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or myth? In the big game, the coin

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0:42

in to Lockdown Knicks. Alex Wolff here, breaking

0:45

down the Knicks' 115-92

0:48

loss to the Pelicans, but

0:50

they were without Jalen Brunson and Isaiah Hartenstein,

0:53

so I'll have injury updates on them,

0:55

why Bojan Bogdanovic kind of impressed me in

0:58

this game, and why I think there's maybe

1:00

an untapped part of his game

1:02

that the Knicks could take advantage of, especially

1:04

once everybody gets healthy, and

1:06

some other great performances from Josh

1:09

Hart and Dante DiVincenzo still stepping

1:11

up when the team needs them.

1:13

I'm going to talk about that, Deuce McBride, and

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more next on Lockdown Knicks. You

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are Lockdown Knicks, your daily

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to make sure that you're always up to

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2:16

Editor-in-Chief at Nick's site, The Strickland, and you

2:18

can find the strict out land and you're

2:20

in New York, Nick's. Lose 115 to 92

2:22

to the New Orleans Pelicans. And I mean,

2:24

look, I

2:30

think this was just another, I'm going to preface this

2:32

by saying, like, I think this is one

2:34

of those games that in terms of

2:37

overall team evaluation, if you're

2:39

pulling your hair out in this game or

2:42

taking too much away from it, I think

2:44

you just take a step back.

2:46

This was obviously not an ideal

2:48

scenario for the Knicks in this

2:50

game. There were out four or

2:53

five starters and then one key

2:55

bench piece, whichever one you think Mitch

2:58

is or Isaiah Hardenstein is as far

3:00

as the key bench piece, but they

3:02

were out four or five starters, no

3:04

matter what. Bronson, OG, Randall,

3:06

and then Hardenstein or Mitch.

3:09

So most of this team

3:11

was not on the floor for this

3:13

game. And yet even so, on

3:16

second game of a back to back, they I

3:18

think played pretty well. All things considered kept themselves

3:20

in the game all the way up until the

3:22

fourth quarter, at which point the wheels

3:24

finally just kind of came off and the Pelicans who

3:27

had most of their players.

3:30

They were short CJ McCollum and

3:33

Jose Alvarado. So, you know,

3:36

two somewhat key pieces, they were out, but,

3:38

you know, still had Diane Williamson, still had

3:40

Brandon Ingram, still had Trey Murphy, and etc,

3:43

etc. So, you know,

3:45

I think this is not a

3:47

game that you take too much away

3:50

from on the macro

3:52

level of what this means for

3:54

this team going forward, but there were some things to like

3:56

on the macro level of, you

3:59

know, individual things from certain players and things

4:01

I think the Knicks can seize upon.

4:03

But first I figured I'd give updates

4:06

on the injuries based off what we heard

4:08

yesterday and what we're hearing, what

4:10

we heard after the game. So Jalen

4:12

Brunson missed this game with cervical

4:15

or neck spasms. And

4:18

Ian Begley asked about it

4:21

and Tom Thibodeau said, so this is just

4:23

Begley's tweet here, Tom Thibodeau said, Jalen Brunson

4:25

woke up with neck spasms this morning after

4:28

taking some hits in the wind over Detroit

4:30

last night. So

4:32

I guess no greater

4:34

testament to like, hey, I'm not getting

4:37

enough calls, then my neck is

4:39

spasming the next day from the amount of times I

4:41

was hitting the head. But

4:43

yeah, nothing to mess with there with your neck. You

4:45

want to take care of that. Spasms

4:48

usually, hopefully are just

4:50

from like overuse and maybe

4:52

just from tweaking something more so than a full

4:54

on like pinch nerve or something

4:56

like that, which can be a little more nasty.

4:59

But still hopefully not a long term ailment for

5:01

Brunson, hopefully he'll be okay. For the

5:04

showdown with Steph Curry on Thursday, cuz the Warriors

5:06

are really playing well right now, they're eight and

5:08

two in their last ten games. And then of

5:10

course Cleveland over the weekend and Cleveland is about

5:13

as hot as any team in the league right now. So yeah,

5:16

you hope Brunson can get back

5:18

for those games. Now granted without

5:20

more reinforcements, the Knicks might still be

5:23

having a hard time. But I think this game kind

5:25

of proved they at the very minimum need their all

5:27

star back, one of their two all

5:29

stars, I should say. But they're one who's

5:31

been here for the most time this season and

5:34

who is playing in an all NBA level with

5:36

J. Owen Brunson, he gives them a chance to

5:38

be in any game in theory. But yeah,

5:42

hopefully he feels better sooner than later. And

5:45

then I'd say a Hartenstein. So there's two updates

5:48

via Ian Begley with

5:51

some quotes from Tibbs. So Ian

5:53

before the game said asked about

5:55

Isaiah Hartenstein about his

5:57

Achilles missing game versus New Orleans

5:59

and Tom Davido said just where we are

6:01

in the season. We thought the smart thing

6:03

was take tonight off get rest do your

6:06

recovery That's where we're at with that. He

6:08

noted Hartenstein's been ramping up since the all-star

6:10

break and then postgame Begley

6:13

got another quote from from Tibbs and

6:15

said Isaiah Hartenstein status is basically day-to-day and

6:17

then Tibbs said in general He felt pretty

6:20

good. So just keep ramping him up and

6:22

go from there then Begley notes That

6:25

that's what Tibbs said after Hartenstein sat

6:27

out Tuesday's loss with Achilles soreness You

6:30

know, I think it's really good

6:32

for the Knicks again that they have precious playing

6:34

as well as he has been Because

6:37

as Hartenstein continues to ramp up precious can

6:39

kind of keep him under 30 minutes right

6:41

now Really seems like the Achilles

6:44

thing is just gonna kind of flare up

6:46

every time Hartenstein plays too many minutes now

6:48

So having precious and then eventually

6:50

Mitch there to spell him should be key.

6:53

I think you know also Sims I mean Sims

6:55

has proven More to me than

6:57

I thought that he was going to this year, which I'll

6:59

talk about him in a minute But like yeah,

7:01

I think I think the Knicks kind of find themselves in

7:04

a place now with Hartenstein where You

7:07

know, I was noting last after last game like always

7:09

up to 28 minutes now And

7:11

you know He played like 11 when they first got back from

7:13

the all-star break then like 20 or 21 in that second game

7:16

And then got 27 last game

7:18

before sitting out this game I'm

7:20

starting to wonder if like under 30 minutes

7:23

is the sweet spot for him Maybe 27

7:25

minutes 28 minutes something like that, but

7:27

either way, hopefully Hopefully they're able

7:29

to manage it because you know, we could

7:31

we've seen the last few games Even if he's only

7:33

out there a limited amount of time, you know He

7:36

does everything that he normally does in whatever

7:39

amount of minutes that he plays So, you

7:41

know, hopefully they're able to you know, kind

7:43

of keep this injury in check so they

7:45

can keep getting You know

7:47

25 minutes of Isaiah Hartenstein is better than zero

7:49

minutes of Isaiah Hartenstein and him having to sit

7:51

out for another week or two again, so could

7:54

see the tips it, you know, maybe at the at

7:57

the strong urging of the

7:59

the medical staff at least understands that

8:02

now. So that's good to see. But

8:04

yeah, I think there were, as far as this overall game,

8:06

I'm not gonna get too much into the overall

8:10

flow of the game or anything. I mean, again, the Knicks

8:12

stayed in it through the first half. They're only down one

8:14

at the half. And then they were pretty well in it

8:17

through the third quarter. And then fourth quarter,

8:19

the wheels just kind of fell off. That's kind of all you

8:21

need to know. It's how much

8:23

are you gonna glean from like the overall team effort when

8:26

most of the team didn't suit up. But

8:28

I will say one guy that kind

8:30

of opened my eyes a bit, or maybe

8:33

not so much opened my eyes, but just was

8:35

finally able to sort of play a

8:38

minute load and play a role that I think

8:40

suited him pretty well was Bojan Bogdanovich. 20

8:43

points for him, five assists, four boards, shot

8:45

six of 14, four 10 from three. And

8:49

I just, I, you know, I've said this before based

8:51

off his Detroit tape, and we haven't gotten

8:54

to see it too much with the Knicks,

8:56

but we did get to see it some in this game. I

8:58

just think there's something here with him being a creator on the floor when

9:00

the team is short creators, you know?

9:02

And I think that, I

9:05

think once Brunson gets back,

9:07

once, you know, Hartenstein gets back

9:09

in, and then if O'Gee

9:11

on an OB beats Julius Randall to the

9:13

court, I really think a

9:15

starting lineup of Brunson, Dante, O'Gee, Bojan

9:18

and I Heart gives you the best chance

9:21

to start games off on the right

9:23

foot because Bojan can handle the ball.

9:25

He can, you know, make things happen that way. He

9:27

can create his own shot if need be. So there's

9:29

someone other than Brunson out there that can just be

9:32

handed the ball and told, go figure

9:34

it out. But he also can set up

9:36

other teammates, you know, and I think that he did a

9:38

really good job of that in this game. You

9:41

know, he was, he was keeping the ball fluid,

9:43

you know, you could pretty much guarantee that he's

9:45

gonna, if he gets the ball and he's

9:47

not, well, if he gets the ball from three-point range and

9:49

he's wide open, he's gonna shoot it. And that, that is

9:51

great because he's a really good shooter. And

9:53

he showed that in this game, you know, the quick release

9:55

is there, but if not, you could pretty

9:58

much bank on, you're gonna get a quick fake out. He's

10:00

gonna be able to put it on the floor. He can

10:02

put a defender on his hip. He can do a lot

10:04

of the things that some of the other guys

10:06

on this team struggle to do as far

10:08

as controlling just pace and tempo with the

10:10

ball in his hands and then being patient

10:12

enough to potentially hit a

10:14

teammate. And he did that a lot

10:16

in this game. He had a couple of good drives

10:19

from the corner where he drew the defense in as

10:21

he just kind of slowly made his way in and

10:23

then waited for the cut and then hit

10:26

Precious on one and Josh Hart on another

10:28

for easy finishes that way. I

10:30

think if the Knicks use him more in

10:33

that way, that will be really, really good for him. I

10:36

mean, it's sort of similar. OG can do a

10:38

sort of similar thing from the corner, but I

10:40

don't think that he, I think he kind of

10:42

drives in with more reckless abandon and more just

10:44

trying to get in and get the layup whereas

10:46

Bojan is better at gauging the options available to

10:48

him. I also think that

10:50

OG would benefit greatly

10:53

from being able to cut in off

10:55

of Bojan handling the ball because OG

10:58

has shown since he's been with the Knicks that

11:00

he's a phenomenal cutter and if

11:02

they can find more ways to feed

11:05

him that way, then more power to them. I think that

11:07

they should definitely do that. I also

11:09

think there's something with Bojan

11:11

running pick and roll as well. I

11:13

mean, this is something that I feel like we haven't seen a

11:16

ton with the Knicks yet where he's mostly

11:18

been kind of waiting for the pass and then

11:20

working off of that, just getting

11:24

the ball and then trying to make a quick decision or

11:26

just kind of getting the ball around the elbow

11:29

for three and just sort of cooking

11:32

for lack of a better term, just kind of being

11:35

given the ball and being like, all right, figure something

11:37

out, create a shot here or whatever. But

11:39

I think if they run more pick and roll with him, it could be

11:41

good. I mean, he's per NBA stats,

11:43

he's 83rd percentile in points per possession out

11:45

of the pick and roll this season at

11:48

over a point per possession, which

11:50

is good. I mean, I

11:52

think that shows you that he can create

11:54

out of that spot. And if he was right there

11:57

with a number of other

11:59

guys that are like... point guards and shooting

12:01

guards and guys that you expect to be running pick

12:03

and roll. So I think that

12:05

that's something that's worth exploring for

12:07

the Knicks this year, especially because on his tape

12:10

from Detroit, you could really see he has a

12:12

good amount of patience with running

12:14

the pick and roll and getting inside. He's

12:16

got those long limbs and he might not be

12:18

the fastest guy, but he's crafty. So he's good

12:20

at that wraparound pass around

12:22

the defender to find the big to

12:25

get them the bucket there or just taking a shot

12:27

himself. If he gets a

12:29

mismatch of any sort, he's going to take advantage of that. So

12:32

yeah, I think it's, I think

12:35

that would be a good idea. And I think that

12:37

working him into more playmaking situations can only do good

12:39

for the Knicks. I want to

12:41

talk about the Villanova combo, not the Villanova

12:43

trio this time, because the Jalen

12:45

Brunson didn't play obviously, but Josh

12:47

Hart and Dante DiVincenzo had good

12:50

games. Also precious Deuce, Jericho

12:53

Sims all had good games as well

12:56

in the relative scope of things considering the overall

12:58

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want to say how I really feel about something you might even

13:20

be thinking about the same thing this

13:22

week. And hey,

13:24

on a small scale,

13:27

the Knicks injuries and all in

13:29

all has been getting

13:31

on my psyche a little bit. It's

13:33

making this team less enjoyable to watch. But

13:36

if I'm going to be honest, a

13:38

more, I guess relatable thing that

13:40

I've been struggling with this week is that Gavin

13:42

is off this week and he's

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doing his job as a play-by-play

13:48

broadcaster. And it's

13:50

great, but unfortunately that means that there's

13:53

more solo episodes for me this week

13:55

and that's stressful. I think it

13:58

creates a lot of anxiety for me. I

14:01

always worry that I'm

14:03

not presenting well enough, that I'm not

14:05

making good enough points by myself, that

14:08

people will be bored of the show or whatever. And it honestly

14:10

keeps me up at night. He kept me up last night and

14:12

so late in the night and then I'm recording this in the

14:14

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14:18

tough trying to go at something

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and I'm back in to keep talking through this

16:29

Nick's loss and again, you know, not a ton to

16:32

Not a ton to glean as far as the overall

16:35

team Dynamic here, so I'm gonna keep just kind of

16:37

highlighting the individuals in this game and what they were

16:39

able to do Josh

16:41

Hart 15 points 10 boards 5

16:43

assists 2 steals again plays

16:45

40 plus minutes And I'll just say

16:47

like for whatever flaws Josh Hart has

16:50

you really can't knock that he's been a total

16:52

warrior lately Playing all these minutes

16:54

playing this huge role that is

16:56

definitely not the ideal role for him Like it's not

16:58

ideal to have him out there playing 40 plus minutes

17:00

and starting and yet here he is doing

17:02

it He came really close to

17:04

getting his nose broken by Zion Williamson early

17:07

on in the game when Zion Followed

17:09

through on a block and just absolutely clubbed him

17:11

in the face No

17:14

call on that, of course because you know the refs

17:16

continue to just Do

17:18

what they do Hart did the

17:21

the best type of ref protests with that though, which I

17:23

give him props for which was he

17:25

knew his nose was bleeding and didn't

17:28

didn't wipe it at all and then walked up

17:30

to the ref and pointed to it and Yeah,

17:33

I couldn't read lips or anything that you could tell

17:35

that the general message here was hey Do

17:37

you think my nose just like bloodied itself? You

17:39

know maybe call the foul next time because obviously

17:41

I got clubbed in the face here So

17:44

yeah, it was that was pretty funny and you

17:46

know that the classic Josh Hart

17:49

Expression of bewilderment attached to

17:51

that. So yeah, that was a That

17:54

was not fun. You know seeing the Knicks

17:56

continually get smacked in the head and

17:59

not get foul has kind of

18:01

just become a normal thing. That's why Bronson

18:04

is out of this game with

18:06

next Muslims from getting smacked in the head too often.

18:09

But anyway, Hart did most of his damage in the first

18:11

half. He had his midi

18:14

going, which is nice. You know, made a couple of mid

18:16

range jumpers and managed to get all

18:18

the way to the rim and finish a few times as well.

18:21

I was pushing on the brake like he always does.

18:23

So, you know, sort of standard Josh Hart stuff. His

18:25

first basket was a three pointer as well. So I thought

18:27

maybe we were in for a little

18:30

bit better of a game from three, but he

18:32

didn't end up taking any more in the first

18:34

half and then did not have as good of

18:36

luck in the second half was shooting the three.

18:39

I think he finished one for four. If I'm not mistaken,

18:41

I didn't write it down, but not overall

18:43

important, but he seemed like he's like sort of

18:45

left him in the second half, you know, and

18:47

it's understandable the minutes load, you know, he was

18:50

on the back to back, had

18:52

increased usage. You know, I think it just kind of all

18:54

got to him a bit. Didn't look like he had a

18:56

ton of, ton of lift. He kind of got his lunch

18:58

eaten a few times, but I think,

19:00

you know, if I'm drawing like one

19:02

positive each from these guys from,

19:04

you know, what we've been able to see during

19:07

this injured stretch, Hart looks like he's

19:09

shooting with more confidence from three now.

19:12

So if that's the one positive

19:14

we get out of this for when the whole team's healthy,

19:16

then I think that's, that's a win. So

19:19

I'll take that. Then we had Dante

19:21

Di Vincenzo, 23 points, four

19:23

boards, two assists, two steals, shot seven of

19:25

18 from three. Crazy

19:27

amount of three point attempts there. And

19:30

hey, a byproduct, we've seen this with the Knicks

19:32

before when they've been really hurt, a byproduct of

19:34

not having enough playmaking on the floor is

19:37

just taking a ton of threes, because

19:39

you can't, if you can't break the defense

19:41

down, you're going to end up just shooting from outside for

19:44

a lot of the game. And, you know, the Knicks sort

19:46

of tried to just do that and just hope that they

19:48

could three point shoot themselves

19:51

into potentially winning this game

19:53

and, you know, it kind of fell apart down the

19:55

stretch, but he took 18, again,

19:57

as a pretty crazy 46 overall

19:59

attempts. for the Knicks and they averaged 35 and

20:02

a half attempts this year for

20:04

reference. So that's a lot

20:06

of threes to take. But I'll

20:08

go back to a comp I made a few weeks ago, which

20:11

was met with mixed reactions. I think maybe

20:13

people misunderstanding what I was trying to get

20:15

at, but I feel like Dante

20:18

having to be miscast as a first option

20:20

on offense with all the injuries really reminds

20:22

me of when Tim

20:24

Hardaway Jr. Was miscast as a

20:26

first option on the Knicks after

20:29

Porzingis got hurt and all that

20:31

stuff back way back when, when

20:34

all that happened. And yeah,

20:37

I just think it's not always pretty, but he

20:39

can go out there. He can at

20:41

least eat up those scoring opportunities. He can definitely

20:44

take a ton of threes. He struggles

20:46

a bit off the dribble to really break guys down,

20:49

which is why it limits him being able to be

20:51

a true first option out there. But I

20:54

think that he's done a

20:56

really good job when the Knicks have needed him of just,

20:58

if nothing else kind of like

21:01

jumping on the grenades for the rest of

21:03

his teammates in these really tough

21:05

games and saying, you know what guys, I'll

21:07

be the one to take a bunch of shots if that's what we need. I

21:10

can go out there, I can eat them up. It might not be

21:13

pretty all the time. I'm

21:15

sure that he doesn't say this, but

21:17

it probably understands. I'm not Jalen Brunson.

21:19

I'm not Julius Randall. I'm not

21:21

any of these guys that could just like take

21:25

guys off the dribble from out on the perimeter

21:27

and drive in and get

21:29

tons of hoops inside and draw tons of fouls

21:31

or whatever. But he understands what his skill set

21:33

is and he just continues to use it. And

21:37

I think if, again, if we're looking at positives

21:39

that we can take away from this

21:42

tough injury stretch, I

21:44

think the main one for me, as far as he's concerned,

21:46

would be if this is unlocked

21:48

him is like a 40 plus percent three

21:50

point shooter on. Like Steph

21:53

Curry, 10 plus attempt volume. I

21:55

think I'll take that. That's pretty good. That's a pretty

21:57

good outcome for the next year. to

22:00

have Dante able

22:02

to do that whenever you need it. Because

22:05

in an ideal world, he's probably the

22:08

fourth option in the starting lineup

22:10

on this team. Because I think you would, I

22:13

guess maybe you pick between him and Ananobi. But

22:16

the co-third option, the 3A or the 3B, whatever

22:19

you want to say. But ideally

22:21

Brunson is option one, Randall

22:23

is option two. And

22:26

then you've got OG and Dante

22:28

as your next best guys and

22:30

that's a really good two

22:32

headed monster as far as the number

22:34

three option there. And then with Hartenstein

22:36

as well, or Mitch for that matter,

22:38

who both can finish inside and Hartenstein

22:40

offers you a little more with the

22:42

passing and the floater game and

22:44

stuff like that. Like they're gonna have a very,

22:47

very, very balanced starting lineup

22:49

now once things get back

22:51

into the swing of things here and

22:54

they have their full strength starting lineup

22:56

again. But I wanna talk

22:58

about Precious Attua again, who had another good

23:00

game for him and also a really funny

23:03

thing from the sideline reporting about him,

23:05

which I just wanna highlight because it

23:07

was funny. Deuce McBride had

23:09

a pretty good game of a

23:11

little rough shooting, but I think we learned

23:13

some important lessons about Deuce as well. Another

23:15

good game for Jericho Sims and maybe

23:17

a little, little talk about how things are kind

23:19

of rough for Alec Burks at the moment. But

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right, and I'm back in to finish

25:20

up talking through this game. Again,

25:23

1.15 to 92 loss to the Pelicans, but

25:26

a game where the Knicks were without four

25:30

of their starters, five of

25:32

their top six, seven rotation

25:34

players. So not exactly ideal

25:36

circumstances in this game, as

25:39

we've seen. Hopefully things start getting better soon.

25:41

Maybe we'll get an injury

25:43

update on Oceana Novi soon or

25:47

on Julius Randall for that matter or on

25:49

Mr. Robinson. So any of those guys, it

25:51

would be great. So hopefully Dylan Brunson and

25:53

Isaiah Hartenstein are back soon. But

25:55

in the meantime, Preshichu, it just seems fine with playing 40

25:58

minutes every single game. just

26:00

playing really well in those minutes had 15 points, seven

26:03

rebounds, two assists and a block in 40 minutes

26:05

in this game. Just another workman like

26:07

game for him. I wish the three

26:09

could fall a little more for him cause I would

26:11

really unlock some different stuff for him and this team.

26:14

He shot O of three from three in this game but

26:17

that is what it is I guess. I

26:19

think he was also tasked with, or

26:21

maybe he self-tasked himself, but really, I mean, I

26:23

think that anyone could have identified like

26:25

everyone was gonna have to try to put the ball

26:27

on the floor and do some stuff this game and

26:30

Precious tried that a little bit and got himself into

26:33

like some jumper situations and stuff like

26:35

that. And I was like, I don't

26:37

know necessarily if that's the role that I want him in, but is

26:39

what it is. You know, he gave it

26:41

a shot and the team just kind of needed

26:43

anyone to try to find a spark in this

26:46

one. But I will say his verticality

26:48

finishing dunks on dives to the rim continues to

26:50

impress me. I really think he has a good

26:53

knack, not just for like a lob pass but

26:55

also just for corralling the pass, controlling

26:57

it and then being able to get up there and

26:59

get a dunk down or layup

27:01

or whatever the case may be. When he's

27:03

diving to the hoop, like I think he has great

27:06

control of his body there. And, you know, I like

27:08

to see that and hopefully they keep

27:10

utilizing that. I mean, I think especially once,

27:13

if he claims, you know, a full-time bench

27:16

role once this team is healthy behind Julius

27:18

Randall, presumably he's gonna

27:20

be playing with Bojan a lot. So, you know,

27:22

maybe that's your opportunity to take

27:25

advantage of Bojan being pretty good at taking a run pick

27:27

and roll and have him run pick

27:29

and roll with Precious and, you know, see what

27:31

becomes of that. But yeah, I don't

27:33

know. I think that's

27:36

possibly what the future can hold for Precious.

27:39

You know, I think that this stretch has just kind

27:41

of showed that he could do a little

27:43

bit of everything, which is good. And I think I said

27:45

in the last episode, pay him pretty much whatever he wants

27:47

within reason this off season. And I think I still stand

27:49

by that. The Knicks are about to be a pretty well

27:51

over the cap team regardless. And they're

27:53

probably gonna have to dip into the luxury tax next year, you

27:56

know, if they do everything they want

27:58

to do this off season, it was re-signing OG and everything else. and

28:00

then eventually extending certain guys, whatever. So

28:03

if you can keep precious on a,

28:06

I don't know, 13 million a year contract or

28:08

something like that and even if he's

28:10

just a breaking case of

28:12

emergency, like 15 minute

28:15

bench guy that can give you

28:17

potentially 40 minutes for a month,

28:21

40 minutes per game for a month. I mean, I think that's

28:24

a pretty good player to have on your team with how

28:26

versatile he has been to this point. Also,

28:29

there was a kind of hilarious,

28:31

easily disprovable thing on the

28:34

commentary and from Rebecca Harlow. So she

28:37

said that she talked to

28:39

precious pregame and the precious made a comment

28:41

that he's so locked in with the Knicks

28:43

that he hasn't even looked at social media

28:45

since the trade or he hasn't been on social media

28:47

at all. And I don't know if that

28:49

was just her misinterpreting him or whatever, but I mean,

28:51

he had a tweet that went semi viral

28:54

in the Knicks community

28:56

recently where he said

28:58

it was nasty work after the Rockets

29:01

call. I believe that was what that was after,

29:03

if I'm not mistaken, but nasty work and a

29:05

face palm emoji after that game.

29:08

And then he's had a couple other tweets since

29:11

coming to the Knicks. So I mean, obviously he's

29:13

been on Twitter, like he's tweeting. So

29:15

it's not a ton, it's like once a week

29:17

or something. So maybe he's reducing his social media

29:19

consumption to once a week, but it was just

29:21

really funny to hear like Mike Breen and

29:24

be like, wow, in this day and age, he hasn't been

29:26

on social media once in two

29:28

months. Like that's insane. And I was

29:30

like, well now he's definitely been on social media.

29:32

Maybe just easy as been on a ton, but he's

29:34

definitely been on it. So I don't know, just kind

29:36

of a funny little thing. Anyway, Deuce

29:39

McBride starts in this

29:41

game, ends with 10 points, eight

29:43

assists, one steal, one block, shoots three of 11, two

29:45

seven from three. So

29:48

I think my overall takeaway with

29:50

Deuce was two things from this game.

29:53

So I think it tells you two things. He's

29:55

still just not quite ready to be a point guard, at

29:57

least not like exclusively a point guard. It's possible he- He

30:00

won't ever be was just fine. I just

30:02

think this game kind of showed off his

30:04

his willingness to pass which is great You

30:06

know, he had eight assists in this game.

30:08

He's always a willing passer He

30:10

looks for the swing pass a lot, which is great

30:12

But that's how most of his assists came and I

30:15

think that's the big thing that Separates it for me

30:17

and this was this is why the Emmanuel quickly not

30:19

being a point guard debate always just kind

30:21

of stupid to me because quickly

30:24

was always able to drive inside and you know whether

30:26

he could fully finish inside was a different story but

30:28

he could drive inside and He could generate that pressure.

30:30

He had that floater that would work for him And

30:33

then you know He was able to kick it out

30:36

to shooters after that and that's a key part of

30:38

being a point guard is being able to break Down

30:40

the defense from the perimeter get inside and then create

30:43

some movement to get you know the defense

30:45

shifting and hopefully open

30:47

up a teammate for you know an open three

30:49

or a cut or Whatever the

30:51

case may be and I think that's where deuce

30:53

struggles right now like most of those eight assists

30:55

in this game just came on the perimeter and

30:58

usually it was after deuce tried to get past

31:00

the first round of defense and wasn't able to

31:02

get past it and Then kind

31:04

of just found a guy who like you know like boeion

31:07

for example who was able to get the ball kind of

31:09

give a quick little pump and then make it three or

31:12

Josh Hart who got it and then started to drive

31:14

in immediately and then kind of like pulled up for

31:16

a midi or whatever like There's a lot

31:18

of those type of assists where it was like Yet,

31:21

technically speaking it's an assist, but it's not really

31:23

like one that deuce created,

31:25

you know by by Breaking

31:28

down the defense or whatever and making something

31:30

out of nothing for his teammates So

31:33

again, I'm not like I'm not trying to like

31:35

knock him or whatever But I do question if he's if

31:38

he's like a true point guard like that And

31:41

I don't know. I don't know when the

31:43

clock strikes midnight on that as far as if we're

31:45

willing to keep Entertaining that

31:47

idea, but I'm reaching closer personally

31:49

to that point. But that

31:52

said the number two thing That

31:54

I think that I've taken away from deuce in this

31:56

game and from you know The stretch overall is I

31:58

think you should still be getting some minutes with Brunson,

32:00

like we've seen him elevate both

32:02

Emmanuel quickly and gentlemen Brunson as a

32:05

low minutes backup shooting guard. And

32:07

I think he's much better from three

32:09

and lower stress spot-up opportunities. So I

32:12

think he should definitely be

32:14

in that role still, even once everybody's healthy and

32:16

still get a few minutes every game to kind

32:18

of come out and support Brunson

32:21

defensively, you know, try to

32:23

get breaks going that way and take some spot-up threes

32:25

because that's been when he's at his best this year.

32:28

Jericho Sims had another good outing

32:30

7.7 rebounds three assists two

32:33

blocks three of three shooting. I don't think

32:35

there was anything too different from

32:37

him in this game save for one play

32:39

which was he took his

32:41

defender from the three-point line went

32:43

lefty with it got all the way into

32:45

the hoop and then spun around for

32:48

a really awkward righty layup and

32:50

got an and one. It was pure

32:52

poetry. I would encourage you to go watch that

32:54

play if you haven't watched already might be the

32:56

only time you ever see something like that from

32:58

Jericho Sims in his career. So that

33:01

was pretty cool. Otherwise got two dunks. So

33:03

pretty pretty standard stuff. And then I'll

33:05

just say I don't know what's going on with Alec Burke since the

33:07

trade, but if he could start shooting the ball

33:09

like he didn't try it again, that would be really good. Shot

33:12

one of seven in this game. He's shooting 30% overall

33:15

for the Knicks since he came back and 30% from

33:17

three not exactly what

33:19

they signed up for when they when they traded for

33:22

him. So I don't know. I

33:24

think at this point, he's kind of pushing towards being the odd

33:26

man out when this team is fully healthy. Like I would not

33:28

be surprised if he is not in the

33:30

rotation once we reach that point, but I

33:33

guess we'll see as things go on. Anyway,

33:36

there's a game against Golden

33:38

State on Thursday. So definitely keep your

33:40

eyes out for that. I'll have a

33:42

recap for that as well. And

33:45

hopefully Jalen Bronson is healthy for that matchup

33:47

with Steph Curry. But until then, thank you.

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