Game Day: Knicks vs. Jazz, 1/6/21

The Knicks return home to face off against the Jazz off of a very successful road trip. But the Jazz are a heavy 3-point shooting team and the Knicks allow a bunch of them. Can they hold the Jazz off? Jon Schulman previews.

The Knicks return home to face the Jazz tonight. Only the third home game so far in this young season. The games come fast and furiously, if you don’t agree, we can’t be friends! The Jazz are the best rebounding team in the NBA and they’ve been taking the fifth most threes at 38.7 a game this year. That does not bode so hot for the Knicks who have been allowing the fifth-most threes (38.3). That’s a good match in the worst way possible. Despite allowing that many threes, the Knicks have the best 3-point defense percentage-wise. Teams have been shooting just under 30% against them. This may be the type of game to break that open a little bit.

The Jazz are coming off a brutal loss in Brooklyn last night to the Kevin Durant-less Nets. Surely they’ll be intent on correcting those failures this go round.

Sexriver

“Quivers” is a bad nickname. You know it, I knew it, ya blew it. I know this dumb nickname will take, this throwaway joke name is going to gain traction, I’m not a total fool. In this world of reductive necessity, if it ain’t brief and positively dull, how can your local Biff make sense of it all? I implore you, society, what of the local Biff?! Well I dunno what to tell ya, Biffs of the world, but this nickname is not needed, not exciting. It’s the Bennifer of basketball, basketball’s Q-Riv. I’m surprised you don’t want to call them “AIRQ-85.” In fairness, any amount of quivering is a bit lofty so far as wordplay goes. Ya don’t see that one slip into the modern vernacular all that regularly. I guess I gotta take what I can get so long as the Biffs rule society.

As it pertains to the Knicks, there are a pair of straight arrows that seem to be outplaying their starting counterparts. I still have some big questions that need answering before I’d be ready to hand them the starting titles. Is Austin Rivers’ commitment to defense and attention to detail going to be as consistent as coach Thibodeau requires? If he plays that aggressively against savvier first unit type players, and stars, does his frisky approach drop him on the bench with foul trouble anyway? For Immanuel Quickley, can he figure out a better balance between looking for his own offense and finding the guys who need the ball a little more effectively in the half court? For as good as he’s been, simply being a better shooter than Elfrid Payton isn’t quite enough signal to boost. As he gains familiarity with the system and his teammates, understanding what he needs to do to be the best version of himself, it only becomes a matter of time. That time isn’t now. You know what is happening right now?

Frank is still out, but Dennis Smith Jr. is back.

Knicks by -19

Still

We got word late last night that Dr. Dre is in intensive care after suffering from a brain aneurism. Dre is one of the guys that really turned me into a crate-digging fanatic. A living legend. Wishing him the best care and full recovery.