PG: Knicks vs. Mavericks (They Left Their Offense in Denver)

[Maury2423]

Every former player or coach that played or worked for Thibs always talks about how hard he works and how prepared he is, I don’t doubt this at all but I have no confidence in his ability to make in game adjustments.

I feel like we have a plan going into each game and no matter how that game plan unfolds in real time, good or bad, we don’t make any adjustments…

[TheGreenArrow]

I just watched the end of Ws/Thunder. What a damn shame we didn't give iHart the 3rd year.

Again, I wouldn't be surprised if it was his call and he bet on himself.

I like Ihart but I like Kat better Cap

Watch on YouTube

We could’ve had both!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brunson/bridges/og/kat/ihart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keeping ihart and replacing randle with Kat would have made us prohibitive favorites!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Context]

They were missing 3 key players including their best player Luka while having multiple players returning from an illness that has ran through their locker room and playing their 3rd games in 4 nights after just coming home from a short road trip. I can't think of a more favorable situation to come into their house and beat the "champs of the west". The only excuse I would accept for how poorly the Knicks performed last night was they were sick too since I know a Thibs team would be unlikely to rest sick players.

You are excusing them for missing Klay since he was not on their team last year but ignoring that we got our ass kicked by almost everyone including Grimes, Marshall and Dinwiddie, 3 guys that weren't on the team last year either. The Knicks have some clear issues that need to be fixed. It's early so I wont panic but I hope the season doesn't completely depend on the return of an injury prone Mitch and Precious who was collecting DNP's while Hart was playing the full games near the end of last year.

I'm the type of guy that works with 2 hours sleep. Runs in the rain...etc...I'm not making excuses...I'm just stating the reasons they lost.
If you get in a fight with a guy who's stronger than you- biger than you and smarter than you and I state that as a reason you lost- thats not an excuse.
I keep hearing 3 key players...Klay just got here and he's been terrible AND he wasnt here last year. He's never been a key player
on this Mav team and he was part of the team that went to the finals. You want to call Gad and Luka key. I agree they are key players. However, Gad is 1 big of a two headed big monster. And in our case his team was facing a team VOID of their bigs except for one of them. Sims in relation to Mitch -Kat and Precious is our forth string big. Therefore, an experienced team like the Mavs who just won the west 5 months ago could handle that. Luka is definitely a big void when he's on the bench. However, when you are playing essentially 6 guys(our Knicks) who are still trying to figure out chemistry(missing men-short rotation) and you have other nba vets- it's not a difficult task to beat said team with a Kyrie led squad.

Naji is not some bum- he's big- can shoot - and defend- thats why Dallas let Derrick go and signed him. Today- he's better than Klay..

I just think some of you don't understand that we are a work in progress and until we are fully formed into our potential we are going to lose games like this against top teams.

Be patient

They were missing a perennial MVP candidate and future Hall of Famer. We were missing a guy that is always missing. Not close to comparable. We had 3/5th of our starting lineup from last postseason while adding what are supposed to be huge upgrades in Mikal and KAT. They had 3/5th of their starting lineup while adding Marshall and Grimes, a guy that Thibs could no longer figure out how to make use of. Just seeing how free Grimes played yesterday in comparison to last year should be concerning.

I have no problem with being patient but it's ok to see some issues in the team that need to be addressed instead of just hoping that time and Mr. DNP -Injured will come rescue us

I have no idea how Mitch would have performed against the "west champs" since he wasn't healthy last season against them just like I have no idea if Mitch would have helped in the Jazz beatdown since he hasn't played them since the 21/22 season.

A team that makes it to the finals can wins games without their best player...
respectfully, you are missing the context...We have a 6 man team. We are not developing our bench. Therefore, we are playing 6 guys and expecting to beat 8/9/10 man quality-chemistry developed teams. This is the nba - thats not sustainabe on a consistent basis...Thats our main issue. I dont care who they are -6 guys wont get it done; traveling and playing game after game vs the best players in the world.
Wake me up when we have a full team and solidified chemistry...

[Capn'O]

I like Ihart but I like Kat better Cap

Watch on YouTube

well you cant have it Cap!!!!
but I promise you when we are at our potential- you will be happy we made this trade...
even though we couldnt keep Ihart..
Just be happy we're not the Wolves or Philly
no offense to our Minny friends
F Philly though and congratulations

No, it's already pretty clear to me that the KAT trade was great for us.

Long story short, that was independent of what happened with iHart though. I mean, maybe it wasn't for financial reasons but we could've done something else there.

[Context]

Watch on YouTube

well you cant have it Cap!!!!
but I promise you when we are at our potential- you will be happy we made this trade...
even though we couldnt keep Ihart..
Just be happy we're not the Wolves or Philly
no offense to our Minny friends
F Philly though and congratulations

No, it's already pretty clear to me that the KAT trade was great for us.

Long story short, that was independent of what happened with iHart though. I mean, maybe it wasn't for financial reasons but we could've done something else there.

thats what I was alluding to- Ihart and Kat wouldnt work financially - and apparently Minny didnt want Mitch...

[Capn'O]

I'd thought we'd offered iHart our max under the current CBA, and OKC just basically doubled that because they could?

If we could have offered more but didn't, and that was the reason iHart is not here...then yeah, that really, really sucks....

I'm talking about the summer of 22? when we originally signed him. We signed him to a 2 year deal instead of a 3 year which put us in the predicament we found last summer. By that point there was nothing we could do. I do believe we offered him our max.

At the time, I was critical that we didn't get full Bird rights by offering him a 3 year but if he was betting on himself that ball may never have been in our court.

You have a good eye for talent then. I did not expect iHart to blossom the way he did--yet another player that Thibs helped reach his potential. Ironically, if we somehow had our current starting five PLUS iHart and Donte, I firmly believe we'd be competing with Boston now.

I hadn't seen him play much but one of my strategies in our Build A Franchise league is to identify young guys whose stats point to a breakout with an increased role and he fit all my criteria. If you can get those guys on a Bird deal why wouldn't you? Worst case you're shelling out something like 5-7 mil for an extra year, which is basically a deep bench player these days.

I wouldn't have had him this good but if you haven't the contract then it covers those contingencies.

[prophet_of_rage]

This team is soft, yes, but it's fixable. In theory, we now have the parts on offense necessary to compete with anyone. We need dogs off the bench willing to scruff things up--get those rebounds, fight through screens, apply defensive pressure, smack down the Embiids when they try to injure a starter, slow down the Spencer **** Dinwewewiddies of the world when they get hot, etc. I don't really get the current CBA, but I'm hoping we'll be able to add to this starting five moving forward. And soon.

We will not be able to do so. We traded for KAT for cost certainty as well as talent. Everybody is locked up. We're just under the second apron and probably have to trade Precious and pieces this year to mainatin that.

This is a parity league right now.

But the salary cap will be going up too, yes? Won't that give us some additional room moving forward? I hope trading Precious is not the only answer--trading him and other pieces now for less expensive role players will make our weak bench even weaker. (Though if we can find a sucker somewhere to take Sims, I'm all in.)

The cap.will be going up but so will salaries.

Next year's cap will probably be around 154 million and the second apron at 208ish. If the Knicks keep everything the same with capholds they come in at 223 million.

So you have to get rid of 15 million in salary.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

[Capn'O]

well you cant have it Cap!!!!
but I promise you when we are at our potential- you will be happy we made this trade...
even though we couldnt keep Ihart..
Just be happy we're not the Wolves or Philly
no offense to our Minny friends
F Philly though and congratulations

No, it's already pretty clear to me that the KAT trade was great for us.

Long story short, that was independent of what happened with iHart though. I mean, maybe it wasn't for financial reasons but we could've done something else there.

thats what I was alluding to- Ihart and Kat wouldnt work financially - and apparently Minny didnt want Mitch...

The numbers would have been tough this go around. I was about 60% expecting to lose him last summer. If we had initially signed him for longer, maybe not.

Wolves definitely didn't want Mitch. Honestly, their thinking isn't so clear. They needed to move out from Gobert, not KAT. Not our problem though.

[Capn'O]

We will not be able to do so. We traded for KAT for cost certainty as well as talent. Everybody is locked up. We're just under the second apron and probably have to trade Precious and pieces this year to mainatin that.

This is a parity league right now.

But the salary cap will be going up too, yes? Won't that give us some additional room moving forward? I hope trading Precious is not the only answer--trading him and other pieces now for less expensive role players will make our weak bench even weaker. (Though if we can find a sucker somewhere to take Sims, I'm all in.)

The cap.will be going up but so will salaries.

Next year's cap will probably be around 154 million and the second apron at 208ish. If the Knicks keep everything the same with capholds they come in at 223 million.

So you have to get rid of 15 million in salary.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

So basically Mitch.

[Gravy]

Last season the players knew they had a bad offensive team so they found other says to win. Now they have a better offense but rely on it too much at times to save them. This November they held teams to 114pts, last January it was 100pts. Getting Precious and Mitch back should help with defense.

This Mavs game looks like just a bad shooting night against a good finals team they could not recover from.

[taikibansei]

We will not be able to do so. We traded for KAT for cost certainty as well as talent. Everybody is locked up. We're just under the second apron and probably have to trade Precious and pieces this year to mainatin that.

This is a parity league right now.

But the salary cap will be going up too, yes? Won't that give us some additional room moving forward? I hope trading Precious is not the only answer--trading him and other pieces now for less expensive role players will make our weak bench even weaker. (Though if we can find a sucker somewhere to take Sims, I'm all in.)

The cap.will be going up but so will salaries.

Next year's cap will probably be around 154 million and the second apron at 208ish. If the Knicks keep everything the same with capholds they come in at 223 million.

So you have to get rid of 15 million in salary.

If your numbers are correct, particularly the bit in bold, then we're really screwed. You can't win a chip going just five deep. It seems like somebody in the Knicks top brass would/should have seen this coming? (I refuse to learn the new CBA rules--at the ripe age of 60, I see no further need to torture my few remaining brain cells.)

[Context]

this isnt our chemistry issue but this is a perfect example of how important team chemistry is and how is superseeds talent, coaching
and effort.

Watch on YouTube

[Capn'O]

We need our moves at the margins to be immaculate. Meaning we need the rookies to pan.

[taikibansei]

We need our moves at the margins to be immaculate. Meaning we need the rookies to pan.

Meaning we need to play them more, and in meaningful games.

[Capn'O]

We need our moves at the margins to be immaculate. Meaning we need the rookies to pan.

Meaning we need to play them more, and in meaningful games.

Your lips to Thibs ears, I hope.

[kNicksGmen]

He’s not an 8 year but yes players go through stretches of bad quarters, halves, games and fall out of rhythm and have to get back in it. But again like I said I don’t know why Thibs played him those minutes and it’s not the reason he was off or played bad. Whatever methods Thibs has they are proven to work because whatever he’s doing now is going to improve them down the road. I also think in order to play the bench you kind of need a bench.

We played 8 guys, they're also down starters and rotation players and played 10. It's inexcusable the minutes load Tom gives these guys, take him out for 5 minutes and see if someone on the bench can give you something or if just resting a bit longer can help him find his second wind.

This happened in the second Pacers game, where our guys were dead tired because he played a 7 man rotation vs the Pacers who played 10 guys, they were looking for anything off the bench and found some energetic minutes from their 19 year old rookie who didn't score but sped up the game by sprinting down the court and just tiring our guys out. We're running playoff style rotations in November and have been since the start of the season.

I think we have bigger issues going on that just fatigue. I think they haven’t figured out how to get the offense flowing against the better defensive matchups. We have a pretty easy schedule in December so we really aren’t going to get a test like this for too many more games before January. Beating up on the Nets and Wizards is cool but figuring out how to beat good teams is still something this team needs to learn how to do.

Also the Pacers play a very fast and uptempo style and Carlisle likes to keep his guys fresh so they can fly up the floor. We play at the slowest pace in the league. We don’t burn out as quickly as the teams playing uptempo

This. I'm not sure if people actually watch or just look at the season offensive rating and say "not worried about the offense".

This offense has been stifled multiple times against good switching defenses. Even bad ones like the jazz. We've lost multiple games down the stretch when our offense fell apart.

Overall the offense has been very good and the defense is worse than expected. with that said there is absolutely reason to be concerned about this offense against the best defenses. Specifically teams with the personnel/scheme to switch everything.

[JayTWill]

I'm the type of guy that works with 2 hours sleep. Runs in the rain...etc...I'm not making excuses...I'm just stating the reasons they lost.
If you get in a fight with a guy who's stronger than you- biger than you and smarter than you and I state that as a reason you lost- thats not an excuse.
I keep hearing 3 key players...Klay just got here and he's been terrible AND he wasnt here last year. He's never been a key player
on this Mav team and he was part of the team that went to the finals. You want to call Gad and Luka key. I agree they are key players. However, Gad is 1 big of a two headed big monster. And in our case his team was facing a team VOID of their bigs except for one of them. Sims in relation to Mitch -Kat and Precious is our forth string big. Therefore, an experienced team like the Mavs who just won the west 5 months ago could handle that. Luka is definitely a big void when he's on the bench. However, when you are playing essentially 6 guys(our Knicks) who are still trying to figure out chemistry(missing men-short rotation) and you have other nba vets- it's not a difficult task to beat said team with a Kyrie led squad.

Naji is not some bum- he's big- can shoot - and defend- thats why Dallas let Derrick go and signed him. Today- he's better than Klay..

I just think some of you don't understand that we are a work in progress and until we are fully formed into our potential we are going to lose games like this against top teams.

Be patient

They were missing a perennial MVP candidate and future Hall of Famer. We were missing a guy that is always missing. Not close to comparable. We had 3/5th of our starting lineup from last postseason while adding what are supposed to be huge upgrades in Mikal and KAT. They had 3/5th of their starting lineup while adding Marshall and Grimes, a guy that Thibs could no longer figure out how to make use of. Just seeing how free Grimes played yesterday in comparison to last year should be concerning.

I have no problem with being patient but it's ok to see some issues in the team that need to be addressed instead of just hoping that time and Mr. DNP -Injured will come rescue us

I have no idea how Mitch would have performed against the "west champs" since he wasn't healthy last season against them just like I have no idea if Mitch would have helped in the Jazz beatdown since he hasn't played them since the 21/22 season.

A team that makes it to the finals can wins games without their best player...
respectfully, you are missing the context...We have a 6 man team. We are not developing our bench. Therefore, we are playing 6 guys and expecting to beat 8/9/10 man quality-chemistry developed teams. This is the nba - thats not sustainabe on a consistent basis...Thats our main issue. I dont care who they are -6 guys wont get it done; traveling and playing game after game vs the best players in the world.
Wake me up when we have a full team and solidified chemistry...

The Mavs basically played an 8-man rotation with spot minutes for Powell and some guy I never heard of. Their bench was Dinwiddie, Hardy and Kleiber. The Knicks bench was Payne, McBride and Sims. Dinwiddie and Payne are comparable level players with Payne actually having the better year so far. I would choose Deuce over Hardy who is shooting terribly this year. The difference between Sims and whatever Kleiber has to offer at this stage of his career should not have made a huge difference in yesterday's game. The talent in our starting 5 was far superior than their talent.

I expect the Knicks team to improve as the season goes along but I don't know how you can look at yesterday's game and see some talent gap in favor of the Mavs or some superior chemistry of a group where 3 of 4 guys who scored 20 points just joined the roster this off-season.

[Reign23]

I tried to watch it... didn't even make it to halftime. jesus

[Context]

They were missing a perennial MVP candidate and future Hall of Famer. We were missing a guy that is always missing. Not close to comparable. We had 3/5th of our starting lineup from last postseason while adding what are supposed to be huge upgrades in Mikal and KAT. They had 3/5th of their starting lineup while adding Marshall and Grimes, a guy that Thibs could no longer figure out how to make use of. Just seeing how free Grimes played yesterday in comparison to last year should be concerning.

I have no problem with being patient but it's ok to see some issues in the team that need to be addressed instead of just hoping that time and Mr. DNP -Injured will come rescue us

I have no idea how Mitch would have performed against the "west champs" since he wasn't healthy last season against them just like I have no idea if Mitch would have helped in the Jazz beatdown since he hasn't played them since the 21/22 season.

A team that makes it to the finals can wins games without their best player...
respectfully, you are missing the context...We have a 6 man team. We are not developing our bench. Therefore, we are playing 6 guys and expecting to beat 8/9/10 man quality-chemistry developed teams. This is the nba - thats not sustainabe on a consistent basis...Thats our main issue. I dont care who they are -6 guys wont get it done; traveling and playing game after game vs the best players in the world.
Wake me up when we have a full team and solidified chemistry...

The Mavs basically played an 8-man rotation with spot minutes for Powell and some guy I never heard of. Their bench was Dinwiddie, Hardy and Kleiber. The Knicks bench was Payne, McBride and Sims. Dinwiddie and Payne are comparable level players with Payne actually having the better year so far. I would choose Deuce over Hardy who is shooting terribly this year. The difference between Sims and whatever Kleiber has to offer at this stage of his career should not have made a huge difference in yesterday's game. The talent in our starting 5 was far superior than their talent.

I expect the Knicks team to improve as the season goes along but I don't know how you can look at yesterday's game and see some talent gap in favor of the Mavs or some superior chemistry of a group where 3 of 4 guys who scored 20 points just joined the roster this off-season.

The Mavs didnt lose any main player. We lost 3 and brought in two main players. And we brought in several non main players, BIG difference JayT...This isnt about my opinion- its about the fact. That core Mav team is the same. Luka and Gad had a day off. Thats not our situation...

on edit: they lost a main bench player in Derrick but as you can see Naji easily replaces him...

[NoDopeOnSundays]

A team that makes it to the finals can wins games without their best player...
respectfully, you are missing the context...We have a 6 man team. We are not developing our bench. Therefore, we are playing 6 guys and expecting to beat 8/9/10 man quality-chemistry developed teams. This is the nba - thats not sustainabe on a consistent basis...Thats our main issue. I dont care who they are -6 guys wont get it done; traveling and playing game after game vs the best players in the world.
Wake me up when we have a full team and solidified chemistry...

The Mavs basically played an 8-man rotation with spot minutes for Powell and some guy I never heard of. Their bench was Dinwiddie, Hardy and Kleiber. The Knicks bench was Payne, McBride and Sims. Dinwiddie and Payne are comparable level players with Payne actually having the better year so far. I would choose Deuce over Hardy who is shooting terribly this year. The difference between Sims and whatever Kleiber has to offer at this stage of his career should not have made a huge difference in yesterday's game. The talent in our starting 5 was far superior than their talent.

I expect the Knicks team to improve as the season goes along but I don't know how you can look at yesterday's game and see some talent gap in favor of the Mavs or some superior chemistry of a group where 3 of 4 guys who scored 20 points just joined the roster this off-season.

The Mavs didnt lose any main player. We lost 3 and brought in two main players. And we brought in several non main players, BIG difference JayT...This isnt about my opinion- its about the fact. That core Mav team is the same. Luka and Gad had a day off. Thats not our situation...

on edit: they lost a main bench player in Derrick but as you can see Naji easily replaces him...

The Mavs were down 2 starters last night, there's no sanitizing this loss. The lineup we played yesterday has played more games together than that rag tag lineup the Mavs were using, that was only the 6th game Naji has started this year, and only the 42nd time he's started in his career.