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00:09welcome to new york got game what's up everybody we're back for another edition of new york got
00:15game three straight wins back above 500 are the knicks and i've got a better question for
00:21everybody than simply are the knicks back question is what's actually changed jalen brunson
00:26gronty towns they combine for 60 points and saturday's win in cleveland but how much of this
00:31turnaround can the knicks build on and which questions still need answers so with milwaukee
00:37up next at the garden followed by a rematch with cleveland on wednesday the host of the orange and
00:42blue bloods podcast also a host on wfan it's my guy seem right there ej stewart he joins me this
00:47week to break it all down ej what's going on my guy what's happening dex always happy to talk nixon
00:54is definitely better when they're on a little winning streak here five out of six love it
00:57look it's true three game winning streak five out of six i don't know about i know you weren't because
01:03i know you weren't worried when they were oh and three but you know you you saw it out there
01:07there
01:07are people who were concerned it's listen in some ways i'm happy i'm happy that those people still
01:13exist like because to me like it's almost like do knicks fans have they gotten soft after winning a
01:18championship and nothing matters and there are some folks that are still on the championship pod to be
01:22honest i like that there were people that were still critical i like that people were still
01:25concerned and it shows that knicks fans never changed so that knicks fans are still a different breed
01:30so in many ways it was actually a little comforting that during the over the three stretch i think jay
01:34the brother kind of said that he kind of wanted the new york media to get after him because how
01:37poorly
01:37they were playing like i i kind of like that like kind of got back to business when it came
01:42to uh sky
01:43falling for some fans i don't know what it's a good point i hadn't considered sometimes we need that
01:49balance right we need that balance like i i thought the championship would change things for people
01:53and it might be like all right i'm gonna calm down a bit we're playing this year with kind of
01:56free money
01:57and the you know the new yorkers were like nah nah no no no no this we're gonna still be
02:03on you if
02:03you're not playing well which is good accountability is always good i'm always here yeah so i'm never not
02:07here for that but as you mentioned ej nixon won three straight you're back above 500 when you look at
02:13how they're playing recently what's the biggest difference from the team that we saw at the
02:18start of the season to what we're seeing right now i mean the offense looks like it's now a back
02:24to
02:24being kind of at full gear like we saw early in the season mike brown mentioned it a ton that
02:29he felt
02:29like the team was you know playing through mud and they looked slow and josh hard mentioned after the
02:35philly game which is in part of this five or six game stretch be mentioned that they may be able
02:38to
02:39go fatigue the offense just didn't look smooth um what we saw them doing with all that off ball
02:44action with you know calling town for the high post and them trying to get opportunities for brunson
02:49opportunities for ogi newbie just didn't look crisp didn't look smooth nothing looked right about the
02:54offense and now what you're seeing now making shots helps a ton but what you're seeing i think is a
02:58crisper offense um the knicks getting into their sets getting into things that they want and they're
03:03operating not at the playoff or championship level but at a much higher level than they had earlier in the
03:08season when it felt like every possession was a grind for them which is surprising given how much
03:12offensive talent is on this team right and yeah no the offense has looked a lot better and still
03:18there's still a long way to go they give me better at shot making i still think there's a lot
03:21they left
03:22on the table we'll get to that a little bit later but we saw jalen brunson we saw crunchy towns
03:26they
03:27combined for 60 points in cleveland what did that game show you about how you think the two of those
03:32can bring out the best in each other right now
03:36well to me like it was huge to coffee towns really you know show that once again he could
03:41still be a dominant scorer like we've seen the evolution of his game on the defensive side of
03:45the ball we've seen his evolution again as a passer and as a hub for the offense but remember coffee
03:50towns came here to score that that's why they traded for him they wanted him to be that pick and
03:54pop
03:55threat to open up things for brunson and we've seen jalen get off some of these slow starts for somebody
03:59that had been such a great first quarter scorer for the majority of his entire next career he's
04:04making off a lot of slow starts so to see coffee towns take ownership early you know in cleveland
04:08and just really take it to cleveland allow jalen to get back into the game and that's how you
04:13compliment each other as stars you know some days or some quarters or some halves one of you might
04:18not have it can the other guy step up in a pinch and then when it's closing time once jalen
04:22brunson
04:22after that you know bad first quarter second quarter he was jalen brunson again once you get the
04:26closing time down you know jalen brunson's in rhythm and he's not someone that's been you
04:29know hunting for it uh maybe trailing or chasing a score because nicks are behind because he's
04:34struggling so the fact that you got to those guys who are two supernovas on that option inside
04:39the ball at their positions it just it puts a lot of it puts a lot less pressure on either
04:44of them
04:44to have to carry the offense when the other one's struggling so as you're thinking as you were talking
04:49about that in them complimenting each other ej it had me thinking you know about jalen brunson and
04:55currently towns are they are they the best duo in the east yeah one of the or are we do
05:01we not
05:01talk them out enough it's like one of the best offensive duos at least in basketball no i mean
05:07i think you make case everyone they're the best duo on the nba like i think you know there were
05:10a
05:10couple of i saw earlier you know during the off seat there were a couple of of websites and stuff
05:15cps's
05:15of the world i forget who had one but they did a rate ranking of the top duos in the
05:20nba and i think
05:20they had jalen brunson and cat one or two and that's where they belong i mean again when you
05:26think about uh one just how different players they are right like one guy is your starting point guard
05:32who is you know running the offense but also your most dangerous scorer and the other guy uh can score
05:38in the post can score from three um also is now unlocked as this incredible passer there's just so
05:46much versatility in those guys's games and i don't know why they don't probably get talked about
05:50enough as being a tandem i think some of it may be a lot of the media press around the
05:55whole you
05:56know villanova tandem and the villanova three and then the starting five kind of being this like one
06:01unit that's really a unit i think in many ways people think about this nick squad and they don't
06:06they even think about jalen brunson as you know the king of new york or they think of the entire
06:11five
06:11as this cohesive unit that is in some ways greater than the sum of the parts but at the same
06:17time again
06:18when you think about what coffee towns has done this season he's had it to me a phenomenal season
06:22when you talk about the guys on this team that maybe aren't shooting the ball as well or aren't
06:26playing as well you can't put coffee towns in that list he's had a phenomenal start to the season on
06:30both sides of the court and you see how he's playing and then you know jalen brunson he's going
06:35to get it going he's going to get back to being the same old jalen brunson we are accustomed to
06:40it's very hard for other teams to stop those guys and they're playing at a high level so i think
06:43they'd be right at the top yeah i'd have to i was just thinking about it and i was like
06:47yeah
06:47they got to be right at the top and i agree with you about cat he's having himself up at
06:52least the
06:52season that you can start talking i know it's early it's nine games but yeah he's probably in
06:55a conversation for first team all nba right now we'll see how it plays out the rest of the way
07:00but
07:00he's he's up there he's been one of the best players in basketball uh i want to talk to you
07:03about
07:04defense real quick here ej because the next day held cleveland to 97 points they've held several teams
07:09this season to 100 points or less when you evaluate their defense during this winning streak
07:13what do you trust the most and what do you still need to see against different opponents as the
07:19knicks move forward yeah i mean i just trust that they they know what they want to do with their
07:25system and their rotations i don't see a defense that makes a lot of really bad mistakes you know i
07:30i went crazy over during the first game of the season with why they were blitzing maxi so far
07:35from the paint i still let me see from the from the arc on the screens i still don't know
07:39why they
07:39were doing that but outside of that game even the game that they've lost i didn't feel like you were
07:44seeing you know major defensive lapses like really the philly games are the one game to think about
07:49really their defense is really sharp um they compete on that end and i think that's been actually one of
07:54the really encouraging signs about what's happened with this season is even while the offense has not
08:00necessarily been up to snuff for a majority of the season their defense really hasn't dipped
08:05at all um i think the chicago game that they won in chicago was probably only really like to me
08:10truly disappointing defensive effort and they won that so i i look at where where they've been
08:15defensively and i'm actually really encouraged by what we've seen and i think that it shows
08:21whatever you think about how to play on the opposite side of the ball that that championship medal is
08:25still there yeah no defensively knicks have been really really good in fact even last week
08:29my colleague stephan bonnie was talking about hey the defense is ahead of the offense right now
08:33for me personally if you're looking at a team rooting for a team that's what you want to see
08:37you want to see the defense is dead offense can come and will come no doubt so winning we know
08:43this it can quiet a lot of questions around the team and the next they're five and four at the
08:48time
08:49of us recording this but what's the biggest knicks concern that these three wins in a row
08:53haven't answered for you is there still a concern that you have when you look at this team
08:58i don't know if it's a concern but it's something that hasn't been answered and it's just because
09:03of the nature of the team right now how they stand is that the starting lineup has not played all
09:08that
09:08well together this year um they're about 35th in percentile when it comes to plus minus their
09:12offensive numbers are abysmal and because josh hart hasn't played you know in these games that
09:18they've won of late those numbers haven't improved so you know landry shannon's been in the starting
09:22lineup he's done a tremendous job they've been throwing different guys in the lineup and
09:25um the knicks are playing better and i don't think this is a i've been one of those guys at
09:30times that have been like take josh hart out of the starting lineup i don't think this is that i
09:34think josh hart actually is one of the guys that has played well this year even though the shots
09:37haven't fallen um i just think it's been a nature of what landry shannon brings to the table and he
09:42always plays well with those starters and that starting unit that was the backbone of that playoff run
09:47that championship run they haven't played at a super high level do i think they won't no i mean i
09:54think
09:54they'll be fine but it will be nice to me to see them consistently you know put together you know
10:00multiple quarters of them playing at a high level you know we've seen spurts where they played okay
10:04but again you look at their numbers uh in terms of efficiency in terms of again uh plus minus and
10:09just in terms of uh the knicks most efficient lineups it's been kind of one of their worst this
10:15year which is is disappointing and what the only silver lining in that is that we've seen this in the
10:21past we saw this tom tibble we actually saw this mike brown a little bit last year where in the
10:25regular season it was a situation where they weren't necessarily their best lineup but in the
10:29playoffs it was a whole different story so maybe that would be the case this year but you would have
10:32thought that given how they finished last year they would have wrote some momentum with how they
10:36played together as an unit and we haven't seen that quite yet yeah we haven't seen it quite yet
10:40still early so you know can't go too crazy but this kind of brings me to the next point because
10:46i've been i've you know i've said this on the show i loved how mike brown handled the team in
10:52terms of rotations and playing guys and mixing matching and just experimenting during the regular
10:57season so what do you think what is this stretch is i'll even stretch it beyond the three games five
11:01out of the last six six games that you've seen from the knicks what is this stretch told you about
11:05mike brown's rotations and what roles you more comfortable with and which decisions would you
11:10still question in his rotation because he's made some changes we've seen tyler colic play yeah
11:15recently we've seen dalton connect with josh hart being out play a little bit too we've seen
11:19milkel bridges when he's struggling shooting the ball sit on the bench you talked about landry
11:22shaman starting for josh hart but what are you liking or maybe not liking with mike brown's rotations
11:28well i think one of the things that's been eye-opening is is for me i'm always trying to test
11:32the bs
11:33meter on coach speak in media so when i hear mike brown say you know every you know spot in
11:40the bench
11:41rotation is basically up for grabs how real is that because last year it seemed like jordan
11:47clarkson had played himself out of that rotation and it was justified given how he had been playing
11:53and moe diarara had played himself into that rotation and in a playoff time game and it was
11:57clarkson and it didn't really seem there was no real uh you know reasoning or didn't seem to uh make
12:04sense given what we had seen from the majority of the second half of the season clarkson started to play
12:07towards the end of the regular season and all of a sudden he was then back in the rotation so
12:12is this real like you know tyler colick right now is the second string point guard even though
12:16jose alvarado is available like is tyler colick does he really have a shot at being the backup point
12:22guard come playoff time or is this a deal where um this is maybe giving tyler colick a real look
12:27uh maybe you know letting him showcase himself they want to put him in a deal to maybe get some
12:32center
12:32help or is this situation where he can actually overtake jose alvarado for that spot mike brown
12:38has said and again that's where the bs media comes in that any person on that bench is fighting for
12:44minutes it's just it's so it's so unlike i know maybe i still got tib's scar tissue but it's so
12:50unlike what we've seen from how the knicks have operated for so long that it's still weird to see and
12:56still hard to believe but if he's a man of his word it's going to be hard to take tyler
13:00colic out of the
13:01lineup because of how well he's dishing the rock right now well so here's what i'll say today ej
13:06i hear you on the tip scar tissue i hear you i and real uh impact has been made yeah
13:13exactly i don't
13:14want to call it trauma because that feels like it's a little bit too much but there's been some real
13:17impact off of that right and i think that the one thing i will say with mike brown is i
13:23think you're
13:23right to question whether it's real or not for the reasons you pose right whether is it showcasing
13:28somebody we even saw mohammed diawar i think he had 14 minutes against cleveland the other night
13:32um after not having played much this year but we've seen in the last two games
13:38yep i think he really does mix and match but i don't think the part of what you're talking about
13:44is unreal either i think he also or i think not just him i think organizationally
13:50they want to get looks at guys and it could be for future things and this i'm gonna i'm gonna
13:55throw
13:55in something you because you mentioned you mentioned this and you said could it be showcasing
13:59the tyler kolek to look to upgrade a position later you mentioned backup center i should have i should
14:04have told you i was going to ask you this but i'm not but i didn't but here we go
14:07where are you on the
14:09knicks backup center because the last time you and i talked um we talked a little bit about that but
14:15where are you on the backup center for the are you again it's nine games i'm not asking you to
14:21be
14:21comfortable this thing can be figured out in the next couple of months but when you look at the
14:26next backup center situation with andre drummond do you think it are you feeling comfortable for now
14:32is what i'm asking comfortable i mean i i'll put it this way i feel as comfortable as you know
14:40going to
14:41you know like my my mom's friend's like apartment with all the plastic on the furniture and like
14:50it's is it comfortable it's it's fine and i'm used to being there it's my mom's friend right so like
14:57it's like there's a comfort in that i'm used to being in this home would i prefer to not be
15:01in
15:02on the old couch that has the old plastic on it probably not but i'll be okay it's a weird
15:08analogy
15:08that's the only thing i can think of thinking about andre drummond because like to me like
15:13he's doing something that is very important is that the knicks are still an elite offensive
15:17rebounding team they just pounded uh cleveland offensive glass in that win and he's he's the
15:22reason like he's a man cat too but like he's a big reason why and that is the knicks in
15:28many ways
15:29that's going to be some of their road map to getting back to being an elite offensive team
15:32so i i'm okay so like for that reason i'm okay like okay he's giving something to the team
15:37i do think he's become offensively a little bit of a wild card that is a little concerning like you
15:44don't know where the ball is going when he's shooting floaters or shots around the basket
15:48i've never seen as many air balls for like floaters and layups in in a short time that drummond has
15:53um and he's clearly lost a little bit of a step so offensively because he's trying to do things too
16:00like mitchell robinson wouldn't try to do some of this stuff that he's trying to do and it's not going
16:03so well so i i don't love what he's giving them offensively i think mike brown's been right when
16:08he is not giving the right effort to sit him and be like hey listen you're not one of these
16:12championship guys like those guys that they lack effort or whatever like you know maybe you know
16:17we'll give them a little more rope like you are here to play hard for 10 15 minutes and you
16:22give us
16:22two three steps in a row we're not giving it we're going to go to somebody else i like that
16:25he set
16:26that tone with drum even though he's a veteran but i think i'm comfortable in the sense that
16:30there's there's a place for him to be very important in this team with a skill set that
16:34he has already displayed now can he play smarter can he take better shots and can he finish better
16:40around the basket are questions that i don't know the answers to i'll feel more comfortable when i have
16:45a bit more of a um a sample size of what i'm going to get from him for this season
16:49no that's fair i think
16:51i think that's fair in terms of evaluating it but i did like your analogy and it made me wonder
16:55when's the last time you sat on somebody's sofa that had plastic on it it's been a long time for
16:59me
16:59i mean you want to talk about you want to talk about trauma uh that feels like uh i actually
17:03had a i actually had a friend who's who's family but we never really sat in that room that had
17:08like
17:08i've been in houses like that too yeah we know nobody went in that room though yeah but like
17:13when i was a kid though like i had like it was something that's like i probably was like seven
17:16or
17:16eight years old and it was always like uh yeah yeah what are you gonna do you know it's just
17:23like
17:23all right this is what we're doing it's fine that's kind of how i feel about drumming it's like
17:28all right this is what we're doing i liked it i liked it because it took me back to childhood
17:32i'm not gonna say who the person is but a family member who had plastic on the couch all the
17:38time
17:38and uh there you had to sit in that room there was no other place to go so yeah yeah
17:43yeah when
17:44you're in those places yeah then it's like this is all you got but it's okay you know if you're
17:49there for a couple hours it's fine now if you had to stay for an entire afternoon or an entire
17:54day or a couple days you were staying overnight that's where you're like which is maybe what the
17:59knicks are going to be dealing with with drumming because they he's with them all season unless they
18:03decide to move him or something so um so that's that's that's the that's the dilemma with them
18:08is can they trust him and it's early i think he knows also it's early right so some of this
18:13stuff
18:14i think he's maybe getting out of the system is can he get to playing that championship caliber
18:17ball that is expected now when you put on that next uniform which is crazy to say but it's true
18:22like there's a standard here that's been established and i think he's learning uh really
18:26quickly that mike brown's not playing around and that's why i think you've seen him uh you know
18:31some of those you know ufos as kyle said we've seen but what you haven't seen is a lack of
18:35effort
18:35the last week you've seen him attacking that class and being a force in the middle so if he can
18:40do that
18:40i can live with the ufos that that's that's fair the office of rebound away has been good i guess
18:44the moral of all this is uh take the plastic off yourself that that's that's the moral yeah man come
18:49on
18:49it's 2026 yeah we got we got we got to move off of that yeah can't be doing that anyway
18:54all right uh nicks have milwaukee on tuesday so when you look at that matchup i know it's not a
18:58sexy one what would make you feel that the progress we've seen over the last couple of games is
19:03continuing beyond them just getting another win which i think most people expect them to do but
19:08what would look like progress for you here again against milwaukee on tuesday
19:14yeah i mean i i i want to see them have another you know resounding dominant win kind of like
19:20they
19:20had against cleveland like they had against uh chicago like in these games with a lot more like
19:24the next team we saw in the playoff run than the team we saw for much of the season like
19:28milwaukee
19:28is abysmal uh taylor jenkins is already having a tough time like just coming up with rotations getting
19:35guys to play hard like it has not been a good look over there and it's a bad spot because
19:39you can't
19:39really tank anymore given the new lottery rules so milwaukee's kind of reeling there's an opportunity
19:44for the knicks to continue to get right so i'd love to see them pummel this team but i'd also
19:48want
19:48to see you know mikhail bridges finally get out of the shooting slump i mean he has been like
19:53borderline unwatchable for much of the season and like i get it long or short summer i guess for the
19:59knicks and a lot of celebrating i would like to see him start to like you know come off the
20:05float and
20:05join the rest of the team and get right right because like it's a regular season now like okay
20:11a couple of weeks i can understand like the fact that he's still okay get out his own way and
20:17and it's
20:17bizarre like the one thing about it is at least we've seen a defensive i thought his defense in
20:24cleveland i thought was really good we just kept him on the floor but i mean he's got to start
20:28making
20:28some shots like enough is enough and again he's got he's got to get out the float and join his
20:33teammates
20:33in this title defense i feel like right now he's still uh you know at the parade right now yo
20:38i
20:38like that get off the float that's what you need to see look he did hit that big dagger shot
20:43i'll say
20:43i was gonna say big shot dagger shot against cleveland i wonder if that's able to get him going as
20:48we
20:48move forward all right last thing for me ej i'm gonna give you this i'm gonna give you a sentence
20:52with a couple of blanks that i want you to try to fill in or finish here okay i'm more
20:57confident in
20:58these knicks now because blank but i'm not ready to say blank finish that sentence for me if you can
21:08i am more confident in these knicks because jalen brunson looks like jalen brunson again
21:13and what was the last what was the second part again but i'm not ready to say
21:17blank but okay but i'm not but i'm not ready to say a that this team will keep pace with
21:26philly
21:26and boston for the top of the east right now um i they're playing really well it looks like to
21:33me
21:33like those teams are playing different seasons like the knicks i don't think are running going
21:39for the number one seat i think that they're pacing themselves similar to how they played last year
21:44where it feels to me like boston and cleveland excuse me boston and philly are like they they want
21:50that number one seat they want that home court advantage i think the knicks feel like they
21:53can beat anybody on the road so it doesn't matter i don't love that like i i think that's playing
22:00with fire i think you can have a game seven at master's square garden that's important i think
22:03having a game one at master's square garden was a big reason why they won the eastern finals in such
22:08easy fashion because they came back in game one at home when you know cleveland looked shook in the
22:12fourth quarter in overtime like so i wonder with just how those teams have just gotten quick out the
22:17gates and just how those especially boston and how they attack the regular season
22:21will the knicks be up for that fight in terms of keeping pace or will they try to do what
22:25they've
22:25been doing which is testing out rotations testing out lineups and just you know working on getting
22:31better and peaking at the right time and maybe that's all that matters but there is some cost to
22:37that if that does happen so that would be the one thing i'd say i'm not ready to say yet
22:40and not
22:41that they can't it's not that they won't right it's just have i seen enough in this five to six
22:46games for us today okay they will be able to then keep pace for those teams i know because i
22:49think what
22:49we saw last year is that there's going to be peaks and valleys of the season as they continue to
22:53tinker and especially the team now that already has a title uh there will be inevitable boredom with
22:59this regular season again once they kind of you know go through this uh mini hot streak they're on
23:03right now yeah that's why if you're a fan i think it'd be nice if they can get a little
23:08hotter put
23:09together a longer stretch because you know there's going to be another valley and there'll probably be
23:13another peak and another valley because it's the regular season look i would say this to your point
23:18i think that they can still finish the top four seed and i think if they do that's fine
23:23yeah um i don't think there's anybody in the east that makes me say that they couldn't beat them if
23:28they had to go on the road um so i'm not surprised that boston taking it maybe a little more
23:33seriously
23:33or philly to that degree philly i'm going to put a little caveat in that let's see how healthy they
23:38are when they're while they're going this hold this going this hard excuse me as they move on through
23:43through the season so we'll see the knicks actually pacing themselves might work in their favor but i
23:50hear you you still don't want to lose that edge and that hunger to try to have home court you
23:55know
23:55you don't want to play with you play with your fear too much right you know so it's well yeah
23:59yeah go
24:00ahead well i'll also say what i'll say too say too is i also think i'm not i'm not ready
24:04to say that
24:04the knicks should also just give coffee time to playing check because i've seen a little bit of that too
24:08that like based on what we've seen from how well he has played that they should just pay him whatever
24:15and to me that that can't be more prisoner of the moment like this is november this is november he's
24:21playing great he's playing at an all nba level i totally agree and i gave him all his praises and
24:25he deserves it he seems like a just a different more mature guy than he's been in at any point
24:30in his
24:30career but i there what we're seeing in this first month doesn't negate any of the concerns you would
24:38have paying a center who's 35 years old close to 60 million dollars a year like to me like these
24:44are
24:44two different conversations like how well he's playing is great i don't think this like it at
24:49least it shouldn't i don't think it means that the knicks didn't say okay you know what never mind what
24:52our stance was we should just pay him whatever he wants now what is the number he wants still is
24:57the
24:58question mark that we're going to continue to talk about like i've thought that four years
25:03telling where between 225 and 240 should be good for both parties um it's unclear whether or not
25:10like cat would take that so if if he's gonna turn this season to a proven year uh i don't
25:16know if
25:16just based on what i've seen yet uh just because of the first month because again he's got to play
25:20a whole season that's what i've seen now so okay you know what never mind let's just give him you
25:24know the full max or 260 million dollars and just call it a day like i think if the knicks
25:29uh are trying
25:30to stay under that second apron then that's going to be almost impossible giving cat that kind of
25:34money yeah i and it's funny i don't know this i don't i don't think he from what we hear
25:40i don't
25:40think he wants the full max i know you weren't saying that but yeah what you made which is you
25:45know he's in his early 30s now um this is year 11 for him and you're thinking about what it's
25:52going
25:52to cost to pay him at 35 and how that fits in with the long-term uh part of his
25:56this deal and how
25:57this team just trying to sustainably have more shots to win it i've been saying this before
26:01the team as you see it is not going to be around in the same iteration forever and might wake
26:09up
26:09sadly to say sooner rather than later that's just how it is in nba right now but yeah i think
26:14it's a
26:14good point cats can i don't know what that point is for you ej where you might end the season
26:19where
26:19you might say oh i've seen enough of him playing at this level that i'm confident to give and i'm
26:24not
26:24going to say the full max but in the range that you were talking about the 225 to 240 i
26:29believe
26:29you had said yeah i don't know at what point in the season if it's closer to all-star break
26:33you
26:33still seem playing this level where you're like can we get something done in that range i do think
26:37that's fair to say but yeah we'll see you got to see more you can't look all the everything that
26:43we've
26:43talked about you can't go crazy over nine games you just yeah on either end of the spectrum like
26:49there still is more to see there's still more you want to see the next build on there's some good
26:52things over the last three games there's some good stuff over the last six games but come on
26:57we've both been watching basketball long enough i mean dex i always i always say dex when we do
27:01these shows uh to start a season and whether it's knicks or any sport the whole uh it's early like
27:07if you did a drinking game for your listeners like they would be passed out in the corner somewhere
27:11maybe on some uh some plastics uh for sure because yeah because i mean the phrase well it's early
27:18but it's just something you could say almost every sentence every segment when you're talking
27:23about these teams and what's happening with this team so far but i it has been really reassuring
27:28that they have you know really turned it around because you know you start 0-3 and you lose the
27:35way they did you kind of just wonder okay like how many of these games are they going to let
27:40go
27:41before like it does become a concern and the fact that they've been able to really nip it in the
27:45but pretty quickly is a good sign and also it feels like that again not even close to their top
27:49form like you know the offense is still slowly coming together defense has been good but you
27:54just know mikhail bridge is eventually going to make shots and you know jalen brunson is eventually
27:59going to you know continue to be jalen brunson like i think sometimes you know watching luca put up you
28:05know these insane numbers and wendy put up these like you know historic numbers and you saw jalen
28:10struggling sometimes for me it was a little like man i want to see you know our guy you
28:15know also have these big nights and you see him struggling and when we know he's on that
28:19level because we saw we did in the finals um but like the reality is like again he's running
28:25a different race the knicks are running a different race than a lot of these other teams who in
28:28many ways are trying to their proven round is right now the knicks proven rounds in april
28:32manger perfectly said perfectly said can't overreact to all this stuff everyone check out my guy
28:38ej stewart on the fan also hosting the orange and blue buds podcast he does a fantastic job there
28:43ej you know i always appreciate you coming on new york got game thank you bro oh man this is
28:48awesome man invite me anytime you want i'll be here all right time for this week's dex's clipboard
28:55the knicks they've won three straight the back of a 500 as we talked about ej but here's something
29:00that caught my attention according to cleaning the glass they're 25th in shooting efficiency and 12th
29:05in offense so you might be asking yourself how does that work seems like the math ain't math in here
29:10well my read on this one is that second chances are helping keep this offense afloat that shooting
29:16measure that accounts for efficiency that we're talking about is effective field goal percentage
29:20which accounts for the extra value of three pointers new york they're 51.5 percent and through
29:26nine games cleaning the glass has the next second in offensive rebounding rate at 35.7 percent they
29:32finished seventh last season in that category and as you know offensive rebounds gives you another
29:38chance to score before the other team gets the ball and right now i think that's an important part
29:42of their margin for error and how they've been able to overcome inefficient shooting early this season
29:47so let's look at saturday's winning cleveland the knicks had an effective field goal percentage of 50
29:52percent cavaliers they were actually higher at 52.4 now in that game new york's offensive rebounding
29:58rate it was 41.8 another important thing for the knicks was that they also kept their turnover rate
30:05to 11.2 percent and they finished with an offensive rating of 122.5 that's an efficient offensive night
30:14without great shooting and in my opinion that's the value of giving yourself another shot and taking
30:19care of the chances you already have here's another pattern in these nine games four times the knicks
30:27offensive rebounding rate has topped 40 percent they won all four of those games they're one in four in
30:32the other games when they haven't topped 40 percent sure nine games is a small sample size but that's
30:38something worth us tracking as we get deeper into the season which brings us to andre drumming his
30:44individual offensive rebounding rate on missed field goals is 19.4 percent that's in the 99th percentile
30:50among big men in the nba and the next team offensive rebounding rate is 13.3 percentage points higher
30:57with him on the floor than him off the floor now that covers just 118 minutes and those lineup results
31:04also depend on who's playing with him and also against him however my takeaway here is that his
31:10work on the glass deserves a place in our evaluation of the backup center position as ej and i were
31:16talking
31:16about especially since i believe this is the position that the knicks will strongly look at when
31:21it comes to potentially upgrading this roster at the trade deadline on another note here is the knicks
31:28and what they've been doing they've been doing the damn thing on defense they currently rank sixth in
31:33defensive efficiency so when we look at it all the rebounding and defense are giving them some
31:39breathing room while the shooting remains uneven right now the next question for the knicks is what
31:45happens when an opponent keeps them off the offensive glass can they generate enough quality looks on that
31:51first chance because as valuable as second chances are the knicks they would love to need fewer of
31:58them all right that's going to do it for this week's episode of new york got games special thanks
32:03to the wonderful team here at the new york post for editor antonio olivares nicole producer nick
32:09federico associate producer jeff stansbury and technical director brian wakowski i'm dexter henry
32:15and we will catch you next time on new york got game and thanks for watching new york got game
32:23boom shakalaka
32:24you