PG: Awful gameplan, not prepared, not 1 good performance

[HEZI]

Leon can still put us on the right path. I think KAT has more value than Randle/DDV would have had coming into this off-season so that alone is a win. We should flip him for one or more pieces that are capable of defending at a high level.

Our bench should be much better next season since we still have Mitch and Deuce on the books. Plus we have the Tax MLE to utilize for added depth.

The main upgrade Leon can make, however, is to bring in a guy like Dan Hurley (or Jay Wright?) to steer the ship. The right coach can get us to 60 wins and a finals appearance.

Replace KAT with who though? I don’t think just removing KAT and adding defensive players would make us better. KAT has won us games, playoff games and it’s not that simple to just replace his production and value to the team. The bad defense yes I understand and acknowledge it but his offense is not that easy to just replace. He’s a highly efficient scorer who is good enough to win you big games which he has.

The Pacers are literally one of the worst matchups for us because of the way they are so deadly in matchup hunting. When you have defensive liabilties at BOTH the 1 and the 5 and your coach inexplicably and/or stubbornly continues to plays both together for extended minutes its a recipe for defensive disaster. A team like the Pacers especially have so many ways to beat you that no matter how fast you switch,rotate etc. their ball movement and decision making under Carlisles scheme they almost always end up with an uncontested or lightly contested shot or drive to the hoop.

Just look at the difference in the difficulty of shots on average that the Knicks take vs the shots the other team takes for further proof. Sure the Pacers made a few high difficulty shots but man they had soooo many uncontested easy ones.

Further evidence is almost every lineup permutation with only one of either KAT or Brunson was a strong positive or close to it. But with both on the floor together it was a defensive catastrophe.

It is why from essentially from the beginning of game 1 , I saw this as CLEAR AS DAY..Now if I can see this, a half decent NBA coach should most definitely be able to pick up on this..and started posting about it with the main priority needing to be staggering KATs and Brunson's minutes as possible.

Carlisle entire game plan centered around absolutely and relentlessly attacking the KAT and Brunson matchup NON STOP. It also made them expend so much more energy on their end too. This was 100% an out coaching job by Carlisle on Thibs. If Thibs would have went against all his tendencies and played Brunson and KAT a bit less maybe no more than 32 minutes each (which means you could limit the time they are both on floor for only 16 minutes together) along with playing Wright, McBride and even Shamet significantly more , all the metrics say that net ratings of the other lineups if utilized for longer minutes would have led to wins in probably 3 of the 4 games.

I knew the Pacers would be a bad matchup even before the series started. Brunson and KAT will have to play together because those are the two star players. No matter what they have to play. No coach is benching their star players in any series. We got pretty far with those two being terrible defenders so that is actually a positive in the coach’s favor than a negative.

I’m not against trading KAT either but I wouldn’t just dump him for role players. His terrible defense is definitely a problem. As is Brunsons but we won’t be trading Brunson

[KnixinSix]

Replace KAT with who though? I don’t think just removing KAT and adding defensive players would make us better. KAT has won us games, playoff games and it’s not that simple to just replace his production and value to the team. The bad defense yes I understand and acknowledge it but his offense is not that easy to just replace. He’s a highly efficient scorer who is good enough to win you big games which he has.

The Pacers are literally one of the worst matchups for us because of the way they are so deadly in matchup hunting. When you have defensive liabilties at BOTH the 1 and the 5 and your coach inexplicably and/or stubbornly continues to plays both together for extended minutes its a recipe for defensive disaster. A team like the Pacers especially have so many ways to beat you that no matter how fast you switch,rotate etc. their ball movement and decision making under Carlisles scheme they almost always end up with an uncontested or lightly contested shot or drive to the hoop.

Just look at the difference in the difficulty of shots on average that the Knicks take vs the shots the other team takes for further proof. Sure the Pacers made a few high difficulty shots but man they had soooo many uncontested easy ones.

Further evidence is almost every lineup permutation with only one of either KAT or Brunson was a strong positive or close to it. But with both on the floor together it was a defensive catastrophe.

It is why from essentially from the beginning of game 1 , I saw this as CLEAR AS DAY..Now if I can see this, a half decent NBA coach should most definitely be able to pick up on this..and started posting about it with the main priority needing to be staggering KATs and Brunson's minutes as possible.

Carlisle entire game plan centered around absolutely and relentlessly attacking the KAT and Brunson matchup NON STOP. It also made them expend so much more energy on their end too. This was 100% an out coaching job by Carlisle on Thibs. If Thibs would have went against all his tendencies and played Brunson and KAT a bit less maybe no more than 32 minutes each (which means you could limit the time they are both on floor for only 16 minutes together) along with playing Wright, McBride and even Shamet significantly more , all the metrics say that net ratings of the other lineups if utilized for longer minutes would have led to wins in probably 3 of the 4 games.

I knew the Pacers would be a bad matchup even before the series started. Brunson and KAT will have to play together because those are the two star players. No matter what they have to play. No coach is benching their star players in any series. We got pretty far with those two being terrible defenders so that is actually a positive in the coach’s favor than a negative.

I’m not against trading KAT either but I wouldn’t just dump him for role players. His terrible defense is definitely a problem. As is Brunsons but we won’t be trading Brunson

Playing them 32 minutes each while minimizing their playing together time is not really some crazy benching of your stars. Especially when every analytic was screaming it was the right move vs this particular team.

If you insist on them starting... You play them about 5 minutes to start the game. Then when you are going down 5+ which happened almost every time you sub out one of Brunson or KAT. Then bring one or the other back in with like 3-4 minutes left and sub the other out.

[HEZI]

The Pacers are literally one of the worst matchups for us because of the way they are so deadly in matchup hunting. When you have defensive liabilties at BOTH the 1 and the 5 and your coach inexplicably and/or stubbornly continues to plays both together for extended minutes its a recipe for defensive disaster. A team like the Pacers especially have so many ways to beat you that no matter how fast you switch,rotate etc. their ball movement and decision making under Carlisles scheme they almost always end up with an uncontested or lightly contested shot or drive to the hoop.

Just look at the difference in the difficulty of shots on average that the Knicks take vs the shots the other team takes for further proof. Sure the Pacers made a few high difficulty shots but man they had soooo many uncontested easy ones.

Further evidence is almost every lineup permutation with only one of either KAT or Brunson was a strong positive or close to it. But with both on the floor together it was a defensive catastrophe.

It is why from essentially from the beginning of game 1 , I saw this as CLEAR AS DAY..Now if I can see this, a half decent NBA coach should most definitely be able to pick up on this..and started posting about it with the main priority needing to be staggering KATs and Brunson's minutes as possible.

Carlisle entire game plan centered around absolutely and relentlessly attacking the KAT and Brunson matchup NON STOP. It also made them expend so much more energy on their end too. This was 100% an out coaching job by Carlisle on Thibs. If Thibs would have went against all his tendencies and played Brunson and KAT a bit less maybe no more than 32 minutes each (which means you could limit the time they are both on floor for only 16 minutes together) along with playing Wright, McBride and even Shamet significantly more , all the metrics say that net ratings of the other lineups if utilized for longer minutes would have led to wins in probably 3 of the 4 games.

I knew the Pacers would be a bad matchup even before the series started. Brunson and KAT will have to play together because those are the two star players. No matter what they have to play. No coach is benching their star players in any series. We got pretty far with those two being terrible defenders so that is actually a positive in the coach’s favor than a negative.

I’m not against trading KAT either but I wouldn’t just dump him for role players. His terrible defense is definitely a problem. As is Brunsons but we won’t be trading Brunson

Playing them 32 minutes each while minimizing their playing together time is not really some crazy benching of your stars. Especially when every analytic was screaming it was the right move vs this particular team.

If you insist on them starting... You play them about 5 minutes to start the game. Then when you are going down 5+ which happened almost every time you sub out one of Brunson or KAT. Then bring one or the other back in with like 3-4 minutes left and sub the other out.

Brunson is at 36 minutes for the series and KAT is at 34. It’s not that big of a difference really. The bench hasn’t been that consistent where it’s guaranteed that we would be better in those extra minutes. The bench play has been up and down so there no guarantee that things would look better with an extra minute of play here and there. Meh this isn’t the solution

[K_ick_God]

Karl’s playoff def rating is 110 and Jalen’s 127.

[Context]

Karl’s playoff def rating is 110 and Jalen’s 127.

:

Watch on YouTube

[prophet_of_rage]

Exactly, it's not like we're relying on Mikal for scoring anyway. He should be going all out on defense. It should just be a parade of defenders in Hali chest for 48 mins.

I don't understand how he's not being hounded after every inbounds pass. He just gets whatever he wants with little resistance

WHY DONT WE PRESSURE THE BALL
HALI WALKS THE BALL UP AND GETS INTO THEIR OFFENSIVE SETS SO SO EASY
This has to be a coaching philosophy

Could be a player philosophy. Scorers don't want to pick up 94 feet.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

[spree8]

I don't understand how he's not being hounded after every inbounds pass. He just gets whatever he wants with little resistance

WHY DONT WE PRESSURE THE BALL
HALI WALKS THE BALL UP AND GETS INTO THEIR OFFENSIVE SETS SO SO EASY
This has to be a coaching philosophy

Could be a player philosophy. Scorers don't want to pick up 94 feet.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

This def Thibs burner account

[Clyde_Style]

Another thing that really bothers me is how after 90+ games, Brunson and KAT have zero offensive synergy.

Like if they were destroying opponents to the tune of 75 points or better combined we'd probably be up in this series big. Everything is just grind for points 1 v 1.

I dunno how that gets fixed.

They are uniquely suited to complement each other on offense quite well actually.

It is an indictment against them that they haven't figured it out. That mostly falls on Brunson as the floor general though.

The ultimate blame belongs to Thibs. Brunson can do those things if it was mandated.

There was a play yesterday where Brunson just straight up missed him on the perimeter and to me it either means that he doesn’t have the presence of knowing where Towns will be unless he’s looking at him directly which is concerning from a lead guard..or it’s bc he isn’t watching film to try to make the pairing work together offensively.

If Thibs was smart tho he would call for a Towns iso a lot more and have Brunson play off the ball if they can’t figure out how to play with each other.

Brunson is a shorter guard who mastered the ISO game to become what he is, because he has no inherent physical advantages to rely on other than being strong for his size.

He is the smallest player in the NBA successful at playing bully ball, but that tends to put blinders on a player whose # 1 obsession is breaking down a defense one on one.

Ideally, that ability to break down a defense should lead to drawing doubles and creating open teammates he can find off his penetration. We saw this adjustment in the DET series after a couple of games when he probed the paint with the intention of drawing coverage and then passing the ball more often.

Brunson will always get assists like Randle got assists because when you handle the ball that much you will end up dumping the ball as defenders converge and someone else will score instead.

But he is 100% a score first guard which can work if moderated. But he gets tunnel vision and loses sight of the big picture too often for a PG.

Brunson is a SG who inherits the PG role because of usage, not because he is a good floor general, which he is not most of the time. He could be, but he defaults to his strength which is ISO. And we have not figured out how to make that work as a team this year.

[robillionaire]

This is exactly why, although a feat we have not achieved in 25 years, reaching the ECF and going out like this feels like failure.

Read on Twitter

I don't know if we underachieved as much as we're just facing a better team.

We beat Boston fair and square. We were essentially up 3-1 when Tatum went down. Us beating Boston was very much an upset.

But I think Indiana may just be better.

I always thought Haliburton was a better player than Brunson. Just a more complete player overall.

The Pacers also have better role players in that their role players do role player stuff (defend, space the floor, hit 3s). And they do it well. Mikal and OG have been unreliable at best, if not a liability on offense in the case of Mikal. The signs were there all year but the playoffs plus an uncomfortable match up have put those weaknesses under a magnifying glass.

It feels like a failure relative to our hopes, which were perfectly reasonable, but I think what we're seeing may just be part of what the team always was. A number of experts picked Indiana to win the series for a reason.

Of course we didn’t underachieve, nobody here had us pegged as a team that was going to beat Boston or go to the conference finals, they firmly rooted their goalpost as a 2nd round ceiling with supreme confidence we would be embarrassed by Boston or Cleveland and now we get this revisionist stuff to fit the narrative. But still this was a winnable series and they choked it.

[prophet_of_rage]

WHY DONT WE PRESSURE THE BALL
HALI WALKS THE BALL UP AND GETS INTO THEIR OFFENSIVE SETS SO SO EASY
This has to be a coaching philosophy

Could be a player philosophy. Scorers don't want to pick up 94 feet.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

This def Thibs burner account

Who would pick up? Jalen? No chance. Mikal? Nope. OG? Burns him out. So who's left? Sit somebody for McBride? He would be cool with picking up 94 feet.

Sent from my SM-S938W using RealGM mobile app

[The KnicksFix]

I don't understand how he's not being hounded after every inbounds pass. He just gets whatever he wants with little resistance

WHY DONT WE PRESSURE THE BALL
HALI WALKS THE BALL UP AND GETS INTO THEIR OFFENSIVE SETS SO SO EASY
This has to be a coaching philosophy

Could be a player philosophy. Scorers don't want to pick up 94 feet.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

Or it could be that Thibs doesn’t understand that Mikal was never a POA defender, and thrived off ball on wings, the way he did in the Celtic series against brown, and the way he did in the piston series against Beasley or Tobias

[prophet_of_rage]

Another thing that really bothers me is how after 90+ games, Brunson and KAT have zero offensive synergy.

Like if they were destroying opponents to the tune of 75 points or better combined we'd probably be up in this series big. Everything is just grind for points 1 v 1.

I dunno how that gets fixed.

Get Brunson off the ball.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

[Worst_to_First]

Karl-Anthony Towns, Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby, Miles McBride, Mikal Bridges

Net: 18.71
OTR: 155.56
DTR: 136.84

Only 8 minutes

Should have arguably been our stating lineup all along. Deuce being the POA defender with OG and Mikal terrorizing the wings where they belong. Only concern with this lineup is rebounding. I recall KAT having jumper's knee issues after games wherein he gets close to 20 rebounds.

[The KnicksFix]

Could be a player philosophy. Scorers don't want to pick up 94 feet.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

This def Thibs burner account

Who would pick up? Jalen? No chance. Mikal? Nope. OG? Burns him out. So who's left? Sit somebody for McBride? He would be cool with picking up 94 feet.

Sent from my SM-S938W using RealGM mobile app

OG played point of attack and could at least slow him down
However it should be Deuce. Deuce gave them problems all series and last year as well, but the coach doesn’t have the balls to make the correct substitutions in the starting lineup
It should have been JB Deuce OG Mikal Kat or JB Deuce OG Kat Mitch
You play the best starting 5 to matchup, and since their engine is Hali, you play your best defensive stopper in deuce period
The coach had no balls to try it ever, not unless we had injury. He didn’t try it in the regular season and he sure as hell wasn’t going to try it in this series, because he’s SCARED

[Context]

Read on Twitter

[Worst_to_First]

The pain of this ECF will be over soon….

The thing with grief is it never goes away we just learn how to live with it.

I lost my five-year old girl. I know what this sentence means.

[Capn'O]

They are uniquely suited to complement each other on offense quite well actually.

It is an indictment against them that they haven't figured it out. That mostly falls on Brunson as the floor general though.

The ultimate blame belongs to Thibs. Brunson can do those things if it was mandated.

There was a play yesterday where Brunson just straight up missed him on the perimeter and to me it either means that he doesn’t have the presence of knowing where Towns will be unless he’s looking at him directly which is concerning from a lead guard..or it’s bc he isn’t watching film to try to make the pairing work together offensively.

If Thibs was smart tho he would call for a Towns iso a lot more and have Brunson play off the ball if they can’t figure out how to play with each other.

Brunson is a shorter guard who mastered the ISO game to become what he is, because he has no inherent physical advantages to rely on other than being strong for his size.

He is the smallest player in the NBA successful at playing bully ball, but that tends to put blinders on a player whose # 1 obsession is breaking down a defense one on one.

Ideally, that ability to break down a defense should lead to drawing doubles and creating open teammates he can find off his penetration. We saw this adjustment in the DET series after a couple of games when he probed the paint with the intention of drawing coverage and then passing the ball more often.

Brunson will always get assists like Randle got assists because when you handle the ball that much you will end up dumping the ball as defenders converge and someone else will score instead.

But he is 100% a score first guard which can work if moderated. But he gets tunnel vision and loses sight of the big picture too often for a PG.

Brunson is a SG who inherits the PG role because of usage, not because he is a good floor general, which he is not most of the time. He could be, but he defaults to his strength which is ISO. And we have not figured out how to make that work as a team this year.

Indy's been cutting off his passing lanes and dealing with him having big scoring games.

We need an Iguodala type player who can also shoot. Unfortunately, Hart only fits one of the criteria. But a second playmaker.

[Capn'O]

The pain of this ECF will be over soon….

The thing with grief is it never goes away we just learn how to live with it.

I lost my five-year old girl. I know what this sentence means.

Aw geez brother, I'm so sorry. That's a mountain.

[Guano]

The pain of this ECF will be over soon….

The thing with grief is it never goes away we just learn how to live with it.

I lost my five-year old girl. I know what this sentence means.

Damn man, I'm sorry. Truly hope you have a great support group around you to help you carry this.

[Clyde_Style]

There was a play yesterday where Brunson just straight up missed him on the perimeter and to me it either means that he doesn’t have the presence of knowing where Towns will be unless he’s looking at him directly which is concerning from a lead guard..or it’s bc he isn’t watching film to try to make the pairing work together offensively.

If Thibs was smart tho he would call for a Towns iso a lot more and have Brunson play off the ball if they can’t figure out how to play with each other.

Brunson is a shorter guard who mastered the ISO game to become what he is, because he has no inherent physical advantages to rely on other than being strong for his size.

He is the smallest player in the NBA successful at playing bully ball, but that tends to put blinders on a player whose # 1 obsession is breaking down a defense one on one.

Ideally, that ability to break down a defense should lead to drawing doubles and creating open teammates he can find off his penetration. We saw this adjustment in the DET series after a couple of games when he probed the paint with the intention of drawing coverage and then passing the ball more often.

Brunson will always get assists like Randle got assists because when you handle the ball that much you will end up dumping the ball as defenders converge and someone else will score instead.

But he is 100% a score first guard which can work if moderated. But he gets tunnel vision and loses sight of the big picture too often for a PG.

Brunson is a SG who inherits the PG role because of usage, not because he is a good floor general, which he is not most of the time. He could be, but he defaults to his strength which is ISO. And we have not figured out how to make that work as a team this year.

Indy's been cutting off his passing lanes and dealing with him having big scoring games.

We need an Iguodala type player who can also shoot. Unfortunately, Hart only fits one of the criteria. But a second playmaker.

Yes, a bigger player who can pass from the key would help. Technically speaking, KAT could presumably do that as he has good passing ability facing the rim, but that's not who he is on a regular basis.

Guys like Dray or Noah who can set picks and still have the offense run through them is what they need. It would be great if OG was that guy, but he isn't.

This is the void we had when iHart left. He was very good at this and it opened up our game and off ball movement a lot.