Grimes will find shooting touch quickly
DiVincenzo has emerged as a key contributor.
DiVincenzo is shooting a career-high 43.4% from downtown after connecting on seven of nine attempts in the win over the Raptors, earning praise from his All-Star teammate.
“He’s just a high IQ basketball player. Highly skilled. Can really shoot the ball. He competes at a high level,” Randle said. “He’s been in situations before where he’s playing winning basketball going to Miwlaukee and Golden State. Those systems are so dynamic with how they play, knowing how to play off of Giannis (Antetokounmpo) and Khris Middleton and those guys, and then going to Golden State and they move
Tom Thibodeau says an extra game against the Bucks will be good for his team, as will be the additional games that come either with a win or loss in Milwaukee as part of the NBA’s first-ever In-Season Tournament tonight.
“I think you have to choose how you want to frame it in your own mind, and I like to think of the positive of it,” Thibodeau said after practice in Tarrytown on Monday. “So I think when you’re facing those types of teams, it makes you better. And so that’s the way I want to approach it, and so if we’re doing the right things, good things are gonna happen.”
The Knicks drew the Bucks for their quarterfinal matchup after finishing the group stage with a 3-1 record and a plus-48 point differential. The In-Season Tournament is weaved into the regular season, so the Knicks now have a grand total of five regular-season games against a championship contender that paired Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard over the summer.
Teams are normally maxedout at four regular-season games against any conference opponent.
The consolation prize should the Knicks lose to the Bucks is an extra matchup against an elite-level opponent: either a fifth game against Jayson Tatum’s Celtics in hostile Boston territory on Friday (if the Celtics lose to the Pacers), or, due to scheduling off the ball so well. He’s taken some of those tools and brought them here and has made us a more dynamic team.”
Thibodeau declined to go into specifics about DiVincenzo’s individual successes, but said the team has played well in his minutes on the floor.
“The thing is it’s how it works together, because we’re not conflicts at the Garden, a game against Tyrese Haliburton’s Pacers on Wednesday.
And then, there’s the bestcase scenario.
If the Knicks beat the Bucks tonight, then beat the winner of the Celtics-Pacers game in the Las Vegas semifinal, they will play an additional regular-season game on top of the league’s longstanding schedule max of 82 — and they’ll play it against one of the best in the West, with New Orleans, Sacramento, Phoenix and the Lakers all competing for the first-ever NBA Cup.
The Knicks aren’t looking at the added competition as a negative, even though two losses to tough in-conference opponents could affect playoff seeding at the end of the season.
“We get to see how we stack up against one of the best teams in the league,” Julius Randle said. “We feel like we are improving every game, every day. Guys individually and as a team. This will be a good test for, just keep pushing the limit of who we are as a team.”
In truth, there are too many hypotheticals — too many “ifs” — for the Knicks to do anything other than what Thibodeau has asked.
He knows that consistency is key, that maintaining consistent habits regardless of the schedule will help the team yield consistent results.
The Knicks have already endured their fair share of scheduling struggles: They have played a league-high five back-to-backs in the opening leg of the season with a potential unscheduled sixth looming playing tennis,” he said. “It’s like how’s the group functioning when you’re on the floor, and that’s what I look at.”
Thibodeau suggested he likes what DiVincenzo looks like with his best players on the floor and has played him large fourth-minutes over Grimes, who has closed games on the bench. possible on Wednesday.
“Every season, there’s a number of different things that happen. And then it’s always how quickly can you adapt,” Thibodeau said. “Everyone’s faced with the same challenge, so that’s where I want our guys to (focus).
“The things that we can control are how we get ready. Every game, there shouldn’t be a change. If you want to be a consistent team, that’s how you have to approach it, and that’s what we try to focus on each and every day so there are really no adjustments.”
Randle didn’t hesitate when asked how he packed given the difference in outcomes: either extra days on the road if they advance past the Bucks, or a trip right back home for tipoff the following night at the Garden if his Knicks lose.
“I packed for Vegas,” Randle said with a smile.
A win over the Bucks would send the Knicks straight to Sin City. It could also send a message that the team playing at The World’s Most Famous Arena belongs in the same championship-level conversations as the team playing at Milwaukee’s FiServ Forum.
“Us here in the locker room — players and the coaches — we worry about ourselves and how we can improve every day,” Randle said. “We know that if we do the right things and build the right habits, we will be able to compete with anybody and give ourselves a chance to win against anybody.
“It’s about what we believe, and that’s what we believe as a team.”
“I think he complements our primary scorers great because he can stretch the floor and he does a little bit of everything, handles the ball, he makes plays, he rebounds the ball well for his size,” he said. “That group plays fast, it gives us speed. So he’s done a really good job, but that it’s that entire unit that’s really done a good job.”
NASHVILLE — While there is a ton of uncertainty surrounding Juan Soto’s future, his former manager is sure that the Padres superstar would thrive beneath the bright lights of New York City.
With the Yankees in pursuit of Soto, more than a few New York-based reporters attended Dave Martinez’s press conference at the Winter Meetings on Monday. The Nationals skipper managed Soto from 2018-2022, so all wanted to know if Martinez feels Soto is built for the Bronx.
“No,” Martinez said when asked if he has any doubt that Soto could handle
New York.
When asked why, Martinez went on to say, “He loves to play the game of baseball. I’ll tell you a story: first time I ever met him, I just asked him, ‘What motivates you, what drives you to be (great)?’ And the first thing he says is, ‘I love baseball. That’s all I want to do.’
“So he’ll handle it very well.”
Of course, it remains to be seen if the Yankees will acquire Soto from the Padres, who want a ransom in return for the 25-year-old outfielder.
The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty reported that San Diego asked for as many as eight players from the Yankees in return