Luv those Knicks wrote:cgf wrote:Luv those Knicks wrote:
I agree. It's too soon to judge Randle as a playoff player. He was fine against Miami last year. 18 pts, 10 rebs, though he shot 9 for 31 from 3, which isn't great. He was bad against Cleveland and Atlanta, but I don't believe 10 games defines a player.
Interestingly, RJ Barrett, who struggled as a Knick most of his career and much of this season, stepped up in the playoffs last year. He also looked better for Toronto than he looked for us. Maybe being allowed to be the lefty on the team helped him with that. I don't know.
The 2021 Knicks were playing Reggie Bullock, Taj Gibson & Nerlens Noel rotation minutes. It was a weirdly built team.
If you want to call the Cleveland series last year a bad series for Randle, I'm OK with that, but it was only 5 games. He's got a bad 3 pt percentage in the playoffs, but that could be a combination of playoff jitters and playoff defense. I'd have loved to have seen what he could have contributed this year.
Eh his TS against Miami was still just 53%. We were objectively better with him on the court than without him because he has very good vision & he pulled Mobley & Bam out of the paint, even hobbled...which created a lot more room for Brunson & Barrett to drive into...but Juju was still very inefficient in the Heat series because of that ankle.
Yes, but it was a very physical series. With BamBam Adebayo playing football with him and the refs let the series be physical.
He shot bad from 3 - I mentioned that, 9 for 31, but he was fine from 2, and I'm not going to call it a bad series. He's never been a high efficiency player. His skillset, ideally, is a 2nd option who demands the other team's top interior defender cover him, and a guy who can draw the defense out to the 3 pt line, because he can hit those at least enough to not be left open and who can hit an open teammate for an assist and be an above average rebounder. He's more useful than his low efficiency indicates.
When he was the #1 option, he often tried to do too much. With Brunson, he's much more useful.
and . . . also, you're right. His ankle probably didn't help. Brunson can hit 3s on a bad foot, but not everyone can.
It was a physical series, but Jalen still absolutely scorched them...IIRC his TS was 62 or 63% for that series, which was even higher than his TS in the RS. So it's not like their defense was unbeatable, and Julius' efficiency was bang on league average in the RS last year (58%). Meaning that he was still significantly less efficient against Miami, even by his standards...though we were still a better team with him on the court (On-Off +2.5) even if you include the Cleveland series.
And it's not fair to compare his ankle that we know needed surgery as soon as the season was over and had caused him to miss some real time before the playoffs started, to Jalen's foot that took him out for a quarter & we don't yet know how serious it is. If Brunson has to get surgery on his foot as soon as the season is over, then we can compare how he handled it to how Ju handled his ankle if we really have to do the whole Chandler/Gallo thing again and don't just want to admire how beautiful our Brundle is together.
Definitely agree that Randle can't be the be-all-end-all of your offense. He needs to play with someone who can initiate your offense and whom you can trust to close games. Ju is a dominant 1st quarter player, but as teams adjust to him going off you need someone that can capitalize...that's why Brunson is such a great yin to his yang, Jalen often needs some time to find his groove & figure out a defense before going off in the 2nd quarter or half.