Tag: New York Knicks

NBA Power Rankings: 76ers on a dominant run behind MVP Joel Embiid

Rookie Wire looked at the NBA through games played on Thursday and ranked each team from worst to first.

The schedule is approaching another action-packed Christmas Day schedule in the NBA: 10 of the top teams in the league take the court on the holiday.

Much of the NBA converged in Central Florida this week to take in the G League Winter Showcase at the Orange County Convention Center. The top decision-makers were on hand to watch the games, featuring several first-round picks and other notable players.

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Though it is too early for trades to materialize, executives and scouts had the opportunity to catch some of the top free agents in action on the court. With the window soon opening for 10-day contracts (Jan. 5), teams could begin to add help in the coming weeks.

To make further sense of it all, Rookie Wire looked at the NBA and ranked each team from worst to first. We will return each week and provide our latest assessment of the best teams and those that are rising.

Becky Hammon shouldn’t have to shrink herself for the comfortability of basketball fans

The backlash from Becky Hammon’s comments on Jalen Brunson is beyond hypocritical.

Becky Hammons says what she thinks, and that shouldn’t be a problem.

In case you’re not familiar with Becky Hammon, as a player, she was a bronze Olympic medalist and a six-time WNBA All-Star. As a coach, she won WNBA Coach of the Year honors in 2022 and has led her team to back-to-back WNBA Championships. She’s also a Hall of Famer.

In other words, SHE’S QUALIFIED TO SPEAK ON BASKETBALL.

Prior to her comments about the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson on Thursday, she’s never been previously afraid to say what she thinks about a player. (She did it earlier this year with A’ja Wilson and made no apologies.)

Yet, Thursday evening, Hammon clarified her comments because the internet had thoughts and took exception to a woman speaking on men’s basketball. Be better, internet. Be better.

If you aren’t this loud when other men *cough — Kendrick Perkins* give their thoughts on players, don’t pipe up now.

History says Becky Hammon’s take about Jalen Brunson’s size with a title-contending team is correct

Becky Hammon told no lies about Jalen Brunson’s limitations.

Jalen Brunson is one of the NBA’s more electric scorers. He’s a guy who can take a game over on a whim and lead the New York Knicks to a big win on any given night. But for as special as Brunson can be, there are probably limitations on how far he can actually take the Knicks in the playoffs if he’s their focal point.

On Thursday, during an NBA Today discussion on ESPN, Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon shared an incisive take about Brunson’s ceiling. As the panel debated whether the slightly above-average Knicks are stuck in Purgatory, Hammon took it a step further. She proclaimed that New York lacks the true No. 1 superstar necessary to win a championship. When Kendrick Perkins pushed back and highlighted Brunson, Hammon explained that the 6-foot-2 guard is simply too short to be the fulcrum of a team that can win four consecutive best-of-seven series in a postseason.

Honestly, based on years of NBA history, Hammon isn’t wrong. At all:

At any point in the NBA’s history, almost every single championship team is built around someone with considerable size and length.

There are a few outliers, of course — namely, Steph Curry (the best shooter of all time), Isiah Thomas (arguably the finest pure point guard ever), Dwyane Wade (an arguably top-three shooting guard all time, who was also 6-foot-4), and Chauncey Billups (more a cog in a team system than an outright superstar) — but they are all exceptions. All of them.

There is also usually a stark cut-off in height for a true No. 1. We can probably use the 6-foot-6 Michael Jordan (who won six championships with the Chicago Bulls) as the bar. If your top player isn’t at least that height, you’re probably not winning it all in June. Recent history especially says as much.

Here’s the list of best players and their respective heights on the last 10 NBA champions:

  • 2014 San Antonio Spurs, Kawhi Leonard (6-foot-7)
  • 2015 Golden State Warriors, Steph Curry (6-foot-3)
  • 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James (6-foot-8)
  • 2017 Warriors, Kevin Durant (6-foot-10)
  • 2018 Warriors, Kevin Durant (6-foot-10)
  • 2019 Toronto Raptors, Kawhi Leonard (6-foot-7)
  • 2020 Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James (6-foot-8)
  • 2021 Milwaukee Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo (6-foot-11)
  • 2022 Warriors, Steph Curry (6-foot-3)
  • 2023 Denver Nuggets, Nikola Jokic (6-foot-11)

Again, you might counter with Curry, but he is literally the greatest three-point shooter in NBA history. At the time of this writing, Curry has made over 500 more threes than the next-best on the NBA’s all-time list.

Put another way: Curry is the outlier of outliers.

This isn’t to say that Brunson can’t win a title with the Knicks.

After all, 25-point scorers don’t just grow on trees. And history isn’t necessarily empirical. The modern NBA presents a different game and a different challenge. The league is more built than ever to allow smaller players to thrive. But when combining the current landscape of skyscraper stars with history, it’s abundantly clear that New York would be better off turning Brunson into a loyal sidekick for another alpha with more size. Jamal Murray in Denver is a perfect example of that reality in present terms.

Hammon knows what she’s talking about. Brunson is talented, but the Knicks still have a lot of work to do — maybe the hardest work in acquiring a No. 1 superstar — before they’re ready to compete for a championship.

Player grades: Cam Johnson scores 20 Nets lose to Knicks 121-102

Here are the Brooklyn Nets player grades following Wednesday’s 121-102 loss to the New York Knicks in the Battle of the Boroughs.

NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets welcomed the New York Knicks to Barclays Center on Wednesday in the Battle of the Boroughs and lost 121-102.

For the Nets, Cam Johnson had 20 points and four rebounds while Cam Thomas had 20 points and five assists. Mikal Bridges had 15 points and Spencer Dinwiddie had 10 points.

For the Knicks, Julius Randle had 26 points and seven rebounds while Donte DiVincenzo had 23 points and eight rebounds. Immanuel Quickley had 19 points off the bench and Jalen Brunson had 16 points.

In the first half, it was a tale of two quarters for the Nets as nothing went right for them in the first quarter before they turned things around in the second quarter. Even though the Knicks had just two centers in Isaiah Hartenstein and Taj Gibson, the Nets struggled with the physicality of Julius Randle. Brooklyn turned things around in the second period and it seems that they started waking up by closing the first half down 60-51.

In the second half, the Nets managed to get within nine points in the third quarter and after that, the bottom fell out for them. Brooklyn looked like they did in the beginning of the game where they couldn’t find anything consistent on either end of the floor and this game became a absolute blowout in the fourth quarter.

Here are your Nets player grades following Wednesday’s loss:

Nets vs. Knicks preview: How to watch, TV channel, start time

Here is the preview of the Brooklyn Nets’ matchup against the New York Knicks on Wednesday.

The Brooklyn Nets (13-13, ninth in the Eastern Conference) are back in Brooklyn after a five-game west coast road trip to welcome the New York Knicks (15-11, fifth in the Eastern Conference) to Barclays Center on Wednesday and if you’re wondering how you can watch all the action live, you’ve come to the right place!

The Nets come into this game following a disappointing 125-108 loss at the Utah Jazz on Monday that brought their record on their road trip to 1-4 despite two winnable games against the Golden State Warriors and the Jazz. In Utah, the Nets were competitive until the second half of the third quarter in which the Jazz began a monumental run to blow the game open.

The Knicks enter this matchup after a 114-109 win at the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday in which Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle combined for 56 points. New York has won three of its last five as a sign of the team playing better thanks to Randle playing some of his best basketball of the season like he is capable of doing.

Here’s when and where you should tune in:

A popular dog attracted attention during Monday’s Lakers-Knicks game

A four-legged fan of the Lakers almost stole the show on Monday at Crypto.com Arena against the Knicks.

Monday night’s game versus the New York Knicks was a hairy one for the Los Angeles Lakers. Their offense grew stale down the stretch, leading to a 114-109 loss.

While it was a disappointing setback for a team that is 15-12 and in eighth place in the Western Conference, fans noticed one highlight.

A cute dog was seen sitting courtside near actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. Television cameras showed several shots of the pooch during the game, and at one point, the service animal sat upright and almost started dancing.

It was the one bright spot of a night that was otherwise messy for L.A.

The dog’s name is Brodie, and he happens to have a million followers on Instagram and more than six million followers on TikTok.

Regardless of how many furry or feathered fans they may have, the Lakers badly need to get their paws on some wins. They’re about to start a stretch that includes a road game versus the Oklahoma City Thunder, two road contests against the Minnesota Timberwolves and a Christmas Day matchup with the Boston Celtics.

If the Lakers don’t get on track soon, fans will start barking louder and louder for some big changes to be made.

Darvin Ham’s positive message on the Lakers’ shooting versus the Knicks

The Lakers had lots of trouble hitting shots in Monday’s loss to the Knicks, but head coach Darvin Ham saw something positive.

The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a difficult and disappointing 114-109 loss to the New York Knicks on Monday. It was the type of game in which the Lakers never seemed to have any real flow or rhythm offensively.

The Knicks dictated a slow tempo for much of the evening, and Los Angeles had plenty of trouble getting shots to fall, both in the paint and from the outside. It shot 42.4% overall and 31.7% from 3-point range, and in the second half, it made a frigid 22.2% of its 3-point attempts.

The team’s offense looked slow and mechanical for much of the game, especially when its running game was shut down after halftime. But head coach Darvin Ham believed the Lakers had good enough looks offensively to win.

The Lakers’ problems with their 3-point shooting have been well documented. With this loss, they have fallen to 24th in 3-point shooting accuracy, and they’re 28th in 3-point attempts per game.

On the other hand, they’re sixth in free-throw attempts per game, sixth in fast-break points per game, fifth in overall field goal percentage and fifth in points in the paint per game. If L.A. simply finds a way to become an average 3-point shooting team, both in terms of accuracy and volume, it would climb from 24th in offensive rating to a significantly higher ranking in that category.

Watch: Lakers unveil in-season tournament banner before Knicks game

Prior to the opening tip of their Monday game versus the Knicks, the Lakers revealed a banner honoring their in-season tournament title.

It has been just over a week since the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA’s first in-season tournament by gliding past the Indiana Pacers, 123-109. For doing so, they were awarded the first NBA Cup.

LeBron James was named the in-season tournament MVP for averaging 26.4 points, 8 rebounds and 7.6 assists a game while shooting 56.8% from the field and an amazing 60.6% from 3-point range during the tourney. Meanwhile, Anthony Davis was utterly dominant during the final game versus Indiana with 41 points on 16-of-24 shooting, 20 rebounds, five assists and four blocked shots.

On Monday, prior to the opening tip of their game versus the New York Knicks, the Lakers unveiled a banner at Crypto.com Arena honoring their in-season tournament win.

Plenty of people have criticized the organization for hanging this banner, especially since the only other banners it hangs are for NBA championships. It is one of the few organizations in any major team sport that doesn’t hang division or conference title banners in its home arena.

But the NBA wants everyone to take this tourney seriously, since it isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps, one should expect the winner of the tourney to hang a similar banner each season.

On this day: Celtic power forwards Kevin McHale, Tom Gugliotta born

On this day, Hall of Fame big man Kevin McHale was born, as was forward Tom Gugliotta.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, legendary Boston Celtics big man Kevin McHale was born in Hibbing, Minnesota in 1957.

McHale would not stray far from home to play his college ball, playing for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, where he won All-Big Ten honors in 1979 and 1980. The 6-foot-10 power forward would be taken third in the 1980 NBA draft after general manager Red Auerbach dealt Boston’s No. 1 pick for center Robert Parish and the selection used to take McHale. The deal would set up the Celtics to have one of the greatest frontcourts of all time along with small forward Larry Bird.

The Minnesotan would make NBA All-Rookie First Team in his inaugural season in the league and would win his first title at the end of it in 1981.

Lakers player grades: L.A. loses to the Knicks in a grind-it-out affair

The Lakers suffered their third loss in their last four games when they got outmuscled and outhustled by the Knicks at home on Monday.

After a disappointing three-game road trip, the Los Angeles Lakers played their first game at Crypto.com Arena for the first time in nearly two weeks. There, they hosted the New York Knicks with an opportunity to improve on a 15-11 record and move up in the standings.

The Lakers struggled offensively in the first quarter, shooting just 37.0% from the field, while giving up 35 points, leading to them trailing by eight at the end of the period. But a 12-2 run in the final 3:04 of the second quarter gave them a 58-57 lead at halftime. The third quarter looked to be a nip-and-tuck affair until New York went on a spurt that gave it a 90-80 lead with 12 minutes to go.

Multiple times down the stretch, L.A. got to within one or two possessions, but it ultimately didn’t have enough muscle and lost 114-109.

Jalen Brunson ultimately buried the Lakers with 29 points, 11 of which came in the fourth quarter. But they contributed to their own demise by losing in the effort categories. They shot just 42.4% from the field and 31.7% from 3-point range, and their halfcourt offense looked stagnant and mechanical throughout. Los Angeles also allowed the Knicks to control the tempo, as it had just four fast-break points in the second half.

LeBron James and crew got outscored in the paint by 10 and were outrebounded by nine, while the Knicks had 10 more free throw attempts. That simply isn’t a formula for winning basketball games.