PG Knicks/Lakers

[Reign23]

tbh I am not even mad if Mikal decides to put his energy on the defensive end and does what ever it takes to make the team win. Let OG cook as the 3rd option.
But if this is the case, he has to hit open threes to make it work.

The 5 Firsts are a basically a historic overpay and sunk cost at this point.

[3toheadmelo]

he's got to be more aggressive no doubt...maybe the injury to brunson (only silver lining I can think of) will open things up to him.

But in all seriousness do you want him to rip the ball away from his teammates...he is banished to sitting in the corner like he's in the shadow realm.

Yea Mikal isn’t like Jimmy Butler… he’s not gunna be aggressive like that and take the ball out of Jalen’s hands the way Jimmy did with Rose.

That's what happens when ypu go for a gimmick. Nova Knicks! Donte and Randle was fine. Use your money to find a C. Now 4/5 of the SL plays out of position.

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It made way more sense to run it back and use some of our assets to get a C. Going all in on nova Knicks and a big man who has been getting exposed against the top teams all year was just the worst moves you can make.

[HopelessKnick]

I know this will never happen with Thibs - but one can make the argument that we are better off resting our guys while Brunson is hurt and dropping into the 4 seed. Home court against Boston is off the table and I’d rather be on the Cleveland side of the bracket than the Boston side of the bracket.

Same here but it won't happen. He will drive Hart and KAT further into the ground "to hold the fort".

The rational, responsible thing would be to sit JB for long enough to make sure his ankle is 100%. The way it turned I would be highly surprised if it was only 2 weeks. I think we are much more likely looking at 4-6 weeks or potentially seasons ending surgery. But knowing Thibs he will throw him out there as soon as Brunson can walk again.

Thibs needs to go.

[thebuzzardman]

Not getting off that last shot in overtime is going to haunt my dreams! Everything went to hell after that. F Thibs!

Could've had a game winner at end of regulation if Hart would shoot instead of drive

JB needed to get off it faster. Hart is a reluctant shooter. You can't keep tossing him grenades.

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Ah yes. The "it's all Jalen's fault" posts

[3toheadmelo]

the plan ever since we got brunson, and he showed that he could play like this, was to get brunson a costar. we had a boatload of assets/expiring contracts. we spent them on og, mikal, kat. none of those guys are gonna be the 2nd best player on a contender ever. randle wasn't either but you could have used his contract this very year to get butler or durant pretty easily. hell you maybe could have got both if you wanted. and both of them can get their own in a big moment. or maybe giannis is available this summer. and yes that's a much smaller window with the first 2 i mentioned but you would have had a legit chance at contending. now you don't and you don't have control of you draft for the rest of the decade. that's the most disappointing aspect of all this, because of brunson you finally had an actual chance at winning a title and you blew it. sad.

We even had a chance to get Donovan Mitchell without giving up Randle, Mitchell Robinson and IQ. Never forget. Now Brunson has no help.

[HopelessKnick]

Yea Mikal isn’t like Jimmy Butler… he’s not gunna be aggressive like that and take the ball out of Jalen’s hands the way Jimmy did with Rose.

That's what happens when ypu go for a gimmick. Nova Knicks! Donte and Randle was fine. Use your money to find a C. Now 4/5 of the SL plays out of position.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

It made way more sense to run it back and use some of our assets to get a C. Going all in on nova Knicks and a big man who has been getting exposed against the top teams all year was just the worst moves you can make.

The problem was with Mitch already projected to miss at least half the season and Hartenstein leaving the team we couldn't really just run it back. We'd have no Center until the all-star break.

The KAT trade was ok, it is the Bridges trade that turned this into a disaster. Just think about this insane fact: DFS + Hunter + Ingram didn't even cost 3 FRPs. The Bridges trade has been an epic failure which may have ruined Brunson's title chances.

BTW I personally think Hartenstein would have left the team regardless because the money offer from OKC was just too great to pass up. But one sidenote: Hartenstein in December was very unhappy with the Knicks and how Thibs used him, or rather the lack of him getting any PT. He was essentially a 15minute bench C getting a couple rebounds. May have figured into his decision to leave the team as well---it wasn't that Thibs trusted him but rather the Mitch injury forced Thibs to play him. Hardcore misjudgmenet of talent.

[Reign23]

The next thing I absolutely don't get is, why we don't look for KAT early to get into rythm.
This is annoying me for multiple games in a row now.
Can we, for gods sake, run a play to give one of the best big men shooters of all time an open three?

[F N 11]

Leflop and Fatty complained their way to a win. They trash af.

[F N 11]

Crazy to me that Shaq and Barkley didn’t defend lakers garbage and Barkley made fun of LeBron crying.

[HEZI]

tbh I am not even mad if Mikal decides to put his energy on the defensive end and does what ever it takes to make the team win. Let OG cook as the 3rd option.
But if this is the case, he has to hit open threes to make it work.

The 5 Firsts are a basically a historic overpay and sunk cost at this point.

And that would be his ideal role. Reggie Bullock but with better defense. He is a 3 and D role player on any contending team. Problem is he messed with his shot mechanics and now he’s very inconsistent shooting the 3. At least there has been an improvement to his defense, earlier in the year he was getting cooked and lost defensively but has figured out what is expected of him on that end and he’s been much better as a defender lately. Making him the POA defender has helped as he’s better in the role than he is guarding big wings that just bully him with size and strength.

Knicks organization overvalued him and gave up way too much for the type of player he really is while at the same time not addressing the weaknesses that still remain with the roster.

I’m not really sure how it can get fixed without breaking up this core and reconstructing the roster

[F N 11]

I’m still seeing the “what did we do before Thibs post”

It’s really embarrassing

[HopelessKnick]

The next thing I absolutely don't get is, why we don't look for KAT early to get into rythm.
This is annoying me for multiple games in a row now.
Can we, for gods sake, run a play to give one of the best big men shooters of all time an open three?

Completely baffling. Especially in games where the opposition is constantly taking advantage of him on defense. Like if you are not using him on offense while the other team abuses him on defense---why the f*** have him on the court?

[WargamesX]

Anyone calling for thibs job, you better want KAT shipped out, because no coach is ever going to get KAT to be an average defender or a tough physical player.

But we seen him be the best player on a WCF team because that team played him mostly at the 4 next to a defensive center. This like always is slow to adapt and has barely played KAT and Mitch together.

The Lakers counter with Lebron at center and shooters and that is a dead concept.

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And offensively the Knicks should punish Lebron inside enough the Lakers realize how dumb that is. Lebron shouldn’t be able to play center against a front court of Mitch and KAT.

[koogiking]

I know this will never happen with Thibs - but one can make the argument that we are better off resting our guys while Brunson is hurt and dropping into the 4 seed. Home court against Boston is off the table and I’d rather be on the Cleveland side of the bracket than the Boston side of the bracket.

Same here but it won't happen. He will drive Hart and KAT further into the ground "to hold the fort".

The rational, responsible thing would be to sit JB for long enough to make sure his ankle is 100%. The way it turned I would be highly surprised if it was only 2 weeks. I think we are much more likely looking at 4-6 weeks or potentially seasons ending surgery. But knowing Thibs he will throw him out there as soon as Brunson can walk again.

Thibs needs to go.

Yeah I just recovered from a bad ankle sprain last year February 19. It takes at least 6 months to feel truly confident on it and even then you're going to need to wear protection and ankle wraps to be sure your not going to reinjure it.

I'd say 3 months of your really optimistic and aggressive with the recovery timeline but that's risking reinjury heavily

[WargamesX]

The next thing I absolutely don't get is, why we don't look for KAT early to get into rythm.
This is annoying me for multiple games in a row now.
Can we, for gods sake, run a play to give one of the best big men shooters of all time an open three?

Completely baffling. Especially in games where the opposition is constantly taking advantage of him on defense. Like if you are not using him on offense while the other team abuses him on defense---why the f*** have him on the court?

It’s because Thibs is not good at all at in game adjustments. He’s just not. He is good at between game adjustments.

[Chanel Bomber]

the plan ever since we got brunson, and he showed that he could play like this, was to get brunson a costar. we had a boatload of assets/expiring contracts. we spent them on og, mikal, kat. none of those guys are gonna be the 2nd best player on a contender ever. randle wasn't either but you could have used his contract this very year to get butler or durant pretty easily. hell you maybe could have got both if you wanted. and both of them can get their own in a big moment. or maybe giannis is available this summer. and yes that's a much smaller window with the first 2 i mentioned but you would have had a legit chance at contending. now you don't and you don't have control of you draft for the rest of the decade. that's the most disappointing aspect of all this, because of brunson you finally had an actual chance at winning a title and you blew it. sad.

The issue was trading the picks. Because they are the most valuable currency for a franchise that's open to trading a superstar.

Randle's expiring contract would've become salary filler. KAT has a longer contract but he's also an All-Star starter and a big name that can be included in a superstar package. I don't think IQ and RJ combined have much more value on the trade market than OG.

The original sin was trading all the pick for a player who never made the All-Star team and who already appeared to be regressing when they acquired him.

The Mikal trade was a blunder of epic proportions.

[robillionaire]

We needed a hilarious sequence of bad breaks to blow this game. Up to and including Brunson getting injured with the game tied in OT. I still feel we were the better team. Even with towns and bridges having terrible scoring games, even with McBride our only legit bench player going 0-6, we missed so many free throws late, bad bounces on rebounds, that 3 they made to end the 3rd to cut it from 11 to 8 shifted the momentum. Gabe Vincent shooting out his ass. Our defense looked really good for a change.

I would say chin up we are fine but we don’t know if Brunson’s injury is serious . Ankle injury totally derailed Randle’s season a couple years ago so let’s hope for a good prognosis. Get him some extra rest leading up to the playoffs. It’s going to be ok

[Red Vines]

Effort was there, Lakers just made some wild plays down the stretch. Maybe with JB out Thibs will figure out an offense...

[3toheadmelo]

That's what happens when ypu go for a gimmick. Nova Knicks! Donte and Randle was fine. Use your money to find a C. Now 4/5 of the SL plays out of position.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

It made way more sense to run it back and use some of our assets to get a C. Going all in on nova Knicks and a big man who has been getting exposed against the top teams all year was just the worst moves you can make.

The problem was with Mitch already projected to miss at least half the season and Hartenstein leaving the team we couldn't really just run it back. We'd have no Center until the all-star break.

The KAT trade was ok, it is the Bridges trade that turned this into a disaster. Just think about this insane fact: DFS + Hunter + Ingram didn't even cost 3 FRPs. The Bridges trade has been an epic failure which may have ruined Brunson's title chances.

BTW I personally think Hartenstein would have left the team regardless because the money offer from OKC was just too great to pass up. But one sidenote: Hartenstein in December was very unhappy with the Knicks and how Thibs used him, or rather the lack of him getting any PT. He was essentially a 15minute bench C getting a couple rebounds. May have figured into his decision to leave the team as well---it wasn't that Thibs trusted him but rather the Mitch injury forced Thibs to play him. Hardcore misjudgmenet of talent.

You missed the part where I said to run it back and use our assets to get a C instead of wasting them all on Mikal and KAT.

[robillionaire]

we would beat that team in a best of 7 series. Unfortunately they aren’t in our conference so it doesn’t matter