Betrayer

Win or lose that challenge, I don’t like the decision to do it on that play against Brunson.

Thank you!!!

Those hard traps are coming in the fourth. You know Tibbs is going to bring the heat on him. Someone else is going to need to step up.

They make a lot of mistakes, but man they sure don’t stop fighting.

Hart fouls Ausar on the screen and then Brunson just stops and flops. you gotta get that out of the NBA.

That was dangerous by Brunson.

0-4 on wide open threes so far this quarter.

Expect the whistles to flip in the second half so we’re going to need to clean up the sloppy play.

That’s not a foul.

Knicks make a run, crowd gets loud, and we go to a bunch of one-on-one play instead of running the offense. Young mistakes.

Can’t have these long runs with zero FGs.

Why was Reed running that break. So many missed opportunities.

And there’s another turnover.

Clean up the unforced errors and you’re up 15 easy.

Reed taketh and Reed giveth away.

A tough defensive start and a ton of turnovers yet you find yourself up by 7 after the first. Could’ve been a double digit lead easy. Knicks were 0-8 from three as well which won’t continue, so you gotta clean it up.

6 first quarter turnovers already. Rough.

Exactly. This is Ausar’s role and he’s generally elite at it. I don’t mind throwing different looks at Brunson but Ausar gets the primary. If you want to try something crazy you could put Ausar on Hart so he can be the roamer rather than Duren, but then you have Cade or THJ on Brunson and Duren on KAT. Not sure that’s the answer.

Too many mistakes already with blown layups.

I know a lot of teams do it and Duren can’t guard the perimeter, but I really don’t like the Tobias on KAT matchup.

Offense is holding serve but the defense has got to improve. It’s been really bad to start this game.

Game 1 looked a lot like early this season when they were still learning to close out games. Yes, they blew the lead in the 4th and that sucks, but this is what you expect from a young team with no experience in the playoffs. You have to pay those dues and they're paying with house money in a season where everyone expected them to max out as a play-in team (if that). Can they learn fast enough to win tonight and make it a series? It's a tall order, especially with Stew out. I predicted Knicks in 6, but without Stew that might even be asking too much. If he can't make it back for this series you might be looking at Knicks in 5 (we have to break that playoff drought!). Curious to see how Duren responds. He had an awful first game and I kind of expected that because this is what happens to the Drummond archetype in the current NBA - opponents simply box-out in meaningful games and you don't get the easy slop you've been feasting on in the regular season. Without that, if you can't defend at a high level or shoot from outside what do you provide? I think this series will tell the Pistons a lot about what they should feel comfortable paying for him in the off-season.

Overall, these were some bad play-in games.

Glad Memphis came back to make it a fun game to watch. Atlanta on the other hand...ugly.

Lost me at "SGA is MVP".