00:00All right, the Knicks are coming off a strong Thanksgiving Eve showing got a dominant performance against the Hornets that helped them keep control of their NBA Cup destiny.
00:09And now it's going to get real Friday night.
00:11They've got a chance for some revenge against the Milwaukee Bucks and a chance to advance to the knockout round of the NBA Cup.
00:18So joining me now is a man who loves the NBA Cup.
00:22He is the dean of Knicks Film School, the one and only Jonathan Macri.
00:26Jay Mac, what's going on?
00:27I love the NBA Cup almost as much as I love dessert on Thanksgiving.
00:33Although I will say, Dex, I thought of you yesterday because my favorite part of the meal was arguably a slice of cherry pie I had for dessert afterwards.
00:43It was quite delicious.
00:44So, OK, so for those who don't know, watch this.
00:47Jay Mac and I did a recent episode of New York Got Game and we talked about different.
00:51We made our own Knicks Givings tables and Jay Mac's not a big dessert guy.
00:55I am not either, but this was the best part of your Thanksgiving meal.
00:58That is that must have been some fantastic cherry pie.
01:02It was really, really good.
01:03The best compliment I could give it.
01:04It didn't even need ice cream to elevate.
01:07So, you know, hopefully the best is yet to come for the Knicks.
01:12If we're making the NBA Cup into a meal, I don't know if that's too, too, stretching the analogy too far, but I'm going to go with it.
01:19That might be.
01:20And for those who don't know, me saying that Jay Mac loves the NBA Cup is tongue in cheek, as he explained with the dessert there.
01:28All right, Jay Mac, let's get into it.
01:29The Knicks, they're coming off a strong performance.
01:31Dominant performance, we could say, over the Hornets on Thanksgiving Eve.
01:34What stood out to you the most about the Knicks' performance on Wednesday against the Hornets?
01:40I'll give you two.
01:41I'll give you one offense and one defense.
01:42So, for me, the offensive one, the thing that stood out was 64 points in the paint.
01:47That tied a season high for the Knicks.
01:49And I know something that I don't know about you.
01:51A lot of people I hear from are wondering, are the Knicks taking too many threes?
01:55Now, I like the threes that they're taking mostly because they are threes that they are generating from the drive and kick game.
02:02But that's what I liked about this Hornets win is they were getting into the paint and the Hornets were kind of giving them good opportunities near the rim.
02:09So, I loved the 64 points in the paint.
02:11And then the defense, you know, just two straight games, kind of holding a team down, not giving up a lot of points.
02:16I understand it was the Nets and the Hornets, so you could only be too excited about that.
02:21But I thought the way they defended tenacity, you know, getting some nice turnovers, generating points off of turnovers, all that stuff stood out to me in the positive column.
02:30All right, so some positives there for the Knicks and for Knicks fans to hopefully get excited about.
02:35Understand it's the Hornets and the Nets before that.
02:37But it all matters.
02:38It all counts towards where they're trying to go.
02:41And with it all counting, we did see a starting lineup change for the Knicks in the game against the Hornets.
02:46Where Mitchell Robinson, he didn't start.
02:48Josh Hart and Deuce McBride, they remained in the starting lineup.
02:51We saw that in Brooklyn on Monday.
02:53Did you like this move by Mike Brown?
02:55And should he stick with this starting lineup going forward?
02:58I sure like it in retrospect after watching the game.
03:02I mean, it's hard not to like it, given that that is the version of Josh Hart that we got.
03:08And look, I know Josh Hart kind of had not the best second half of last season.
03:13I think his shot kind of eluded him.
03:16And there were some times where he was kind of the focus of a lot of people's blame for why the offense in particular was not better.
03:23Well, this is a very different version of Josh Hart that we're seeing now.
03:26Not only is he shooting the three confidently, he's at, I think, 38% for the year, but he's just still doing all the Josh Hart stuff that we know and love.
03:34He is operating with confidence.
03:36He's handling the ball well, you know, doing pick and roll when Brunson's not on the floor.
03:40So it's all really good.
03:41And the other thing I'll just say, and I want to be careful, I don't want to be too critical of Mitchell Robinson because I think he's still getting his conditioning back.
03:51But if Mitch is not going to be the level of impact defender that we have seen in the past, and I don't think he is right now, I think, honestly, this is an easy decision for Mike Brown.
04:01Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see if he sticks with it going forward.
04:04If, as you said, Mitchell Robinson not playing to the level of defense that we know he is capable of playing to.
04:11Now, I want to take a look at this right now.
04:13I like trying to do this in segments with this Knick team, J-Mac, because the Knicks have now played 17 games on the season, will be 18 tonight against the Bucs.
04:21Do you feel like you know what this team's true identity is right now?
04:25And if not, or if you do, where do you still think they need to improve?
04:29I think we're still figuring it out.
04:31I think, you know, and look, anybody who hears a Mike Brown press conference is going to know this.
04:37Offensively, they want to penetrate the paint.
04:39They want to either score or kick it out for three.
04:41I think you look at their offenses back to being ranked third in the league.
04:46They're an offense first team, and I think that's okay as the core part of their identity, because when your two best players, as I know we've talked about a lot, Dex, are Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns, two kind of offensive first players.
05:00I think that's fine.
05:01You have to dance with who brung you.
05:04I think the more interesting part for me is continuing to figure out what is their defensive identity.
05:10You know, they've given up a lot of threes this year, which is okay if you're going to take some other stuff away.
05:16And I think that's the part where we're still figuring out what is it that they are going to do, you know, on the positive end if they're going to give up a lot of threes.
05:24Are they going to generate a lot of turnovers?
05:25Are they going to wall off the paint and make sure teams don't score at the rim?
05:29Until we get that last piece of it, you know, I think it's definitely a wait and see for me where, you know, the Knicks are concerned.
05:36But it's only 17 games, so that's fine.
05:38Only 17 games.
05:40However, fans sometimes can be very impatient, but it is work in progress.
05:44We'll see how that goes.
05:45Now, the Knicks, they did take an L to the Bucs earlier in the season.
05:48They now have a chance, as I mentioned, for some revenge here tonight.
05:52How should the Knicks attack Milwaukee in a game where, here you go, Jay Magan.
05:57You love these states.
05:58If they win, they advance to the knockout round of the NBA Cup.
06:01So how should they attack Milwaukee?
06:03And what are the keys to them getting a win tonight?
06:05Well, I mean, we'll see if Giannis plays.
06:08That's key number one.
06:09If Giannis doesn't play, then the key is just get a win because you should overpower this team.
06:14But I'm going to go on the assumption that Giannis doesn't play.
06:18Or, sorry, that Giannis does play.
06:20And my key number one will be how do they stop him?
06:24What is their plan for stopping him with no O.J. Ananobi, who we know is going to be out?
06:29You know, Giannis is too big for Mikal Bridges, arguably too quick for Carl Anthony Towns.
06:33So are you just going to focus all of your attention on Giannis from other defenders?
06:38And then if you do that, how are you going to prevent him from driving and kicking out to three-point shooters?
06:44Because, as we know, the Bucs have a lot of shooting.
06:47And then on the offensive end, I want to see what the response is from Carl Anthony Towns.
06:53He had arguably his worst game of the season against the Bucs the first time these two teams met.
06:58But you could kind of question his process, repeatedly trying to post up Kyle Kuzma.
07:02That didn't go so well.
07:03So how do they try to get Carl Anthony Towns going?
07:07I think they've done a pretty good job of that the last few games.
07:10So we'll see if they can incorporate some of the stuff we've seen where Towns is concerned
07:15into a matchup against a potentially better opponent, again, assuming Giannis plays.
07:21Yeah, Cat's going to be very interesting to see.
07:23Knicks fans were all over him after that last performance against the Bucs the last time
07:27these two teams met.
07:28But they will meet tonight at Madison Square Garden.
07:30Knicks hosting the Bucs in the final game of group play in the NBA Cup.
07:35Jay Mack is so excited for this one as he wants to see the Knicks advance to the Knicks.
07:40Let's get that cup, baby.
07:42That's all I wanted to hear.
07:43That's all I wanted to hear.
07:44You can't see it in another area of my studio here.
07:47I have a giant poster of the NBA Cup trophy just hanging on the wall.
07:52One of these years, we're going to get it, and it's going to make me so happy.
07:56Just as a note, the Knicks have advanced to the knockout round of the NBA Cup.
08:00In each of the previous two years, this has been played.
08:03They're trying to make it three in a row.
08:04We'll see if that happens.
08:05That is Jonathan Macri, the dean of Knicks Film School.
08:08Check him out.
08:09Also check out his new podcast, NBA Takedown.
08:12Pretty good one as well, too.
08:14Jay Mack, always a pleasure.
08:15I know you had a good holiday.
08:16Have some more cherry pie, and we will talk soon.
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