Chapter 1: What makes the Knicks' recent performance noteworthy?
This would be a great finals, by the way.
Oh, yeah.
It would be a great finals because both teams played defense last night. I'm going to tell you who the culprits are. The culprits are three starters for the Knicks. It's Bridges, it's OG, and it's Jalen Brunson.
Chapter 2: Who are the key players contributing to the Knicks' struggles?
17 of 52 shooting. Yeah. We always talk about make or miss league. You have a chance to tie it twice with three-pointers at the end of the game. You miss those. The disparity in foul shooting and the amount of misses that the Knicks had. I mean, but this was a tight game, and the Knicks made two runs to get themselves back in the game. It was just one of those nights where...
The other team was playing defense, and the Knicks had to deal with that. And this is when their shooting goes a little haywire. So last night, we talk about make or miss league. That's exactly what it was. We can argue about the Carl Anthony Towns fouls, the ticky-tack fouls here. SGA, you know, the foul merchant, as you called them, and everybody else calls them in the league.
Everybody else calls them that in the league. But that's a great player. That's just a great player that knows how to get to the line, and then when he gets to the line, he doesn't miss. Yeah. As opposed to, you know, hitting the front of the rim with guys that shouldn't be missing for the Knicks. But I got to say this.
Chapter 3: How did the Knicks manage to stay competitive in a tough game?
I think the Knicks ā I cannot believe I'm going to say this, okay? The Knicks finally found something. They finally found something, and it's happening in front of our eyes. Now, he didn't play a lot last night, but this kid, Muhammad ā
Diawara?
Yeah, Diawara. Oh, no. We got a new Precious Achua. I'm telling you right now, man, we got a new Precious Achua. This guy can shoot and maybe they just found something. I think he was the 55th pick overall. He was in the second round. He was a French player, played in the French League and everything else.
And all of a sudden, this kid comes off the bench and he starts energizing the team and he hits threes. He can shoot. So at his size, I think it's, yeah, he's like my new precious intuit. There's no question about it. And it's been building, and it's been building for, you know, probably like the last four or five weeks, the last four or five games. Now all of a sudden he's starting.
And look, right now it's a small part of the team. The big part of the team is the starting five, Mitch Robinson and Landry Schammett and, of course, Jose Alvarado. Those guys, along with Diawara, are guys that are bit parts as opposed to the starting five, but the starting five, again, an off-shooting night. That's the only way you can put it, and we always talk about it.
If just one of those guys, or let's say all three of those guys, each hit two more of their attempted shots, They win.
It's easy. I can get behind your Diawara take more than I got behind the Precious Achua take because I really do think that Diawara's got the skill and the tools to be a really impact player where Precious did some great things and he was a high-energy guy. And when he got in there, he'd get the rebounds. He'd be able to put backs.
But Diawara, people have called him Little Giannis in a way where when he does well, when he plays really well, he looks like a Giannis type of player. We actually drafted somebody that actually turned out to be something. Well, I mean, you know, Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks drafted in the second round, and he's been such a great player.
But he's always been hurt, and he's more of a defensive player. Well, look, I've got to tell you, defense was played last night. I'm not arguing about any of that stuff. I'm not upset that they lost last night. I thought it was a really, really physical, tough game. They didn't shoot it well. That was frustrating when they took the lead.
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Chapter 4: What role does Mohamed Diawara play in the Knicks' strategy?
And I guess what he was trying to do was like, all right, we got them on the ropes here.
Let's see if we can separate a little bit.
Yeah, but then, you know, with SGA on the bench, and it didn't work out.
Well, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a three-point loss. Both teams played really well, and three of your best players had three of their worst nights shooting.
Yeah, I mean, that's one way to look at it, sure. I mean, whatever you wanted to kind of take out of this game, if you're like a half... glass half full or glass half empty person. You could do that, and I like the fact that you're taking more of the glass half full approach with it, but there were some annoying calls in this game, and we're a show.
We try not to get wrapped up in the officiating. I know sometimes we go a little bit crazy with the NFL stuff, but I don't want to make excuses for that because every team can go through, but I did feel like last night there was a couple of times where you were going nuts.
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Chapter 5: How does Diawara compare to Precious Achua in terms of impact?
I mean, even Mike Brown, first technical foul. that he has had because he was screaming about the non-call on SGA with the charge that was absolutely blatant. And then the final two calls on Carl Anthony Towns, I thought, were calls that were in there showing it right here on CBS Sports Network. I mean, this is just ridiculous. I mean, come on.
I understand that you're going to give the guy respect because he's the reigning MVP, but stop. I mean, that's just as blatant as it gets. That needed to be called. It wasn't the last two on Towns. But that's reputation, though. This is the thing. Like, Carl Anthony Towns has a reputation of committing sloppy fouls, so then he racks those up.
Like, SGA's now in that upper echelon superstar where they're going to swallow the whistle a lot against him, and you saw that come out last
Again, I'm just going to go back to who's making shots and who's not making shots. And when Mikael Bridges has one of those games where he goes off for about 28 to 31 points and he's making those corner threes, it's a thing of beauty. And he plays tough defense and he shows up in different spots. And I'm not killing him this morning. I'm not killing OG this morning.
I'm not killing Jalen Brunson this morning. They just have to shoot better. That's all there is to it. And when you're playing against a top-end team, like the Knicks are, by the way, the Knicks are a top-end team, and I think OKC will tell you that. You know, there's going to be defense that's going to be played. And last night, OKC came into the Garden. They played defense.
Both teams came off of back-to-backs. I mean, I just ā it was a frustrating game for us as Knicks fans because we felt like when they finally got themselves back into it ā here we go, now we're going to make a run. They never really made a run to get away from OKC. OKC always came back and kept it close or took the lead.
Or then the Knicks would come down and miss a shot, and then all of a sudden it would be a three-point play on the other end for OKC, and then they would separate by five or seven points. But it was a good, solid test to know what it's going to take if you're going to win a championship. Yeah, that's what I will say. Because with the exception of, you know, they were missing what?
They were missing Williams, and then we were missing Mitch Robinson. So, I mean, I'm not going to get all crazed about it, but like I said, the three best players on your team ā minus Carl Anthony Towns, three of your five starters just had off-shooting nights.
Yeah, and I would say, if there were two things I could change about this game, one, you can't change because it's the officials, and I think that that was stacked against the Knicks last night, and the other thing would be something that we've talked about plenty of times, and I want to see them give the ball more to Carl Anthony Towns later in games, and they still haven't done a lot of that.
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