The thing that bothers me the most is that we still routinely have plays where our guys seem confused playing with each other. There was a sequence in the 1st half where twice in a minute a guy off the Thunder?s bench wasn?t picked up until he was already dunking the ball.
That isn?t a starter or bench issue. That?s a basic basketball issue. Regardless of who is on the court, guys need to have their eyes up to pick up a guy jogging his way directly to the hoop uncovered.
We had a play in the 2nd half where Grimes stole the ball and then took a heat check 3 before any other guys ran up the court. Why? This team just makes weird plays.
At the start of the Knicks 2021-22 preseason games where coach Thibs gave all the starters 30 minutes or more in each preseason game, the Knicks starters (Kemba, RJ, Evan, Randle, Sims) actually played park street-ball without any coaches plays in their offense throughout the preseason games.
And now, after 58 regular season games the Knicks starters are playing the same-way ..
No coaches plays on offense, and no coach plan on defense, just one on one B.ball.
And I recall last night when rookie Grimes stole the ball and ran his own fast break to shoot a 3-ball. Well, back in the Daze in the NBA a rookie would never do that, and if a veteran player did that and his name wasn't Bird, or Magic, or MJ, he would've been bench or traded. Ask Ainge & Mark Jackson!
Remember 2 months ago when D-Rose went out and said he wants to see McBride get a chance?
They went 3-12 with AB as the makeshift PG? How bad could it be with McBride? 2-13?
But, that?s the issue right there? KNicks don?t have Guards? and this means their Forwards have to dominate the ball.
A winning NBA head coach would have demanded a trade for a PG from the Knicks FO in November when the coach had to take the starter PG Kemba out of the rotation. Then a couple weeks later the backup PG D.Rose goes down with a injury that need surgery. The winning NBA head coach would start screaming to the media on the need for a PG every day after the team went on a 2-8 skid in their last 10 games without Kemba & D.Rose in the rotation.
Plus a winning head coach would've increase the minutes of playing time to the bench combo-guard Quickley without Kemba & D.Rose in the rotation, instead of decreasing Quickley's minutes on the court each game.
And a winning NBA head coach would've taken advantage of mentoring a pass-first defensive rookie PG McBride (Charley Ward) throughout the season with steady playing time.
Last season when the Knicks record was 8-11, the new head-coach had the Knicks FO trade for his ex-player PG-D.Rose leadership when the Knicks had four PG on the roster (Payton, Rivers, Smith, and Frank). I guess this season wasn't as important as last season.
At the start of Dec. the Knicks first ten games were 2-8. Their 11th game in Dec. rookie PG-McBride gave the Knicks 9 Dimes for a 116-103 win over the Rockets. McBride haven't seen any playing time since.
Yesterday game coaching and substitution and minutes has been going on for the last 2 months ....
Five players minutes in a overtime loss ....
1) Cam gets 7min
2) Obi gets 8min
3) McBride gets 0min
4) Sims gets 0min
5) Quickley get 14min playing out of position