HopelessKnick wrote:Fury wrote:HopelessKnick wrote:
I neither have a defeated nor undefeated mindset. I just tell things straight as I see them. Last season I saw a team that, if healthy, would have blown out the Pacers in a sweep and fought Boston tooth and nails and I said as much. Even without Randle and Mitch I was confident we would have beat Indy and we would have. I legitimately think a completely healthy knick squad could have won the title last season. I was positive and said it back then. Despite losing to a clearly inferior team in Indy I was positive and made multiple posts saying the Knicks are in great shape.
This year I just don't see it. Bridges trade was a straight catstrophe. Whenever I watch them play against a team over .500 there is like zero flow, everything seems forced and out of synch. Bridges frequently dissapears. If you count together all the important games of the season against the elite and the playoffs, Bridges has averaged like 11points/3rebounds on inefficient shooting. And I have seen too many games where OG and Bridges combine like for 2-10 from 3 or so. When I watch those other playoff matchups I just see higher level of play. It has nothing to do with a defeated mindset, I just see and call higher level of play. When I watch the Pistons play, I'm always astonished how bad they are. IMO they are literally a .500 team that got lucky a couple eastern conference teams had catastrophic injury luck so they won 4-5 games more than they are supposed to. If you put a healthy Orlando team vs. a healthy Pistons team I'm convinced Orlando blows them out of the water.
Despite all that I picked the Knicks in 5 and had some small hope we'd play better than in the regular season and Mitch would be playing 25minutes or so and bolster the team. I said in multiple posts that with Brunson the Knicks have the best player, not the Pistons. I thought the Knicks would win 1-2 close games and have 2 wire to wire rock solid wins. I'm shocked we trailed like 90% of the time at home and needed a historic run to close out game one and really needed a meltdown by the young Pistons in game 3 and a lot of luck in game 4 to be up 3-1. Like really honestly it could be 2-2 or we could be down 3-1. It's not even me alone saying it. Many analysts said after game 4 that the Knicks-Pistons series is one of the few series where after 4 games it is still unclear who the better team is. It is how I genuinely see it.
I refrained from making even a SINGLE negative post about Thibs or Bridges or KAT up until around the all-star break. I'm not one of the doom and gloomers but what I see on the floor is completely unconvincing. If I had to rank both teams out of all 16 playoff teams I would put the Knicks at like 12-13 and the Pistons at like 14-15. That's just how I see and analyze this. I think the Boston series will---unfotunately--prove me right. The Pistons would not beat any playoff team maybe other than Miami. Not one. They would suffer sweeps against many of these teams. I'm baffled people can't see how low their level of play is.
I think you're exaggerating just how close playoff games are. Especially with the Knicks. Even last year. Game 1 was close vs Philly. Game 2 they got "lucky." Game 3 they lost. Game 4 they "almost blew it." Game 5 "they blew it." Game 6 "they got lucky." It's always some ****. That's how it is in the playoffs. You gotta win ugly.
Yeah but against Philly you at least faced a genuinely good team. I know Embiid wasn't at 100% but it was worthy of celebration especially given the fact that the Knicks were without Randle and had a hobbled Mitch in there. So we had every right to be legitimately proud of what they did out there. Against OKC, Boston, Cleveland---heck against the Lakers, Nuggets, Clippers, Wolves, GSW, Rockets I would take a win in any shape or form but relying on historic runs and no-calls on fouls and some simple luck to beat a lame ass Pistons team? Like the team that has the 15th best roster out of the top 16 and is missing their second best player and best frontcourt defender?
I mean--like we knew all season long--in a couple days we'll be facing the Celtics. Either my assessment of the Pistons is right and we are barely beating a .500 team needing all the luck we can gather or my judgement is off and the Pistons are really much better than I give them credit for and we should do pretty well against the Celtics right? I genuinely hope I will be wrong, the Knicks play the Celtics at least 7 games long and I have to (gladly) eat my words. However I think (if Celtics are healthy again) in 2 weeks time there will be dozens of sobered up knick fans that will realize we needed a gigantic effort to beat a weak Pistons team. Fair enough?
I think this is revionist history. What people say about last year's team is not what was said at the moment (from the people who dislike last year's team). The same people saying this team stinks, were also **** Donte for being inconsistent, on Harteinstein for getting worked by Embiid and Turner, and the lack of depth. Some of those pepole didn't even think they'd beat the Sixers. And when they beat the Sixers, it was cause Embiid was hurt. And even with the players who went down in the Pacer series, people thought they still should've won that series.
I don't think anyone realisitically thought they were going to beat the Celtics last year. Healthy or not. But in order to **** on this team, that has to be said as if it were a real possibility.
As long as Thibs is head coach of the Knicks, the games will usually be close. The Knicks like slowing it down, especially in the playoffs. It's tough to blow teams out when you don't run. So the Knicks will play down to teams. All I know is that every single game last year was close, except for the three blowouts in the Pacer series. That's just the way it goes.
You also can't just call the Pistons a .500 team, they're better than that. They're not in the 2nd tier of teams in the East, but they're not a .500 team. A team in between those tiers is not a team the Knicks are going to blow out, this year or last. That's just the style of play.
thibs is here to stay folks
