Oh and One

The Knicks drop their season opener in painful fashion, but have some things to be encouraged about.

Good morning all.

Fun game, good game, at times an ugly game, and ultimately an unfortunate game from a results standpoint. Not that there weren’t positives - we’ll talk about those - but in a battle with their devision rivals, the Knicks squandered an opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Let’s go through how it went down.

Game 1: Knicks 104, Celtics 108

BOOOOOOOOOOO…

In a New York minute…

This one started ug-ly for the Knicks, who scored just 13 points in the first 10:43 with an offense that looked all out of sorts. Back to back threes from Kristaps Porzingis (30 points on 15 shots) gave Boston a 12-point lead after one and inspired some fears of a blowout in the making. But the Knicks being the Knicks, they battled back with some threes of their own, and went into halftime down just five. Another Celtics flurry pushed the lead back to double digits out of halftime, but more hot outside shooting kept New York close until they finally got the lead on a Josh Hart triple with 8:56 remaining. Their lead got up to six a few times in the fourth, but they couldn’t come up with a bucket in the closing minutes and watched Boston score 13 of the final 16 points, including nine from KP.

Three Things

1. Brunson & Randle, BLEHHHHHHH.

Not going to break out the Oxford dictionary for this one. Guttural noises are more than the Knicks two stars deserve, as my youngest has had dirty diapers that were prettier than their collective performance.

The duo of Jalen Brunson (6-for-21) and Julius Randle (5-for-22) barely cleared 25 percent from the field, which is worse than any combined shooting performance they had last season. Adding insult to injury, Randle was also 1-of-5 from the free throw line, while Brunson attempted one free throw - a tech - and missed.

Their futility was staggering, not because we haven’t seen bad games from both players, but because we’d never seen something this ugly from both in the same game.

For Brunson, many of his shots were the sorts of looks he usually makes, and they simply weren’t going down. Maybe its a FIBA hangover, but I’m betting he rights the ship soon.

Randle was a bit of a different story. His shot chart was picture perfect on the surface…

…but the process left something to be desired, as he repeatedly tried to challenge Boston’s bigs under the hoop with little to no success. The Celtics had 11 blocks to the Knicks’ zero, several of which came at Randle’s expense.

Moving forward, we know these guys will be better, and likely a lot better. To have come so close to beating one of the best teams in the NBA with your two stars playing about as poorly as they did is as good a reason as any to be encouraged about New York’s prospects this season.

Even so, it was mighty frustrating to know that even a half-decent game from either one of them likely secures a victory for New York.

2. Quickley 1, Leon 0. As I wrote a few days ago, when the Knicks and IQ’s camp couldn’t come to an agreement on a contract extension ahead of Monday’s deadline, both sides were making a bet.

Leon Rose was betting that nothing Quick did this season would cause a cap space team to bet big on him as a centerpiece of their rebuild. Quickley was betting that he could improve on his 6th Man of the Year runner up campaign and establish himself as one of the best young guards in basketball.

After one game, Quickley looks like the wise one.

I’ll save the specifics for Stars of the Game below, but IQ stood out as far and away the best Knick on the court - maybe not in his overall body of work, but in the timing and impact of his biggest moments, and the dreadful thought of where New York would have been without him.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a hundred times: good things happen when Immanuel Quickley is in the game.

3. Free Throws ain’t free. Last night, both teams went to the free throw line 26 times. One team hit 22, the other hit 14. If the team that hit 14 made the same as their opponent, a four-point loss would instead have been a four-point win.

It’s not quite that simple, but it might as well have been.

Randle was the most obvious culprit, especially with one of his misses coming with 49.1 seconds left where a make would have brought the Knicks within one. He missed, and after two KP freebies on the other end, what would have been a one possession game was stretched to a four-point margin.

There isn’t anything more to say other than that this can’t become a thing. Not again, at least. New York was eighth in free throw rate but 22nd in free throw percentage last season. They have to be better.

On the flip side, the whistles played a very big role in this game in a different sense as well.

With 6:49 left in the fourth and the Knicks up by two, Jalen Brunson attempted a three and quite clearly came down on Jayson Tatum’s foot:

No exaggerated shooting motion, no funky landing…just a defender sliding under a shooter and preventing him from landing safely.

Often times in the game today, these sorts of plays are reviewed for a flagrant. This wasn’t. It wasn’t even called a foul on Tatum. Instead, Brunson got called for flopping, which resulted in a one-shot technical that Tatum made.

What made this even worse was that it seemed to be a make-up call on the part of the refs even though there was no bad call to be rectified. Less than a minute earlier, Porzingis got called for flopping when he fell over after making incidental contact with Donte DiVincenzo. That was an actual flop. The Brunson shot was anything but.

A few minutes later, Immanuel Quickley got whistled for a personal when he came across the lane and seemed to make a perfect vertical contest on a Derrick White layup. Thibs challenged and the call was upheld even though replays indicated IQ went straight up in the air.

With the poor outings from Brunson and Randle and all their missed free throws, it’s tough to place blame on a couple of questionable calls, but these still left a sour taste afterwards.

Play of the Day

Starting off the year with a two-parter initiated by who else but Immanuel Quickley.

Following a Julius Randle three (his one significant positive moment from this game), IQ caught the C’s napping and picked Jayson Tatum’s pocket when Jaylen Brown got lazy on the inbound:

After the ball swung around a bit, it ended up with Brunson above the arc. Even though he was having a bad game, he drew KP away from Isaiah Hartenstein and quickly swung the ball to his roll man with momentum.

I-Hart nearly made it all the way to the baseline before he made his pass, but it was enough to pull Brown far enough from his corner assignment to give Quentin Grimes some room.

Hartenstein made the pass, Q fired away, and Brown fouled him as the ball went through the hoop.

The play is a tad bitter-sweet because Grimes missed the free throw and the Knicks would convert just two more field goals the rest of the way, one of which was a Hartenstein putback with under 20 seconds left and the game nearly decided.

Still, this triple sent out the sort of shockwaves that can only be felt on a big night at the Garden.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

Before we get to today’s Stars, let’s take a quick look back at last season’s stars standings, broken down roughly by quarters of the season:

If nothing else, this is a good reminder that the NBA season is a long one and a lot can change over the course of 82 games (see: Cam Reddish exceeding All-NBA forward Julius Randle in stars after a quarter of the season).

With that in mind…

⭐️ Isaiah Hartenstein: This could have gone to a few Knicks - Grimes was 3-of-6 from deep and tried his best with some tough assignments, and Josh Hart made his usual handful of hustle plays - but I-Hart separates himself with five offensive boards in 26 minutes of action. With Mitch in a bit of foul trouble, Hartenstein reminded everyone that he remains squarely in the conversation for best backup center in the NBA.

⭐️ ⭐️ RJ Barrett: Not his most efficient performance, going 8-for-20 to get to his 24 points, but he was solid from the line (6-for-7) and on the defensive end. On the whole, RJ was probably closer to Quickley in this game than he was to the rest of the pack. An extremely encouraging start for someone who has often struggled out of the gate.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Immanuel Quickley: As is usually the case with Quick, his final stat line - 24 points on 11 (11!) shots, six rebounds, four assists, and one massive steal - doesn’t do justice to the impact he had on the game.

He took a little time to get going when he entered early, but before long he had exerted his usual stabilizing presence on a game that seemed on the verge of getting out of hand. Then came the fourth quarter, and the sort of stretch that has come to define IQ’s tenure in New York.

After the Knicks finally took the lead, Tatum’s free throws tied it back up for Boston. Quickley missed a pull up but got it back after an I-Hart offensive board and hit one of his patented runners to regain the lead. Kristaps hit what seemed to be a momentum shifting three on the next Celtics possession, but that’s when IQ came down the court and drilled a step-back in Derrick White’s mug:

Quickley made five threes in seven attempts last night and was feeling it. This kid knows not of pressure situations.

After two more Tatum freebies, Randle hit his three to once again give the Knicks the lead, which was followed by the IQ steal and Grimes triple.

The only shame is that from that point forward, Quick only got one more shot attempt, and it was a desperation three with 20 seconds remaining and New York down by four. The Knicks looks down the stretch were solid enough - two missed RJ threes, a missed Grimes three and a great looking runner for Brunson that rimmed out - but it still would have been nice to see IQ get another look before the game was essentially decided.

Tip-Ins…

🏀 Donte DiVincenzo had a forgettable Knicks debut, playing just 15 minutes and missing all four of his attempts from the field. In the season-long game of “how will Thibs find minutes for all these guys?” DDV drew the first short straw, followed by Josh Hart (22 minutes) and Quentin Grimes (23).

🏀 Speaking of rotations, after much pondering and fretting, Thibodeau indeed stuck to nine guys, with Josh Hart serving as the nominal backup power forward. It didn’t seem to be an issue, as New York out-rebounded Boston by one and held them to seven on the offensive glass.

🏀 Down the stretch, Thibs went with the group you’d expect given how the game played out, with IQ and I-Hart in for Grimes and Mitch along with the rest of the starters. The only thing close to a questionable decision came when Barrett sat in favor of Hart and then Grimes for a five-minute stretch in the middle of the fourth. New York increased its lead in this time, with Grimes hitting that massive three, but those who wanted RJ in sooner had a reasonable gripe. Even so, he led the team with 36 minutes and was a team-high plus-six in that time.

🏀 What an absurd sport this can be at times. Last night, the Knicks shot 32.1 percent on twos, 43.9 percent on threes, and 53.8 percent on free throws.

SMH, as the kids say.

Oops!

In yesterday’s “Crystal Ball” column, I completely forgot that the league is no longer doing All-NBA by positions. #SorryNotSorry. I didn’t like the change when it was announced, and judging by my mental block, my stance hasn’t changed much. Call me old school, but I think back to when Patrick Ewing finished top-five in MVP voting and couldn’t make All-NBA because center was so loaded. If he felt the brunt of positional voting, so should everyone for the rest of time.

With that said, one more fearless prediction (with a tip of the cap to reader Brian Cronin): At least 10 guards will be named to the 15 All-NBA spots, with Jalen Brunson among the group. I’ll stick with the starting five I predicted yesterday though.

Up Next..

The Knicks are back in action Friday night in Atlanta, on the first end of a back to back before they head to New Orleans on Saturday.

Final Thought

You win some, you lose some.

But when you’ve only played one game, and you pretty clearly could have won it, a loss has a tendency to sting a little more than usual - especially when you lose like that.

As we know from the past two years, the season opener likely won’t wind up meaning a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. The Knicks were good yesterday and they’re still good today.

But with a dicy early schedule, a few extra ounces of pressure got added to this first few weeks’ worth of games.

Moral victory or not, they’d don’t have the luxury of waiting long to get their first real “W,” at least not if they want this season to turn out like they’ve planned.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”