Yeah, it's cool and all that the Knicks were able to beat the Mavericks yesterday and stem some of the bleeding, but I'm still not 100% happy with last night's victory. Way too much iso-heavy offense in the fourth quarter. Some truly ugly basketball going down the stretch. I suspect a huge ton of that is result of Frank Ntilikina having to play point in the fourth quarter. As stellar as he is on the offensive end, the dude can not create offense on his own, much less create shots for others.

On a bright note, I was pleasantly surprised by how well Dennis Smith Jr. looked last night. Looks like he is back to how he looked around the time he first got traded to the Knicks last season. Hopefully he'll take over the starting point guard role in the future. Pretty clear to me he's miles better than Ntilikina in that role, and I'm factoring in how bad Smith Jr. was on the defensive end of the ball last year.

Going forward, I hope Fizdale works on developing the younger players on the squad as it appears Knox Jr. and Mitchell Robinson still have work to on the defensive end of the court, which they can only get with consistent playing time. And of course RJ Barrett is a huge priority for the Knicks to develop as well. It looks as if he's struggling just a touch compared to how he played to start the season. Will be interesting to see how well he plays going forward.

Have to wonder if the Knicks will Knicks things up and actually fire Fizdale. Have to wonder which big name coach the Knicks will overpay if they actually go that route.

I like the fact that Knicks go to the paint, and aren’t out there jacking
Up threes like the bulls. They know they aren’t good at it so they don’t do it.

However, when they are just scoring 2s and teams are scoring 3s, other teams stay in the game even when they are playing badly. They outplayed Dallas big time , especially on the boards and in the paint. But Dallas ability to shoot and the Knicks inability to shoot kept Dallas close.

The team isn’t that bad, just too many of the same players. Smith is an athletic player who goes to the hole and so is barret. Morris, the best shooter on the team, has similar abilities, but also gets steals and plays defense. But where are the shooters, the passers, etc?

Spend some time in the paint

>But where are the shooters, the passers, etc?

...that's all i got, because we don't really have much else

>...that's all i got, because we don't really have much else
>
>

It's still very very early, but it appears Knox has a somewhat dependable three point shot, which is a hell of a lot better than what he's showed last year in terms of showing something of value. He's beyond terrible as a defender, especially on the wing, so that's something I hope he will improve on. I still wish the dude started though since I don't know what he's going to accomplish with the very very limited minutes he's been getting in terms of improvement.

Only have to wonder why the front office decided to wait until today to make it official.

Scott Perry will take over on an interim basis. I have no clue how this will play out with the impending trade deadline. If I'm not mistaken, Steve Mills pre-dated Phil Jackson's reign with the Knicks and pretty much has been a fixture.

link: https://www.slamonline.com/nba/knicks-to-fire-president-steve-mills/

swipe:

KNICKS TO FIRE PRESIDENT STEVE MILLS
BY AUSTIN KENT FEBRUARY 04, 2020 59

The New York Knicks are firing president Steve Mills and will replace him with general manager Scott Perry, at least on an interim basis, multiple reports claim.

The dramatic move comes less than two days before the NBA trade deadline.

Mills had held the position since the team parted ways with Phil Jackson in the summer of 2017 but has been linked to the team in one way or another for over 15 years.

He and Perry, Marc Berman of the New York Post reports, were not seeing eye to eye in the midst of an underwhelming season in which they initially aspired to be a playoff team.

While Perry will lead basketball operations for the time being, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reports that Knicks owner James Dolan ultimately targets Masai Ujiri for the role.

This isn’t the first time that an NBA franchise has had eyes for Ujiri. Wojnarowski himself reported that the Washington Wizards willing to go all in in a pursuit of Ujiri mere hours after the Raptors won the 2019 NBA title.

More to come.

that would require more than Dolan backing up the Brinks truck to lure Ujiri to NYC. I suppose time will tell, but I would be funny if Ujiri asks Dolan for a percentage of ownership since that's what Riley asked from Dolan's father decades ago.

In either event, Steve Mills getting the axe is big news on its own since the dude has been in the Knicks front office for many many moons. I'm seeing on twitter that he was around for the Isiah Thomas regime, which seems like eons ago. If Ujiri isn't the long term answer, I wonder who else the Knicks have lined up for the job.

The night after scoring a stellar upset victory against the Rockets and also the day after announcing the hiring of the new President of Basketball Operations; the Knicks (Dolan) choose to engage in a public airing out of Spike Lee instead of addressing the matter privately with the man.

Not that I side with Spike Lee on the matter, but I don't care that deeply, it's a crying shame Dolan continues to act like a petulant child with anything concerning the Knicks, especially since the franchise has been a bad joke for the past 20+ years now.

I really should give up on this team.

kellerman asked him the million dollar question and spike had no response.

if you're paying for knicks tix (at $3500 per ticket no less) and contributing to the garden then I don't want to hear any whining cause you're part of the problem.

Not going to games for the rest of the season is about as weak of a protest as it gets.

>kellerman asked him the million dollar question and spike had
>no response.
>
>if you're paying for knicks tix (at $3500 per ticket no less)
>and contributing to the garden then I don't want to hear any
>whining cause you're part of the problem.
>
>Not going to games for the rest of the season is about as weak
>of a protest as it gets.

is that Spike said that he planned to go back next year, which doesn't make too much sense to me on more than one level.

I get from Spike's perspective why he'd care since he invested a lot of time, emotion, and dollars in the Knicks (although I do think him going on First Take was a weird thing), but I personally don't care too deeply. Petulant manchild Dolan continuing to contend with Spike through the Knicks PR office publicly is where my beef is. And Dolan continued the madness my tossing more fans that chanted sell the team the night after this Spike Lee mess ensued.

I kind of feel sorry for folks that have to work under this dude since it appears Dolan isn't someone that takes kindly to being rightfully humbled, which is odd seeing as how the Knicks have been rancid trash for the past 20 years.

>I kind of feel sorry for folks that have to work under this
>dude since it appears Dolan isn't someone that takes kindly to
>being rightfully humbled, which is odd seeing as how the
>Knicks have been rancid trash for the past 20 years.

You have to sell your soul to do the shit that they do and on top of that they're not even getting paid all that much.. go find a job elsewhere. I have no sympathy for them.

Spike can whine and cry all he wants but he's one of the few people in a position to do something about it. But he does nothing. Along with every other high profile celebrity who's afraid to get their tickets pulled and won't be able to enjoy the luxury of spending ridiculous amounts of money to watch this garbage ass team on a nightly basis.

Spike yelling about Oakley...but wasn't willing to do anything at the time to represent for his friend. That was the perfect opportunity to get some legit protests going.

As much as I despise this man, I hope his bout with the virus isn't fatal. My fandom runs deep, but I wouldn't wish death on the next man. Interesting just to see how far reaching this virus is though. This whole scene is historic.