Game Thread: NY Knicks at Phoenix Suns Wed, Nov 20 10:00 PM

[Jeff Van Gully]

my old ass goin to bed. long day. have fun. don't get banned by captain, my captain.

[The KnicksFix]

If Philly called you up and offered Joel Embiid for OG + Mitch straight up... what would you say?

No way, OG is the best player on both ends of the floor for us and it’s not even close. If they wanted sims for embiid I’d think about it

[Kidknick!]

Start the road trip right. Get the W.

[Deeeez Knicks]

I am too old and have to get up at 5am. Gonna have to miss this one

[Jalen Bluntson]

my old ass goin to bed. long day. have fun. don't get banned by captain, my captain.

I am feeling attacked right now.

[Buttah304]

To everyone who believed Leon would spare RJ, IQ and Randle. Mitch don’t get too comfy

[Riot Randolph]

If Philly called you up and offered Joel Embiid for OG + Mitch straight up... what would you say?

No way, OG is the best player on both ends of the floor for us and it’s not even close. If they wanted sims for embiid I’d think about it

Gross I want no part of Embiid

[Calinks]

This man has been cooking! Excited to see him take on the Suns and get that W. Anytime the Knicks get a W against the west it's a Win/Win from where I am standing. LETS GO KNICKS!

Watch on YouTube

[Jalen Bluntson]

This man has been cooking! Excited to see him take on the Suns and get that W. Anytime the Knicks get a W against the west it's a Win/Win from where I am standing. LETS GO KNICKS!

Watch on YouTube

Care to weigh in on jos rim protection? I see this debate going solely based on stats and would like to here first hand witness testimony.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

All of those teams he played the 5 they never made the playoffs or they were a first round exit. KAT only had a winning impact when he was at the 4. He has to play the 4 in order for this to work. Also Mitch was injured last year so you can’t really hold that against him.

KAT at the 5 = terrible defense.


Right now he’s just absolutely terrible.

They made the playoffs with him at the 5, we're going to make the playoffs with him at the 5. The Wolves were 13th defensively with him as their C the last time he played it. This was about him being historically bad as a rim protector when the numbers have never said that. I went back to his rookie season, his numbers as a rim protector were never bad, they were either average or good in some seasons.


Right now, we have a +7.7 net rating with KAT on the court, the best number among the starters. Also, since we're using on/off DRTG, last season we had a 118.7 DRTG when Mitch was on the court, so his defensive stats were almost identical to the ones KAT has right now, right down to the rim protection DFG% which was 70%. That is a scheme issue, if two completely different centers have almost identical defensive numbers seperated by a year, that is coaching. And even then, KAT's numbers have been improving slowly, the last 5 games he's at 60.9% which is in line with his career numbers.

Nobody has ever said KAT is an elite defender, but he is not among the worst rim protectors ever, and the numbers clearly say that. We have 7 years of his DFG% at center, and they never went over 62%, so how can he be historically bad at that?

13th defensively but still couldn't get out the 1st round. He gets targeted on defense all the time in the post season, especially at the 5. The post season is a different animal.
Every year he played the 5 his DEF rating was absurdly terrible and he had awful net ratings. He's not a positive at the 5.


He really needs to be next to a 5 to be effective. The Timberwolves were getting destroyed in the mins he didn't play next to Gobert in the playoffs.

Read on Twitter

It's not really fair to use that 70% DFG against Mitch last year when that's a clear outlier and he was hurt the whole year.

2022-2023 season Mitch had a DFG% of 57% at the rim.
2021-2022 DFG%: 53% At the rim
2020-2021 DFG% 58% at the rim

So it's not a Thibs scheme issue since Mitch has been pretty dominant protecting the rim.

KAT has a long way to go. His DFG% for the season at the rim is atrocious and worst in the league for a starting big. We aren't winning a chip with that unless we play him next to a C, which the Knicks reportedly want to do since they're aware of KAT's lack of defense.

You and I went over the playoffs net rating already, just a quick hit everyone in the starting lineup including Jimmy Butler had a negative net rating in 2017-2018, they were playing against the 65-17 Rockets. He has been on the 7th, 8th, 8th seeds, was he supposed to be a net positive in the series he lost? Also, what do the playoffs have to do with the claim that he is a historically bad rim protector? Why are playoffs being mentioned, if that's the case he was at 59.7% DFG last year in the playoffs, only .2% behind Gobert. This was about historically bad rim protection, I've posted the numbers, they have shown that isn't true.


I'm not being fair to Mitch because of an outlier season where his DFG% was higher? Those 3 seasons averaged 56% DFG, while 70% was an outlier, so how is it being fair to KAT to call him historically bad rim protector due to a season which is currently an outlier. His 7 seasons averaged out to 59.6% DFG as a center in Minnesota, so is it being fair to KAT to use the start of a season in which he's at 73%, especially when you've seen that the number is trending down. It's a 14% difference in both instances, but KAT's current season is somehow indicative of him being historically bad over the entirety of his career, that isn't fair.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

This man has been cooking! Excited to see him take on the Suns and get that W. Anytime the Knicks get a W against the west it's a Win/Win from where I am standing. LETS GO KNICKS!

Watch on YouTube

Care to weigh in on jos rim protection? I see this debate going solely based on stats and would like to here first hand witness testimony.

KAT isn't an elite rim protector, but he also isn't historically one of the worst either, that's the contention of my argument.

[Calinks]

This man has been cooking! Excited to see him take on the Suns and get that W. Anytime the Knicks get a W against the west it's a Win/Win from where I am standing. LETS GO KNICKS!

Watch on YouTube

Care to weigh in on jos rim protection? I see this debate going solely based on stats and would like to here first hand witness testimony.

jos? Randle?

[Jalen Bluntson]

This man has been cooking! Excited to see him take on the Suns and get that W. Anytime the Knicks get a W against the west it's a Win/Win from where I am standing. LETS GO KNICKS!

Watch on YouTube

Care to weigh in on jos rim protection? I see this debate going solely based on stats and would like to here first hand witness testimony.

jos? Randle?

You posted a KAT video. I was asking about him. IDGAF about Julius anymore. Dude doesn't even play defense so, any stats relating to him need to be taken with a grain of salt.

[Jalen Bluntson]

This man has been cooking! Excited to see him take on the Suns and get that W. Anytime the Knicks get a W against the west it's a Win/Win from where I am standing. LETS GO KNICKS!

Watch on YouTube

Care to weigh in on jos rim protection? I see this debate going solely based on stats and would like to here first hand witness testimony.

KAT isn't an elite rim protector, but he also isn't historically one of the worst either, that's the contention of my argument.

I believe you. I know Cal has been giving us inside info on KAT so I figured I would ask a person who watched him a lot over the years.

[3toheadmelo]

They made the playoffs with him at the 5, we're going to make the playoffs with him at the 5. The Wolves were 13th defensively with him as their C the last time he played it. This was about him being historically bad as a rim protector when the numbers have never said that. I went back to his rookie season, his numbers as a rim protector were never bad, they were either average or good in some seasons.


Right now, we have a +7.7 net rating with KAT on the court, the best number among the starters. Also, since we're using on/off DRTG, last season we had a 118.7 DRTG when Mitch was on the court, so his defensive stats were almost identical to the ones KAT has right now, right down to the rim protection DFG% which was 70%. That is a scheme issue, if two completely different centers have almost identical defensive numbers seperated by a year, that is coaching. And even then, KAT's numbers have been improving slowly, the last 5 games he's at 60.9% which is in line with his career numbers.

Nobody has ever said KAT is an elite defender, but he is not among the worst rim protectors ever, and the numbers clearly say that. We have 7 years of his DFG% at center, and they never went over 62%, so how can he be historically bad at that?

13th defensively but still couldn't get out the 1st round. He gets targeted on defense all the time in the post season, especially at the 5. The post season is a different animal.
Every year he played the 5 his DEF rating was absurdly terrible and he had awful net ratings. He's not a positive at the 5.


He really needs to be next to a 5 to be effective. The Timberwolves were getting destroyed in the mins he didn't play next to Gobert in the playoffs.

Read on Twitter

It's not really fair to use that 70% DFG against Mitch last year when that's a clear outlier and he was hurt the whole year.

2022-2023 season Mitch had a DFG% of 57% at the rim.
2021-2022 DFG%: 53% At the rim
2020-2021 DFG% 58% at the rim

So it's not a Thibs scheme issue since Mitch has been pretty dominant protecting the rim.

KAT has a long way to go. His DFG% for the season at the rim is atrocious and worst in the league for a starting big. We aren't winning a chip with that unless we play him next to a C, which the Knicks reportedly want to do since they're aware of KAT's lack of defense.

You and I went over the playoffs net rating already, just a quick hit everyone in the starting lineup including Jimmy Butler had a negative net rating in 2017-2018, they were playing against the 65-17 Rockets. He has been on the 7th, 8th, 8th seeds, was he supposed to be a net positive in the series he lost? Also, what do the playoffs have to do with the claim that he is a historically bad rim protector? Why are playoffs being mentioned, if that's the case he was at 59.7% DFG last year in the playoffs, only .2% behind Gobert. This was about historically bad rim protection, I've posted the numbers, they have shown that isn't true.


I'm not being fair to Mitch because of an outlier season where his DFG% was higher? Those 3 seasons averaged 56% DFG, while 70% was an outlier, so how is it being fair to KAT to call him historically bad rim protector due to a season which is currently an outlier. His 7 seasons averaged out to 59.6% DFG as a center in Minnesota, so is it being fair to KAT to use the start of a season in which he's at 73%, especially when you've seen that the number is trending down. It's a 14% difference in both instances, but KAT's current season is somehow indicative of him being historically bad over the entirety of his career, that isn't fair.

He absolutely got neutralized by Capela and they attacked him in that series. We've already been through this, you're right

Why are you ignoring that all of his teams he played the 5 they were in the bottom 10 of the league in defenses? And by the way, that year they finished 13th in the defensive rating, KAT had a DFG% of 65% at the rim in the playoffs. It's absolutely terrible. In the 2023 Playoffs he had a DFG% of 75% at the rim. DFG of 75% at the rim in the post season is historically bad. No starting C in a post season has ever been that bad.

We can keep going in circles about this, but there's really no evidence that suggests a team with KAT at the 5 can work in the playoffs.
Here's even more data it never ends

In Minnesota's most played lineup excluding Gobert, and Towns at the five, the Wolves gave up 122 points per 100 possessions—ranking in the 21st percentile.

You're lucky I'm only talking about rim protection. I haven't even gotten to talk about his terrible pick and roll defense

[aggo]

in a counterintuitive way, KATs defensive deficiencies can be taped over in the playoffs.


that was the entire point of the trade, and our entire style is built around the playoffs.


everything. the slow pace
the 5 out
the hunting for matchups
the offensive hub looking for cuts
the iso on ball defenders

its all stuff ripped from teams that have been successful recently in the playoffs.



there's a minimum level of defense kat needs to hit and play at in order for the team to be actual "championship" contender. im super confident once mitch comes back and takes away 15-20minutes of defensive pressure from kat that he will be able to hit those levels.

[Guano]

10pm? Can’t do it

board is going to look like this at tip off

West coast will stand up!

Spoiler:

Actually, I have a night meeting

These are the best ones for us on the west. The normal time is rough on commuting and dinner.

Late night meeting sounds rough. Hope it doesn't run late on you.

[MrDollarBills]

I'm still awake for now i wanna watch this. I hate these late west coast games after a f*cking 10 hour day of work. My brain is fried right now.

[aggo]

I need to pee

[Riot Randolph]

I'm still awake for now i wanna watch this. I hate these late west coast games after a f*cking 10 hour day of work. My brain is fried right now.

As a reformed nets fan do you dislike Durant more or less?