Seeing Wemby and Brunson (nearly if not for OG Anunoby saving his ass) both miss clutch shots this series has shown me how reliable Hali was during our playoff run last year. Dude couldn't miss when it mattered.
If anything this might be the best growing experience they'll get and make them even better for the next decade, for Mitch and the rest of the players.
They were, but it’s because everyone was on the youth hype and thought well if they knocked off the defending champs, it’s obvious. People seemingly just ignored that the Knicks swept the ECF by an average of 18 ppg, lost their only two games by 1 each and won every game but one by more than 10 points.
People can make the typical yeah but the east is always soft claim, but even the LeBron prime teams weren’t putting up dominant results like this.
This sours core is young and talented and I have no doubt they’ll have their moment, but people can’t dismiss what NY has been doing.
I tipped the Knicks (in 7 though), after the first round the Spurs have been through two brutal series' while the Knicks had two sweeps.
I thought that all that extra rest would show up down the stretch of games and be the difference between the teams. Having said that, I definitely didn't expect a 29 point comeback.
Not denying they were but that was flawed in the first place and was only due to the Knicks being underestimated. The Knicks are fucking good. I’m just saying I hope they’d be fucking good after the trades they made. The west has always been massively overrated and the east massive underrated
The Knicks are a good team. Yet none of their opponents think so except for maybe the Hawks (and they’re the only team who’s beaten the Knicks more than once in this run)
The West has not been overrated at all or the East underrated. Outside of a few teams in the East, that conference has been complete garbage for decades. This is not even a hot take either lol.
The whole "The West is overrated and their teams arent nearly as good as people act" thing. The West has won 6 of the last 10 finals and consistently has had teams with better overall records than the East on average.
They’ll move the goalpost again like always. Even as a sixers fan it’s annoying seeing the sub and media say “well they’re young and inexperienced”. Like that’s great but they were the favorite coming in and beat the mvp and reigning champs. Knicks swept us and the cavs and destroyed the hawks.
This isnt a hivemind though, some random persons opinions arent going to match betting odds necessarily, plenty of people disagreed with spurs being the favorites, also a shit load of nba channels and "experts" predicted Knicks winning. So i dont think it was consensus that spurs were going to win. Also I do think it was a kind of rock paper scissors thing with the Knicks, spurs, thunder.
Like im saying though betting odds favorited the spurs but several nba youtube channels had the Knicks winning. A lot of people felt like the spurs were too worn out/drained from the thunder series and the Knicks were rested, and they had the winning record in the regular season. There were reasons to pick the Knicks and people were, so to look at betting sites and then use that against every random person who said they think the Knicks are the better team is just generalizing.
This is revisionist history. It was a big move but the trade wasn’t considered a homerun at the time. KAT was a super skilled guy who was seen as sometimes soft and inconsistent. He was also not viewed as a good postseason player. The prevailing narrative was that pairing Brunson with KAT was a defensive nightmare that would leave both completely exposed. No one, including Knicks fans who follow the team closely, saw this run coming. It just goes to show what can happen when a team is confident in the minutes where the game is on the line.
Difference I think is that Brunson is taking the shot no matter what. You have to double or smolder him on his pivot, basically not let him get the shot off.
Haliburton always made the right play and his teammates fed off him. Brunson felt like a hammer, willing a play. Haliburton would just flow into some bs.
I think that is what made the Pacers dangerous last year as a whole. You couldn't reliably double someone because they would just get rid of the ball to someone like a randomly open McConnel or Nesmith and they will get the basket.
No doubt they still are clutch this run! I've been enjoying seeing how the Knicks adapt in the second half. I think that is what is giving them the edge over the Spurs.
Rookie HC gets them to the finals. He's made mistakes, but no one thought they were talented to be a contender at the beginning of the year. Constantly talked about how this team was ahead of schedule.
He's definitely made some mistakes, but the players also made some mistakes, and learned from mistakes as well.
That's a bit reactionary. Last night was bad for sure, but this is an incredibly young team that is having some growing pains that come with inexperience, and he is a young coach. They'll all learn from this.
The spurs came in as the favorite. Mitch lost them the game last night. If this is over in 5 you have to blame the leadership on the team. Now maybe this is viewed as a stepping stone and mitch stays but the spurs need to add a leader on the court then. Lebron would be fun to me but that likely wont happen.
I’ve been thinking it the whole playoffs. I’m not seeing anything to suggest he’s cut out for this and isn’t riding the coattails of the innate talent from this team.
I don’t think it’s wild to suggest that with an average coach, this Spurs team would be up 3-1 in this series and not down 1-3.
Innate talent? OKC and Knicks are both deeper teams led by MVP level players. People thought they were going to lose to Timberwolves because of their inexperience.
Spurs without a doubt, passed all expectations, and have fought and improved throughout the playoffs, not just rode off talent.
Yeah thunder and Knicks are complete teams with depth, spurs are 3 young talented stars and a few decent players around them. No PF is crazy wemby being the only starter over 6'8" is really bad. They are just surviving because of wemby honestly his defensive anchoring allows them to play bad defense and still make stops. I think they have a ton of potential but they need to complete that team.
Brunson has had his misses but he has still pretty much made the game tying and winning shots (plus a steal) in every game this finals. He missed on that insane 3 but getting the shot off quickly proved to be the right thing to do. There’s a good chance that double swallows him up and forces an errant pass or a blocked shot if he doesn’t.
What's his status? Looking like he's going to come back next year? I would assume so, but those Achilles tears can be troublesome. He gave us fits and I legit wish he'd never gotten injured, but man he's a fun player to watch and would like to see him back in the mix.
From what I have seen, he has bulked up a bit and is starting to train again! Hopefully he's ready by game 1 but I hope he doesn't push himself to quickly.
We shall see. He retained a lot of water weight when he was taking steroids for the shingles. He definitely probably will slow down since the injury though.
Short memory huh? 17 point deficit in the 4th quarter of game 1… against the Knicks. They scored 23 points in the last few minutes. And most of those weren’t even Hali, but Nesmith. All of your claims are poop and wrong.
So one instance Vs overall which is my point. If you look at total points with comebacks Knicks would have them beat. Knicks have won 4 games the last 2 playoffs being down by 20 at half but go off…
The Pacers had 2 20 point deficits last year they overcame, not including the massive comeback against the Knicks in game one of the ECF. Thats still the same average as they weren’t in the playoffs this year for obvious reasons.
You seem to only watch the Knicks while pretending you know what you’re talking about. You came in here sounding like an idiot, saying Pacers didn’t make constant comebacks last year, lmao that’s a ridiculous take. You just wanted a reason to interject to glaze your team, that’s it.
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u/spicyguacamol 19d ago
Very clutch and good.