It's Go Time

We celebrate Game 1 of the ECF with a mid-week Macri Mailbag.

Good morning. It’s time. 8pm start, TNT. I’ll be on at halftime. Let’s get to the mailbag.

Macri Mailbag, ECF Edition

My buddy Mike (hi Mike) texted me yesterday afternoon asking if I was ready for tonight. The answer, quite obviously, was no. Emotionally, I’m a basket case. The Knicks are favored to go to the NBA Finals against the team I hate and have hated more than any other organization in sports. There is no universe where I will be OK if they lose.

And yet…

This is sports. Sports are supposed to be fun…a distraction from the trials, tribulations and occasional gut punches of everyday life. I’m going to try and remember that as I navigate the next two weeks. This team has already exceeded expectations. All eight playoff wins have generated genuine ecstasy. I’m going to do my best to remain thankful for those and for however many we have left on top of them.

We’ll see how well I do.

For now, I was able to get to 25 of your questions, or one for each year since the Knicks last made it this far.

Let’s start with one from Charles, who wonders about the playing time of a man who defined the East semis:

Assuming full availability, how many minutes does Mitch average in this series? And whatever the number, does that mean fewer Josh Hart minutes or more Mitch/Hart minutes?

Robinson averaged 20.7 minutes in the Boston series, which was skewed slightly by him playing only 13:30 in the Game 6 blowout. I’d love to suggest it was skewed even more because of Mazzula’s Hack-a-Mitch strategy, but according to Caitlin Cooper on our X’s & O’s Preview Extravaganza, Rick Carlisle won’t be above this strategy. If anything, the Pacers being an even deeper team than Boston should embolden them to foul Robinson even more, especially if he’s killing them on the offensive glass.

For this reason, I’d put the over/under at 23.5 minutes a game. I hope I’m wrong and its even higher.

That said, I don’t think Thibs has any qualms about playing Hart and Mitch together. They averaged 12 minutes of shared court time against Boston - more than half of Robinson’s minutes - and were incredibly effective, outscoring the Celtics by nearly 25 points per 100 possessions in that time. You wouldn’t think this would be the case because of the presence of two non-shooters, but Mitch’s screen setting is a way to space the floor in it’s own right, to say nothing of the advantages on the offensive glass. Defensively, those lineups were unrelenting.

On a related note, Jewanon asks:

25+ mpg for both Mitch and Deuce in this series. Am I crazy? Offensive rebounding and face-guarding Hali seem to be our path to victory.