PG: The Rewards Go To The True Believers

[F N 11]

Spoiler:

After I woke up and my high wore off (Marijuana). This still feels surreal. Going to run errands in Knicks gear.

[Clyde_Style]

Pure chaos!

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If the Knicks go all the way the city will be shut down. Cars will need to stay home that night.

I'm sure glad I'm not stuck in the middle of that crowd

[BKlutch]

Brilliant. I did not really see anything from Thibs until this game but, game 4 I don't recall any complaints. He was trash the rest of the playoffs. It's a miracle we got this far to date.

Idk, facts are we're in the ecf with thibs as the coach. We've got a lot of talent and its a star driven league, but its hard to buy into the thibs is trash. We just easily beat the defending champs when they were the higher seed. And thibs outcoached Mazzula in that series.

True and its also hard to buy into the "trade Mitch" sentiment....where are is team"Mitch is trash" now?

Instead of trading a few pieces and a pick for a serviceable 7 footer, how about we keep Huk for the 3rd center role and trade Precious? He really didn't contribute.

[Grinditout]

Just realized this is the first time the team has made the ECF with this forum around, is that right? When did this board start, Marbury era?

[HerSports85]

thibs coached a good series. whether you admit it or not he did. y'all claimed he would make no adjustments before game 1. he did. you wanted mitch and mcbride benched for precious and shamet. he knew better. go ask celtics fans what they think of mazulla's coaching this series lol

That’s the thing, the Thibs makes no adjustments in the playoffs thing was a fallacy. He always made game to game adjustments in the playoffs in the past.

This year I will say his in game adjustments and decision making have been better than in the past.

He coached a helluva series and kept them fighting.

Thibs ultimate flaw is also his greatest strength, he always believes in his guys to figure it out.

This was my complaint about him. He eventually makes adjustments but it take a couple games, and in the playoffs that's not ideal. Luckily this year that's not the case. He's processing things much faster and we have the talent to overcome what he doesn't see right away.

I don't mind giving credit where credit is due, to my surprise, he's been good these playoffs outside of a few WTF moments.

He's doing a damn good job .. he's still a stubborn, stuck in the past penguin. But he's ours.

[Clyde_Style]

Brilliant. I did not really see anything from Thibs until this game but, game 4 I don't recall any complaints. He was trash the rest of the playoffs. It's a miracle we got this far to date.

Idk, facts are we're in the ecf with thibs as the coach. We've got a lot of talent and its a star driven league, but its hard to buy into the thibs is trash. We just easily beat the defending champs when they were the higher seed. And thibs outcoached Mazzula in that series.

True and its also hard to buy into the "trade Mitch" sentiment....where are is team"Mitch is trash" now?

I believed Mitch could be a difference maker when he came back. He looked truly awful and almost useless during the Pistons series.

But it finally clicked for him in this series and now he's the guy we were hoping he could be.

This version of Mitch makes us a contender. Just 15-20 minutes a night in this mode is very disruptive for our opponents. I'm hoping his gas tank is filling up and he can give us 25-30 minutes of high intensity Mitch if we need that from him, but 20 minutes is enough to matter.

[RHODEY]

In 94 we were legit contenders and if Starks didn't go 0-11 from 3 we probably win. In 99 by the time we got to the finals we were so banged up we never had no chance. I've been waiting 30 years for another chance like this.

Yep... honorable mentions are the 93' charles smith missed dunk and Stark "the dunk' team. I think that was the best Knicks team I ever witnessed (outside of this squad) but unfortunately we could get past Jordan.


And there was that deep AF 97" team that Stu Jackson screwed over. They would have given that 72 Bulls team a run for their money.

[HerSports85]

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[RHODEY]

Idk, facts are we're in the ecf with thibs as the coach. We've got a lot of talent and its a star driven league, but its hard to buy into the thibs is trash. We just easily beat the defending champs when they were the higher seed. And thibs outcoached Mazzula in that series.

True and its also hard to buy into the "trade Mitch" sentiment....where are is team"Mitch is trash" now?

I believed Mitch could be a difference maker when he came back. He looked truly awful and almost useless during the Pistons series.

But it finally clicked for him in this series and now he's the guy we were hoping he could be.

This version of Mitch makes us a contender. Just 15-20 minutes a night in this mode is very disruptive for our opponents. I'm hoping his gas tank is filling up and he can give us 25-30 minutes of high intensity Mitch if we need that from him, but 20 minutes is enough to matter.

Did he even get any burn versus Detroit?...for some reason I cant remember.

[Juco24]

The Defensive Play of the Year.

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I would have to agree. I felt like I was watching something that wasn't real.

That weight loss had me worried initially... but no way could he have done this while playing heavier

[Clyde_Style]

True and its also hard to buy into the "trade Mitch" sentiment....where are is team"Mitch is trash" now?

I believed Mitch could be a difference maker when he came back. He looked truly awful and almost useless during the Pistons series.

But it finally clicked for him in this series and now he's the guy we were hoping he could be.

This version of Mitch makes us a contender. Just 15-20 minutes a night in this mode is very disruptive for our opponents. I'm hoping his gas tank is filling up and he can give us 25-30 minutes of high intensity Mitch if we need that from him, but 20 minutes is enough to matter.

Did he even get any burn versus Detroit?...for some reason I cant remember.

You don't remember because he was really bad in that series

as you can see here, he played almost the same amount of minutes in that series as this one:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/robinmi01/gamelog-playoffs/

The difference shows up in the +/- differentials. It is pretty clear we did better with him on the floor during this series.

[stuporman]

I don't know why you guys are celebrating...the Celtics have a 6-4 record against the Knicks this season, maybe someone should post that on the Celtics board to make them feel better right before they permaban you.

I think I'm going to use the 'losing to the Knicks feels like death' clip as a ringtone...

[RHODEY]

The Defensive Play of the Year.

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I would have to agree. I felt like I was watching something that wasn't real.

That weight loss had me worried initially... but no way could he have done this while playing heavier

Its weird, I know Mitch put on weight and then got injuried...but why do y'all sound so surprised? I mean Mitch was doing stuff like this (and more) before .

[god shammgod]

Mitch has a new set of truck nuts for his new rig because he took Brown's balls in the corner on that play...

Fosho shamm is smoking all you Mitch haters packs right now and we know he can smoke big so there won't be anything left when he's done

I took more shots than 50 cent sticking up for him over the years lol

[Strick]

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[Juco24]

I went from watching Alexey Shved to having home court advantage in the ECF. I’m on cloud 9

Where the suffering truly began:

Blunderson and Dumbsley... the absolute worst period of being a Knicks fan in my life. To this day... I can't stand Howard Dumbsley. And throw in Frank Laydumb while you're at it

[KnixinSix]

Lets review the 3 biggest improvements from the regular season that have elevated us to legitimate championship contention.....

1. I have been waiting for that final piece Mitch to get healthy all year and hoepfully resume being the DPOY level player he has shown us many times in the past when he was firing on all cylinders. The fact that he lost so much weight made him agile and spry like the YOUNG Mitch Robinson that could defend so much ground including the 3 pt line.

He is the rare 7 footer than can be a positive vs teams that bomb away from 3 at a high percentage. And offensively he is an offensive board machine cleaning up Knick misses with putbacks or outlets for 2nd and 3rd chances.

What a huge boost for this team. He was something like +60 /65 in this series even while averaging less than 25 minutes a game.

2. Mikal Bridges dedicating himself to the defensive side of the ball and playing defense on the level like we have seen for much of his career. Another force multiplier that has significantly elevated the overall team defense. Combine that with Mitch's return to his old self, the defense is starting to finally look absolutely suffocating at times and also look like what a championship defense should look like.

3. Thibs though slow to make adjustments often throughout his career generally starting to playing more switching defense and simplifying some of the rotations to aviod too much miscommunication at key moments in the series. We saw how much better they look when they switch smartly with all the great defenders we have without making it too complicated with too many reads. Also this last game they followed White around past half court and always had a man close to him. No more constant wide open 3s for a guy that was shooting like a ridiculous 60% on uncontested triples.

[Richard4444]

I honest to God think to this day that Melo was in his ear complaining about Phil and the front office so much that it eventually got to him. Then you got his brother/agent with the same narrative and that pushed KP over the edge. Deep down he wanted to be here, but he was young and everybody pressured him to leave. I still have his autographed jersey in my closet somewhere.

i think they all just hated phil. i heard shump & jr talking about it recently. they thought he had no idea what he was doing. which he didn't.

wasn't there word that phil was shopping him right before that ?

Pills traded him though not Phil.

He didn't get his extension when everyone else in his class did. That's pretty much saying goodbye.

KP"s Cap Hold was lower than his max salary. Not extending him would allow us to maximize the cap space to bring another star. In the worst scenario, we would bring Kemba or Randle.

Maxey did not have his rookie contract extended to allow the Sixers to land another star.

[Juco24]

you can't call yourself a knicks fan if you don't love mitchell robinson. that man has handed me so many delicious defensive highlights.

When he struck the 'pose' after hitting the free throws in G5, I dang near spit. You can tell he's fully vested in this playoff run. Amazing how much he's matured

[stuporman]

Mitch has a new set of truck nuts for his new rig because he took Brown's balls in the corner on that play...

Fosho shamm is smoking all you Mitch haters packs right now and we know he can smoke big so there won't be anything left when he's done

I took more shots than 50 cent sticking up for him over the years lol

They'll be back by summer league with their goldfish brain telling us how he's useless and his defense is overrated b-b-but free throws, making up fantasy trades trying to get a third stringer. Just keep that play in your bookmarks and respond to every one of them with 'no' and that clip.