Pacers, Knicks have a Ton to Work Through / Malone Calls Out Nuggs

and it's piping hot. Anthony, my man, drop that motherfucking beat that should be Rihanna. Okay, suppose they giving episode as a check. We got to get into everything we can't, Dottle. Let's start in the Midwest city that I just visited, Indianapolis. Man. The Pacers are a team, honestly, truthfully, very near and dear to my heart. We haven't spent enough time talking about them this season, and I think, full disclosure, it's because I just didn't want to address it, you know,

like I'm fully ready to disclose. As you guys have known before, I am partial to the Pacers, not because just because I'm tight with some of the folks in the front office, but I like this team. I root for this team. They have transformed the team over the last few years in a way that I'm rooting for. But this season just doesn't look the same. It is wonky,

and I hate having to say that it's wonky. They are four and seven in their last eleven games, and three of those wins are against the Blazers, the Pelicans, and the Wizards. That's not exactly a murderers Rose, folks. So let's get into what I think has gone wrong. There are long stretches where I don't even recognize this Pacers team on the court compared to last season. And I'm not just talking about the fact that Tyrese Haliburton clearly still isn't right, who, like everyone else in the

NBA media space, has mentioned he's in a slump. We know that. I honestly think it's just an injury thing. I think that hamstring is not fully healed. Either he can't trust it or there's some sort of kickup that he's dealing with that nobody knows about that he's not talking about. But the entire team though as a whole

is functioning completely differently. A friend of show that we had on last season, Samson Folk, he had a great breakdown of the Pacers last week and he called the Indiana Pacers bizarro, which I think kind of hits the nail on the head. They are biz They are bizarro. I have another word that I want to use, schizophrenic. I'm not a doctor, okay, Like I can't not someone who has the right to diagnose a team with a mental ill like that their identity is a mental illness.

But it really all works out in the same In the end, the team is acting strange, weird, erratic. Folk wrote the following, The team is playing differently. Performances look different, worse, they look worse, and even the things that have gone well have gone well in such a way that it still looks unfamiliar to me. As much as I don't want to, we got to talk about Halle first, because the Pacers kind of start and stop with him. Everything about Halle since he came back from the injury has

been off. He's a step slower, his passes lagsing, his shots seems short. Remember this man was was averaging like twelve assists a game. There were times where he was getting twenty assists the game against the Pelicans. Notwithstanding, he just doesn't look that confident at times and important times. Remember, at this point in time last year, the Pacers looked like they were gonna win the NBA Cup. They beat

the Bucks multiple times. They were one of the fastest teams in the league in terms of pace of play, and this identity doesn't really look the same. Pacers fans hoped that Hallie's performance against New Orleans was gonna be the turnaround game, right. He had nine threes in that game, But then in Sunday's game against Memphis, he had eight, two and seven in thirty seven minutes, shooting thirty percent

from the field. That is just really bad. Guys, we can't You can't have your star point guard, the guy that's like an extension of the front office, the dude that was averaging like twenty something points, twelve assists, six rebounds, go eight too and seven against Memphis. I think the issue too, is like on the road, we only have like a eleven game sample, but the home and a waste splits for Halle are bizarre. At at the field House, he is averaging twenty three points a game, forty eight

percent from the field, sixty four percent true shooting. In ten games. Away he is averaging twelve points a game, thirty two percent shooting, forty three percent true shooting in eleven games. What's going on there? What is happening?

The massive drop in production underscores a huge dark cloud hanging over Indiana this season. To me, that offensive production for Hallie is down twenty percent across the board, and that GAP's not being filled anywhere else. And then you've got Pascal Siakam, who again I love Pascal. He had an incredible first year in India, which is why he got the bag. And now this season, he's acting different. As Samson pointed out in the twenty twenty two playoffs,

Siakam drove the ball nineteen times per game. This year, he's driving eight times per game. Some of this is natural progression and an evolution of his game, but some of it is just because he seems less aggressive on offense than he used to be. He's settling for threes in a way that he hasn't since Toronto won the championship,

and to be fair, he is shooting really well. But the problem is, just like Haliburton, his overall production is down since last year, particularly rebounding the ball, where he's down nearly twenty percent from his seven point eight rebounds per game last year. He has been their best player, but once again, those statistical dips, no one else is picking up that. It's not like oh Obi Toppins rebounds

are up forty percent because he's grabbing the rebounds. The pascal is not the five percent drop in scoring, the twenty percent drop in rebounds, the seventy seventy five percent drop in block shots. Those numbers add up for a team struggling to reach five hundred in a week. East The Pacers as a whole are averaging nine points less per game over last year as a team, which is even worse considering that they're still in the bottom ten for defensive rating. They finished last year in six words

in the league, which was fine. It was fine because it was like the Pacers will give up one thirty and they'll put up one forty, you know, and almost two thirds of those missing nine points come from Halle and Siakam and their drop in production. I think also the Pacers are playing down to their competition. They have a forty percent winning percentage against teams under five hundred. That is gross. They play five hundred against teams above that mark. I think we need to start thinking about

what's up. They better get it right fast because beginning December nineteenth, they have a stretch of fourteen games, twelve of which are teams in playoff positions. They play Boston Wolf, Cleveland Wolf, Golden State, and Phoenix twice during that stretch. Wolf.

They are at nine and twelve right now, eighth place in the East, and by the grace of the basketball gods who smited the East this year, I don't know what to say, because the East is very weak, and if you're eighth right now in a conference where, oh boy, the Pacers basically with the same record as the Detroit Pistons and the Brookly Nets. We are having real problems right now, Pacers nine and twelve, Piston's nine and thirteen. There's a log jam sitting there right below the heat. Ugh.

Hopefully Halliburton is gonna get right healthy wise, Hopefully his mentals are great. I see him watching a lot of games with Caitlyn Clark, and so I think he's fine. But I think that there's more to it than maybe we know, considering that his explosiveness is not there, because the Pacers are gonna need Halle to be himself from last year, and they're gonna need that very fast moving on.

I've been skeptical about the New York Knicks since the Karl Anthony Towns trade this season, and I I think mckelbridge is notwithstanding, because he's a whole different ballgame and he's horrible. He's still horrible. Checking in on the McHale Bridge's stuff because we talked about it, like a couple of weeks ago, Josh Hart came out and it's like, I don't care if we gave up thirteen picks for his first round, picks for him if we win a championship.

It's all good. But like all the numbers still for Michel Bridges are awful, so mikel Bridge is notwithstanding. I think that the Knicks have turned a corner. I am readyish to say the Karl Anthony Towns trade again. Trading Dante DiVincenzo was tough, but I think it fucking is working. And I think appreciating the twenty four to twenty five Knicks will require me to sort of and I still, cause you can hear it, I'm hesitant. You know, this is not the Knicks. You're just somebody that I used

to know kind of stuff. This is not the Knicks that I used to know. They're They're not the defensive monster that carried them all last year where it was like ninety seven to nine. No. I think this next team, I don't know Tibbs is changing, is going to be defined by their offense, and I think that has to do everything with Carl Anthony Towns. Karl Anthony Towns comes in and just completely changes the dynamics of this team. And not only is he averaging twenty five points per game,

he's pulling down thirteen boards. He's shooting this is disgusting. He's shooting forty six percent from three and continues to stretch the floor in ways that they will never and never even dreamed of getting from Julius Randall. In fact, right now, Minnesota is running into a lot of the same problems that the Knicks did with Julius Randall on the court, and it's kind of turning it to a little bit of an issue there in terms of the

friction that Aunt Edwards talks about. So we'll get into that later this week as we break down the Wolves. And yes, we know this Karl Anthony Towns is a below average defender, but so is Julius Randall. And the way he opens up offensive games though of the other four starters, has just changed everything with this next team. Ogananobi, who I've been telling doubters not to sleep on. I've said his role in Toronto was not indicative of him as a player, and people said, I don't think that's true.

Ogan Andobi averaging career high seventeen point four points per game. He just put up forty, by the way, the other day, forty five and four career high against the Nuggets. Josh Hart scoring up sixty percent from last year to fourteen points per game. Over fourteen points per game, this is the most the Josh Hart has averaged since when he played with my Portland Trailblazers and we had no one

in twenty one twenty two. And although Jalen Brunston's scoring twenty five points per game, down from almost twenty nine points a game last season, that's kind of a good thing. Let's be honest, we don't need Jalen Brunson playing hero ball every single night. He has another assassin with them in Karl Anthony Towns, and that makes life a lot

easier for everybody, including Jalen Brunson short King. And that's why despite the fact that his scoring is down about twelve percent from last year, he is a sister of sixteen percent. So I think all this is why the next lead in the NBA the season in offensive rating with an insane one twenty one point one, which is kind of nuts because last year when Karl Anthony Towns played for the Timberwolves, the Timberwolves were number one in defense,

kind of middle of the road in offense. Now he comes to the Knicks and now they're the number one offensive team. The most telling stat I think is their assistant turnover ratio, which is two point two, tied for Boston for best in the league. They just moved the ball really well. This is just not what we're used to seeing from the Knicks, which, let's be honest, watching the Knicks crawl their way up to like fourth in the East last year, a lot of those games were

really hard to watch. They were tough watches. This is much more fun basketball. Their sixth and rebound percentage sixth, then turnover percentage, second in effective field goal and troop shooting percentage, all while playing at the second slowest pace in the league. Slow move the ball, do do do do do do? Ye still say things, some things stay the same, but I think Tibbs ball has been redefined.

We are seeing the Knick score over one hundred and forty points per game, causing the Nuggets to absolutely melt down in a postgame presser. That is a tribute to Cat and Thibodeaux, who have a history together in Minnesota, who has very clearly adjusted his coaching philosophy to take into account what Cat does now, who can shoot fifty percent from deep the wild thing though they are winning in a year where the defense has just been god awful, so not TIBs Tips was just like fuck it, let's

go with Vibes. The Knixt defensive rating right now is twenty second at one hundred and fourteen point six. Last season it was ninth at one twelve point four. I think some of that's probably due to the fact that they just can't defend the paint at all. Some people made hay out of the fact that at one point opponents teams against Cat were shoot thirty two for thirty five. Wow, like ninety percent against Cat in the paint. But I think there's just Kat's not a legit center. He's a

He's a big right. Things are gonna change a lot when Mitchell Robinson returns. The offense might dip a little bit. Maybe they'll go and get somebody like Rob Williams. But a lot of this also falls on mckill Bridges, who, let's be real, is supposed to be the point of attack defender on the wing and he went from being an all defensive player to just I think a statue in New York. His defensive rating is one eighteen point two right now, which it was one oh nine point

six in Phoenix in twenty one twenty two. That is a long way away from one oh nine point six. He's shown some signs of coming alive. But listen, we need Michale Bridges to be who we thought he would be when we traded for him, or I don't know what to say. You know what's funny is it's kind of like the Knicks are the Pacers of last year, winning games just because they just shoot the leather off the ball. They shoot the sides off the barn, and

then they outlast teams just because they can hit these shots. Late, New York has won eight of their last ten games. They look like a team that's gonna be able to go to the Eastern Conference Finals maybe in May. Are they better than the Celtics and the Cavs. I don't know actually about that, but with an offense like this, they they can take any one of those teams far into a series and give those teams all that they

can handle. If you look at their blowout win against Denver a week ago, you will you will see what scares other teams about New York. The Knicks scored seventy six points. In the first half. Like we saw last year, the Knicks score seventy six in a full game. In a full game, keep in mind in their last game, the Knicks held New Orleans to twenty eight points in the first half and just eighty five total points. The Knick shot sixty one percent against Denver from the floor

and fifty three percent from three. That's very Celtics like. They dished out a franchise tying record of forty five assists. Kat had thirty fifteen rebounds, four assists. Brunson had seventeen assists to go along with his twenty three points, and like I told you, Og forty points. Josh Hart was the low man with the starters with twelve points, but he was he shot one hundred percent from the field. I literally saw like who is Cam? Because I was

looking on Twitter Cam eleven points? Who the fuck is Cam? Campaign? Campaign had eleven points in eighteen minutes. Kind of cute for Michael Bridges to play with this former teammate campaign and a team high plus twenty one net rating against a pretty solid Nuggets team. The Knicks are dangerous. They even got Nuggets coach Michael Don't call me Mike Malone freaking out on the microphone is what he said.

a long season. Guys have lives outside of basketball. We just beat La in LA. We've got some guys that live in LA. And like I said, I don't think the focus was there from anybody. And that's just what happens when you don't have focus. Let's just be honest. We went to Delilah. We went back to our Delilah's a club and bar loungey thing in LA where all the fucking athletes and paparazzi's out and you just kind

of parlay. So they went there wherever at the like cute spots they went at after the game, They got dinner, they got bottle service, they were feeling themselves, other people were feeling on them. They went back to their pads and they were hungover. They went back to Denver, got back to the altitude, and they got fucked up. Basically, that's what happened. And that's pretty much what he said. As one Nuggets writer said, it was a tone deaf

comment as you can find anywhere in the league. Yes, remember Jamal Murray, same guy partying at UFC three to nine in New York City until the wee hours flew back in the morning to Memphis to play the grizz had was six for fifteen shooting in a game he had six turnovers, twice as many as anyone else in

a team that they probably should have been beating. You can't fly back to Memphis at nine in the morning on game day, shit the bed against a worse team, then call out your teammates and probably yourself for partying in la ah the Nuggets anyway, as I said earlier on the season, the team is just cooked if your role players aren't gonna do anything for Yokich, and Yokic is just gonna have to be an MVP All World player in order for you to even be possibly in games.

That's crazy. Also, Michael Porter Jr. Who I call mediocre Porter Junr. His offense has actually been pretty good. He's averaging the most points per game for him since twenty twenty one. But listen, like Jamal Murray has to be better. The burden is on Jamal Murray. You cannot rely on Peyton Watson giving you buckets off the bench. You need Jamal Murray to be scoring thirty Since that game Denver be a tanking Jazz team, as you'd expect, but dropped

another winnable game against the Clippers. They are currently tied for ninth in a loaded West. I said it, I told you, I said this team is gonna be a play in team. I said it. Remember just Trista Criek before the season like even started. This is loaded and the Nuggets are fucked. Anyway, Rubber meets the road for Denver soon. They're gonna need to figure it out. They're gonna need to make some moves before the deadline. Guys, the clock is ticking. They should go get Jeremy Grant

from the Blazers. Give us somebody young, get somebody young. We'll get some picks, maybe one pick, and then, like you, guys can reunite him because he's he would really help them. Anyway, let's move on some quick news from around the league. I mentioned last episode that there is trouble brewing in the Zion camp. When is there not? Right? Like they're not Zion man. We will begin with as we usually do, a health update, and according to Sean Shranya, Zion is

quote not close to a return to the court. I really hoped that I was wrong about Zion. I really hoped after last year where he played seventy games. That the he's in the best shape of his life. He's not gonna have the injury bug anymore, and that would be kind of behind him. That is not the case. We are seeing that that is definitely not the case. He's now gone through multiple treatments for his left handy, none of which are proving successful. That's bad. Hamstring's very

important for explosion. That's kind of Zion's thing. He's now had two PRP injections. Let me tell you about PRP. Okay, I know you don't want this, but I'm giving it to you anyway. It's a thick fucking needle pause, like really thick, and it takes the blood from your knee or your ankle. I don't know where the PRP sh injection. I'm assuming his knee PRP injections. They put it in

your knee, they take a shitload of blood out. Then they put it into what's called a centerfuge, which spins your blood around, supposed to get the white blood cells fucking active like they've been on patron sipping on trome bomb bomb bomb, you know, so you're white blood cells active. They then they inject it back into the spot where your injury is and it's supposed to create like a

better healing environment. Kobe Bryant did this in Germany back in the day because it because the United States didn't do it. Rehab usually starts four weeks after the shock. My man, Zion has now missed four weeks and we have no real positive updates. So from the sound of things, probably gonna be gone a Walt I swear. If you look at the Pelicans, there is no team that has

been injured more than them. They're in it's like it's like a COVID year, Remember when, like we would get guys rolling out the day of game and you're like, I've never heard of you. That's what we're doing right now. Pretty Much the entire team has been on injured reserve this the season already, which is why they're the worst team in the league. Have four and eighteen in the future, which once seems so bright for New Orleans, it's just filled with all dark and ominous clouds. Really good thing

you traded Dyson Daniels away. Uh. The first sign of an impending storm, though, is the fact that Zion has fired Cia, which is like the superagent you know his longtime agent. The rumor is that he fired them and his agent Austin Brown. Austin Austin couldn't get him to New York. Apparently that's the rumor, and he not only has made this clear that that was where he wanted to go, he wanted to go there before he ever got drafted to New Orleans. He was like, Yo, I

don't want to go to this place. Anthony Davis is seeking a trade right this very second. Why do I want to go there? That may have played some role on it, But the truth of the matter is he's probably fired his agency because they put that like crazy weight and health clause in his health contract in his contract, like I think they can cut him just the guaranteed part of his contract just doesn't exist. Based on his weight.

His weight in pounds in body fat percentage must be less than two ninety five and he must undergo multiple team monitor weigh ins throughout the year. The final three years of the deal now not guaranteed because he didn't play the remind required amount of games in twenty two to twenty three. That means they can just wave him after this year with like no financial penalty. Also by the way. Also, I don't think you can fire somebody for not getting you to New York when it's like

they don't want you. That's like the ship has passed. They thought about you, they coveted you, and then they saw, oh no, you can't stay healthy. You're not really a four, you're not really a five. You only go left, you don't play a lot of games, and like you're kind of whiny, and there's a lot off the court drama. So yeah, I don't the Knicks. How can you fix that if you're an agent Like the Knicks, they said no, like I'm sorry, they just don't want to do it.

Zion's injury this year and the fact that the Pelicans are so so bad I think has put a franchise at a crossroads. Now, Zion's gonna be with h w ME my Man Bill Duffy. Brandon Ingram is going to be signing with Clutch, which is wild, Like that's crazy, by the way, because brandon Ingram wants a super Max contract and he's not getting that. Shit is gonna get really ugly in New Orleans. I think brandon Ingram becomes a free agent after this year. Pelicans have been shopping him.

Nobody's been. Nobody's been saying, hey, I want that guy. And uh. Part of this is probably David Griffin's frugality. Like this is a team that's never been in the luxury tax, So it's not really David Griffin. It's the owner's it's the Saints team, right, Like the owners of the Pelicans are the same owners of the Saints. Woda Nation. It's one of those places that they really just care. Smoothie King Center playoff tickets were going for eight dollars

like court side, which is fucking nuts. I think that's like I think it was like twenty two dollars to be on the court. But a lot of this, I think is that teams look at Brandan Ingram and they're like, we don't know what we're gonna get from him. You know what, Brendon Ingram, are we gonna get? Which version he's looking for a MAX extension? Nobody's giving that to him. Teams are not gonna trade for him, knowing that he can walk after the season and what he wants, So

the Peals are gonna lose him for nothing. Most likely the Peals have their own draft pick this year. It's probably gonna be a high lottery pick. They also have Milwaukee's first rounder, which is protected five through thirty. Kind of nuts. Despite not being on the court, Zion has managed to remain in the public eye. By the way, he went public with a back tattoo. I just don't know what he's doing, do you know what I mean? Like, the problem with that is that you have to take

your shirt off to show the tattoo. And he honestly, they were showing all this food in the background too. They had like they're called hero shots. They had like these hero shots of food like chicken and waffles and wings and all this like super greasy stuff in the background while Zion's getting his back tattoo. And then like the back was like okay. Then he turned around and we saw the front and that's when shit got weird. He looked kind of like Bunny from the Mayor of

Kingstown more than he did. Zion's in the best shape of his life. He's ripped. He gains weight so fast. I promised I wouldn't make fun of it, but like, what's up. Goddamn it, Zion, you probably don't have to put yourself sure in four k you're doing it to yourself Zion anyway, I don't think Zion is gonna get cut by the Pelicans. I just think shit's gonna get weird.

I think it's gonna get awkward. The problem recently brought up by Hoopshype is that when polled, executives are now saying that the price that they would be willing to pay for Zion has now fallen to a single first rounder. Remember, like Portland was gonna trade for Zion to keep Dame. That would have been a disaster. A lot of people thought at one point Zion was like gonna commander Rudy Gobaert package of five to six first rounders. People thought

Zion was gonna be the next like Lebron James. So you've got the Pelicans now, who are four and eighteen, who have the worst record in the league. New Orleans is a hot mess, and I promise you it's gonna get a lot messier as the season progresses. We will

definitely be checking back on this sometime soon. That's all the time that we have this epio, so that he checked come up tomorrow for an all new Rookie report, and no Thursday for a rookie report and check out the feed for past episodes of many episodes which drop unexpectedly, like the touchdowns from Jayden Daniels Man. Jayden Daniels is good. He is special. I saw him up close. Do not forget the follow he checked throughout the season. That means download,

That means subscribe, That means tell your friends. Can we just tell our friends about the show? Listen, guys, tell your friends about I'm not joking. This isn't just like something I put at the end of the show every time. Tell your friends about the show. Please. If they like basketball, I think they'll like this show. Even the guy at the hotel free breakfast, eating like he's never seen food before, say, hey, you know you don't have to stack all the food

on the one plate. This isn't like a buffet where it's just how much ever you can fit into this. You can. You can go back and get more food. No need to stack four bagels on top of your waffles. Go listen to the eat check. Digest those nine thousand calories. Follow me on threads, Follow me on Twitter and on Instagram at Trista Crik, Trista Underscore Crick, and of course this heat Check on TikTok I'm moving soon. I need to make a studio, so when I do, they'll be

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