Ah, Knicks fans.
One bad shooting game and Randle is a bum.
With who else besides Burks hitting any shots, defenses collapse on him, and just as often as not we have seen him overcome crushing coverage.
Yes, dribbles into double teams....like the coverage doesn't swarm towards him. Whol else are they going to collapse on?
Yet in spite of that, last night, JR had ELEVEN ASSISTS. Hello!
Julius is most def someone we can build around.
But as BoD is wont to point out, we need a top tier NBA 3&D...Bullock is a good role player, and a tough defender, but has yet to display the kind of consistency from the outside, let alone the abillity to break down defenses off the dribble.
And PG...in case no one has noticed, Elfrid appears to have lost Thibs' confidence. On one hand, he displays some offensive cunning in getting to the rack off the dribble, but his contributions as a rudder, a facilitator, seem more and more negiligble with each successive game. Lasy night, our starting point guard played all of 14 minutes and had one assist. WTF? Rose and Quickley were a combined 3-19 in 51 minutes. Rose had 4 assists, IQ none.
And RJ had an off night. Not surprising on a night when JR was not commanding coverage with his short of long game, and when Burks was the only Knicks With The Knack.
When we are getting effective PG play from Rose, who has been MIA of late, and outside shooting from Juluis Alec, Reggie and IQ, it opens up driving lanes for RJ and allows him to get into rhythm and get confidence in his shot. And while his shooting has defintely improved, RJ remains more of a scorer than a shooter.
AGAIN, surround RJ with shooters, and get a top tier PG, and watch his game ascend even further.
Tall orders.
Is RJ, still growing physically and skill-wise, our 3&D of the future? Thibs sure doesn't seem to trust Knox. Ergo Bullock.
PG. Assuming Rose comes back, he projects as a role player, 20 minutes a night. IQ? Presently he is more Lou Williams than Avery Bradley. Elfrid? Frank? Don't seem them as Knicks going forward, and as per Fizz and Hornacek and Fisher, we appear to run very hot and cold on Frank.
Obi. I really like Obi and his progress last night, irrespective of yet another dying dove from three, was heartening.
But where do his minutes come from going forward. He is a genuine 6'9" with a high motor, great athleticism and hops, who teased us last night with his abillity to score down low and play around the rack. Having him camp out at the three point line is a waste of his talent. In any event, we are still 'fessing it out, because Thibs simply will not commit to sufficient minutes with either the second or first unit to let him play through his burps and glitches and build confidence and RHYTHM.
Here's an idea, and it is a stretch, to put it mildly. Perhaps Obi needs to be repurposed the way Miami deploys Bam. Not sure how tenable that is, but Obi needs to be around the basket it seems.
In the meantime, Thibs is Thibs, and that means that Obi and Knox, let alone Ntilikina and Harper, see little to no daylight. He is committed to the playoffs, God Bless, and that means VETERANS, which means Rose, Bullock and Burks, it DID MEAN Payton, but the bloom seems to have gone off that rose. Veterans, which was the crux, I believe, of BoD's enthusiasm for Kenny Atkinson, in that he was more of a player development coach. While Thibs is more of a vet's coach, and his genius for defense and transforming the culture, he DOES tend to lean on his vets, to pile minutes on those players who have earned his trust, to keep his puppies on a very short leash. As far as player development, it is not fair to take everything away from Thibs: Randle and Barrett, Mitchell and Noels, Burks and Quickley have all made strides under the tutelage of Thibs and Bryant and Payne.
We are now 24-25 going into Detroit so after tonight, only 22 games remaining.
Forgetting the playoffs for a moment....
* Obi is a serious talent, but the Knicks seriously blew it when Haliburton fell in our laps. Spilt milk. Oh, well....
* What are our goals and expectations going into the draft and free agency? That seems pretty clear...shooting, Shooting, SHOOTING. A 3&D if a special one is available. And, DEAR GOD, a facilitating point guard. Payton is a goner. Frank seems to have no role going forward. Harper has talent as a facilitator and a shooter and a scorer, but no way Thibs is going to toss him into the deep end of the pool. His G League triumphs notwithstanding, is he yet another Brazdeikis in waiting?
So three steps foward, two steps back. Our Knicks. We have ascended and gone into retrograde in cycles throughout this season. How do we respond to the loss of Mitchell and to this disspiriting stretch?
Stay tuned. But for goodness sake, don't issue any conclusive phatwahs, either oh woe is me negative or we have arrived positive. For now, hovering around .500, teasing us with a playoff run, and resuscitating a commitment to defense will have to do. We cannot get too high or too low. Take a deep breath Knicks fans.
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