in, because he took shots at the Knicks outside his KAT comments.

I think they're scared.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

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That's why you play the two bigs whenever Ausar is on the floor, KAT on Duren and Mitch on Ausar, you give up open threes to Ausar while allowing Mitch to roam on defense and take away their option to attack the middle. You hard trap Cade if they set a screen with Ausar.

You make it prohibitively expensive for them to play their best defender by making him a complete negative on offense.

[sol537]

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That's why you play the two bigs whenever Ausar is on the floor, KAT on Duren and Mitch on Ausar, you give up open threes to Ausar while allowing Mitch to roam on defense and take away their option to attack the middle. You hard trap Cade if they set a screen with Ausar.

You make it prohibitively expensive for them to play their best defender by making him a complete negative on offense.

So...the Hart treatment?

Starting Mitch over Hart is a no brainer in this series but I'd be shocked if Thibs changed his starting line-up before game one. Pleasantly surprised.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

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That's why you play the two bigs whenever Ausar is on the floor, KAT on Duren and Mitch on Ausar, you give up open threes to Ausar while allowing Mitch to roam on defense and take away their option to attack the middle. You hard trap Cade if they set a screen with Ausar.

You make it prohibitively expensive for them to play their best defender by making him a complete negative on offense.

So...the Hart treatment?

Starting Mitch over Hart is a no brainer in this series but I'd be shocked if Thibs changed his starting line-up before game one. Pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, except Ausar is a far worse shooter than Hart, and even more unwilling to take them.



Even if they don't start Mitch, at some point he has to give them that look to disrupt what they're doing. It's funny because the Pistons also don't guard Hart with their bigs, they stay almost strictly with C on C matchups. Duren and Beef Stew have less than 3 minutes matched on Hart, so I kind of expect them to do it to us, but we've seen it more than them.

[sol537]

Stew has done a tremendous job on KAT so I see why they don't want to mess that up. And they'll likely put Thompson on Brunson full court to wear him down. Whoever they put on Hart will sag off like crazy to protect against drives.

Hart is such a muck up of our offense, man. At least Mitch gets you a lob threat and plenty of offensive boards when he clogs the paint... plus giving us the best picks on the team.

[thebuzzardman]

ngl my enthusiasm for these playoffs are pretty low considering what this team showed us against elite comp this year.. i hope we can flip a switch

Same, I’m hoping we look different in the playoffs

They won't.

Pistons in 4

[TheGreenArrow]

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Letssssssssssssss Getttttttttt Thisssssss W Folkssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!