The Knicks were sent “on vacation,” as Hawks center Clint Capela promised.
The Knicks had a wonderful 41-31 regular season, but the Hawks proved it to be a big inflated ledger by knocking them out in five.
Atlanta outscored the Knicks every playoff, knocking them out with a 103-89 win Wednesday at the Garden in Game 5.
Capela was a huge factor in wiping the glass with 14 points and 15 rebounds, and pushing them into a promising offseason with $ 60 million in ceiling space and two first-round picks. The Knicks missed injured center Mitchell Robinson in the series.
The Garden crowd showered the Knicks with a standing ovation in the final 50 seconds.
I was going to use it for a theory 6 game, but it also works for now.
Sorry for the delay in the thread, but I figured we all wanted to sit down with the loss a bit before we really fully responded to it.
Okay, first of all, boy, that sucked.
Second thing, this crowd serenade was nice.
Third thing, I want the field starters to celebrate their first playoff win, but hopefully Nate avoids this approach if they win another series. Trae’s antics don’t really bother me (you know Knick fans would love the situations to be turned around and a Knick doing those antics), but he really didn’t have to be there to do the antics.
Fourth thing, as I joked when opening the thread, Thibs quickly realized that he needed Derrick Rose to start the game for the Knicks to have a chance, but he also needed Derrick Rose to leave the bench so that the Knicks did not collapse when Derrick Rose rested. In other words, the Knicks were in a lose-lose situation at the time.
Fifth thing, with that in mind, though, as Thibs was right to lean on Rose, we saw last night that it likely caused Rose’s body to give in. As soon as he got injured, that streak was really over. Rose can’t play big minutes anymore. It’s just not in his current physical capabilities.
Sixth thing, as even Berman noted, the Knicks really missed Mitch. However, they also missed a healthy Christmas. After a season with very good health luck (where their only major injury was at a position where they essentially had a slightly scaled-down version of the injured player ready to replace, then had a seemingly stranded veteran who was so good that it’s game over), they’ve had injury bad luck this series with Noel getting injured early and Rose getting injured late.
Seventh thing, we all now understand that it’s almost assuredly true that Thibs’ downside of treating every game like it’s Game 7 means the Knicks don’t have extra playoff gear anymore, while other teams A. Put more effort into the playoffs B. Play shorter rotations C. Don’t rest players and D. Spend time on the movie Thibs always does in the regular season. This is a problem, I don’t think this is a major problem. Getting the fourth seed instead of the ninth is a good thing. You just hope Leon Rose will give Thibs even better players in the future, so playoff disappointments will be less of a problem.
Eighth thing, Chandler Parsons was pulled from the Mavericks with a maximum contract as he recovered from knee surgery after a poor season at 27. Julius Randle was just an All-Star and maybe will be an All-NBA player. He is being passed by someone if he waits until the next offseason to sign a deal after his 27-year season. Maybe it shouldn’t be the Knicks, but this will happen anyway. Don’t think his crappy streak here is suddenly going to limit his max offers.
Ninth thing, however, the series probably shits Is cap all of Knick’s other free agents at mid-level (not counting Taj or Payton. The former because he’s too old and the latter because he’s awful). It’s still $ 40 million for the Knicks to bring them all back, and probably not yearlong deals. So who knows what’s going on there.
Tenth thing, with how much the Knicks have relied on a career resurgence of Derrick Rose, it underscores that there are serious questions about how good this team will be next year. They’re in a great position, in terms of capitalization and draft selection, but there are so many question marks that it could go either way easily.
Last thing it was always a really fun season and I’m glad we all had each other to share that.
Here we go, win the offseason, Knicks!