Still in Charleston for work, so no recap tomorrow. A few things that stood out to me though:
Vonleh and Mudiay combined 5/8 from three...how crazy that those makes are the difference. I'm grouping 'em too because Vonleh did all his scoring in the first (but was pretty good everywhere else all night) and then Mudiay played frustrating ball in the first half but balled in the second. Mudiay took the baseline a lot in the first half and I don't think even looked to score on 'em. In the second half though...he hit his jumpers and made some plays (even a defensive show out). Maybe Fiz is finding something here.
We over rely on THJ to close every game. He was great tonight, don't get me wrong but I want a more team oriented approach.
Kanter's been really good off the bench but his defense stands out in fourth quarters as much or more than his contributions and the TO thing is starting to get worrisome. 5 TO's tonight from a center.
Knox doesn't have his rhythm or feel back yet on either end. I'm not worried about it though, he got five minutes last game and 9 in this one. Good to bring him back in slowly.
I wouldn't mind Dot having a low scoring game except that he only took 1 FGA. He had one of his weaker defensive nights too. Just a really strange night overall considering that he started the game with something like 3 or 4 consecutive impact possessions offensively.
16 points off 9 shots from Trier (5 makes)...his potential is all in learning to create when teams start keying on him to get stops, but he's already cut back on forces.
Kanter and Vonleh had 24 rebounds combined. The Hawks had 30 as a team.
Mitch only needed 15 minutes to get 2 blocks and a steal. Even with Vonleh and Kanter playing so well, I'd like to see Fiz carve out more time for him.
Young got some buckets late in this one but Frank shut him down when they matched up (and half his fouls came against Spellman not Trae). But that's Frank being Frank. The scoring was a damned pleasant bounce back though...he scored his first bucket on a post up, made 2 threes out of 4 tries and attacked the basket a few times; all of those are promising signs for him getting his offense back on track.
Honestly, huge swaths of ugly play in this one but it was the Hawks on a back to back so the Knicks got away with it. Not the most promising win imo, but they need to get some W's to keep everyone optimistic; especially if vets are already seeing minutes cut like Lance and Burke.
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