PG - this is the opposite of fun

[DOT]

I mean, I called it

Talent wise, the difference is enough that we should be sweeping these guys, but Thibs is dragging us down to needing 6 games to beat them

+/- by quarter this series:

Q1: +10
Q2: +7
Q3: -33 (!)
Q4: +21

That 4th quarter rating is largely due to the 21-0 run in game 1. Since then, we're a +2 in the 4th quarters

And I mean, that sounds right. We play pretty evenly for the 1st half, then go down big in the 3rd and have to claw our way back in the 4th through Brunson being an absurdly good closer. Dude is averaging 11 points on 55% from the field (33% from 3) in the 4th quarter this series

But that's Thibs' career. Dig holes and hope your star can bail you out.

[HEZI]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=a_8CJE4oxCPxhwUi5hQ4Zg

This is a great breakdown of the offensive struggles, now is this a coaching issue, for sure could be, or is this a group of players that don’t give it 100% all the time, there is no excuse to be playing at 1/2 speed no less in a home playoff game.

Look at this just look at this. This is the first play of the game and look at Mikals energy and effort. You set a half assed screen leaving KAT fighting off two defenders now just to get in position to receive the ball. Then you skip your way up like Dorothy on the yellow brick. You get the ball and you got Tim Hardaway Jr. in isolation. Yeah you can’t take him because he’s such a great defender so you make a half assed attempt at a drive with only one thing on your mind and that is how do I get rid of this ball quick so you just dump it off to the closest guy to you.

He doesn’t get it, he thinks if you just move around that things happen. You have to move with purpose, cut hard, set a good solid screen, attack hard with a purpose even if you have the option of passing or want to pass get the defense looking to help out and shift over a little bit so the guy you pass it to maybe gets a look to score. This dude doesn’t understand any of this, he thinks just because you move around and touch the ball that it’s enough to crack a defense even if you are slow, weak and lackadaisical

[MrDollarBills]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=a_8CJE4oxCPxhwUi5hQ4Zg

This is a great breakdown of the offensive struggles, now is this a coaching issue, for sure could be, or is this a group of players that don’t give it 100% all the time, there is no excuse to be playing at 1/2 speed no less in a home playoff game.

i appreciate this opportunity for good nuanced conversation. but i unfortunately merely expect it to just be coach bashing, like this is what he tells them to do (when he speaks out against it all the time).

regardless, coach is responsible for how it goes. but, no. he's not being lazy or missing open shots and free throws. so it's unfair to look at moments like these and maintain a "coach bad, players good" extreme agenda. it's always a shared thing. and both can be better. why do they start halves flat? why is mikal out here talking about layup lines for cohesion. that's unsettling.

and again, detroit deserves credit for not making it easy to execute the things. they not gon LET you. so some of this comes down to heart and... marble.

Everyone plays a part in this. I agree.

The team is just so undisciplined that they immediately revert to standing around watching JB ISO instead of moving the ball and making each other better. Part of that is because of the system that we run, whatever that it is, and part of it is definitely on the players. How do we keep settling for this awful, near unwatchable play offensively? Where is the pride? Why do they want to play like this? Tom absolutely is apart of the problem but it's a conscious decision from the players to not move the ball despite of him.

Lots of lazy, low IQ plays being made.

Also, the bench players have been awful. Deuce has been flat out abysmal to the point where I am wondering what happened to this kid? Cam Payne spent all of his super powers in Game 1. Mitch finally woke up, but otherwise we have nothing. I legit think Wright deserves an opportunity to not only play but he needs to play at times with Brunson to help the ball handling. Having Brunson dribble unassisted against full court pressure is killing the offense before the ball crosses half court.

I'm out on Tom, but the only players who are safe to me on this team are JB, OG, and KAT (pending any deal for Giannis). I absolutely trade Mikal. Josh needs to be a 6th man. He kills us as a starter.

You don't assemble a roster like this and perform this way in the playoffs. This is just a reflection of the way the entire season went in a microcosm.

This cannot happen next year. The window is open and it is limited.

[MrDollarBills]

I mean, I called it

Talent wise, the difference is enough that we should be sweeping these guys, but Thibs is dragging us down to needing 6 games to beat them

+/- by quarter this series:

Q1: +10
Q2: +7
Q3: -33 (!)
Q4: +21

That 4th quarter rating is largely due to the 21-0 run in game 1. Since then, we're a +2 in the 4th quarters

And I mean, that sounds right. We play pretty evenly for the 1st half, then go down big in the 3rd and have to claw our way back in the 4th through Brunson being an absurdly good closer. Dude is averaging 11 points on 55% from the field (33% from 3) in the 4th quarter this series

But that's Thibs' career. Dig holes and hope your star can bail you out.

He's wasting everyone's time at this point.

[Adelheid]

there is that prevailing question of why do they keep coming back to the old ways. Is that what he really wants?

[kNicksGmen]

sad thing is the pistons aren't very good but worse they haven't even played well. sure they've had some decent performances here and there by certain guys (Cade in 1 or 2 games, THJ in a game or 2, harris in a game or 2) - but they haven't had a single game playing their best. knicks have not either, not anywhere close. but that is the sad part they can't come close to putting it all together.

as fans we shouldn't be surprised. the team has been like this nearly all year. outside of a couple good stretches that were largely against bad teams - the team has never consistently looked like a good team. people point to stats and the record etc - the eye test was never passed. one of the worst 50 win teams of all time based on winning percentage against teams over .500

[GONYK]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=a_8CJE4oxCPxhwUi5hQ4Zg

This is a great breakdown of the offensive struggles, now is this a coaching issue, for sure could be, or is this a group of players that don’t give it 100% all the time, there is no excuse to be playing at 1/2 speed no less in a home playoff game.

i appreciate this opportunity for good nuanced conversation. but i unfortunately merely expect it to just be coach bashing, like this is what he tells them to do (when he speaks out against it all the time).

regardless, coach is responsible for how it goes. but, no. he's not being lazy or missing open shots and free throws. so it's unfair to look at moments like these and maintain a "coach bad, players good" extreme agenda. it's always a shared thing. and both can be better. why do they start halves flat? why is mikal out here talking about layup lines for cohesion. that's unsettling.

and again, detroit deserves credit for not making it easy to execute the things. they not gon LET you. so some of this comes down to heart and... marble.

This is a player issue. This is a designed set. People get mad at Thibs and thinks he doesn't run plays. This is a play and the players just moved through it at half speed like it was a pregame walkthrough.

[Adelheid]

rewatched game 5

jeebus, knicks are struggling to even execute whatever their sets are, let alone score - you would never imagine the knicks are actually 3rd seed in the east

[HerSports85]

rewatched game 5

jeebus, knicks are struggling to even execute whatever their sets are, let alone score - you would never imagine the knicks are actually 3rd seed in the east

Read on Twitter

[Jeff Van Gully]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=a_8CJE4oxCPxhwUi5hQ4Zg

This is a great breakdown of the offensive struggles, now is this a coaching issue, for sure could be, or is this a group of players that don’t give it 100% all the time, there is no excuse to be playing at 1/2 speed no less in a home playoff game.

i appreciate this opportunity for good nuanced conversation. but i unfortunately merely expect it to just be coach bashing, like this is what he tells them to do (when he speaks out against it all the time).

regardless, coach is responsible for how it goes. but, no. he's not being lazy or missing open shots and free throws. so it's unfair to look at moments like these and maintain a "coach bad, players good" extreme agenda. it's always a shared thing. and both can be better. why do they start halves flat? why is mikal out here talking about layup lines for cohesion. that's unsettling.

and again, detroit deserves credit for not making it easy to execute the things. they not gon LET you. so some of this comes down to heart and... marble.

Everyone plays a part in this. I agree.

The team is just so undisciplined that they immediately revert to standing around watching JB ISO instead of moving the ball and making each other better. Part of that is because of the system that we run, whatever that it is, and part of it is definitely on the players. How do we keep settling for this awful, near unwatchable play offensively? Where is the pride? Why do they want to play like this? Tom absolutely is apart of the problem but it's a conscious decision from the players to not move the ball despite of him.

Lots of lazy, low IQ plays being made.

Also, the bench players have been awful. Deuce has been flat out abysmal to the point where I am wondering what happened to this kid? Cam Payne spent all of his super powers in Game 1. Mitch finally woke up, but otherwise we have nothing. I legit think Wright deserves an opportunity to not only play but he needs to play at times with Brunson to help the ball handling. Having Brunson dribble unassisted against full court pressure is killing the offense before the ball crosses half court.

I'm out on Tom, but the only players who are safe to me on this team are JB, OG, and KAT (pending any deal for Giannis). I absolutely trade Mikal. Josh needs to be a 6th man. He kills us as a starter.

You don't assemble a roster like this and perform this way in the playoffs. This is just a reflection of the way the entire season went in a microcosm.

This cannot happen next year. The window is open and it is limited.

i love it. refreshing. thanks for building, my guard. i also largely agree.

[Jeff Van Gully]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=a_8CJE4oxCPxhwUi5hQ4Zg

This is a great breakdown of the offensive struggles, now is this a coaching issue, for sure could be, or is this a group of players that don’t give it 100% all the time, there is no excuse to be playing at 1/2 speed no less in a home playoff game.

i appreciate this opportunity for good nuanced conversation. but i unfortunately merely expect it to just be coach bashing, like this is what he tells them to do (when he speaks out against it all the time).

regardless, coach is responsible for how it goes. but, no. he's not being lazy or missing open shots and free throws. so it's unfair to look at moments like these and maintain a "coach bad, players good" extreme agenda. it's always a shared thing. and both can be better. why do they start halves flat? why is mikal out here talking about layup lines for cohesion. that's unsettling.

and again, detroit deserves credit for not making it easy to execute the things. they not gon LET you. so some of this comes down to heart and... marble.

This is a player issue. This is a designed set. People get mad at Thibs and thinks he doesn't run plays. This is a play and the players just moved through it at half speed like it was a pregame walkthrough.

that part. sometimes detroit's pressure takes us out of what we want to execute. this is not one of those times. detroit appears to almost be assessing our approach here and you put it perfectly. half-speed bull.

when i see this, i am asking thibs "why?" not assuming it's what they worked on. why is whatever you worked on looking like this at this time? and he deserves to be held accountable for whatever that is.

[MrDollarBills]

Mikal has a 25 mil salary slot. We need to turn that into two rotation players.

This top heavy approach isn't sustainable. The Villanova stuff felt good but this is about winning a championship.

Leon needs to focus on putting the best team around JB, OG, and KAT. F*ck the picks. Don't be afraid to pivot.

[HEZI]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=a_8CJE4oxCPxhwUi5hQ4Zg

This is a great breakdown of the offensive struggles, now is this a coaching issue, for sure could be, or is this a group of players that don’t give it 100% all the time, there is no excuse to be playing at 1/2 speed no less in a home playoff game.

i appreciate this opportunity for good nuanced conversation. but i unfortunately merely expect it to just be coach bashing, like this is what he tells them to do (when he speaks out against it all the time).

regardless, coach is responsible for how it goes. but, no. he's not being lazy or missing open shots and free throws. so it's unfair to look at moments like these and maintain a "coach bad, players good" extreme agenda. it's always a shared thing. and both can be better. why do they start halves flat? why is mikal out here talking about layup lines for cohesion. that's unsettling.

and again, detroit deserves credit for not making it easy to execute the things. they not gon LET you. so some of this comes down to heart and... marble.

This is a player issue. This is a designed set. People get mad at Thibs and thinks he doesn't run plays. This is a play and the players just moved through it at half speed like it was a pregame walkthrough.

The play was clearly for KAT but it ended up resulting in a broken play with shot clock expiring because KAT couldn’t even establish position to receive the ball. The reason he couldn’t is because Mikal was more focused on getting to the top of the key than he was in actually helping KAT get in position. What he did was actually compromised KAT and left him fighting off two guys for the spot while Mikal skipped his way to the key to get the ball only to result in him not doing a damn thing once he actually got it.

A lot of our plays become broken because we just don’t do well in the little things that are effective and necessary in order to execute a play successfully, setting a good off ball screen for example.

[god shammgod]

Blaming Thibs for everything is getting so boring

[HopelessKnick]

Like they needed THIS game as proof of a complete lack of system or creative offense? Things me and many others on the board been saying for months now. I have come to the realization that a good chunk of fans just don't know basketball. They simply seem to lack the ability to discern between sound basketball and bad basketball. They just lack that....one can't even get mad at them. Some even say they have watched for decades....like 40+ years and they still don't know basketball at all.

Like I said: If they roll it back with this coach and team they are eventually throwing away next season. We'll be exactly at the same place a year from now.

[Enzo954]

Blaming Thibs for everything is getting so boring

Sometimes the truth is boring.

[mpharris36]

defense from Game 5:



defense from the series updated:



clearly the Pistons are just trying to isolate brunson onto the ball.

Mitch also played a fantastic game.

[Jeff Van Gully]

Mikal has a 25 mil salary slot. We need to turn that into two rotation players.

This top heavy approach isn't sustainable. The Villanova stuff felt good but this is about winning a championship.

Leon needs to focus on putting the best team around JB, OG, and KAT. F*ck the picks. Don't be afraid to pivot.

the bridges trade and cost made most sense when we were doing the nova magic and keeping the metal bats identity. these things have changed and waned some.

that said, this series is not over and in the Ws I've also seen this group demonstrate the most toughness I've seen all season. KAT has largely risen to the challenge of both defense and toughness. i want to recognize that it can be a process. but i am also keeping an eye on what pivots might have to happen.

[Montmorencie]

We suck at closing games in the Madison. I guess we gonna have to close out Boston in TD.

[nedleeds]

Thibs sucks.

Oh, all you people who wanted that balanced scoring got it. And the loss.

When our rich man's Trey Burke can't chuck and spin his way to 30 we might be the worst offense in the NBA.