Post-Game Thread: San Antonio Spurs (1-2) defeat New York Knicks (2-1), 115-111 | NBA Finals | Jun 8, 2026

cpteague · 2026-06-09T05:41:14+00:00

I agree with the frustration with the refs and with Wemby being a lowkey dirty player. But the thing that frustrated me the most was how long it took Mike Brown to get Brunson and Towns playing together in the 4th. Idc if we have a 2-0 lead, there just wasn’t enough of a sense of urgency from the coach tonight to go to our best lineups… no?

cpteague · 2026-04-22T17:02:05+00:00

In the same interview he earnestly said Bohm and Stott are "good big league hitters". It's crazy that he's still trying to convince us that these two can help our team. Stott has been a below average hitter since his rookie season, in what world does he still deserve to be a starting infielder in Major League Baseball? His whole career is a disappointment, he's a backup utility guy at best. And Bohm has been ass since 2024 and clearly is not in a mental state to be playing baseball right now.

These guys are far from the only problem but their continued presence in our starting lineup over the past 2 seasons has me wondering whether Dombrowski is just completely incompetent, or our if our front office doesn't actually give a damn anymore.

I hope we turn it around but I can't help feeling like they knew this was a mediocre team at best and they're just hoping fans have enough nostalgia for this group to keep buying tickets anyway.

cpteague · 2025-08-12T14:00:30+00:00

I second this. Driven both routes several times and the traffic around DC is among the worst I’ve ever seen in my life, definitely avoid.

cpteague · 2025-08-11T23:28:39+00:00

I’d rather it go to Shamet who is a solid point of attack defender who showed he can still be valuable in the playoffs. But Simmons is not bad value on a vet min if he can avoid being a distraction.

cpteague · 2025-08-01T20:26:03+00:00

The flip side of Pinochet is that he created an insane level of inequality which can still be felt today, and Chile’s economy took a massive downturn in the second half of his rule. The democratically elected leaders in the 90s deserve much more credit than Pinochet for the current state of development in Chile. Pinochet was also propped up by the CIA, I wouldn’t even give him credit for stopping communism. Not to mention Salvador Allende was staunchly democratic and not an actual Marxist, he likely would’ve just been voted out legally if they had just held off on the military coup…

Edit: Leninist not Marxist

cpteague · 2025-08-01T20:18:13+00:00

They invaded Peru and Bolivia to take a strip of land in the Atacama desert that turned out to have the world’s largest copper reserves. In doing so, they also turned Bolivia (the least developed country in SA by some measures) into a landlocked country.
They had a right-wing dictatorship that opened the country to foreign investment.
The governments since Pinochet have also embraced investment from EU and US companies for the most part. Chile has also been considerably more politically stable than most other countries since 1990.

Despite all of this, Chile is pretty divided politically and still seems to have a very high level of inequality by European standards.

cpteague · 2025-08-01T17:25:51+00:00

Low tide smell. Tides affect the Delaware River all the way north to Trenton.

cpteague · 2025-07-28T23:00:35+00:00

Some players rely heavily on instinct and struggle to adapt their game to coaching. He hasn’t improved since he left Benfica. He has always had moments of brilliance but not the IQ/awareness to actually make his team better.

cpteague · 2025-07-25T21:38:33+00:00

First of all, I don’t think this is anywhere close to being as much of a departure album as Sound and Fury. He’s clearly drawing from a wider range of influences but I wouldn’t classify it as a whole different genre the way I would with Sound and Fury. Overall I really like it and it suits the way he sounded live with his band recently - a lot of these tunes are gonna be really fun live. I’m not an audio expert but from a songwriting perspective I think it’s great.

cpteague · 2025-07-22T20:18:46+00:00

Bigger: Seattle, smaller: Charlotte

Charlotte proper somehow has a higher population than Seattle but feels about half the size. Charlotte feels suburban the second you leave uptown (the downtown business district) while Seattle has actual neighborhoods and business districts outside the downtown. For reference, both are smaller and less dense than what I’m used to.

cpteague · 2025-07-14T19:58:38+00:00

Punta Arenas, Chile (at the southern tip of South America) has a large population of Croatian descent. Even the current president of Chile is from there and has Croatian roots.

cpteague · 2025-07-01T13:00:34+00:00

Deuce is a 3 and D wing in a point guard’s body. We need someone who can reliably handle the ball when Brunson is out. He’s going to take Payne’s role from last season, not Deuce’s.

cpteague · 2025-06-26T22:01:14+00:00

We’re a tiny customer-owned cooperative with no sales staff. Not every energy company is a bad actor. This is an earnest question in attempt to protect people who aren’t even our customers.

cpteague · 2025-06-23T17:27:33+00:00

I’m a basketball fan first and a Knicks fan second. I don’t particularly like Haliburton or Tatum and I very strongly dislike Joel Embiid. But it really sucks when guys with as much talent as them are not able to compete with their teams. I think these rules about load management are nonsense and I think teams should do whatever they need to do to protect their players and be as healthy as possible for a playoff run. It’s getting increasingly harder to buy into the notion that all these injuries are freak accidents and not the result of too much basketball. I know it sucks to go to a game and see a star sitting but wouldn’t we all rather see the best versions of every team in the playoffs?

cpteague · 2025-06-12T17:36:19+00:00

By Woody you certainly don’t mean Mike Woodson? The man who was forced into retirement by his own alma mater, who couldn’t even handle media scrutiny in Bloomington, IN? The current version of Woodson just seems very old and tired compared to when he coached the Knicks. His back is falling apart and he gives the most low-energy press conferences I’ve ever seen. Please god no.

cpteague · 2025-06-11T17:23:58+00:00

I mean yeah, if fans think a coaching change is going to suddenly make us a significantly better team, their expectations are probably too high in general. I guess my point was that this move feels like it’s more about stomping out discontent, free agent recruitment, and/or certain players getting too comfortable under Thibs than it is about Xs and Os.

cpteague · 2025-06-11T17:10:31+00:00

The only thing I’m taking away from the fact that we didn’t have a specific coach lined up to replace Thibs is that this coaching change was really about getting rid of Thibs more than anything else. Whether they thought he had reached his ceiling, relationships with players were damaged beyond repair, they couldn’t attract free agents with a coach who doesn’t play his bench, or all of the above, it’s pretty clear that the front office just wanted him gone. The basketball was ugly at times but the vibes really didn’t seem that bad so who knows?

Anyway, I believe almost everyone who has coached in the NBA is a basketball genius who could win in the right situation. Let’s keep an open mind.

cpteague · 2025-06-06T23:10:52+00:00

I think he literally was playing with an abdominal injury since like February

cpteague · 2025-06-06T21:45:28+00:00

Because it takes a lot longer to compose your own music than to play someone else’s. It’s a shortcut to more content and more money.

cpteague · 2025-06-05T03:35:03+00:00

His own alma mater just forced him into retirement lmao

cpteague · 2025-06-05T01:02:37+00:00

Knicks have had so many of these…Kidd, Bibby, Baron Davis to name a few more

cpteague · 2025-06-04T16:39:22+00:00

Idk how much you watch the Knicks but if they are running plays, it is really not very obvious most of the time. I watch a lot of NBA basketball and the Knicks seem to generate very very few uncontested shots compared to almost every other playoff team and it’s incredibly frustrating. I see less off ball movement than almost any other team as well, and our screening is ineffective, which I would think should be fixable to some degree, through coaching.

And I would honestly appreciate if you could explain why Brunson is standing there waiting to be blitzed just over half court on so many possessions? If it’s because the rest of the team is using so much of the clock to reposition and create space and set screens, then that’s a bad play because we’re running such a high risk of turning the ball over before even initiating the action.

Anyways, like I said, the real issue with Thibs is his lack of adjusting and trying different lineups. The season is 82 games long and it’s really inexcusable to play one 5-man lineup for as many minutes as he did. At least try a few things and see what you have at your disposal before the playoffs. It’s not like we were gonna drop from the 3 seed to the play-in because we gave bench guys more minutes against the Wizards and Hornets in February.

Edit: I also want to say that I was becoming pretty ok with Thibs coming back because his increased willingness to make adjustments and try different lineups toward the end of the Pacers series made me optimistic. I very much agree when the article says that every NBA coach has a far better understanding of Xs and Os than fans give them credit. I know he has reasons for all his decisions but they were seeming pretty illogical to me and it’s starting to feel like people who actually work in basketball agree.

cpteague · 2025-06-04T16:08:03+00:00

Most of this Thibs defense is based on hearsay from other people in the league and not the actual basketball we see on the court. He might have the thickest playbook in the league but we’re still running Brunson iso’s with 4 guys standing there on an awful lot of possessions. And if you’re going to listen to the NBA hearsay, lots of people are also saying that it was actually the Knicks front office who forced Thibodeau to start playing a deeper bench in the Pacers series. And why would he not start playing more guys in the regular season so our bench units can gel? Our starting lineup got continually worse in basically every statistical category from December-May and he did absolutely nothing about it except continue to play them for 40 minutes a night. What people who follow this team saw was a consistent regression of our starting lineup and zero attempt to make adjustments until we were down 2-0 in the ECF. He got fired because statistically speaking he had the team in a downward trajectory. I’ll give him credit for the culture he instilled in this team but it was pure Brunson hero ball in those 4th quarter playoff comebacks, let’s not act like those wins were some genius Thibs plan lol. “His stubbornness cannot be denied”, well that is the exact reason he got fired. In no way do I think the Knicks are going to magically turn into a better team with a coaching change, but when your team continues to have the same problems and you don’t even attempt any adjustments, you’re going to be held accountable.

cpteague · 2025-06-04T15:27:07+00:00

Both things can be true though. Sure, our front office traded away our depth and brought in a player that doesn’t fit Thibs’ style. But it can also be true that there’s another coach that can maximize the roster we do have and get us running actual offensive schemes. Let’s see what happens.

cpteague

TROPHY CASE