Knicks 119, Thunder 97: “RJ!”

This game got me same worried in the first half.

The Knicks came out slow and they weren’t really moving the ball. They were behind the very shorthanded Oklahoma City Thunder – most notably losing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – by about 11 points in the first half.

I will just avoid talking about it, because the second half caused any bad vibrations to go away.

(Special shout out to Immanuel Quickley, however, who helped bring the Knicks back towards the end of the first half and enter the break with a 56-54 lead after scoring 12 points in 12 minutes.)

Then, the second half. Tom Thibodeau … did you change your starting lineup? Yes, it was strange. After starting Frank Ntilikina and playing with him five minutes in the first half before pulling him in, Thibs decided finally take a look at the initial training Quickley / RJ Barrett / Julius Randle. Boy, was that always a good idea.

I will preface this recap of the second semester with our quote from DWilTheCouncilman’s day: “RJ!”

RJ, in fact. The second-year star of the Knicks (who is only 20 years old, I must remind you) accumulated 22 points in the second half, breaking the previous record of his career of 28 points and FINALLY scoring more than 30 for the first time in his career, establishing up at 32.

To get there, he did a little bit of everything. He scored from the bottom, ending his afternoon on 3-6 out of three:

What is most impressive about RJ’s emergence as a 3-point shooter these days is that he is hitting from all sides. See his chart for the last 15 games in the NBA Stats:

This is absolute pornography. Not only is he shooting well in the corners, he is also hitting three on the counterattack. Practically the only area where he isn’t completely on fire is right at the top of the 3-point line, which isn’t a space he takes up that much anyway.

Anyway, RJ continued on his way to 32 in many other ways besides just shooting three. He continued to show a great improvement in finish around the rim, exhibiting both improved body control and touch around the rim, as well as elite changes in rhythm skills to break free:

I don’t want to rush in and get too excited, but RJ’s development curve over the past two months has been less of a curve and more of a line pointed at a 90-degree angle. If you start at the moment when RJ’s 0-21 stretch of three ended by Thursday’s game in Milwaukee (AKA, from the sixth game of the season to the present), RJ is shooting .465 / .406 / .721 this season.

If his submission continues to progress along with his shot, and he can find the ground more with Immanuel Quickley (a legitimate spot-up threat that cleans the paint for him) and less with Elfrid Payton (who may not even be on the court outside the 3-point line), so it will have a lot more space to operate and continue to thrive.

In the middle of RJ, hosting his masterclass, he and Immanuel Quickley spent most of the third quarter negotiating buckets. RJ had 13 of his 32 in the third, while IQ had nine of his 21. I couldn’t blame Thibs for playing RJ all over the third quarter and Quickley for 10:41 – it was a beautiful basketball that didn’t just have the two of them scoring, but setting the table for each other.

The fourth bedroom arrived then, and that is the point that Julius Randle decided it was time for him to casually score a triple-double. Randle scored 13 points, grabbed three rebounds and made three assists in the final stage to put the finishing touches on a 26 point triple double, 12 rebounds and 12 assists. It was particularly encouraging because Al Horford kind of gave Randle the deal in the first half, and if the Knicks are going to be somehow able to compete in their next two games (in Brooklyn on Monday, in Philadelphia on Tuesday in back), they will need Randle to be at the height of the All-Star form.

And that was it. The Knicks called in the second half and eliminated a team that they really needed to win before some tough games. It’s nice to see that the Knicks are no longer the “shit team that fights in the first half and takes the lead, but ends up being crushed” and instead they are the team that “is too good to lose to a team that is that bad. “

Grades

– I mainly highlighted the second half of RJ because it was the real tour de force in this game, but he had great looks also in the first half, nothing more impressive than this move to create some space for an internal layup and finish with your out of rim:

– Randle’s triple-double was extremely casual in nature. I didn’t even realize he was flirting with one until Mike Breen announced in the middle of the third quarter that Randle was already on 14 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. I also said that Horford gave Julius some problems at the start, but still, Randle dropped 14 out of 50% of the pitches in the first half. It’s nice to see you back to the dominant games effortlessly.

– The young Thunder core emits some very heavy “now, you have to convince yourself” vibrations in addition to Shai. Theo Maledon is very young, but you can see the profile of a very good leader guard there, Aleksej Pokusevski was one of my favorites in the 2020 draft, but it looks like he needs about 50 cheeseburgers a day for the next three years to get there to NBA weight for his size, Lu Dort looks like a stallion role player. It kind of reminds me of the Knicks’ core for a while. The difference, of course, is that Thunder has about 5000 chances of becoming a superstar in the draft that will come in the next six years or so.

– I was totally in agreement with the start of Frank, but he was not very good in this game and needed to stay on the bench. I don’t know if I ever saw someone go from “starting the game” to “throwing the minutes out of the trash with Obi Toppin and Theo Pinson” in the same 48 minutes, but that’s how it is in Frank Land. If Elfrid and Derrick Rose remain out on Monday against Brooklyn, perhaps Frank can still redeem himself and maintain a spot in the rotation.

– That said, it’s time for Immanuel Quickley to start (and I say that regardless of whether Elf or Rose is healthy in the next game, really). It was a while ago, but now it really is. He’s really looking worst with the bank recently, in my view, looking like he doesn’t necessarily trust his teammates and, as a result, resort to pitching for himself. Everything changed in this game when he was playing with RJ and Randle. These three really make beautiful music together.

– Nerlens Noel has no hands. There was a sequence in the second half that was a beautiful display of passes and, well, I’ll let you see for yourself:

This, by the way, had a “bad pass” turn for Randle. Not pictured: the four or five other passages before this clip is cut, too. But, this is Nerlens Noel’s experience.

– Alec Burks was 15 and Reggie Bullock was 14, but I also wouldn’t consider this a great game. Burks had a lot of energy from JR Smith with his selection of kicks, particularly in the first half, and Bullock hit just four of his 11 attempts at depth, when it looked like he should have hit about eight. But Bullock was a high +23 team and Burks was a +15, so what do I know.

That’s it for this game. There’s more to talk about, but no more than me to feel like talking. I just want to take advantage of the light from the Knicks All-Star and the two best young players who are facing a bad team. Be sure to check out The Strickland to recap MMiranda on this in a bit too!