TheTruth

Make no mistake about it, this team (coaches included) has a lot of growing up to do mentally before we threaten to make any kind of postseason run.

He most certainly CAN do it. It's not a question of CAN, it's a question of WILL. This goes far beyond not playing well. All players go through stretches where they don't play well. No one shoots 100% from the field or gets the best of his opponent every time. That's normal and acceptable but Trae's decision-making is neither. For better or worse, Trae is the straw that stirs the drink for the Hawks. He's our face of the franchise and star player. Everybody on the team is witnessing his antics - and it's costing us games and leads. Yes, these guys get paid handsomely, but it's the Coach's job to maximize their chances at winning and to curb behavior that detracts from winning. That's what he gets paid handsomely to do. No one is saying sit Trae forever, or even a whole game, but make him come off the bench next game, or sit him a quarter or two to let him know crap's gotta stop. Of course, don't do any of it without having a man-to-man talk about it, and then stick to your guns. Trae needs to understand what he's doing is hurting the team - not helping - and if he cared, he'd make efforts to stop it. If he didn't care, then we have bigger problems... And YES, that absolutely means playing Rondo and Goodwin to reinforce it even though they are clear downgrades to Trae from a talent level. Sometimes you have to take a short term loss to create a long term gain. We've seen Pierce do something like this when he's played the bench (which generally isn't as talented as starters) for extended minutes when the starters were sucking it up (he did this quite a bit last year). Sometimes you have to send a message, and if Pierce is too scared to do so because "this isn't high school," well then, we need to be looking for a new HC next year because that's some weaksauce. This version of Trae can't continue...we won't be able to go anywhere with THIS version of Trae leading this team.

Man...Trae is going to have to make Schlenk think about drafting a PG way sooner than we all thought if this version of Trae is here to stay. Good grief! Pierce, sit him! Pierce needs to get his stuff together too, or he can walk after this season. Should be no sacred cows around here.

I don't want to hear crap about a slump. Everybody goes into a slump. What Trae is doing is called bad basketball - and Pierce needs to knock Trae down a peg or two and sit his azz until he starts playing smart basketball. The 35 ft heaves, awful turnovers, poor floor leadership and bad shot selection need to be punished out of him.

To be as skilled as he is, Trae is such a freakin dumbazz at times. Low BBIQ is killing this team this year.

Why? Assuming Covid related.

Gun dam, we can't catch a break with these injuries amongst our FA acquisitions! So much for depth when it's stuck on the trainer's table...

Quick! Someone give Jarrett Allen the phone number to Sam Darnold's therapist because after the posterizing and victimizing he faced at the hands of our Hawks tonight, he's going to be seeing ghosts for a LONG, long time!

I'm thinking Hunter said the following before tonight's game after missing that WIDE-OPEN 3 that would have tied the last game with a shade over a minute remaining with us down 3: "Give me the rock and I'll make the Nets pay this time - I promise." If he said anything of the sort, he SURELY backed it up tonight - and then some!

Write this down and take it to the bank: Once we get reasonably healthy, no team in the East can hang with us in a series if we learn to consistently defend. I'm not saying a top 5 defense or anything, I'm saying an average to better defense. If that happens, with our offensive firepower, we are going to be scary good. Like real scary.

Thanks! Just wanted to make sure it wasn't due to injury.

Anyone know why Bruno only played 2 minutes? Everyone else on the bench who has entered has gotten plenty burn tonight.

This team showed it can hang with a cream-of-the-crop team. Hawks need to get healthy fast - really miss Gallo, Dunn, and Snell right now. Can't wait for OO to play as well.

Eh, Nets don't win this game without Kyrie going inhuman in the 4th. Hawks defense hasn't been good tonight...

We can have both - they aren't mutually exclusive...regardless of how fast we play or how many bombs we drop on teams.

Daaaaang son - we just curbstomped these fools!

We need to give this team (players and coaches) some time to gel with all of the changes we've had. Rotations will be fluid at the outset, but we all know Trae @ PG, Collins @ PF and Capela @ C are the only things we know for certain. Everything else may take time to solidify. There will be moments of inconsistent offensive and defensive brilliance to start out. That said, if LP doesn't coach this team up for them to start showing CONSISTENT competence on both ends of the floor by the end of the season, he is far from untouchable and can kick rocks. This team is far too talented on paper with apparent fits to show otherwise.

Finally, the Knicks can be winners at something!

I'm glad Reddish ate that senzu bean after his concussion so he could come back balling like this! And I'm pretty sure Trae and Collins went Super Saiyan on those foos in the 4th quarter.

Oh, Trae will still get his minutes, but benching him may do more to get some confidence and rhythm going. No one here believes Lin is part of the future - so it would be designed to be short-lived. Pierce has already benched him several times this season for various things, maybe planting him there for a bit will allow Trae to manifest better habits in certain areas (like shot selection and defensive effort).

What we do know is that this team needs to be shaken up. They won't be .500 good, but it's clear that we can't keep getting curbstomped doing what we're doing.

Lin is definitely outplaying him right now. Coach should sit down with him and let him know he needs to earn it back. Look, playing point guard is hard - especially as a rookie. But man, he doesn't deserve that starting spot right now. We do need better coaching, though. And while we're benching guys, bench Baze when he returns and Prince. Seriously.

Trae/Baze/Purple Rain/Collins/Dedmon should be our starting 5 anyway. Ready to get back all injured players, though.

Just got the app alert that Kawhi is ruled OUT tonight as the Raptors are "continuing to rest him on back-to-backs."

Our typical 3rd quarter swoon migrated to the 4th quarter tonight. Ugh. Hate how we will lose tonight after leading most of the way.