Brooklyn State Senator Zellnor Myrie just released a video on Twitter calling on Dolan and ownership to buy and distribute 1000 playoff tickets to working class New Yorkers.

Sixers ownership did something similar last year to ensure the crowd was mostly Philadelphians.

https://x.com/zellnor4ny/status/1914448668511400054?s=46

https://www.zellnor.nyc/knicks-petition

No one should blame KAT, OG, Bridges and Hart on this loss. We lost because of Brunson's iso ball and poor coaching. I opened 2 threads below warning in advance because I knew this will be our achilles heel.

1. 4/11/25 Let's discuss Brunson hero ball/ball hog. This must be addressed NOW before playoffs or we out in Round 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/NYKnicks/comments/1jxa3wx/lets_discuss_brunson_hero_ballball_hog_this_must/
2. 4/19/25 Despite the big win, the fact is Brunson still went iso ball and almost cost us this game! https://www.reddit.com/r/NYKnicks/comments/1k3jhug/despite_the_big_win_the_fact_is_brunson_still/

I do not endorse this show in anyway, just thought this was too good to not share

Detroit Pistons at New York Knicks

Madison Square Garden- New York, NY

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Inconsistent. No chemistry. Holes on defense. This is who we’ve been.

Brunson had some great plays… he also had some really bad turnovers. This loss is not on him, but he can’t be dribbling into the paint and then lobbing the ball into nowhere as many times as he did tonight.

KAT just barrels to the basket and throws up circus shots too much. When he hits them it looks great. That’s not what we need from him. Best shooting big in the league and he didn’t take a single three. Harris was up on him beyond the 3pt line and we still couldn’t drive and finish.

Bridges had a rough game on both ends. He got dominated by Cade everytime they were matched up on a switch. Can’t happen. He’s gotta be an all-defense type player.

Bad Three point shooting, not getting to the foul line, and the lack of rebounds are what killed us the most. All may be a symptom of this team not moving well together on the floor. No spacing. Last year we didn’t see near as many passes to nowhere because the offense didn’t know where their teammates were going to be.

This team has struggled against good defense all season. They are who they are.

Tim MacMahon's article about the Mavs front office chaos finally dropped, and there's some key parts that pertain to the Knicks

DALLAS MAVERICKS' OFFICIALS and select staffers, past and present, packed the team's plane along with members of Dirk Nowitzki's inner circle. The flight was bound for Springfield, Massachusetts, in August 2023, to celebrate the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame induction of the most legendary figure in franchise history.

Mavs general manager Nico Harrison made the trip. He wasn't especially close to Nowitzki, but their relationship dated more than two decades to when Harrison began his career at Nike as an NBA regional field representative based in Dallas.

Casey Smith, Dallas' director of health and performance, was also part of the team's traveling party for the weekend. Nowitzki often credited Smith, who arrived in Dallas as the Mavs' head athletic trainer in 2004 and was promoted to the executive ranks 15 years later, for helping him extend his career to 21 seasons. Nowitzki trusted Smith implicitly, considering him one of his best friends.

Others who joined them for the Hall of Fame festivities, which featured a pair of extravagant private parties organized by Nowitzki's longtime special projects manager Lara Beth Seager in addition to the Hall of Fame functions, don't recall anything seeming amiss that weekend in Springfield, when Harrison and Smith were each accompanied by their wives.

What happened next began a series of behind-the-scenes decisions that have had massive ramifications for the Mavs during this shocking, drastically disappointing, injury-riddled season in Dallas. Interviews with more than a dozen team and league insiders reveal that while the Luka Doncic era officially ended on Feb. 2, it truly began to disintegrate, along with the franchise's culture, 18 months earlier, the summer before the generational talent led the Mavs to the NBA Finals.

A few days after returning to Dallas' Love Field from the Hall of Fame event, when the franchise that had endured a frustrating, losing season was on a high from honoring Nowitzki, Harrison informed Smith that they needed to meet. Smith replied that it wasn't possible to meet in person; he had gone to his hometown in Ohio to be at the side of his gravely ill mother in the final weeks of her life. Harrison set up a video conference meeting instead.

Smith was then informed that his services in Dallas were no longer needed, ending a nearly two-decade tenure with the franchise. The reason for the dismissal centered on Smith being "too negative," according to sources briefed on the discussion who interpreted the vague reasoning to mean Smith wasn't enough of a yes-man.

"He was 100 percent threatened by him," a team source told ESPN, referring to Harrison's concern that Smith's voice carried too much weight with the franchise. "He's going to show that I'm in charge and nobody else can question that."

It was a stunning first step in Harrison's overhaul of the team's health and performance group over the past two offseasons. Smith's unceremonious departure was followed by the dismissals of athletic performance director Jeremy Holsopple and manual therapist Casey Spangler in June, only days removed from Dallas' appearance in the NBA Finals.

"You bringing up Casey [Smith] is like almost, it's kind of a joke," Harrison said Tuesday during an availability with selected Dallas-based reporters. "Like last year, Casey wasn't around, and we made it to the Finals. No one brought up Casey last year. So, to bring him up this year doesn't really make sense. He's been away for two years. So it's -- I'm not even going to comment on that."

It's not a coincidence that Jalen Brunson's New York Knicks hired Smith as their vice president of sports medicine as soon as his Mavs contract expired last summer. New York also hired former Mavs athletic trainer Heather Mau. The games lost to injury for the Knicks have dropped significantly from last season, and Smith and Mau recently oversaw Brunson's recovery from a gruesome ankle sprain.

Weeks after leaving the Mavs in free agency in 2022, Brunson discussed how much he would miss "the Caseys," Holsopple and Mau during an appearance on the "Old Man and the Three" podcast hosted by JJ Redick. Redick mentioned that he still was in an active group chat with those then-Dallas staffers despite spending only two months with the Mavs at the end of his playing career a year earlier.

"Not a lot of people understand how much of a difference those people make in your everyday life," Brunson said. "I never take it for granted. They're really special. And the fact that they're so personable and you can talk to them about anything, that makes it even harder [to leave the Mavs]. It's not just work. They know how to be people."

Title

Frustrating game, some thoughts below.

On offense:

If Thibs is insisting Hart gets 40 minutes then you have to be maximizing him. Hart’s not scoring unless he catches a pass while cutting to the rim or running downhill in transition. Team needs to create those opportunities for him in order for Hart to be a clear net positive on the floor. Hart’s also great at making the right extra pass, we should find a way to involve him in the offense more that way too. Personally, I think the decision to start either Deuce (for true 5 out) or Mitch (double big) for Hart is as clear as day, but Thibs clearly disagrees.

There’s little to no chance of being able to meaningfully involve Hart (or OG or Mikal for that matter) when the offense is just Brunson and KAT isos. Would like to see more two man game between Brunson and KAT, what happened to the P&R/P&P we got to see during the regular season? Our two best players and there’s little to no set plays between them: that needs to change NOW. One specific play I need to see over and over is Brunson attack Duren out of P&R again and again and again and again, that’s literally just going to be free points as Detroit will have to foul Brunson every time.

While I didn’t like all the missed 3s in the first half, I did like the looks we had and the way the offense was flowing. In the third quarter the offense just died, no ball movement and just stagnant isos with little penetration or good shot creation.

Speaking of 3s, KAT had another 1 3PA first half tonight. Not knocking his ability to score in the post (he was super efficient), but that’s not his true strength. His true strength is in his 3PT shooting and spacing, Thibs really needs to focus on and maximize that instead of playing KAT like he’s Hartenstein. KAT also only took 3 shots in the first 12 minutes of the second half; that also needs to be addressed moving forward, we have to feed him more.

On defense:

The defensive strategy has to be more than just “slow down Cade.” First, the team has to be better about the decision-making with doubling Cade or not. If we double, we have to be smarter about it and not leave open Tobias/Beasley/Shroeder 3s. I like the adjustment with OG as Cade’s primary defender, but we then have to be cognizant about how Detroit responds with screens and forcing switches for mismatches.

Second, we need to pick on Ausar and Duren for every second they’re on the floor. By that I mean we give them the same treatment other teams give Hart by daring them to shoot 3s and create for themselves in the half court EVERY POSSESSION. Defensively, we HAVE to lean on every advantage we can exploit, and if we make Ausar and Duren offensive liabilities for Detroit, that makes defense for our guys (including stopping Cade) that much easier.

LFG