Knickstape is dead. Everyday it gets clearer, what New York did last year was an outlier in their machine of everlasting mediocrity. As always, there’s not that many fingers to blame, but this time, the head coach is responsible for most of the friction.

For all of the Knicks personnel, it’s a good thing the All-Star break rolled around because now all the important figures can take this time to recalibrate and possibly look in the mirror.  Tensions must be high.  The last 11 days before their early spring break featured three losses after being up at least 20 points.  

The first meltdown came after New York had a 21-point advantage on Feb. 5 at Crypto.com Arena.  A week later in Portland, the Knicks took a loss, getting blitzed in the last 17 minutes of the game, dropping their 23-point lead in a 56-24 scoring run.  Then on Wednesday, the Knicks started their vacation early, giving up a difference of 28 points to the Nets in a defeat. 

That’s some coaching.  Judging by the body language of some of the players, it wouldn’t be a surprise if their instructor’s style and schemes were falling on deaf ears.  

By the looks of it, Thibs is not an easy dude to be around.  For those that haven’t seen him on the sidelines, whenever you inflict pain on your eyes catching Knicks ball, look for the guy pacing back and forth in front of the New York bench trying to break the record for most profanity spewed in 48 minutes.  It usually comes after a defensive breakdown or what Thibs perceives as a missed call by the refs. 

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Maybe the angry drill sergeant approach works when a club is winning at a high volume (other reasons for success should still be identified with this approach), but it sure doesn’t for this Knicks team.  Some could say it was successful for Thibs in his first season with the group (2021), but I would point back to that being a deviation from the norm in part because of how the roster is assembled.  

Thibodeau’s approach to coaching often involves yelling at his players in front of a packed house or demonstrably showing his displeasure by flailing his arms.  For example, late in the loss to the Nets on Wednesday, the Knicks left Seth Curry unattended in the right corner and failed to close out on his shot that converted in front of the Knicks bench.  Thibs could be seen waving his arms and verbally lashing out, close enough for his troops to hear as Curry slowly retreated.

Getting yelled at is verbally abusive and humiliating.  Thibs’ methods of verbal feedback are antiquated and likely a reason the Knicks look no different than what they did before they hired him.

Aside from being a grouch, ten years gone and still Thibs hasn’t learned from mistakes he made what seems like a lifetime ago.  It’ll be a decade this April since Derrick Rose blew out his knee in a game that was decided.  Then, when the current Knickerbockers (Thibs, Rose) repped the Bulls, Chicago was up 12 with 1:24 left in the game.  

If I’m not mistaken, in 2012, Rose didn’t play in 17 of the last 25 regular season games because he was nursing a groin injury. The last few nights the windy city assassin suited up for before missing almost a month, he was averaging 38 minutes.  

When Rose came back, it was for a game against the Knicks at MSG.  Thibs wasted no time scrapping a minutes restriction and played his reigning MVP just shy of 39 minutes in a one-point loss.

Twenty days later, in Game 1 of round 1 of Philadelphia-Chicago, Rose tore his ACL.  I’m not pretending to be a physician, or intending to say that heavy minutes caused the injury.  But I will say, it’s Thibs’ fault it happened.   Keeping a pivotal player on the floor during garbage time is sinful.  Rose paid the price for his coach and never got to where his career should have taken him.  

Then on Feb. 8, history repeated itself under Thibs’ watch in Denver.  With less than a minute to go in a match the Knicks had no chance of winning, RJ Barrett hurt his ankle stepping on Davon Reed’s foot.  Barrett limped off the court and missed the next four games.  He’s expected to be back after the week-long All-Star break, but his injury is another strike on Thibs’ rap sheet.

Life in the NBA comes at you fast.  Awards like coach of the year don’t guarantee job security.  The only thing that does temporarily is a consistent winning record.  So far, past the midway point of his second season in New York, Thibs’ record sits at 67-69.  Unless he wants to end up in the graveyard of the 12 other instructors the Knicks have had since canning Jeff Van Gundy, his outfit will at least have to make the play-in tournament.

A few licks were hit on the Portland Trail Blazers in just six days.  The aftermath resulted in Tchaikovsky’s Chanson Triste echoing in the background of the wasteland Rip City created.  Portland’s latest maneuvers indicate that a rebuild of the roster is in effect.  Regrettably for them, management’s incompetence has royally screwed the team and fanbase.

Portland is fooling themselves if they think these transactions were a success.  The only positive is that it creates $50.5 million in cap space for Free Agency 2022, although they’ll have eight players on the books.  Even with all that spending money, it doesn’t mean anything if they can’t convince a difference maker to sign on.  Which could lead to a mammoth dilemma going forward.

What if Lillard asks out?  He’ll turn 32 on July 15, and I don’t believe he has the slightest inclination to start from scratch while he is still an elite player.  It could cost him individual recognition if the team performs poorly.  Voters are usually less willing to choose someone at the bottom of the conference to participate in the All-Star game or for a nod on the three All-NBA teams.  But most importantly, if Lillard sticks around, the hairs on his head might turn gray before he plays in another meaningful ball game in April-June.

Since #0 entered the NBA in 2012, he has been a role model and one the league’s best players. In his 10 years balling, he has ascended to the pantheon of great Trail Blazers with a spot next to Bill Walton and Clyde Drexler as the organization’s finest. And as recently as October, Lillard was voted into the NBA’s list of top 75 players ever.  

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Almost three years ago, Lillard said he’d rather keep trying in Portland and come up short than go somewhere for the opportunity.  It was bold and a reflection of Lillard’s character.  But sometimes people get to a point where they’ve had enough.  Those taken for granted, like Lillard, will not be denounced by my words when they have held up their part of the deal.  

It’s been widely reported that Lillard was unhappy with his team’s direction since before he participated in the Olympic games.  I would imagine he feels worse today because the execs handling the roster have fallen asleep at their desks.

I’m not a betting man, but if I were to indulge, I’d put my money on Lillard finishing his career in another uniform.  Perhaps he starts to worry about how his legacy stacks up in comparison to  his peers. Or maybe, he leaves because it’s not fun anymore.

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The Lakers keep getting kicked while they are down from members of their past outfit.  James Worthy always keeps it real on the halftime broadcast, but now Magic Johnson, another Lakers legend emerged from the shadows with condemnation for the underachieving group.  He said the owner deserved better. 

It’s some impeccable timing.  Jeanie Buss deserved better than what Johnson gave her while serving as president of the Lakers from 2017-2019.  His behavior was a stark contrast to his TV persona of all smiles and giggles.  Behind the scenes, as ESPN’s Baxter Holmes reported, he was a bully who didn’t have the stones to tell his boss that his welcome was worn out, even after he rambled on to a dazed and confused press corps about their “amazing relationship.”

At building a team, Johnson was no good either.  When LeBron James arrived and made the Lakers relevant again, he incomprehensibly decided to construct a team around his star player that didn’t maximize his abilities.  Johnson said scrap the shooting, let’s put playmakers around the man who reluctantly finds someone he trusts with the ball.  

Then Pelinka was left as his successor.  He’s most responsible for the state the Fakeshow finds itself in.  Each year under his control the identity of the team has changed.  Heading into 2019/2020, LA loaded up with defensive role players plus the addition of Anthony Davis from New Orleans.  AD and Rich Paul held NOLA hostage and ultimately got their way, while the Pelicans, to this day, are fumbling with what’s left of that exchange. 

That Lakers team won it all.  Next, in their 71-day offseason, Pelinka altered the group’s core by letting go of the unit’s defensive role players for an offensive identity.  

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This past summer, Pelinka reached for the stars.  It cost the Lakers much of what was left of their championship DNA, trading for Russell Westbrook, who’s fit with James and co. has been suboptimal to this point. 

In the interest of transparency, I was one of those people who thought the Lakers were back in business after their swap but have recently sold as much stock on LA as possible.  Davis’ eventual return cannot save this team because he’s not an effective perimeter player.  The Lakers have spacing issues already in his absence and they even resorted to running James at center to help stretch the floor.  It was a gimmick that only worked on the bottom tier teams. 

Spacing is far from the team’s only issue.  Westbrook’s decision making as lead guard incessantly digs the Lakers in a hole they can’t climb out of.  Over LA’s last six games, #0 has made his last 25/87 attempts (28%) from the field. 

 In the loss on Jan. 12 at Sacramento, the Lakers went on a 10-4 run in the last five minutes to cut the deficit to four.  Then Westbrook came waltzing upcourt, readjusted on the left wing and hoisted a triple from 25 feet out that bricked.  On the next possession the Kings splashed their own 3-pointer, burying the Lakers, now done seven with less than a minute to go. 

A few nights later at Denver, the Lakers couldn’t hang with the Nuggets and all they had to show for themselves was a loss by 37 points and bowed heads.  It was their poorest showing of the season, less than a month after the group’s second worst defeat– an L at home to San Antonio by 28 points on Dec. 23.

On Monday, the Lakers delivered on James’ promise of improvement, holding the fourth-seeded Utah Jazz, a group 13 games above a .500 record, below 100 points.  The Stifle Tower made 6/8 shots in the restricted area and the Jazz converted 16/21 attempts total in that zone.  Utah’s undoing this night was their fiending for long range bombs.  Triples were 55% of their attempts, while they barely made over ¼ of their rounds fired from deep. 

 On Wednesday at home against the Indiana Pacers, Rick Carlisle’s group hammered away at LA’s interior.  Domantas Sabonis kept catching help when assaulting the interior on a mismatch and finding the open man– ending up with a triple-double, making 75% of his field goals.  Late in the game, Vogel benched Westbrook.  Russ kept slicing his way into the paint but falling short all but once in his 11 tries.  

Someone’s going to have to pay.  Unfairly, it might just be Vogel who gets the axe.  Reports from The Athletic said he was “coaching for his job” after the Denver smackdown.  This tells this mad observer that Pelinka is a man with close to zero basketball character.  How convenient for the man who builds the team for the coaching staff to use, to not have any heat on them from ownership, to my knowledge, for his performance improving the roster.

Vogel is not a perfect coach, but he does have a ring, won only 15 months ago.  If he is let go, good luck to Pelinka finding someone that’s going to trust him.  Championship coaches don’t grow on trees.

Duncan Robinson has really struggled this first half of the first of the five seasons he is signed for with the Miami Heat.

He’s struggling to get some shots in, and we’re struggling to understand what’s really going on and how he went from one of the most lethal shooters in the NBA to a less than average shooter in this season so far.

40 games in for him (The Heat has played 43), we can’t talk about a short slump anymore. We have to talk about a bad season!

But, wait a minute. Is Duncan Robinson’s season that far away from what he’s done in the past?

His general stats don’t really show that. Or at least, not to the extent that Heat Twitter, and most of our analysts in Five Reasons think.

After only two full seasons in the NBA with the Miami Heat, his numbers per game, in average, have only dropped a little bit. If you look at it in four or five years, you may not even notice it.

Yes, numbers don’t say everything, and I agree: Duncan Robinson is missing shots he was making in the past, and maybe just a bunch of good games helped him bump his averages up, but here’s the simple math (in a general scale):

Only taking into consideration his two full seasons (2019-20 and 2020-21), Duncan Robinson this season is averaging just two minutes less than his first full year, and less than four minutes less than his second full year. Spoelstra has lost some of his confidence on Robinson, but he’s still getting plenty of playing time.

His three-point attempts per game are almost the same. 8.6 per game this year, versus 8.5 and 8.3 in the years before. He’s actually shooting more (just slightly), and he’s definitively making less shots.

So far this season, Robinson has 119 threes in 343 attempts, for a 34.7%, way under his 40.8% from last season, and the 44.6% he had a couple of seasons ago. A 10% drop in two years (more or less, since we’ve had three seasons played in a very short time).

If he continues on this same path, it means Duncan Robinson would finish the season within the NBA average (for this season at 34.9% so far), but way under his average when he

Like Nekias Duncan stated in his article The Curious Case Of Duncan Robinson’s Shooting, what has surprised us the most is that, “oddly enough, it’s the easier shots — catch-and-shoot jumpers — the ones that aren’t falling”. The entire league, in average, is having a down year for multiple reasons.

It’s not just a Duncan Robinson issue, but it’s the issue we see every time we watch the Heat. Or not every time. Be fair with Duncan Robinson. He’s just being average, and you’re not used to it.  “Average” Duncan Robinson should be better than the rest. That’s why he got paid…

With Bam Adebayo coming back tonight, as ESPN reported a couple of days ago, we’ll see if Duncan gets a necessary spark. Teams have adjusted to Bam’s dribble handoff to Robinson in the past, and with Robinson having less gravity to get Adebayo open on a pick and roll,  I am not sure we should expect Duncan Robinson’s numbers to go up just because of this particular play, but hopefully I am wrong.

If you’re tired of my optimism based in cold numbers, you better go ahead and listen to what Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sylvander and Brady Hawk had to say about Adebayo’s return to the team (whenever it finally happens this week):

And also, check Brady Hawk’s Five Takeaways of the Loss against the Sixers here.

The Portland Trail Blazers are running out of time to turn their season around.  After 42% of the year, they’ve underachieved and sit at eight games below .500. Some of their record can be blamed on the injury report but most of it should be attributed to the poor product the Blazers have put on the court. 

Damian Lillard was diagnosed with an abdominal tendinopathy on Dec. 1, causing him to miss the next five games. In that span, Portland went 1-4.  Their only victory came against Detroit, one of two teams with single digit wins.  Yet, Lillard returned 11 days later in the loss at home against the Timberwolves, and it might have been too soon.  

Since his return, (8 games) Lillard appears to need more assistance getting open with the help of a screen. Most instances where he zips past a defender have come when he’s running down hill in transition with fewer moments of #0 beating his man in single coverage in the halfcourt.  Whenever Lillard initiates the offense in the halfcourt, Portland’s go-to option as of late is to have a teammate screen for him on either wing so he can pull up for a triple.  It’s becoming as predictable as Julius Randle of the Knicks cutting left. 

Another play Portland runs significantly is attack through the pick ‘n’ roll ball handler.  It’s used for 1/5 of their offense but the team isn’t scoring efficiently this way.  Portland is only converting 41.5% of their shots in this category while taking the eighth most attempts in the league.  This could potentially improve with the return of CJ McCollum.   He’s another dependable option to score as the pnr ball handler because of his swift ability to breakaway or stop on a dime.

This season under first-year coach Chauncey Billups, Portland has cut down on its isolation frequency.  In 2021, the Blazers led the NBA in iso usage (10.2%) and now only eight other teams run more one-on-one action.  Portland may have the ball stick less now (7.6), but their effectiveness attacking this way has decreased. While McCollum is out, most of the iso plays are going to Lillard, who has his teammates clear out for a possible lane or for space to take a jumper.  On more occasions, Dame Time is settling for a deep tray instead of blowing past his man.     

Defensively, the outfit is the worst team guarding in the NBA.  The Blazers are tied with New Orleans for last in the league in opponent 3-point percentage while also giving up over 48 points a night in their interior.  Much of this is due to poor communication, like not alerting a teammate of an incoming screen, a Blazer failing to inform another he’s switching, or not receiving help when stuck in a mismatch. 

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As an illustration, on Dec. 21 at New Orleans,Portland put the Pelicans in the bonus less than five minutes into the game.  Some of the penalties came defending a couple fastbreak layups by NOLA’s Josh Hart and Braondon Ingram and another was Jusuf Nurkić losing control on a loose ball.

Then on Dec. 31, Avery Bradley of the Lakers set a screen on Nassir Little on the right wing  anticipating LeBron James’ dive in transition.  James wrapped around the screen and Lillard was left on an island with him on the baseline.  In the moment of truth, Norman Powell did not help from the opposite baseline and instead stayed on Russell Westbrook in the corner. James then powered past Lillard to the basket for two plus the foul.

Four minutes into the same game, James stripped Powell’s right baseline cut and got out in transition after Westbrook flung the loose ball back to start the break.  Here Tony Snell of the Blazers can be seen jogging from the left corner until he reaches his team’s 3-point line.  

On Jan. 3, without Lillard (load management) at home, Portland outlasted the Atlanta Hawks, but not without the opposing squad dropping 131 points.  It was the fourth time this season their matchup scored at least 120 points at the Moda Center, but the only instance in which the Blazers won.  

Portland’s room for error is shrinking, but they are not out of the playoff hunt yet. Lillard and McCollum as recently as the bubble games showed that they could lead their team to wins at the end in the regular season to secure a final spot.  During that eight game stretch the Blazers finished 6-2.  This time around, performing late season heroics might be very challenging.  Every team is at risk of losing a key because of COVID-19 outbreak.  Missing the right players could derail a season.

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