PG: Knicks -Nets 11-15-24

[stuporman]

Huk the best player to wear number 55 since Kiki

How bout his decision making in the short roll? Sometimes drive to the basket, sometimes push shot from outside the defensive arc, finding guys cutting along the baseline or hitting people spotting up at the 3 point line.

His defensive chops make him so versatile but sure, he's a rookie so there will be some really good players in this league who will 'rook' him but still give him the minutes, so much better than Sims.

Remember, I was the one who booked the reservation for the Hukwagon back after the draft...you are all welcome on board but don't make this the RealGM Knicks tour bus or I'm kicking you off.

Oh...I googled Huksporti and found these, which I suspect is what gu@no wears on his hikes. The Huck Sport...

[j4remi]

I want to see a KAT/Huk pairing too. Thibodeau makes me doubt we'll get that any time soon unless Hart or OG sits out a game at the same time as Deuce.

[3toheadmelo]

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[RHODEY]

Morning thoughts.

1. Fourth quarter meltdowns need to be addressed. Cannot be up 19 and lose the lead at home. Thibs needs to fix this cause it's happening way too much.

2. Captain Clutch was great again. 16 in the 4th! Basically told the haters here to EAD!

3. The Imortal Hukster is a fun player to watch! Fingers crossed he's earned Thibs trust cause he's way more impactful than Sims.

4. Happy for Mikal getting the block and playing well against his former team but he disappears too much. He needs to be more assertive.

5. OG has become a go to scorer. He can average 20.

6. Payne is a Greg Anthony clone. Which is good and bad. He'll make a timely shot or steal but he can shoot you out of games too.

7. Cam Thomas is like the Michael Beasley of SGs. Kid can scorer in his sleep.

8. Sad when a mod and site admin also troll Brunson in game threads. I despise fans who trash the best player but this isn't new. We had fans who trashed Ewing and Melo the same way. It's one thing to criticize but they go overboard. Brunson is averaging 25 and 7 on 48/38 and you'd think he's Ben Simmons reading these idiots.

Good post although I don't get #4. Bridges was assertive and played a great game...period.

[Capn'O]

couple things made me happy this game. first was clyde passive aggressively calling out thibs all game long for playing sims over huk. second was hukporti getting that big slam in transition and everyone on the bench getting hyped up...except jericho sims who was stone faced and realizing he SHOULD be losing all his damn minutes

the one saving grace sims has is that he's a much better rebounder than hukporti

I noticed that. Huk is an aggressor on both ends but he doesn't really box that well. They got a lot of second opportunities tonight.

At least you play him only with Towns or Achiuwa on the floor

He and Towns should complement each other well.

[Spree2Houston]

Hukporti is the Ihart replacement. I think we’ll transition to the Mitch/KAT frontcourt by seasons end with Hukporti playing the backup C. We’ll only go 5 out depending on matchups (Indy, Boston,etc).

By season’s end

Brunson/McBride
Bridges/Shamet
Anunoby/Hart
KAT/Precious
Robinson/Hukporti

Hart will be the first sub off the bench to go 5 out

[cgmw]

Thibs doing Thibs things with Hukporti.

Rotation is 6 NBA caliber players + 2 Thibs Frankenstein centers.

[Clyde_Style]

We have an excellent set of rookies

Amazing job drafting them all with higher picks

Huk, Kolek and Dadier are all legit and have hoops in their blood

Questions about our depth could mostly be answered by mid-season if Thibs ups their playing time to gain experience

[K_ick_God]

Shyt is so funny it's ridiculous. Thibs let's Sims play in every previous game over Hukporti and when Towns is out he let's Hukporti start. What's the logic to this?

Someone didn’t watch the game

[stuporman]

If it weren't for the money the Knicks FO was trying to save by drafting a guy they thought would be a stash and then took less to come over now I would rather have had Dunn, imagine the wing defender trio of OG, MB and Dunn...wow.

[JayTWill]

I have been a big believer in getting the rookies some minutes considering the teams lack of depth at the moment and my belief that guys like Sims, Ryan and even Payne are fringe rotational/NBA players. It was great to see the energy that Huk played with and his willingness to do more than just set a screen and his aggressiveness defensively but I could see why a more conservative coach like Thibs wouldn't rush to give him a ton of minutes over Sims early in the season.

Huk was out there for that entire quarter where the team was outscored 40-24 and some of those points given up could be traced directly back to Huk. Thibs called a timeout early in the 4th when Huk was just guarding empty space in the paint seemingly unaware that his man was DFS leading to wide open three.

Huk threw a difficult pass in traffic leading to 2 points heading the other way. He was super aggressive while defending on the perimeter but it allowed Cam Thomas to turn the corner on him pretty easily for a layup.

He was jumping at everything on the perimeter and Cam Johnson pump faked him with a pretty simple head fake that broke down the defense and led to an easy alley hoop and Huk had other little moments when he was out of position.

I won't knock Huk for his rebounding last game considering he was guarding guys like DFS and Simmons who aren't close to your normal centers leading to Huk playing away from the basket pretty often.

Huk clearly had some great moments during the game and even with some his mistakes I want to see him get minutes over Sims since I feel like he gives the team a higher ceiling but with Thibs being a more risk adverse coach I could see why he may have chosen Sims over Huk early on even with all of Sims limitations. Thibs still has a shorter leash with rookies for some reason than he does for anyone else no matter their talent level or performance.

I would love to see what Huk looks like as he becomes more comfortable in this setting with his new teammates. I love what Pacome gave the team yesterday and I actually wished Thibs put him in when OG fouled out instead of Payne but maybe he thought Payne was a better matchup against the Nets' two small guards. I love Kolek's game but he looks overmatched defensively at times. My biggest issue is that when he comes in the game he is playing off of guys like Payne, Hart and McBride. He is clearly a more natural floor general than them and I would love to see him running the offense more often instead when he is on the court.

[GettinitDone]

Hukporti/KAT/OG/Bridges/Brunson

Come on Thibs. The young man showed something last night. Let him play.

That should absolutely be our starting lineup. I think we’d be so much better imo. And Josh hart would be a great energizer off our terrible bench.

Thibs doesn't play rooks unless on nights he has amnesia and he plays all the rooks

Guy is mental and letting his disdain for roster substitution hold himself back. All this talk about him being one of the most brilliant bball minds EVER, he cannot possibly not know the overload is causing fatigue to overused players in crunch time and the fact we've played better as a team when the rooks play and give us energy... and these rooks can actually play.

A classic example of a guy loving his job underestimating not properly doing a few aspects of the job he doesn't love can cause problems to doing the whole overall job, e.g. a chef who loves cooking but hates cleaning his own station, lets the station go uncleaned and dirty and messy for days and weeks and months, thinking it's not affecting the quality of his cooking until it actually really starts affecting the quality of his cooking.

[Guano]

I appreciate that you answered my question, but is this something people care about? I care about who wins the finals. In-season champs? . . . it feels alien to me, even if the Knicks get a plaque for it. Am I the only one who feels this way?

The Cup takes away from the gravity of the Finals. It's the stupidest ever by the NBA - damaging its flagship product for short-term views in the regular season and an artificial trophy.

Soccer cups are meaningful because they incorporate teams from lower domestic leagues that would otherwise have no opportunity to play the big players. So it's a different pool of participants. To organize a Cup with the exact same teams, with wins still counting for league results, is devoid of meaning. It's just fiddling with the schedule and somehow putting a trophy in the end to pretend it matters.

And by saying it matters, they're communicating the NBA Finals isn't the end-all-be-all it has always been. And while they all congratulated themselves over the uptick in ratings for the Cup last year (novelty effect), the NBA generated even less interest in the Finals last year. The 2024 Finals was the least watched Finals in the last 50 years, outside of the COVID years.

Their short-sightedness is unbelievable.

I hope the Knicks never win this stupid Cup because James Dolan isn't above throwing a parade for this, and it will be the most anticlimactic thing you can imagine.

[Guano]

Why tf did Clyde keep calling him “HukSporti”… sometime soon Clyde gotta hang it up

The bar has been set pretty high. We have an early submission for worst post of the season.

I’m just saying, can’t be calling our future starting 5 the wrong name

It's Clyde - he can call a rook whatever the hell he wants.

[FrozenEnvelope]

Morning thoughts.

1. Fourth quarter meltdowns need to be addressed. Cannot be up 19 and lose the lead at home. Thibs needs to fix this cause it's happening way too much.

2. Captain Clutch was great again. 16 in the 4th! Basically told the haters here to EAD!

3. The Imortal Hukster is a fun player to watch! Fingers crossed he's earned Thibs trust cause he's way more impactful than Sims.

4. Happy for Mikal getting the block and playing well against his former team but he disappears too much. He needs to be more assertive.

5. OG has become a go to scorer. He can average 20.

6. Payne is a Greg Anthony clone. Which is good and bad. He'll make a timely shot or steal but he can shoot you out of games too.

7. Cam Thomas is like the Michael Beasley of SGs. Kid can scorer in his sleep.

8. Sad when a mod and site admin also troll Brunson in game threads. I despise fans who trash the best player but this isn't new. We had fans who trashed Ewing and Melo the same way. It's one thing to criticize but they go overboard. Brunson is averaging 25 and 7 on 48/38 and you'd think he's Ben Simmons reading these idiots.

Good post although I don't get #4. Bridges was assertive and played a great game...period.

Thank you but Bridges did nothing during that Nets run in the 4th until the block at the end. He's too good to be a spectator but overall he was good.

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[HerSports85]

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[3toheadmelo]

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Held them 3-11 from 3 as well. There's really no reason why he shouldn't be starting at C for us.

[MrDollarBills]

Morning thoughts.

1. Fourth quarter meltdowns need to be addressed. Cannot be up 19 and lose the lead at home. Thibs needs to fix this cause it's happening way too much.

2. Captain Clutch was great again. 16 in the 4th! Basically told the haters here to EAD!

3. The Imortal Hukster is a fun player to watch! Fingers crossed he's earned Thibs trust cause he's way more impactful than Sims.

4. Happy for Mikal getting the block and playing well against his former team but he disappears too much. He needs to be more assertive.

5. OG has become a go to scorer. He can average 20.

6. Payne is a Greg Anthony clone. Which is good and bad. He'll make a timely shot or steal but he can shoot you out of games too.

7. Cam Thomas is like the Michael Beasley of SGs. Kid can scorer in his sleep.

8. Sad when a mod and site admin also troll Brunson in game threads. I despise fans who trash the best player but this isn't new. We had fans who trashed Ewing and Melo the same way. It's one thing to criticize but they go overboard. Brunson is averaging 25 and 7 on 48/38 and you'd think he's Ben Simmons reading these idiots.

Good post although I don't get #4. Bridges was assertive and played a great game...period.

Thank you but Bridges did nothing during that Nets run in the 4th until the block at the end. He's too good to be a spectator but overall he was good.

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I think offensively he is deferring. That doesn't excuse his erratic defense.

[MrDollarBills]

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HUK SMASH.

If this guy gets a DNP next game I dunno what to tell you

[NoDopeOnSundays]

If Huk can keep this up, trading Mitch becomes something they have to do, specifically for another wing or a steadier bench scorer. Having someone on the roster that eats a salary spot that won't play till February makes no sense.