00:12all right the banners going up the rings they're coming out the target on the knicks back is going
00:17to be bigger than ever and after ending a 53th year championship drought the new york knicks
00:21they are back and this time they are the hunted but waiting to crash the opening night party at
00:28madison square garden is lebron james jalen brown and the completely reloaded philadelphia 76ers team
00:33looking to make a statement so can the knicks put the celebration aside and start their title defense
00:38with a win and just how big of a threat are these new look sixers to break it all down
00:43for a knicks
00:43opening night preview i'm joined by new york post knicks beat writers the one and only stephan bondy
00:48here with me now steph what's going on my guy how you doing what's up man season's upon us season
00:53is
00:54upon us we are done with the scrimmage games as you like to call them and here we are steph
00:59so
00:59steph for the first time 53 years the knicks they're entering a season as defending nba champions
01:03they're going to raise the banner on tuesday night they're going to receive their rings before facing
01:07one of their biggest eastern conference challengers so how difficult do you think it's going to be for
01:12this group to balance the emotion of that celebration with the business of winning a basketball game
01:18it should theoretically it shouldn't be hard listen i can't get in their heads but you have
01:22first of all you have two people that's done it before you have mike brown who won championships
01:27with the spurs originally and then he was the lead assistant with the golden state warriors
01:31um when they won multiple titles so he understands what ring night is about the emotions and stuff like
01:37that og and anobi won a championship with the toronto raptors returned for ring night and played
01:42that same day we actually spoke to him yesterday about it he said you know initially it's tough but once
01:47that you know once the first quarter starts rolling like you just forget about it
01:51so you know we've met we've talked about this before the knicks are experienced team
01:57they should have a lot of chemistry the sixers on the other hand uh they have a lot of new
02:02pieces
02:02that they have to incorporate so you know i i think i give the edge to the knicks just because
02:08you know they know how to play with play with each other right now yeah they have that continuity
02:12going for them here let's talk a little bit about the games you love the preseason games because
02:18the knicks they had a uneven preseason some people actually disappointed i don't know why but they
02:23finished with a 122 to 120 win over toronto now that the games actually count which i know you're
02:28happy about what did you feel like you saw during training camp in the preseason that encourages you
02:33about where this team stands and also maybe is there something that concerns you the most
02:37heading into opening night i mean they played three terrible games and they played one good game
02:44um and fortunately for them the one good game was when they were actually trying with the starters
02:49and the starters played bigger minutes and we saw a heavy dose of cat as a facilitator now mike brown
02:56said that wasn't on purpose he didn't design it that way it was just the flow of the game
03:00he purposely did not put it in any plays during preseason and so the knicks were just playing off
03:05instinct in that last game against the toronto raptors and i thought they looked really good i thought
03:09you know carl anthony towns as the hub was back in full force we saw obviously saw what he was
03:16able
03:16to do in the playoffs with that um that's going to be a weapon that the knicks are going to
03:20go
03:20time and time again so if i were going to take one thing away positive wise it would be that
03:25toronto
03:26raptors game and and cat at the hub and then when they brought in so you know in the second
03:31half they
03:31switched scotty barnes their best defender they put him on cat so cat was kind of neutralized
03:36uh then they started rolling with jalen brunson originally the kawaii leonard was on jalen brunson
03:41uh but then kawaii got subbed out and then jalen brunson had somebody else on him and he was just
03:45cooking so you got to see how this team can be versatile we know that they have multiple scorers
03:52on their team uh and cat at the elbow like we saw in the first half against the toronto raptors
03:57is
03:57certainly a weapon that they're going to use definitely a weapon they want to use there for sure let's
04:02go on to nick sixers because the knicks we know swept philadelphia out of the playoffs last year
04:07early in the spring i should say but the sixers they've completely changed the equation they've
04:11added lebron james and jalen brown to a team with joellen b tyrese maxi vj edgecomb how much more
04:16dangerous is this version of philadelphia and are the sixers in your eyes the biggest threat to the
04:20nicks in the east no they're not but um they're better you know i think the problem with with the
04:26sixers is still joellen beat i can't rely on him i think he's going to get injured at some point
04:32um i don't if i'm the sixers i want to move away from the joellen beat experience and maybe they're
04:37going to do that you know maybe it becomes tyrese maxi jalen brown with you know sprinkles of lebron
04:44james i think that's the best recipe for the 76ers maybe nick nurse can figure it out but if they're
04:49still relying on joellen beat and they're not at all they have no depth at center we saw what happened
04:54to ariel hook porty and within the first five minutes of the preseason game he tore his achilles
04:59they have no depth at center so i think that's going to be a big problem with for them i
05:03don't
05:04think joellen beat is somebody you can rely upon but get just the talent top to bottom obviously
05:10you can say there's a threat i do think it's ironic that the the knicks are hanging their banner and
05:16getting their rings while lebron james is in the building because for so long and i covered this team
05:21during this era for so long he looked he was the only answer towards getting this championship ring
05:25towards getting this banner they um they got rid of all their caps they they created a lot of cap
05:31space in 2010 to sign him he went to miami instead um they chased them after that they hired david
05:37fisdale because you know he was the lebron whisperer that obviously didn't work out they watched him
05:42go to the they go to watch him go to the nba finals nine straight times um and now he's
05:48saying i want to
05:48i wanted to go to the knicks but the only reason i couldn't go is because they won the title
05:52so
05:52to me that's just the ironic subplot to what's going on and i find that part amusing oh that
05:58there's some irony there i thought a good point by you there on joellen beat with experience a guy
06:02who's not played more than 40 games in the last three seasons and look i had a uh fantasy draft
06:08the other night and i didn't wasn't able to partake in it so i had it on auto draft and
06:12my team got joellen beat and i want to move off of that experience too so i understand exactly what
06:16you're saying there uh steph you talked about lebron james him and jalen brown on the floor together
06:21they do they can possibly present some serious matchup problems for the knicks the knicks do have
06:26two elite perimeter defenders in ojan and ob and mikhail bridges how do you expect mike brown to
06:30handle those defensive assignments and which of those two philadelphia stars presents the most
06:35difficult challenge for new york uh all right you if you want to go through it vj edge the jalen
06:41brunson on vj um mikhail bridges on tyrese josh hart on um josh hart on lebron or j i don't
06:55know
06:55where he's going to go with og and josh hart it could one or the other i don't know lebron
06:59or
06:59jalen brown but um you know that's obviously the one to watch and then you have cat on joellen beat
07:04yeah you would think maybe possibly og on jalen brown that's to start feels like it would make
07:11sense but interesting i mean lebron is lebron i agree i think lebron lebron's obviously a lot
07:16bigger than josh hart right um so that might be a problem but at this at this stage in lebron's
07:22career i think josh hart can um can do a good job against him so steph mitchell robinson critical part
07:28of the knicks championship defense we've talked about him a lot throughout particularly as a rim protector
07:33and a rebounder now with andre drummond here taking over that backup center role how concerned
07:37should the knicks be about their interior defense especially when their first test comes against a
07:42guy like joellen bead who can play strongly in the paint how concerned do you think they should be
07:46about that in this matchup yeah i mean it could be a weakness um you know if we if we
07:52were going to
07:52judge anything by the preseason their three-point defense was atrocious so um you know i i predicted
07:59this in the in my preview that they're going to have a top five defense because of the way
08:03that they finished the regular season and the way they played in the playoffs they just need to
08:08recapture that because they were in a lead defense after you know starting in february or mid-january
08:14and if they can recapture that and there's no reason they shouldn't i get mitchell robinson isn't
08:19around but it's not like mitchell robinson first of all he wasn't playing every game second of all he
08:23was only averaging 20 minutes so um if they're if they're able to replicate um what they were doing
08:30in the second half of last season and then in the playoffs they're in good shape and to me there's
08:34really no reason they shouldn't um andre drummond is not as good a defender as mitchell robinson i get
08:39it uh but if cat who's going to take up the majority of the minutes at center if he plays
08:44the type of
08:44inspired defense that we saw in the playoffs the knicks are in good shape either way yeah it's a really
08:49good point about cat who played very well defensively in the postseason it's mike brown
08:54i'll talk to you a little about the bench stuff because mike brown's talked about giving his bench
08:57players more opportunities this season so when you look at guys like jose alvarado miles mcbride
09:01i'll even throw tyler kolek and mohammedia war in there who do you think can have the biggest
09:05impact in this game one against the sixers and how much deeper do you think this knicks rotation
09:10can become this season so sorry what are my options say that one uh i went through with kolek
09:17diawara deuce and jose alvarado of those four who do you think could have the biggest impact
09:23against the sixers in this one and do you think the rotation will become even deeper this season
09:28i think deuce is i'm gonna pick deuce just because he's the best player that you mentioned
09:34in the bunch on top of that um the one for he had a disappointing playoffs but if you remember
09:39the
09:39one great game he had monster game was against the philadelphia 76ers and i get it they're a totally
09:45different team um but i'm just going off talent deuce is gonna have the biggest impact tomorrow
09:51tomorrow night and um do i think they're gonna go deeper you know it's tough for me to say i
09:58think
09:58mike brown understands where his team is at he they're we're they're focusing on the playoffs he
10:03did a good job of that during the regular season last year um he kept their minutes down compared to
10:08what tom thibodeau had them i think he's going to continue that trend whether or not it's you know
10:14individually they're going to play a few minutes less i you know i that's tough to predict but i
10:19think mike brown has a goal to play as many players as possible and keep the starters minutes down
10:24yeah keep those starters fresh we saw that last year and it worked out well for the knicks
10:28on their way to the title let's finish with this steph opening night tomorrow night the knicks they're
10:33going to have the emotions we talked about of raising the championship banner lebron james and
10:37the sixers they're going to be looking to spoil the celebration trying to make an immediate
10:40statement what do you feel are the two biggest keys to this game for the knicks and also you know
10:46i like to ask you for a prediction who do you have walking out of msg with the first win
10:50of the season
10:50here uh the biggest keys are if joel and beat is in the game and we saw this time and
10:57time again with
10:58new york knicks and jalen brunson attack him attack him attack him in the pick and roll so you know
11:04what
11:05is going to be the sixers counter to that i don't know we'll see what to me that's the big
11:10adjustment
11:10that the sixers need to make not the knicks because every single time jalen brunson plays
11:16against joel and beat he cooks him in the pick and roll he whoever's you know they they have
11:21whoever's joel is guarding run them up for the screen joel can't do anything about it because he's
11:27too slow um he's not a good defender anytime he gets away from the rim so you know we've seen
11:34it
11:34time again uh that's going to be the key what how the sixers combat that because certainly jalen
11:39brunson has shown that he can cook the 76ers that's a good that's a good key right there we did
11:43see that
11:44all right you're not getting off easy you got to get that prediction out of you steph who's winning
11:47this game one nicks or sixers who you got nicks go nicks nicks winning on opening night you heard
11:53it from stephan bondy he is happy the games are real now and there are no more scrimmages i'm happy
11:58about that too that is the fantastic stephan bondy does a great job covering the nicks for us
12:03here at the new york post steph always appreciate you and everybody will catch you next time on new
12:08new york got game
12:11and thanks for watching new york got game
12:14boob shakalaka
12:15you
12:16you
12:16you
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