00:00Let's get some takeaways.
00:01Dex's top five, that is.
00:03New York guy game Dexter Henry is going to give us his top five takeaways
00:06from the new New York Knicks season opening win at the Garden last night.
00:11Dex, what's happening, my man?
00:13Big win.
00:15Franchise.
00:15Cloud nine after game one, one of 82.
00:19But I guess let's start with your biggest takeaways from that win last night.
00:24Yeah, no, it was a good win for the Knicks, 119 to 111 over the Cavaliers at home.
00:29Brandon, you always want to get off to a good start in your season opener.
00:32I think there's a lot of things for Knicks fans to take away.
00:35Again, I will caution this.
00:36This is just one game.
00:38But if I had to say what I thought the biggest takeaway was just how different this team
00:44looked compared to last year, and you look at that offensively and defensively, number
00:49one, offensively, you saw the ball move a lot more.
00:53That's something you didn't see under former head coach Tom Thibodeau.
00:56The ball would stick, and you saw different guys, you know, using the ball, shooting the
01:01ball, passing the ball, looking at different things and how the offense flow.
01:05So I thought that was very encouraging, especially for a team that is installing a new offense
01:10with a new head coach in Mike Brown.
01:12Then even defensively, there were some things I liked.
01:14In fact, you saw the Knicks pick up guys full court playing 94 feet.
01:19That's something you did not see a lot under Thibodeau.
01:21They would pick guys once they came across the half court, sometimes near the three-point
01:25line.
01:26So just seeing those wrinkles were very encouraging.
01:28I think the other thing, when you look at how different this team was, Brandon, was that
01:33Mike Brown went 11 deep here.
01:3711 players played at least eight minutes in this game.
01:4010 of the players that played played at least 12 minutes in this game.
01:44That was very encouraging.
01:45Something Knicks fans have been calling for.
01:47Let's see what some of these young guys have.
01:49You saw that in this game, and that leads me to another takeaway.
01:52Tyler Kolek was huge in this game for the Knicks, providing a steady hand as a backup
01:57point guard.
01:58He played 14 minutes.
01:59He did have seven points and a couple of assists.
02:02Did he get attacked defensively?
02:04Sure, he did.
02:05But I thought he held his own pretty good, and that's a very encouraging sign for the
02:08Knicks when you saw Malcolm Brogdon retire, and there was questions about who can hold
02:12down that backup point guard spot.
02:14Well, Tyler Kolek, at least for one game, he looked like he could do that too.
02:18Another takeaway for me that I have here is Karl-Anthony Towns and OG Ananobi.
02:24Now, Cat was doubtful earlier in the day on Wednesday, but then did play.
02:29We found out that he has a grade two quad strain.
02:32He toughed it out and played well through that.
02:34I mean, look, you know this, Brandon, as a former professional athlete, whenever you
02:38have a guy on your team tough it out and shows he can play, that is something that can
02:43uplift the team.
02:44Towns said after the game, he thought it was important to show up for the fans.
02:48He didn't want to disappoint the fans.
02:49Now, I think that is something to watch.
02:51It is a grade two quad strain.
02:52It is a quad.
02:53It isn't a hamstring.
02:54A little bit more muscle around there, but it's something to watch with Towns and how
02:58they manage and monitor his minutes going forward.
03:01OG Ananobi also had been dealing with some knocks and ankle injury there, but he was able
03:07to come through, and he had a really strong game on the board.
03:10So it was very impressive for both of those guys, despite dealing with some nagging injuries,
03:14that they were able to get it through.
03:16And then the last thing for me, Brandon, would have to be the Knicks' resilience in
03:20this game.
03:21The Knicks had multiple runs of their own.
03:23The Cavs came back in the third quarter.
03:25Donovan Mitchell had a huge third quarter in which he looked unstoppable.
03:29The Cavs took the lead, but the Knicks responded right back.
03:31A big 14-0 run in the fourth quarter to close the door.
03:34So that's something you want to see from your team early on.
03:37Do they have the fight?
03:38This sets the foundation for a lot of things in the season for the Knicks.
03:41But overall, I think it was a really good performance.
03:44I think it's going to be very interesting to see how Mike Brown manages the rotations
03:48going forward.
03:49Will he play 11 deep?
03:50Maybe not every night.
03:52But I think the fact that more guys got some burn, got some run, there's more diversity
03:57in the offense.
03:58I think this could bode well for the Knicks going forward.
04:00So there's some great takeaways, and I think reasons the Knicks fans should be encouraged
04:03even further about this season going after game one of 82.
04:07Let's stay with Cat and go into a little bit more detail about his usage on offense, because
04:12just as Monday, he was being coy with the media about, I don't know my role.
04:17He could have been playing around or just, again, trying to be a little bit of coy, be
04:21coy.
04:22What's your biggest takeaway about Cat's usage in this new offense?
04:28Well, I think you've got to look at a lot of the spots that are going to have him in.
04:32Mike Brown likes to use his big men, his centers.
04:34I know Cat's playing a lot more of the four right now to sort of be an offensive hub.
04:38Can you make passes from the top of the key?
04:40We saw a little bit of that from Cat.
04:42You also saw he still has the ability to attack off the dribble, which Cat did.
04:46It doesn't always look graceful with Cat, but he was able to do that in attack.
04:49And I thought that was very impressive, despite dealing with this grade two quad strain.
04:54You know, Cat also got some threes up.
04:56I think some fans and even people in the media covering the Knicks would like to see him get
05:01some more threes up.
05:02You saw him get some up off of some pick and roll action.
05:05You saw that a little bit.
05:06You also saw him get the ball in the post and then, you know, quickly attack.
05:10I thought Cat was more decisive than we've seen him in the past before.
05:14And look, I thought Brandon with him being a little coy with the media the other day was
05:19he doesn't know.
05:20I didn't think it was something to worry about.
05:22He's still going to try to figure things out when you have a new offense and players
05:26are trying to adapt to Mike Brown system.
05:28Yeah, he doesn't know exactly how he's going to look in this new offense or what exactly
05:33he can produce.
05:34But I thought it was encouraging that he had a double double.
05:37I thought it was very encouraging that, you know, he played the minutes he played 31 minutes
05:40and he still looked very good.
05:43He didn't look like a liability on defense.
05:45He held his own against the bigs of the Cavs.
05:47And that's will be the big thing with Cat.
05:49What does he do in the playoffs?
05:50How does he hold up on the defensive end, especially hopefully when Mitchell Robinson is back there
05:55to anchor the defense, but I thought offensively he looked good in certain spots.
06:00It's going to be interesting to see if he gets to the corners more and get some shots there.
06:04Would like to see some more threes from him in this Knicks offense, but I thought overall
06:08Cat looked good in game one.
06:10Lastly, again, one of 82, a lot of good things, but they also gave up a double digit lead.
06:17They were able to fight back, close the game out.
06:19But are there any question marks or takeaways within what can get this team beat or what
06:24can hurt this team in the future?
06:28Yeah, I mean, you got to put it all in context too, right, Brandon, as well, because they
06:33were playing a Cavs team that was without three of their top five players.
06:36I know the Knicks were without two of their top six players here.
06:39So you want to put this game in a little bit of context.
06:41Now they did blow leads, double digit leads twice in this game.
06:45So you want to say, okay, you'd like to see your team hold on to that and not let go of
06:50the rope, but you got to give them credit.
06:52They did fight back.
06:53Once they got punched in the mouth in the third quarter, they did fight back immediately.
06:56So I do think that's a good sign.
06:58There are some things that I still think they can clean up on defense.
07:01You know, it's, you know, game one of 82, you know, in terms of rotations and things of
07:06that nature.
07:06But I think a lot of guys are going to get used to each other playing with each other.
07:10They did play 11 deep.
07:12So certain guys are going to say, okay, I'm used to playing with this guy in this spot.
07:15How do I adjust my rotations defensively?
07:17What's the communications going to be like?
07:19Those are things we're going to see as we see different lineup combinations, especially
07:24we saw Mike Brown.
07:25He talked about this after the game, that he's going to be experimenting with different
07:28lineups, which I think is a great thing for this next team.
07:30That's what the regular season is for.
07:32It's time to experiment with different lineups.
07:34It's time to see what you have from different players.
07:37And they got to get a look at that.
07:38So I think as that goes on, guys are going to get more comfortable.
07:41But despite the guys not being comfortable in this being a new system and all that, I
07:45think seeing what they did offensively, the offense looked good, Brandon, but it's still
07:50nowhere near what it can be, right?
07:52Still not humming at a great level.
07:54It's still, it looked good for a first game, but there's still a lot more and you didn't
07:58have two of your top three rebounders in this game.
08:01And I thought one thing I didn't even notice note, I will add this here.
08:04The Knicks were very impressive on the glass, out-rebounded the Cavaliers by 16.
08:10They won the offensive rebounding edge.
08:11I thought that was impressive with no Mitchell Robinson and no Josh Hart in this game.
08:16But yeah, there are things they can clean up for sure on the defensive end and the offensive
08:20end.
08:21I'll be really intrigued to see what they do on Friday against the Celtics, a team that's
08:24going to try to hunt some of the weaker defenders on the Knicks, a team that's going to try to
08:28get up a lot of three-point shots.
08:30They're going to have their hands full in the way the Celtics play.
08:32So they're going to get tested early defensively and we're going to see how they're able to
08:37clean up some of those things and the mistakes that we saw from them on Wednesday night.
08:41All in all, great opening night.
08:43A lot to look forward to when it comes to this team.
08:45Great job on Mike Brown winning the crowd, winning the garden over on his debut.
08:52Dexter Henry, really quick, shout out New York guy game, man.
08:54Tell the people what they can expect this season.
08:58Yeah, going to expect a lot of stuff from New York guy game this season.
09:00We'll be doing some more watch parties like we had last night in the season opener.
09:05Shout out to DJ Rhea, the homie who came through.
09:08We are also doing a live show today.
09:10Our Knicks weekly live show will preview the matchup with the Celtics on Friday.
09:14You know, you'll have your episodes every week from us dropping on Mondays at noon.
09:19So definitely check that out.
09:20Tap in to New York guy game.
09:21A lot of Knicks content coming the rest of this season.
09:2525 plus weeks.
09:26I appreciate you, Dex, hopping on with us this morning, my man.
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