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Here we fucking go! First recap rant for the brand new LeKnicks website (hottest new Knicks website in the game), and ladies and gentlemen and millions of followers around the world, it is a GOOD one. The Garden was ROCKING tonight and for good reason. Our favorite unicorn called his own shot, dropping a 40 bomb all over the Pacers while simultaneously blocking everything in sight. For those unfamiliar with us, The LeKnicks have been HUGE Porzingis guys since before he was drafted. We were probably 2 of the very select people in the city lobbying for Phil Jackson to draft the kid in 2015 and were already expecting a big season from him as a #1 option after watching him tear up the European circuit all summer long. But honestly, Porzingis putting up his career high and carrying us to victory in the 9th game of the season playing second fiddle to me tonight is something that I could have never expected in my wildest dreams heading into the season. But that is just the case right now with Porzingis’ consistent dominance early in the season and a very important public service announcement from your friends at the LeKnicks podcast. The. Kid. Can. HOOP! The youngblood showed out tonight for the best win of the season but first lets get into a brief (probably long) recap of the game tonight…

Fuck the Pacers. Fuck Reggie. Fuck Hibbert. Fuck Rick Smits. Fuck Dale Davis. Fuck Antonio Davis. And most importantly, fuck Reggie. Did I mention that Reggie sucks? The team that Reggie Miller followed up Ewing’s thunderous game 7 put back slam in game 7 of the 1994 NBA ECF (Ewing’s statline that game: 24 points, 22 boards, 7 assists, 5 blocks, one of the greatest games in Knicks history from a true warrior) with an air ball on the ensuing possession and shot 3 for 18 in a Game 6 elimination game during the 1999 ECF, came into the Garden for a Sunday night showdown. The Pacers, like the Knicks, traded the focal point of their franchise during the past decade to the Thunder this offseason. And the Pacers, like the Knicks, have been one of the major surprises early in the NBA season as many pundits (Phil Jackson word) predicted both to be cellar dwellers this season. The Pacers came into the Garden rocking a surprising 5-4 record and the man known as the Walking Bucket walked into the Garden wearing checkered overalls over a pink hoodie. Once gametime neared and Clyde appeared on our TVs for the first time of the night wearing a brand new, never before seen, ALL-TIME CLASSIC rainbow flowered suit with a multi-color polka dot tie, I knew the Knicks had this game on lock.

First Quarter: The game started like many others. KP getting buckets and throwing down a SICK one handed ally oop off a high feed from Hardaway Jr. once again forced to use his go go gadget arms to throw down the slam. It was another one of those throw downs Poirzingis is making commonplace, in which no other player in the NBA could make. With this guy’s size and athleticism combined with how well he is playing right now, it shouldn’t be a surprise when people say he has a chance to be the best in the NBA. He does. Same with Giannis. Same with Towns. Same with Anthony Davis Same with Embiid, Simmons, Lonzo Ball… A lot of players CAN be the best in the NBA one day in the not so distant future when LeBron Kevin Durant is knocked off the throne. The question for all of them is how much of their sky high potential will they end up fulfilling? In my opinion, due to KP’s combination of size, athleticism, and versatile skillset on both sides of the floor, his upside is even higher than the rest of them, save for maybe Giannis (due to his freakish PG skills). I’ve been saying this since KP’s rookie year, when Towns beat him out for ROY and was clearly the better player at the time, but I held firm that as good as Towns was and as high as his upside is as another extremely young extremely skilled modern age big man in his own right, KP’s advanced size and athleticism gave him the edge in upside. We are just beginning to see Porzingis scratch the surface of what he is capable of and Knicks fans should be VERY excited about that but he has lofty expectations and he should given his upside. If he wants to be considered one of the best players in the league and down the road one of the best ever, then he obviously has a long way to go. It will be important for KP to keep his focus and his work ethic through all the noise and hype going on that will only get louder and louder if he continues to play at this level. Anyway, back to the game Enes Kanter was also doing his thing early on the boards, as we have come to expect by now. He would finish the game with 18 rebounds and eclipsed his 3rdin the league offensive rebound average of 4 about 5 minutes in the game when he grabbed his 5th. He finished with 7. It remained pretty close until the Knicks took Porzingis out late in the quarter and Domatas Sabonis just went bonkers on us. He was simply having his way with the Knicks bigmen trying to cover him, going 4/4 in the quarter for 8 points off the bench, doing most of his damage in the paint, giving the Knicks a little taste of their own medicine this seasonWith the 2nd unit being thoroughly dominated by Saboinis, the Knicks faced a near double digit deficit headed into the 2nd. Score - Pacers: 33 Knicks: 25.

Second Quarter: The 2nd quarter was bad. The Knicks started the quarter looking unorganized and fazed by the extreme defensive pressure Indiana was applying all over the court. This certainly did not look like a game the Knicks would go onto win at this point as Knicks fans are all too familiar with the sluggish Sundays at the Garden. The Knicks defense in the quarter was OK overall, especially with Ntilikina in the game. Courtney Lee was also noticeably working vvery hard on defense to fight over screens and stay with his man. But the Pacers were able to get to the line a lot in the quarter and hit a bunch of 3s due to the lackadaisical rotations and closeouts by Tim Hardaway Jr. and Doug McDermott. Speaking of Timmy, he decided tonight was a great time to go back into chucking Mr. Hyde mode as he nearly shot the Knicks out of the ball game during the quarter, going 1/5 from 3 during the period. That one 3 was the only trey ball hit by the Knicks during the quarter and unlike the Pacers they didn’t attempt even one free throw. This had all the signs of a game that was close quickly slipping through our fingers and getting away from us early similar to what we experienced vs. the Thunder and Houston. The Pacers D was suffocating. They defended extremely well and pressured every Knick who touched the ball The Knicks rarely looked to push during the quarter and were forced into contested shots in their half court set due to the Pacers pressure and Jack/Frank’s inability to drive and get inside the paint. That was one of my biggest takeaways going into the half. Frank’s potential is clearly jaw dropping. We haven’t seen a Knick play defense like he does since forever (unless you happen to be 50+ years old and remember the Living Legend in his prime). His vision is dumbfounding, his shot looks smooth and when he develops more in game confidence I expect him to climb back closer to that 40% mark from 3 he had in Strasbourg, France last year (BIG TIME Friends of the Podcast right there, btw, shout out to Strasbourg). But he really needs to get the ball in the paint more if he wants to be an effective distributor in the NBA today. Hornacek has done a great job this season hiding Frank and Jack’s deficiencies in the area with a creative offensive scheme relying on constant ball movement and cutting in the half court and pushing the ball down the floor whenever possible, but a quarter like this really exemplified why Frank needs to be able to break down the defense. Not even to go in and throw it down on fools like Westbrook (although that would be sweet), but just to open up the game for his teammates so we can really see his court vision shine. Frank looked a little tentative in the 2nd quarter and slightly rattled by the pressure applied on him by Darren Collison and Cory Joseph (not exactly talking about Avery Bradley here), which hurt the Knicks offensive flow. Knicks went into halftime down 13 thanks to a Jarrett Jack floater to close the quarter. Score - Pacers: 62 Knicks: 49.

The 3rd quarter started with more of the same shit, but worse. The lead fluctuated from about 15 to 10 for awhile until Porzingis went out of the game and the Bockers went back to chucking up 3s and not contesting them on the other side as the lead ballooned to 19. The Pacers continued to pour in 3s and get to the line while the Knicks did neither. In the NBA today it is quite simple: If you are missing every 3 and not getting to the line at all (0 FTA and 2 3 PM in the middle periods combined) while allowing the opposition to make every 3 and get to the line, you are going to lose. That was the story for the first 70% of the ball game tonight as it looked like our Knicks were cooked, once again giving us a tease but not actually able to take a significant jump by taking a winnable (although the Pacers have been good thus far) home game to get above the .500 mark. I was annoyed, thinking to myself, as I often that I was cool when we started 0-3, resigned to suck while watching Frank and KP develop. Everything was fine. No expectations. If you got nothing then you got nothing to lose. But after winning 4 of the next 5, I wanted this game. It was about this point in the 3rd quarter when I remembered I was a Knicks fan and the basketball Gods probably only gave us a sign of hope just to rip it away from us, just like the past 2 seasons. Always teasing us. Never just allowing us to enjoy a simple, easy, stress-free tank. I figured that this was some more “Classic Knicks” getting to .500 only to put up a stinker. Indiana went up by as much as 17 during this stretch. But then, the game flipped. A little. Signs of life, let’s call it. KP entered the game with a little more than 2 minutes left in the 3rd while Franky was still on the floor with the 2nd unit. And for the first time we really saw the future of this franchise start to click. With 2:13 left in the quarter, Hardaway Jr. bricked (another 3) with the Knicks down 19. On the ensuing Pacers possession, Franky Defense uses his wingspan to force a steal and hits Porzingis for a tough turnaround. Franky on the perimeter and KP down low swatting everything in sight (including a fast break dunk Lance Stephenson attempted to throw down on Porzingis who emasculated him so bad the borough of Brooklyn may have disowned him), the Knicks finally started to get some stops as Porzingis buried ANOTHER tough turn around (thanks you Dirk) off a feed from Franky Dimes and a deep 3 with 12 seconds left to end the quarter on a 7-0 run and the Knicks down a more manageable 12. the Knicks ended the quarter on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to 12. In other news, Hardaway was still sucking. Score – Pacers: 84 Knicks: 72.

As we headed into the 4th, KP continued his dominance on the Pacers. He scored 15 straight points for the Knicks (!) between the 3rd and 4th quarters as the Knicks started picking up some serious momentum, cutting the deficit to 10 on a slam dunk cutting through the lane on a gorgeous feed from the French Prince. But then a sequence happened that I 1000% thought would be the final back breaker. The Knicks forced a turnover from Cory Joseph leading to a 3 point attempt by Frank that would have taken the roof off the Garden and blew the game open, but it went halfway down before rimming out. On the ensuing possession the Knicks decided to leave Thad Young open in the corner as he drained a 3 to put the bad guys up 3. On the following possession, KP made one of his best moves of the night, facing a double team on a post up he instead spun right taking 2 Pacers off the dribble for a contested lay up that just barely missed. KOQ was busy beasting on the glass and grabbed the offensive board, feeding McDuckets for an open 3, which OF COURSE he missed, because why the fuck is he even in the game considering that he forgot how to shoot? KOQ then grabbed ANOTHER offensive board off the miss and got MAULED going up for a layup with no foul called. The Pacers quickly took advantage of this as McDuckets decided once again to half ass contest Thad on the very next possession in the same exact spot in the corner he just drained a 3 from, as he nailed another one because again, why the fuck is McDuckets even in the game? The game looked to be over right then and there. It should have been. It was a valiant fake comeback attempt Knicks fans have come to know and love (hate) that was spearheaded by Porzingis and Frank. I think a lot of reasonable Knicks fans could have been reasonably happy with that. That sequence showed that we clearly weren’t getting the bounces tonight as the Pacers took the should-be final punches the Knicks had, and returned with a haymaker of back to back Thad 3s off of nearly game changing plays by the Knicks to give the Pacers a comfortable 15 point lead early in the 4th. After the 2nd Thad 3 to put the Cers up by 16 with 10:02 left in the game, ESPN Stat Tracker gave the Pacers a 98.1% chance of going home victorious. Ha! ESPN’s Stat Tracker clearly didn’t account for the resilience of these new look Knicks. The Knicks clapped back with ANOTHER major run that had the Garden rocking. This time the Pacers didn’t have a quick response. Like BIG TIME Friend of the Podcast Rocky Balboa legendarily taking all those shots from Clubber Lang and refusing to go down before finally pouncing on him when Lang was wiped out from Rocky’s resilience. But it gets even better. The run was led by a 19 year old Ntilikina and 22 year old Porzingis! The run began with another Franky/KP (kinda like the sound of that) connection leading to a Porzingis layup with just under 10 minutes left in the 4th and capped by Franky Mothafucking 3-ball knocking down a HUGE 3 following a driving dunk by Lance Thomas who was putting in some very solid minutes of his own after spending time out of the rotation to force a Pacers time out with lead cut to 3 in the blink of an eye with 6:33 left in the ball game. Suddenly we had a game on our hands for the home stretch and the Garden was going WILD. It went back and forth for awhile after that. Lance Thomas (personal friend), put in some hard nosed minutes but went under a screen like a fucking idiot as Oladipo hit an easy shot out of the time out to extend the Pacers lead back to 5. But with Porzingis dominating on both ends, blocking everything the Pacers threw at him and knocking down turnaround after turnaround in the clutch, looking like the second coming of Patrick Ewing at only 22 years of age, the Knicks fought their way to a tie on a tough Porzingis fallaway jumper with a little mover 2 minutes remaining. With a little help from Franky Defense, Oladipo missed a 3 as the Bookers got the ball back for a huge possession. Tie game with under 2 minutes left. Frank had been playing a masterful 4thquarter, harassing the Pacers on defense all night and showing signs of the distributor he can be with a confidence on offense we haven’t seen yet that kept Jarrett Jack comfortably on the bench for the majority of the 2nd half. Then with 1:34 left in the ball game, Porzingis hit Frank standing all alone on the left wing, and Franky ONIONS drained another HUGE 3 to put the Knicks up by 3! The Garden went into hysteria and it looked like we could actually win the game. Next possession,we see more Franky Defense, HARASSING the Pacers with his wingspan, and he forced a clutch steal that led to an easy fast break layup by Hardaway Jr. to put the Knicks up 5 with under a minute left in the game. The Pacers were able to score again to make the game a manageable one possession, but our unsung hero, Lance Thomas followed with a tough drive on the next possession to draw a foul with a little over 10 seconds. He calmly sank 2 free throws to put the Knicks up 5 and essentially ice the game. Pandemonium in the Garden! The end. Final Score – Pacers: 101 Knicks: 108.

Ok. There’s my brief recap. Some notes now.

I’m gonna start off with the Wandering Albatross himself, wingspan for DAYS, Frank Mothafucking Ntilikina. AKA Franky 3-ball. AKA Franky Defense. AKA Franky Dimes. AKA Franky ONIONS. THE KID CAN PLAY!!! An electrifying 10 points, 7 assists, 3 steals, 4/7 from the field, 2/4 from downtown, and a +12 compared to his Yoda Jarrett Jack’s -5, in 24 minutes off the bench. Wow. Just wow. After a sort of underwhelming first half in which his defense was once again suffocating and intoxicating but his inability to get in the paint kind of held the Knicks back offensively, the kid came to life in meaningful minutes in the 2nd half as he had in my opinion by far his most impressive performance of the season. This kid is the future. He has a lot of room to develop and I know as well as anybody that sometimes that development doesn’t happen. It can happen to any young player for a variety of reasons. But the kid seems to have the drive similar to Porzingis and he certainly has all the tools to be truly great. I’ve said it before, I love Malik Monk, Jake loves Dennis Smith, but this kid was the right pick. In the NBA it’s always smart to gamble on upside and Franky has that in spades. More so than both Monk and Dennis who both will probably end up being great NBA players in his own right. But there really is no part of the game that Frank isn’t already great at or can’t develop into being great at (penetration, shooting) and he flashed all of that tonight. Suffocating defensive pressure, forcing bad shots and turnovers. Great court vision and he ran the pick and roll/pop great in the 2nd half as he flashed a lot more confidence getting into the lane and calmly making the right decisions. And of course. The ONIONS as he arguably hit the 2 biggest 3s of the game to the delight of the Garden crowd and fans watching everywhere. Clutch gene. Quite Frankly, this kid is the truth. Moving on.

Porzingis. What the fuck are we witnessing? There’s not much to say. The Unicorn called 40 after he scratched the surface vs the Suns and he dropped it all over the Pacers tonight. KP seriously looked like the second coming of Patrick Ewing tonight at only 22 years old. Cooly knocking down turnaround after turnaround no matter what the defense threw at him in the biggest of moments as he led the Knicks back from a 19 point deficit and didn’t look fazed whatsoever taking the big shots. Defensively he was a menace. Always at the right place at the right time, sometimes forced to play solid defense on the perimeter, moving in a way no man his size should be able to do, and blocking/contesting everything in his sight. The man is a freak of nature and we are reaping all the benefits. If he plays like this all season the Knicks have a legitimate chance to be decent and he has a legitimate chance to be in the conversation for MVP. I don’t want to get carried away with all that bullshit given how badly January and February have beaten this club down the past 2 seasons, but he easily has to be in the top 5 through the first 8th of the season. Mr. Bushes is now 2nd in the league in scoring average by his lonesome, eclipsing the 30 PPG mark after his performance tonight, as well as being 4th in the league in blocks per game and hitting on all cylinders. Take it for what it’s worth but you gotta love it right now. Keep it moving.

Jake will hate to admit it because he’s a hater but Lance Thomas took full advantage of his crunch time minutes and made a huge impact on this game (editors note: dude was trash for 95% of the game). His defense was tough as usual, despite going under a screen like a moron giving Oladipo a wide open shot where he was cooking us during a crucial moment. But besides that, he was nearly flawless, making an impact in crunch time with a driving dunk and a hard nosed drive drawing a foul essentially icing the game. Big game for Golden Boy Lance. Always ready. Always prepared. I’m hoping this game is more of whats to come because he can provide a lot more on defense than both Beasley and McDermott.

Speaking of McDuckets, why the fuck was he in the game? I thought Courtney Lee was playing defense better than most of the Knicks tonight but Hornacek decided to use McDuckets with the game on the line in his place. And he almost blew it with his inability to hit a 3 and his uncanny ability to leave the Pacers open for 3s. I gotta admit, he has been growing on me because he had been working hard on defense and is a VERY smart cutter, which he showed a little bit with 4 points both on smart cuts. But tonight he missed both his 3s and provided little else. I’ve called this guy out as overrated since he was in college and he has done nothing to dispel that notion since he has been in the league and certainly nothing tonight.

Make no mistake, Hardaway Jr. sucked again tonight, shooting 1/7 for 3 and getting a few baskets on easy drives to the hoop, usually set up by nice plays from his teammates. He is more bipolar than JR Smith right now and I got nothing more to say about that.

Last point, gotta give a TON of credit to Jeff Hornacek. The coach was put in basically a no win situation coming into the season as we went over in detail. He was the Phil Jackson’s hire and was asked to show defense/hustle with a roster full of players who do neither of either. But so far he has pressed all of the right buttons in a tough position and has gotten this team to play smart, and he has set up an offense that moves incredibly fluid despite lacking a point guard who can get in the lane like most other teams in the NBA utilize. He has taken a lot of heat from the fanbase in addition to being put in a tough place by the front office for removing fan favorites like Hernangomez and Kuzminskas from the rotation, but it has worked. Hornacek is showing us why he was able to get a Suns team that was supposed to be one of the worst in the NBA to an above .500 record in the Western Conference in 2014. Enes Kanter spoke about his time with Hornacek in Utah (Hornacek was an assistant at the time) in an article published in the Post today and claimed he always thought that he was the smartest guy in the room. Hornacek has certainly showed his savviness thus far in the season and looks like a real keeper after appearing to be a dead man walking heading into the season. IMO Hornacek is the unheralded MVP thus far this season and if he keeps it up will deserve real consideration for coach of the year. Obviously, similar to Porzingis, it’s too early for that kind of talk, but I absolutely love what I am seeing from Hornacek thus far this season even if him using his savviness and smarts to get this roster to overachieve will unfortunately lead to a larger time frame for Steve Mills to inevitably fuck up this roster. I’m hoping that Hornacek unless the Roach right now as my previous stance was hoping that he gets fired quickly knowing that he likely had to fall as the scapegoat before the Roach could fall. But for now, Horny is showing us why he was considered to be an up and comer and amongst the best in the NBA just a couple of years ago. Another point in the Phil Jackson category… Even if he did try to force him to run the triangle. Speaking of which, the Knicks do still have a lot of triangle in their half court sets, even if none of the players or Hornacek will speak of such a thing to avoid a complete media firestorm.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Adrenaline on full blast and the first written LeKnick Rant/recap comes after a thriller and one of the most exciting Knicks games in years. Hopefully this train keeps on rolling as this team is electrifying to watch right now. The Knicks or once again must watch TV at the moment and most importantly: THE KID CAN HOOP!

As always, go Knicks. Go orange and blue. And stay faithful… GO NY GO NY GO!!!!

-Michael Lenok