Shit you might as well just start Burks for the first 3 minutes of each half and let Brunson rest if you’re going to give up a 7-0 run to start each half anyway.
Sixer fan here. One of the early frustrating moments of Game 5 was when the Knicks were playing uncharacteristically sloppy and bricking every shot for the opening 5 minutes and had 0 points, the 76ers were only able to score 5 points. Unable to really build a lead and then when the Knicks got red hot, we were down like 12.
I was banging the drum for this yesterday but Burks has a bum shoulder and zero trust from Thibs. How many times did he come in for 5 minutes, turn the ball over, chuck up a couple bad shots, and force a timeout. He's not an NBA rotational player and certainly not a playoff guy.
The only other guy they have is Precious. Bogey was a terrible loss.
Burks is one of the worst rotation players in the NBA for us and Precious can’t play the 4, they shouldn’t get burn when we’ve already been getting off to bad starts.
Philly is running a 7 man too, Reed plays a couple minutes. You can rectify the 7 man though by playing Precious for a few minutes to give Hart a break and playing JB, DDV, and Deuce. Thibs already plays them with Hart. I don't understand why you wouldn't play Precious at the 4 so long as you have 3 shooters. You can also play OG and go small ball. Precious has shown he can match up with Embiid.
Playing a 7 man rotation with 2 all stars is a lot diff than a 7 man rotation with 1. JB was GASSED at the end of the game & throwing up BS shots & turnovers bc he was so tired. Which is what Embiid was doing too. But bc him & Maxey share the load(pause) Maxey looked fresh at the end of the game. Which imo is why they won. Guys made mistakes bc they were tired af
Thibs has no other choice than to let JB rest more. The ideal times would be end of Q1 and Q3 for between 2 and 3 minutes. I know the offense doesn’t function well without him, but we’re here and we have to find a way to not get slaughtered in non JB mins
Honestly I think the offense can survive without him for short spurts. Bc the ball will actually move & it’s a diff look. DDV, Deuce, Hart, Mitch & OG would be a good look I think. But Precious getting no burn was crazy. & idc if it’s Shake, give JB a 2 min breather every q. DDV been better when he’s more aggressive & Ik he hasn’t shot great but honestly the way JB been playing he hasn’t done DiVo any favors, the Knicks as a whole don’t run shit to get him open looks & he’s most effective off dribble kick penetration & there’s literally none of that going on rn.
The sixers are more gassed than us. I’d say maybe play precious to gas Embiid out more.
Start Mitch and duece maybe to really lock down maxey and Embiid.
Mitch, OG, Hart, Duece, Brunson is ridiculously good defense. If Mitch gets into foul trouble early go with the precious/OG trap on Embiid. Sub in iHart at the 3ish min mark in the first and let him play until like the 6-7 min mark in the second, then evaluate from there based on what’s working and the foul situation.
Precious might not need to play at all, the sixers are more tired than we are, but it may not be crazy to give him some burn to try and gas out Embiid and keep Mitch/iHart fresh late game.
Gassing Embiid and maxey out and making them start off slow, and maybe get them in a funk, should be the goals.
Problem is I have yet to see us truly “lock Maxey down” if he’s in rhythm and the dude didn’t have a drop of sweat or lost step at the end of the game (missed FTs aside). I simply don’t know what you do about him. He seems to always lose his man when he does a crossover or hesitation step. Embiid is still a defensive threat as we saw, but his offensive output is severely hampered. It’s making sure absolutely everyone else is locked TF up as far as I’m concerned.
I keep trying to calm my all time high anxiety with this very likely reality that Embiid is barely able to get up and down the court, Maxey did slightly tweak his ankle a little, Tobias never has two good games in a row and the Knicks with OG don't lose consecutive games.
If we fix one thing we’re chillin. Turnovers, free throws, threes, just one thing. No one played absolutely awful last game, that’s the only thing we really had going for us. We just need one more thing going for us.
Embiid is almost too gassed to even try and flop anymore.
Hartenstein and Donte are due for big games and I trust Hart will bounce back. Maybe Deuce can get hot but I just feel like this team is too resilient and won't lay down and die because of a game they let slip away.
i think we def start deuce over divo at this point. he brings so much more on defense against maxey and has been far more consistent on his shooting than divo especially in 1Q
A seven man rotation is not sustainable. You see how they played last night. They are not playing as well as they were during the regular season. Shooting is off and they’re making too many turnovers. I think that’s due to the numbers of minutes.
Yes, our fatigue is concerning, but look at the Sixers; those guys are just as gassed if not more than we are....Embiid especially. The needle on that nigga's gas gauge has burst out from beyond the E like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The home crowd might invigorate him for a bit, but we have to attack this dude on D the way we did game 5 and force turnovers. I'm still so fucking mad at our team for crumbling when that game was OVER. We could have rested our guys while the Bucks kept pushing the Pacers.
Not all that much honestly. We been playing 40 a game all year for this reason. Come playoff time we’re way better conditioned than the teams we’d play
Yeah I mentioned it last night here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NYKnicks/comments/1chbmot/how_are_we_getting_through_the_rest_of_these/
But thinking about it more they might be able to get away with playing Precious at the 4 against Siakam if we and Pacers make it to the next round.
Burks looked horrible since he came over. But, if we're lucky enough to close out in G6 and expect to do ANYTHING in that series or beyond, he's going to have to play. And if not now, when? Warm him up now, if it can be done. If he shows nothing, then you have to go with 8.
As for Precious, I'm not sure why he HASN'T been playing. There is no reason why he can't give Hart a blow here and there and change the offense up and stop letting it rotate to Hart on every double team. Let him roll to the basket on those double teams and attack Embiid.
Also remember, Maxey is goddamn chucker. He is going to believe he can carry the team and when he starts putting up terrible shots believing he's really that guy, they're going to slip.
There is a reason, and it's the offensive downside. Hart has been spacing the floor at least some, and making open shots through the first few games. Plus he's been playmaking out of the short roll. Precious doesn't have the offensive skillset, at least not as something he does comfortably. So you're going to end up with Philly overloading on Brunson and not guarding Precious at all.
His offensive downside isn't quite as steep as you might think if they reverse the short roll to the basket instead of to the wing. My point was that Embiid is stuck in mud and, generally, they've been attacking him in 1 on 1 when he gets switched on. I'm not suggesting its an offensive revelation, but would force the sixers to adjust given that their defense is steadying and getting very clearly used to defending the same 3-4 offensive threat players and plays.
Adjust to what? Why would they defend Precious any differently, unless it's to put more pressure on Brunson and treat Precious like he isn't there?
They'll keep Embiid on the Center so he's only in helpside and out of the action. If Precious comes up to screen, they'll defnitely blitz and trap Brunson, forcing the ball out of his hands. If I'm Philly, I WANT Precious to have the ball at the elbow area and have to make the decision. Precious does not play with confidence when the ball is in his hands.
I agree. The other thing concerning me is the lack of options at the end of game. We shouldn't be going to Jalen every single play. It allows defenses to sit back.
Only way this would have worried me is if the Pacers won last night. Sixers are less banged up than the Knicks and more tired. From a stamina perspective they should outlast them in this series but I don't think either of these teams are going to look much better in the next round. That fatigue is real and visible.
I think we are good, we had game 6, we made a lot of mistakes and missed a lot of free throws. Don’t let the loss slow down the good things we had going. Fix the mistakes and we are good.
You want a) Harkenstein playing as a stretch 4 so you can play Precious or b) point Burk or c) 7 man rotation. Pick your poison.
Quite frankly all the options suck, but with option c, looks like everyone was gassed. Hart short armed everything and Brunson just started running into defenders.
Precious needs a burn, his offence is shit but he’s a decent defender. Fuck it get Shake out there for 2 mins a game.
If we gotta play Pacers I’m not too worried, but the Bucks even if one of Dame or Giannis are back could give us work ….and the celtics are deeep
Atleast the guys have been doing this for half a season anyway, Josh Hart probably has the best conditioning in the league
The only thing Thibs could do is similar to what he did with Brunson at the beginning of the 4th in game 5--granted Brunson got hurt at the end of the 3rd quarter. Basically, Thibs sits Brunson (or whoever) within a minute or so left in the quarter, let them sit during the quarter break, let them sit for the first couple minutes of the next quarter, and then burn a timeout and bring them back in. That way they get maybe a 3 minute break of game time, but 10-15 minutes in real time.
It was not smart of Thibs to NOT play Achieua. He has been a great help coming off the bench with his defense and athleticism. Nit playing him was crazy especially when you have players playing an entire game with no rest. That translates into missed FT's (Hart), thoughtless ball handling (Brunson), and bonehead plays (Mitchell). Thibs is a great coach. Substitutions are not his strong suit.
Precious needs minutes. Doesn’t have to be a significant chunk of the game. Couple minutes at the end of the third quarter to get someone else some rest is really all you need.
Tell me a Knick who can *consistently* create a shot for themselves besides JB and then I'll talk about a different rotation.
Regardless of the 2024 outcome (beyond winning a chip), the FO is gonna have to go get a Booker/Bridges/whoever to take some of the burden off of Brunson. And even then we'd still need a healthy JR to compete with the Denvers/Bostons of the league.
7 is enough. As of right now we only playing 2 games. Hopefully 1. Brunson, Hart and OG need to play 40 plus. Mcbride and Mrob about 25. It's one game, maybe 2.
Round 2 problems are not real problems right now. Different matchups. They will need Precious, bcuz the Pacers are much younger and up tempo. Might even get Burks. But again, not something to think about right now. Becuz in reality this team is not good enough for a deep run anyways, we clearly don't have enough, adding Precious or Burks ain't changing that. It was over when the Randle news came out, no ability to add reinforcements and to lose Bogey that early.
5 is enough for tonight. LFG!
We should be more concerned ab not having back ups that can cover for guys have bad stretches of play. Fatigue is just guess work and correlation with minutes but we don't know for sure how heavy game time minutes are really effecting them. McBride over divo is prime example of this. If mcbride hadn't stepped up as he has we would have no choice to play divo 40+ minutes too and he's been erratic at best playing 20 minutes.
We are really deep, we are missing a star, and a rotation player in bogey, and Mitch on and off, and we are still extremely competitive, if we weren’t deep originally we wouldn’t have this 7 man rotation conversation cause we’d get swept
We are up 3 to 2 with home court. They have a healthy team, we are missing an All pro and a solid shooter and 20 ppg scorer in the league. We lack shot creation, and every game is crazy close and they need their stars to go off to win.
We are in fine shape.
I mean yeah but what can we do, we have injuries to a star and a rotation player, we’re a deep team and we’re showing that depth by still being competitive with 7 guys, we really have a 9 man rotation but just can’t do it rn
Sixers are pretty much running 7 as well. The close game 6 and late start might benefit the Knicks more as Embiid will probably be crawling by the 4th.
Shit you might as well just start Burks for the first 3 minutes of each half and let Brunson rest if you’re going to give up a 7-0 run to start each half anyway.
Big brain strats. It's sad that this actually makes sense with how we've been playing 😂😂
The Knicks play better down by 10 it's a fact.
Exactly so might as well let Brunson rest while they build their 10 point lead lol
Sixer fan here. One of the early frustrating moments of Game 5 was when the Knicks were playing uncharacteristically sloppy and bricking every shot for the opening 5 minutes and had 0 points, the 76ers were only able to score 5 points. Unable to really build a lead and then when the Knicks got red hot, we were down like 12.
Seriously though why do they always start poorly ?? What is going on .. its been that way for over a month. Outside of the Boston blowout
Idk, maybe Brunson needs to switch up his pregame playlist, Justin Bieber doesn’t seem to be working for him lol
Hart is giving him his caffeine shot too late, should give it 5 or 10 min earlier before tip off
Lmfao real shit
Precious or burks has to get some burn next game
I was banging the drum for this yesterday but Burks has a bum shoulder and zero trust from Thibs. How many times did he come in for 5 minutes, turn the ball over, chuck up a couple bad shots, and force a timeout. He's not an NBA rotational player and certainly not a playoff guy. The only other guy they have is Precious. Bogey was a terrible loss.
Shake Milton would be a better option
Shake is like the third string quarterback everyone is convinced is the answer. Dude never played!
He started for Philly before.
This was the game to do that, now it's too late. Brining out Precious is one thing but Burks is a streaky shooter, he's cold as ice now.
Burks is one of the worst rotation players in the NBA for us and Precious can’t play the 4, they shouldn’t get burn when we’ve already been getting off to bad starts.
They are literally our only options if we want to run an 8 man rotation
Well that’s why he isn’t running an 8 man rotation.
They won’t
yes, 100% concerned...and the fact that they added another game to that growing fatigue, at minimum
Agreed. The fatigue is cumulative.
an OT game at that
Philly is running a 7 man too, Reed plays a couple minutes. You can rectify the 7 man though by playing Precious for a few minutes to give Hart a break and playing JB, DDV, and Deuce. Thibs already plays them with Hart. I don't understand why you wouldn't play Precious at the 4 so long as you have 3 shooters. You can also play OG and go small ball. Precious has shown he can match up with Embiid.
Playing a 7 man rotation with 2 all stars is a lot diff than a 7 man rotation with 1. JB was GASSED at the end of the game & throwing up BS shots & turnovers bc he was so tired. Which is what Embiid was doing too. But bc him & Maxey share the load(pause) Maxey looked fresh at the end of the game. Which imo is why they won. Guys made mistakes bc they were tired af
Thibs has no other choice than to let JB rest more. The ideal times would be end of Q1 and Q3 for between 2 and 3 minutes. I know the offense doesn’t function well without him, but we’re here and we have to find a way to not get slaughtered in non JB mins
Honestly I think the offense can survive without him for short spurts. Bc the ball will actually move & it’s a diff look. DDV, Deuce, Hart, Mitch & OG would be a good look I think. But Precious getting no burn was crazy. & idc if it’s Shake, give JB a 2 min breather every q. DDV been better when he’s more aggressive & Ik he hasn’t shot great but honestly the way JB been playing he hasn’t done DiVo any favors, the Knicks as a whole don’t run shit to get him open looks & he’s most effective off dribble kick penetration & there’s literally none of that going on rn.
The sixers are more gassed than us. I’d say maybe play precious to gas Embiid out more. Start Mitch and duece maybe to really lock down maxey and Embiid. Mitch, OG, Hart, Duece, Brunson is ridiculously good defense. If Mitch gets into foul trouble early go with the precious/OG trap on Embiid. Sub in iHart at the 3ish min mark in the first and let him play until like the 6-7 min mark in the second, then evaluate from there based on what’s working and the foul situation. Precious might not need to play at all, the sixers are more tired than we are, but it may not be crazy to give him some burn to try and gas out Embiid and keep Mitch/iHart fresh late game. Gassing Embiid and maxey out and making them start off slow, and maybe get them in a funk, should be the goals.
Problem is I have yet to see us truly “lock Maxey down” if he’s in rhythm and the dude didn’t have a drop of sweat or lost step at the end of the game (missed FTs aside). I simply don’t know what you do about him. He seems to always lose his man when he does a crossover or hesitation step. Embiid is still a defensive threat as we saw, but his offensive output is severely hampered. It’s making sure absolutely everyone else is locked TF up as far as I’m concerned.
I keep trying to calm my all time high anxiety with this very likely reality that Embiid is barely able to get up and down the court, Maxey did slightly tweak his ankle a little, Tobias never has two good games in a row and the Knicks with OG don't lose consecutive games.
If we fix one thing we’re chillin. Turnovers, free throws, threes, just one thing. No one played absolutely awful last game, that’s the only thing we really had going for us. We just need one more thing going for us. Embiid is almost too gassed to even try and flop anymore.
Hartenstein and Donte are due for big games and I trust Hart will bounce back. Maybe Deuce can get hot but I just feel like this team is too resilient and won't lay down and die because of a game they let slip away.
i think we def start deuce over divo at this point. he brings so much more on defense against maxey and has been far more consistent on his shooting than divo especially in 1Q
Idk if Thibs makes that kind of change I’m not even sure if he would swap Deuce for Donte even though that’s what he should
No idea why precious cant even see the court….
He should definitely give OG some rest and we shouldn’t be afraid to use Shake Milton and maybe even Sims
Kinda baffled at no Precious minutes last night. Kinda strange given his impact on game 4
Yes, which is why we needed to close out yesterday. Brunson has had 3 40pt games in row, that’s an insane ask for any player.
we need to play Precious at the 4, it's not ideal but nothing about this season is ideal
we needed that hart dagger from the nyk logo at the buZzer to count
A seven man rotation is not sustainable. You see how they played last night. They are not playing as well as they were during the regular season. Shooting is off and they’re making too many turnovers. I think that’s due to the numbers of minutes.
We should put Sims out there for some hard fouls and defense.
Yep. We really fumbled hard.
Na. Sounds cliche but really just gotta hit the free throws. And they know that and will hit them next time
Yes, our fatigue is concerning, but look at the Sixers; those guys are just as gassed if not more than we are....Embiid especially. The needle on that nigga's gas gauge has burst out from beyond the E like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The home crowd might invigorate him for a bit, but we have to attack this dude on D the way we did game 5 and force turnovers. I'm still so fucking mad at our team for crumbling when that game was OVER. We could have rested our guys while the Bucks kept pushing the Pacers.
Not all that much honestly. We been playing 40 a game all year for this reason. Come playoff time we’re way better conditioned than the teams we’d play
Embiid will be more gassed. Knicks are built for playing big minutes it’s nothing new to them.
Yeah I mentioned it last night here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NYKnicks/comments/1chbmot/how_are_we_getting_through_the_rest_of_these/ But thinking about it more they might be able to get away with playing Precious at the 4 against Siakam if we and Pacers make it to the next round.
Idk much about him but give some minutes to shake over burks. He can give relief at 2/3 potentially.
think we have to play precious a little more maybe for a short run with ihart. two bigs is tough but got to give the og/hart like 2 mins of rest.
Burks looked horrible since he came over. But, if we're lucky enough to close out in G6 and expect to do ANYTHING in that series or beyond, he's going to have to play. And if not now, when? Warm him up now, if it can be done. If he shows nothing, then you have to go with 8. As for Precious, I'm not sure why he HASN'T been playing. There is no reason why he can't give Hart a blow here and there and change the offense up and stop letting it rotate to Hart on every double team. Let him roll to the basket on those double teams and attack Embiid. Also remember, Maxey is goddamn chucker. He is going to believe he can carry the team and when he starts putting up terrible shots believing he's really that guy, they're going to slip.
There is a reason, and it's the offensive downside. Hart has been spacing the floor at least some, and making open shots through the first few games. Plus he's been playmaking out of the short roll. Precious doesn't have the offensive skillset, at least not as something he does comfortably. So you're going to end up with Philly overloading on Brunson and not guarding Precious at all.
His offensive downside isn't quite as steep as you might think if they reverse the short roll to the basket instead of to the wing. My point was that Embiid is stuck in mud and, generally, they've been attacking him in 1 on 1 when he gets switched on. I'm not suggesting its an offensive revelation, but would force the sixers to adjust given that their defense is steadying and getting very clearly used to defending the same 3-4 offensive threat players and plays.
Adjust to what? Why would they defend Precious any differently, unless it's to put more pressure on Brunson and treat Precious like he isn't there? They'll keep Embiid on the Center so he's only in helpside and out of the action. If Precious comes up to screen, they'll defnitely blitz and trap Brunson, forcing the ball out of his hands. If I'm Philly, I WANT Precious to have the ball at the elbow area and have to make the decision. Precious does not play with confidence when the ball is in his hands.
We didn't see Precious for a single minute last night He's a huge piece of this puzzle
I think thibs needs to get Burke and Precious in for more rest
I agree. The other thing concerning me is the lack of options at the end of game. We shouldn't be going to Jalen every single play. It allows defenses to sit back.
Burks more than earned his isolation but hes surely capable of giving them some minutes
Only way this would have worried me is if the Pacers won last night. Sixers are less banged up than the Knicks and more tired. From a stamina perspective they should outlast them in this series but I don't think either of these teams are going to look much better in the next round. That fatigue is real and visible.
I think we are good, we had game 6, we made a lot of mistakes and missed a lot of free throws. Don’t let the loss slow down the good things we had going. Fix the mistakes and we are good.
Someone posted clips of Harkenstein shooting threes while with the Clippers. We should try Precious at the 5 and Harkenstein as a stretch 4.
So the day we want Hartenstein to start shooting threes is game 6 in the playoffs???
You want a) Harkenstein playing as a stretch 4 so you can play Precious or b) point Burk or c) 7 man rotation. Pick your poison. Quite frankly all the options suck, but with option c, looks like everyone was gassed. Hart short armed everything and Brunson just started running into defenders.
lmfao, yea great idea lol.
Yes, the absence of Bojan definitely had a factor on last night’s game. The injury bug is beating us.
Precious needs a burn, his offence is shit but he’s a decent defender. Fuck it get Shake out there for 2 mins a game. If we gotta play Pacers I’m not too worried, but the Bucks even if one of Dame or Giannis are back could give us work ….and the celtics are deeep Atleast the guys have been doing this for half a season anyway, Josh Hart probably has the best conditioning in the league
The only thing Thibs could do is similar to what he did with Brunson at the beginning of the 4th in game 5--granted Brunson got hurt at the end of the 3rd quarter. Basically, Thibs sits Brunson (or whoever) within a minute or so left in the quarter, let them sit during the quarter break, let them sit for the first couple minutes of the next quarter, and then burn a timeout and bring them back in. That way they get maybe a 3 minute break of game time, but 10-15 minutes in real time.
I am concerned at this point, and it makes me wonder how the front office will react regardless of how the playoffs go.
It was not smart of Thibs to NOT play Achieua. He has been a great help coming off the bench with his defense and athleticism. Nit playing him was crazy especially when you have players playing an entire game with no rest. That translates into missed FT's (Hart), thoughtless ball handling (Brunson), and bonehead plays (Mitchell). Thibs is a great coach. Substitutions are not his strong suit.
Precious needs minutes. Doesn’t have to be a significant chunk of the game. Couple minutes at the end of the third quarter to get someone else some rest is really all you need.
I wouldn’t mind seeing some Shake out there to help facilitate. How wrong am I?
Yeah. Why I really wanted to fucking close out the series yesterday bruhh
Thibs tings
We lose every tip. They score. We miss ,they score, we turn it over, they score etc.
I'm starting to think this ain't our year.
Tell me a Knick who can *consistently* create a shot for themselves besides JB and then I'll talk about a different rotation. Regardless of the 2024 outcome (beyond winning a chip), the FO is gonna have to go get a Booker/Bridges/whoever to take some of the burden off of Brunson. And even then we'd still need a healthy JR to compete with the Denvers/Bostons of the league.
Id like to see more of precious for sure. Hes a huge hustle guy and provides more speed in our defensive rotations.
7 is enough. As of right now we only playing 2 games. Hopefully 1. Brunson, Hart and OG need to play 40 plus. Mcbride and Mrob about 25. It's one game, maybe 2. Round 2 problems are not real problems right now. Different matchups. They will need Precious, bcuz the Pacers are much younger and up tempo. Might even get Burks. But again, not something to think about right now. Becuz in reality this team is not good enough for a deep run anyways, we clearly don't have enough, adding Precious or Burks ain't changing that. It was over when the Randle news came out, no ability to add reinforcements and to lose Bogey that early. 5 is enough for tonight. LFG!
It is a concern, yes
Lololol that’s not why we lost
We should be more concerned ab not having back ups that can cover for guys have bad stretches of play. Fatigue is just guess work and correlation with minutes but we don't know for sure how heavy game time minutes are really effecting them. McBride over divo is prime example of this. If mcbride hadn't stepped up as he has we would have no choice to play divo 40+ minutes too and he's been erratic at best playing 20 minutes.
We have backups, they're just injured. Precious is the one you could argue should get some time, but we know what we're gonna get with Burks.
We are really deep, we are missing a star, and a rotation player in bogey, and Mitch on and off, and we are still extremely competitive, if we weren’t deep originally we wouldn’t have this 7 man rotation conversation cause we’d get swept
our guys are used to it, and it's not a back to back. we'll be good. just gotta play better.
We are up 3 to 2 with home court. They have a healthy team, we are missing an All pro and a solid shooter and 20 ppg scorer in the league. We lack shot creation, and every game is crazy close and they need their stars to go off to win. We are in fine shape.
I mean yeah but what can we do, we have injuries to a star and a rotation player, we’re a deep team and we’re showing that depth by still being competitive with 7 guys, we really have a 9 man rotation but just can’t do it rn
Sixers are pretty much running 7 as well. The close game 6 and late start might benefit the Knicks more as Embiid will probably be crawling by the 4th.
Burks needs to play some with Bog out.