The Strickland

1 week ago | thestrick.land | Matthew Miranda

Alvin Gentry inherited the transcendent talent tracked to turn things around in the Big Easy. Some even dared hope Zion’s arrival could convince Anthony Davis to stay with the team that drafted him when he had no worker rights, that New Orleans was a bigger city than it is and a first-market franchise, when (according to the latest Zach Lowe show) even the team’s own players are open that it isn’t. Zion was gonna change everything. Easier said than done.

1 week ago | thestrick.land | Matthew Miranda

And then there was one – season remaining, that is. After an 82-game march that began with being outscored by 54 on threes in Boston and ended with Landry Shamet scoring his most points since 2022 to secure the win in Brooklyn, the Knicks wrapped up a 51-win season as the East’s third-seed. They’ll open the playoffs this weekend hosting Detroit. As is often the case in life, what they did may have end up mattering less than when they did it.

1 week ago | thestrick.land | Matthew Miranda

After leading most of the way last night the Knicks stumbled late, falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers 108-102, and guess what? Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care. Neither should you. I say that fully aware that, as a game recapper, projecting an attitude of “Who cares?” is not the fast track to growing the audience. But the Marxist in me thinks too much of what’s wrong in too many of our lives boils down to people only caring about their bottom line — usually money.

2 weeks ago | thestrick.land | Collin Loring

It only took three games, but since Brunson’s return Bridges is once again a discombobulated overthinker who’s crawled back into his shell. On a night he shot 70% from the floor, I caught myself yelling at him to take more shots. Bridges shot 38% from three in Brunson’s absence on over four attempts per game but last night was passing up open looks, as if he had the time to explore the 14,000,605 possible outcomes of each, like Doctor Strange in Infinity War.

2 weeks ago | thestrick.land | Matthew Miranda

By contrast, The Knicks were blown out by the Celtics the first night of the year, literally a couple weeks after first acquiring Karl-Anthony Towns and without Mitchell Robinson or Precious Achiuwa, leading to Jericho Sims and Ariel Hukporti combining for 30 minutes that night. They were blown out a second time before the All-Star break, this time without Mitch and OG Anunoby. The third time they played they fell behind big early, but fought back to within four in the fourth quarter.