Semifinals Matchup Set: Knicks vs Celtics

[RHODEY]

We almost lost Game 4 & 6 b/c we decided to stop running an offense and went hero ball way too early. If it wasn’t for DET inexperience with closing out playoff games & some insane / lucky shot making by us, we’re facing Game 7 or even a series loss.

Do not expect these things to just happen again against BOS.

If we follow the game 3 template, I think we can push this to 7. We have the talent to go to war with BOS. We just don’t maximize it.

Also Deuce absolutely has to provide some type of counter to Pritchard. He was not great in the DET series.

This 110%.

[Clyde_Style]

I think knicks will surprise and actually compete. they might end up losing games by 10+ but it will be within 5 late in a few of the games at least.

still might not win a game or only win 1 but the actual games will be competitive - other than maybe 1 blowout loss.

could be wrong and they lose every game by 20 who knows but i have a feeling the celtics will be cold from 3 and we stay in games as a result.

The team knows how to compete, but it lacks the discipline to sustain. Leads get built and then slip away.

Boston will have big leads at some point. Will they hold off our rallies to get back into the game?

Consistency eludes this squad. If they somehow find that level of consistency during the series then they will have their shot at winning games and even the series.

Boston is beatable. But recent history says we have to do things differently to make that happen.

[Clyde_Style]

OK, I expressed my caveats.

Now my prediction:

Knicks in 3

[prophet_of_rage]

Let's talk strategy. I'm not with the doomerism, we are here and we need to fight and win.

We're not stopping Tatum when he goes on a heater. I'm not even deluding myself. I know the conventional idea is to send help and let others beat you but I think against a team like this that's a horrible idea.

We have to take away their primary weapon, the three ball.

My question to everyone is: How do we do that?

I agree that stopping Tatum and forcing the others to beat you isn't the play here when the others are White/Brown/Holiday/Porzingis since they will probably beat you. So stopping the 3 is paramount and I think you do that by giving up the paint. Its like the one thing that Thibs will not do. He lives and dies with the notion that a good defense is built around stopping layups, which isn't crazy by any means but just not as effective as it was in the past.

According to the NBA advance stats, they shoot way worse on the left corner. I think the defensive strategy should be to take away right corner 3s first and foremost and by extension, also take away right wing 3s (i don't have access to second spectrum but I suspect this is especially true for White).

After that, I'd try to turn them into a 1v1 iso ball team like we play. If we can take away their swing swing open 3 and basically say go ahead and play OG v Tatum on every possession, don't help and stay home on shooters, we will have a good chance of winning.

Yeah I'm with you. I stay home on everyone and force Tatum to beat us 1 v 1 vs OG. I don't care if he scores 60 points as long as we're not giving up open threes to good shooters

Then you pick off OG with Brunson's check.

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[prophet_of_rage]

Let's talk strategy. I'm not with the doomerism, we are here and we need to fight and win.

We're not stopping Tatum when he goes on a heater. I'm not even deluding myself. I know the conventional idea is to send help and let others beat you but I think against a team like this that's a horrible idea.

We have to take away their primary weapon, the three ball.

My question to everyone is: How do we do that?

Ypu have to slow the game down. But we don't have the size to close out on shooters and then protect the rim. KAT post ups.help but he will be doubled relentlessly by a roaming big.

We're built like a poor version of Boston. Everything we do they do better except maybe the post up.

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Slowing the game down takes KAT, OG, and Mikal out of the equation offensively

We need to play aggressive and with purpose. Move that ball, set screens, cut to the rim or spot up

Then Boston runs us off the road.

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[LFGK]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=a_8CJE4oxCPxhwUi5hQ4Zg




Get up this morning with Hahn and Jay Williams, they had a great breakdown of the game winning 3 by Brunson, however the breakdown was not just the shot BUT the amazing drawn up play by Thibs to allow Brunson the floor spacing to get that good of a look to begin with, if you have twitter and follow Hahn you can check it out, especially for those of you who keep harping on over and over again how thibs never draws up

Thibs doesn't run plays tho!

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Nope it was made up on the fly Thibs did nothing he stinks

[spree2kawhi]

Just get a split in Boston, please.

[HarthorneWingo]

Bing Bong!

This is best thing I watched tonight. The midget was the master of ceremonies. You can feel - and smell - the love.

Watch on YouTube

[HarthorneWingo]

not expecting this to be pretty for us

If the Magic won 1 game against the Celtics, then we should be able to win 2-3 games.

You can't look at it like that, because the Magic were willing to switch on defense and live with the outcome, we will not be looking to do that.

OG and Mikal switched a lot during the Pistons series. We also hard hedged a lot that I thought worked well on Cunningham.

[symbiotic]

Knicks in 4 is an option? Apparently so, 5 chose it!

[3toheadmelo]

Tatum when guarded by OG this season: 4-16 FG
Tatum when guarded by Mikal this season: 13-19 FG
Tatum when guarded by KAT this season: 16-25 FG

[K_ick_God]

We almost lost Game 4 & 6 b/c we decided to stop running an offense and went hero ball way too early. If it wasn’t for DET inexperience with closing out playoff games & some insane / lucky shot making by us, we’re facing Game 7 or even a series loss.

Do not expect these things to just happen again against BOS.

If we follow the game 3 template, I think we can push this to 7. We have the talent to go to war with BOS. We just don’t maximize it.

Also Deuce absolutely has to provide some type of counter to Pritchard. He was not great in the DET series.

We do not have a starting five that can match their starting five. How do we have equal talent?

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That’s not what he said.

[prophet_of_rage]

We almost lost Game 4 & 6 b/c we decided to stop running an offense and went hero ball way too early. If it wasn’t for DET inexperience with closing out playoff games & some insane / lucky shot making by us, we’re facing Game 7 or even a series loss.

Do not expect these things to just happen again against BOS.

If we follow the game 3 template, I think we can push this to 7. We have the talent to go to war with BOS. We just don’t maximize it.

Also Deuce absolutely has to provide some type of counter to Pritchard. He was not great in the DET series.

We do not have a starting five that can match their starting five. How do we have equal talent?

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That’s not what he said.

He said we have the talent to go to war. I would presume that is equal talent. Our starting five isn't even equal to theirs. Our bench certainly doesn't make up the gap.

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[robillionaire]

The people saying we have no shot are the same ones saying Brunson was a D+ free agent acquisition and that Cade is the best player in the series and who constantly take every opportunity to crap on this team. A lot within our own fandom desperately hoping we get swept. Hopefully the Knicks pin all this on the bulletin board and put up a fight that can make fans of the team proud.

I will always be a Knicks fan but is very likely my last season as a full time all 82 game plus more NBA watcher. It was gonna be last year but we got Towns and I extended it. But I have a lot going on in my life that will unfortunately make it difficult to keep following the sport. So if this is the end hopefully they at least go down with guns blazing

[WaltFrazier]

If Cowens and Silas control the boards, the Celtics will get their fastbreak going and win easily. But if Willis and DeBusschere are strong down low, that'll allow Frazier, Barnett and Monroe to start cooking in the half court.

Gotta watch out for Havlicek. He always kills Bradley. Jerry Lucas's long ball could be a factor. Its too bad the three point line hasn't been invented yet.

The 73 Eastern Conference Final was one of the best 7 game series ever. It made the 5 game Finals win over the Lakers seem anticlimactic.

Hey this reminds me, I haven't seen a tribute to Dick Barnett on the board. And I'm sure Clyde gave a heartfelt tribute during one of the games, but I've only been able to watch ESPN or TNT in Canada.

[KnicksGadfly]

We do not have a starting five that can match their starting five. How do we have equal talent?

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That’s not what he said.

He said we have the talent to go to war. I would presume that is equal talent. Our starting five isn't even equal to theirs. Our bench certainly doesn't make up the gap.

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Go to war means to make it competitive. I don’t see the talent as close too, but Thibs will try and close the gap by playing his top guys 40+ minutes and because this is a high stakes situation and not a regular season game against a lottery team, I agree with that.

[nykballa2k4]

game 1 will tell me everything I need to know. For now, I am going to pick based on Celtics being a bit banged up, knicks being mostly healthy, and refs being consistent.

All the media people saying Brunson is getting favorable calls are sleeping on Towns being outright assaulted and Brunson being body checked regularly. Yes Brunson gets some calls that could be no-calls, he also gets no-calls that should have been calls, probably more in that latter category.

[Kampuchea]

I will always be a Knicks fan but is very likely my last season as a full time all 82 game plus more NBA watcher. It was gonna be last year but we got Towns and I extended it. But I have a lot going on in my life that will unfortunately make it difficult to keep following the sport. So if this is the end hopefully they at least go down with guns blazing

There’s just no way to catch all the games. Kids, work, etc. I like recording them and fast forward through the stoppages and foul shots. But if I don’t have time for that it’s just highlights.

It’s also nice not caring so much about the result.

[robillionaire]

We do not have a starting five that can match their starting five. How do we have equal talent?

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That’s not what he said.

He said we have the talent to go to war. I would presume that is equal talent. Our starting five isn't even equal to theirs. Our bench certainly doesn't make up the gap.

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We might have somewhat close talent on paper with the starting 5 as individual players if you forget they have to play together as a team and the game has to be played, but their talent fits together better than ours and they don’t have the glaring defensive weaknesses or depth issues that we have.

OG is the only actual good defensive player on the team. Hart is ok on d but gives it all back by being unable to shoot and hurting spacing. Brunson is one of the worst defenders in the league at the point of attack, Towns struggles to play defense and gets in foul trouble when he tries, Mikal has moments but has been woefully unable to guard Tatum and is statistically negative, Payne is a streaky shot and not much else, Mitch has clearly lost a step and isn’t the defensive stalwart he used to be, McBride can be pesky but can’t make a shot to save his life can’t finish at the rim and thus can’t stay on the court. And that’s our rotation.

Meanwhile Boston has no real defensive weakness. Boston held the Magic to 89-98-95-100-86 pts in those 5 games. They allow 107.16 ppg which is the lowest in the nba. They have no real weakness to exploit.

So as concerning as our own defensive holes are, which we will by and large be hoping that they miraculously just can’t make shots, our offense being able to score on their defense is a bigger worry. There were times in each game where we struggled to score against Detroit. We often struggle to make open looks. Between KP, Kornet, and Horford, they have the size to take us out and make sure they get the offensive rebounds on the off chance they do miss a shot. They can all block shots and shoot. They have great defenders at the point of attack to make Brunson fight uphill battle all series, after Ausar already beat on him for 6 games.

Then we have the coaching, as we know they have a championship coach and we have the oft maligned Thibs who has never won, but you couldn’t convince me that the greatest coach in human history wouldn’t likely have their hands full trying to take this situation and win this series. Nobody has beaten them in a playoff series since they got Jrue in 2023. The entire world says we have no chance.

So what I’m saying, is Knicks in 6. Why? Because phuckem’ that’s why. Hopefully KPs leg explodes and their team plane crashes and they have to find replacements.

[Kampuchea]

I think the team being given no chance to win by most of the fans and media is going to help the Knicks chances. Completely counting out the team is a mistake, hope the Celtics are doing it.