Benjy Ritholtz
speaker
39 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Benjy Ritholtz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
It is a day-to-day progression, get better, get better, get better, and then do the things that you do even better when you get to the postseason. That's more of the philosophy. So I don't anticipate any massive lineup shifts or rotation shifts when they get to the postseason. He has rode this starting lineup. They're playing an insane amount of minutes.
They're going to break records in terms of... If OG hadn't gotten hurt for a couple weeks there, they were going to have more minutes than any lineup last year played by the 60-game mark. They're playing an insane amount of minutes. So he thinks that they're going to figure it out. And... I think Deuce has to be a larger part of the story.
I was like, the data tells you, I think there are five best lineups that have played like 50 plus possessions include Deuce McBride.
Yeah, I would say on the defensive side, too, like he is their best ball pressure guy by a long shot. And he showed it last night. I thought he was phenomenal defensively. He didn't have a good offensive game at all, but he was all over the place.
Number one for me is schematic versatility on defense. And I think... They've started to sprinkle some stuff in. Again, not necessarily a feature of Tibbs teams to get creative defensively. I think based on the personnel that they have, the fact that your two best offensive players are below average defensive players, you have to get a little bit creative in how you cover pick and roll.
And this team, you look at the half court defense data, it is really an ugly picture. It's one of the worst half court defenses in the league. as Tibbs' defenses do, they take care of the controllables. They rebound well, and they don't foul. And that allows them to kind of stay in the middle of the pack defensively.
But when you just look in terms of pick-and-roll efficiency against their half-court defense, their bottom of the league, and it's because for most of this defense,
season they've played cat and a drop at the five and that is just easily exploitable and not only that you can you can bring brunson's man into the action they're playing a hedge and recover scheme pretty consistently and teams just get used to that and they start to find their outlets and they make open threes they have to find ways to get either more switchable at times which they've started to sprinkle in you saw it again last night they have to be able to play og at the five and move cat to the four at times even when mitch isn't playing so that og is the one and more of the actions guarding the guarding the main screener
This is a pipe dream, but I wish they sprinkled some zone in. They haven't played in one possession of zone all season long. I think you look at the most creative defensive coaches in the league, even on teams that have great defensive personnel, the OKCs of the world, the Miami's of the world. They'll throw zone in there. They throw zone in. The Lakers played zone last night. They did indeed.
It's like, you know, it's like a little bit, it's hard to digest like a coach who's not willing to sprinkle that in when, again, you're playing Cat and Brunson 35 plus minutes just to give, offenses are too good now. Pick and roll offense is too good now to just never throw different looks in. That's been a little disappointing. I thought he might, do that this season. He hasn't.
So that one's probably not going to happen. I do think there are other options that he might go to. Again, having Mitch at the five as a look, OG at the five as a look, I want to see a little bit more. And then mixing in your blitzes, mixing in your switches.
Anyway. Do some of that as well. Absolutely. Yeah. Because, you know, what happens for this defense too often is Teams target Brunson and Cat, and the Knicks let them do it. And you have Bridges and Anobi behind them who are just too often not involved in the play.
And if I'm the Knicks, my whole philosophy would be, let's make sure that our wings are involved in the defensive session, no matter what the offense is doing.
That's right. It could be instructive. And next thing would be a way to do that, right? It's just, OK, you're going to try to get Kat in the action, but now here comes Adam Obi from the weak side, and we're going to get Kat back down into the action. Those types of things, I wish we saw more. Maybe they'll start building some stuff in before the playoffs.
Um, not great. Uh, yeah, you know, I think, look, Nick's fans, I don't really know if they appreciated that. Like by the all-star break, it was pretty clear. We're going to face Boston in the second round. Like the gap between one and two and three and four remain pretty large.
Uh, it would take, it would take a pretty Epic collapse by the Knicks or someone on top of them, which isn't going to happen because Boston and Cleveland are too good. Like for, for that matchup to shift. And so I don't think they're ready to beat Boston in a series. I don't think they have the solutions to do that yet.
And to your point, they're all in, which makes it hard to digest a second round exit, which seems likely. Again, presuming they beat a Detroit or whoever ends up in the six, which let's hope they do. And I think they would, but that might be a tougher series than people realize. Yeah. I think you have to have the perspective of, okay, yes, they're all in, but they're all in in year one.
I do think that's an important caveat because it doesn't usually happen in year one. First year of developing their identity. First year of finding and starting to problem solve. They'll be able to build the roster a little bit around the edges as more picks come available, et cetera. I think it will take some time. Cleveland and Boston are awesome this season, and maybe this isn't the year.
Doesn't mean there's no hope for this team to find their contention window at some point in the next two, three years. I think they've built something that can last for a few years, and that's, I think, why they did it. And that might not bring any Knicks fans any comfort, but I do think it's an important perspective.
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