Game Thread | Knicks playoff series Game #1 | Knicks @ Cavs | April 15, 2023

The Cavs mostly Garland had way too many TO's, especially in the paint . He has to back the ball out instead of trying to deliver a weak pass with defenders in his space.
Cavs beatwriters were saying TT was going to come after him. He should have expected it.

Melancholy Jaques said:

There are a lot of smart people here who know a lot more about basketball than I ever will.

If you are one of them, please explain to me the choice of Osman on Brunson.

And speak to me as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever.

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The idea i guess is if he’s sticking Brunson they can’t hunt him on the PnR game, and Osman being taller SHOULD convert to congested jumpers.

The issue is Osman is so slow that he can’t utilize his length because he’s behind Brunson 2 steps on every jumper

Lamar Steven’s would’ve won us that game imo on defense. I cannot condone Steven’s getting no minutes in a game where perimeter defense was lacking.

The glass half full is that everybody outside of Mitchell essentially was bad or awful and we still had the lead with 2 minutes to go.

The glass half empty is that every single thing we were concerned about heading into this series ending up being a big problem. Coaching, bench, perimeter shooting, toughness, etc.

Jscc said:

That was a coaching loss. We already knew our bench was inferior [and they were], we already knew we would likely get dominated on the boards [we did], we knew they would leave Okoro open to brick 3s [he did], we knew guys like DG and Mobley would have yips [they did], but we had the lead with less than 3 minutes to go. Then for whatever reason, they stopped trapping Brunson and left Cedi on him one-on-one to match-up? Wtf? Game.

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Love it. You start by saying it’s the coaches fault and then list a bunch of reasons why we lost that are out of the coach’s hands. Brilliant.

Anywhere to see the post game conference?

Jscc said:

That was a coaching loss. We already knew our bench was inferior [and they were], we already knew we would likely get dominated on the boards [we did], we knew they would leave Okoro open to brick 3s [he did], we knew guys like DG and Mobley would have yips [they did], but we had the lead with less than 3 minutes to go. Then for whatever reason, they stopped trapping Brunson and left Cedi on him one-on-one to match-up? Wtf? Game.

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That Josh Hart 3 out of the timeout to take the lead back from us was the back breaker. Mitchell then took a quick pull-up 3 when he could have gone hard to the rim. Then Brunson hit one we were down 4 and it was what it was.

That’s the tough part with coming back down 10 with 4 mins left. You got to be perfect and get lucky. Hart misses what was not an easy 3 for not a knockdown shooter and maybe we are celebrating right now.

the Knicks kicked our ass, but I’m not impressed with anything they have going schematically. We can absolutey win this series.

The rebounding is the most worrisome since it is really not fixable at all. That is all about effort and willingness.

I know it's not the best stat but Wade and LaVert with a +/- of -14 each... Cavs starters except for Garland (-3) were in the +

Hartenstein with +19 lol

InBoobieWeTrust said:

My bench at least for this series would be Neto, Green LeVert and Steven’s with sprinklings of Osman.

LeVert has gotta be better. That was as bad as he could have possibly played.

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JBB has got to let the bench get some run. Their bench played 93 minutes. Ours only 50 - and that’s with Cedi playing the 15 of the last 17 minutes. You can’t run your starters into the ground in the first half or they are out of gas down the stretch. Look at minutes played - think that might have had something to do with why we couldn’t secure a rebound at the end? Like it or not, he’s going to have to let guys play if we are going to have a chance.

Comeback kid said:

We needed his 28% career 3 pt.% and 6’5” frame

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We needed help on boards and defense. Wade provides no offense or defense at the 4

Turned out pretty much like we expected, right? Out-coached and out-hustled.

Kevin Love would have been a big help in this series - you have to deal with a guy like kevin and he can grab boards

jhernjh said:

We needed help on boards and defense. Wade provides no offense or defense at the 4

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If you think Wade provides no defense you simply don’t know what you are watching

I’ll never put a game on a coach where the team is out rebounded and no one other than Mitchell showed any consistency on offense.

But JBB wasn’t good tonight.

2 things can be true at the same time. The players can shoulder about 90% of this loss but JBB didn’t coach his best game either.

We’ve gotta win the next one then go to Nea York and show these mofos our bigs are not to be targeted.

The gameplan by Thibbs was absolutely genius. I cannot lie, he literally accounted for every single thing we do well. He trapped Garland and that essentially erased Garland from the offense because no one could handle the ball well enough to feed him. He told his players not to get too deep in the paint because then Allen and Mobley would look great. All his players decided to use the mid range and they were led by Brunson who I’m at kinda glad had such a good game because now JBB knows we don’t have a body for him other than Okoro and Steven’s.

Cedi on Brunson is a real head scratcher for me,never saw that coming.