00:00The Knicks sitting at one and a half games behind the Celtics for the two seed.
00:04Mikel Bridges and this squad's got some work to do this weekend
00:08heading into the last two games of the road trip.
00:1116 games left on the season, ladies and gentlemen.
00:14So let's talk to Alex Tartaro, some Knicks fan TV, to get the vibes of the city.
00:19Alex, appreciate you hopping on with us early this morning, man.
00:22And then there were 16.
00:2416 games left for everyone on this squad to kind of get their stuff together,
00:29heading into the playoffs.
00:31It looks like Cat has gotten his stuff in line,
00:35but Mikel Bridges still has that question mark emoji around him
00:39when it comes to overall consistency.
00:41So I'm going to ask you, let's role play a little bit here.
00:44If you're Mike Brown, where's your confidence level at right now in Mikel?
00:49And where does it need to be at at the end of the season heading into the playoffs?
00:55So on a scale of a 1 to 10, it should probably be somewhere between a 6 and a 7.
00:59But where it should be, it should be around like 8 or 9, man.
01:02Because look, you don't necessarily need him to be like 100% confident in him
01:07because he is a play that oscillates between the 3rd and 4th option, right?
01:12We've seen him have good nights.
01:13We've seen him at OG have good nights.
01:15So they go back and forth.
01:16But I think the bigger thing is what we are expecting out of Mikel Bridges right now
01:21is a little bit more than that because for Cat,
01:23like even though Cat is playing efficiently,
01:26he's shown that he could be dominant on the boards.
01:28He still hasn't really been like that guy that we saw last year drop on like 25, 30 on the
01:34regular.
01:34So because of that, we're looking for more from OG Ananobi and Mikel Bridges.
01:38Now with regards to Mikel, he was brought in here to be the 3rd option.
01:43And for this stretch, man, it has been brutal.
01:47Absolutely brutal.
01:48I mean, if we just go look at these last games on the road trip, right?
01:52You talk about the 0 outing against the Lakers.
01:55You're talking about what else you got here.
01:57You got Clippers where he only had 7 points, 5 against Utah.
02:01You know, it's 9 against Denver.
02:04These are not numbers that you expect from your 3rd option
02:08when you traded 5 picks to bring him in here.
02:11Now, it's not his fault that 5 picks were traded for him.
02:13And the New York Knicks organization, Leon Rosen, the rest of the crew believed that he was worth that
02:17to bring him in here because they thought he was going to be one of the missing pieces
02:20to be an offensive producer as well as a defensive like Stallworth.
02:27And he hasn't really been giving you both of that, right?
02:29We've seen spurts where he's good defensively, spurts where we've seen him good offensively.
02:33He started off the year hot, but he's just been too inconsistent, man.
02:36And you can't have this when you're going into a postseason, you're looking at the Detroit Pistons,
02:40you're looking at the Boston Celtics who just got Jason Tatum back.
02:44He needs to be more than that.
02:45He needs to be that guy that we saw in that second round against the Boston Celtics last year.
02:50And he just quite frankly hasn't been doing that during this West Coast trip.
02:54All right, Coach Brown, keep your Coach Brown hat on, Alex,
02:58because we're going to role play a little bit here.
03:00All right, hypothetical.
03:01It's game 7 of a playoff game.
03:04We've got about 4 minutes left in the 4th quarter.
03:07It's crunch time.
03:09Who do you have in the game with Jalen Brunson and Cat?
03:12Is it Landry Schammett or is it Mikael Bridges?
03:17That's tough.
03:18As of right now, it'll probably be Landry Schammett.
03:20I mean, we've seen Mike Brown close with Landry Schammett.
03:24But like I said, man, that's right now.
03:26These last four games has not given me enough confidence to say,
03:30you know what, Mikael Bridges is going to be the guy closing for me.
03:33Could that change?
03:34Absolutely.
03:34And I'm sure the front office wants that to change.
03:36I'm sure Mike Brown wants that to change because you just gave this guy an extension.
03:41He's getting a lot of money in the upcoming years after this one.
03:44And we know that he has the capability of being a high producer offensively and defensively.
03:49He's not going to be a guy that just constantly locks down guys on the perimeter.
03:53We know that.
03:53But he's a guy that understands how to rotate.
03:56He's a guy who knows, understands how to jump passing lanes.
03:58He has a lot of good defensive traits to him.
04:01And because of his wingspan, you know, it makes it difficult for guys to really just like get passes or
04:06try to get around him.
04:07And we saw that when we, when we, when he played against the Celtics last year, right?
04:11But we can't live off the past.
04:13It has to be now.
04:14And so if you're going based on what we saw these last four games, no, I'm going to be closing
04:18with Landry Schammer because at least I know Landry's going to continue to fight around screens, try to stick with
04:22his guy.
04:23I mean, look, we give you go back to what Landry did against Aaron Gordon and the Denver Nuggets.
04:27He didn't back down.
04:28Aaron Gordon's a much bigger player.
04:30I'm going to rely on a guy like that.
04:31And Landry's been shooting well over 40% on less volume from downtown.
04:36So I'd probably go with Schammer right now to close, but it doesn't mean that Bridges can't get back into
04:40the good graces right now.
04:41But as of right now, Schammer's doing a better job.
04:44All right.
04:44They, they got Indiana tonight in Indianapolis, I guess.
04:49Kind of give us your road trip thoughts right now.
04:51What grade would you give the Knicks so far on this road trip?
04:54This West Coast road trip, like on a, for a letter grade, I'd probably give them B minus.
05:03The Denver Nuggets one was great.
05:04I know Jamal went out, Jamal Murray, that is, went out with an ankle injury, but I give it, but
05:08that was like fantastic.
05:09I'd give them a B minus because they had a winnable game against, uh, the Lakers.
05:14You gave us a fake Knicks comeback against the Clippers.
05:17And then you all gave us a heart attack against the Utah Jazz for three quarters.
05:20So not great.
05:22You should have, you know, really went out there and pulverized them considering that they're a team that's tanking and
05:27you allowed them to, you know, really take it the distance almost.
05:31But thank God they got the win.
05:32But I'll give them a B minus, man.
05:34It's got to be better than that, though.
05:35This West Coast trip was, Denver was hot, but the rest wasn't so great.
05:40All right.
05:40Third easiest schedule remaining for the Knicks.
05:43Boston has the third toughest.
05:45Knicks are one and a half games behind Boston for the two seed.
05:4916 games left in the season.
05:52Is the, for everything that I just mentioned, is the number two seed a must?
05:59I think it should be a must for the New York Knicks, Brendan.
06:03Like, this team has so much potential that they should go out there and want to get the second, like,
06:09the second best spot to have home court advantage.
06:12This team has done so well at home that I think they should really want to gun for that positioning.
06:18At the same time, I don't think they want to, like, take any chances of having to go against any
06:23team in the middle.
06:24It starts to get a little dicey.
06:25But, you know, I should also say at the same time, like, look at teams like Charlotte, who are a
06:30playing team right now, who are getting out at the right time.
06:32Maybe you don't want to necessarily see them and potentially go, like, to a six-game, like, matchup against them.
06:40I still think they beat the Hornets.
06:42I'm not necessarily worried about them.
06:43But, you know, they haven't really played them that much since they've been on this hot streak.
06:48So you may not want surprises.
06:49But I still think the Knicks should go out for the second seed just because you want to get home
06:53court advantage.
06:53This team has done such a good job this season playing at home.
06:58And while they're closer to a 500 record on the road, I think it makes all the much sense to
07:03be a team that gets home court advantage for this postseason.
07:05All right, Alex, thanks for waking up with us, man.
07:09Appreciate you as always, my man.
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