Posting and Toasting

Open Playoff Thread: 5/17/12

2012-05-17T22:15:02Z

Evening, pugs! We've got a Game Three and a Game Two to watch tonight. I'll be watching as much as I can, and I hope you'll be watching along with me. Here's a schedule of the games to watch and the blogs at which you can read about them:

7:00: ESPN: Miami Heat (Peninsula Is Mightier) vs. Indiana Pacers (Indy Cornrows)- Game Three (Tied 1-1)

9:30: ESPN: Los Angeles Clippers (Clips Nation) vs. San Antonio Spurs (Pounding the Rock)- Game Two (Spurs lead 1-0)

Games. Cool. Also, if you're interested, I'll be on the WCWP Sportswire (as I am every week) at 6:30 tonight. I've been exchanging texts with the hosts this afternoon and we agree that there's very little to talk about...so it should be a great one!

Anyway, comment here if you're watching the games, check out those blogs, and please don't post links to illegal streams or streams of illegal links.

Thursday Rainforest Rocket Frogs

2012-05-17T20:13:27Z

Photo: Dirk van der Made

Good afternoon, children! How's work/school/shouting at ducks at the park going today? Want to take a break and look at some Knicks links? I've just a few for you to look at before we turn our attention to tonight's playoff games. Yump.

- Rocket frogs qualify fall into the "poison dart frog" category, but apparently aren't poisonous. Weak.

- Hey now, J.R. Smith!

- Our friend StarksMiddleFinger wisely added "You. Us. We Now." to this list of terrible NBA slogans.

- The folks at Bullets Forever be scoutin' Landry Fields. They don't sound too thrilled with the guy.

- From yesterday: You did it Glen Grunwald! Sixth-best GM!

- I'm perfectly happy to wait and see what happens and just can't bring myself to delve into the financial specifics (especially when there's so much still in question) but Dan from the Knicks FanBlog assures us that there's no way the Knicks are letting Jeremy Lin go. I have no idea. I can wait.

- Patrick Ewing finally had a job interview today. With the Bobcats, but still, good for Patrick! By the way: "intervi-Ewing"! Crazy, right?

That's all! Playoff thread later. <3

A "Big Fish" Update

2012-05-17T13:56:35Z

No matter what happens with this union arbitration stuff, the Knicks are going to have to fill out their roster with some minimum contracts. It's just a matter of whether it's several minimummies or like seven of 'em. This past season, Glen Grunwald did a pretty splendid job of acquiring useful players cheaply and creatively. That'll be the task again this summer, and Grun Daddy is bound to turn his gaze overseas at some point. You may recall that, along with Tyson Chandler, the Knicks acquired the rights to two bros playing in Europe. One, Georgios Printezis of Greece, hit a game-winner (over Andrei Kirilenko!) the other day to win Olympiakos the Euroleague championship. I hadn't really thought about "The Big Fish" (I assume people call him this because he brags about not crying during that movie) until Knicks Bricks mentioned him the other day. Those guys supposed that the Knicks wouldn't have the means to REEL him in, and that does seem to be the case. From Marc Berman of the Post:

Printezis is a free agent and likely has earned a significant contract from Olympiakos, one of Europe’s deepest-pocketed teams.

The Knicks believe he could make a good NBA reserve, but would only have the rookie minimum to offer Printezis — because they do not want to use risk a portion of their $5M mid-level exception.

The dilemma is they can’t even bring him in for July’s summer league in Las Vegas to work with him and get a good look. Printezis, a gritty forward who can rebound, penetrate and shoot, is on the Greek National Team vying for the London Olympics. Greece will play in the final Olympic qualifier in early July in Venezeula as heavy favorites to make it to the London Games.

"He’s playing the best ball of his life,’’ said an NBA executive who saw him play during the Euro-league. "The NBA has always been on his mind, but he would need a long-term commitment. He wouldn’t just come for one year.’’

Yeah, so that probably isn't happening. I just did a bit of research to see how the other Chandler trade throw-in, Ahmad Nivins, is doing, and this is all I found. Here's a translated sentence from that article:

It is true that the last great too successful operation ended after the serious injury of Ahmad Nivins not really adapted to the Spanish basketball.

So, maybe not that guy either. Oh well. I'd be totally in favor of another Timofey Mozgov-like signing where they just pluck some adorable European youngster we've never heard of out of the blue. Go get 'em, Rev Grun!

Open Playoff Thread: 5/16/12

2012-05-16T22:39:33Z

Evening, internet friends! It's almost seven of the clock, which means it's almost time for another evening of Knicks-free playoff basketball. Seeing the Sixers and Pacers make legitimate series out of their match-ups with the Celtics and the suddenly depleted Heat sure has been fun, hasn't it? I want very badly for Miami and Boston to lose, but watching them fold in their respective Games Two made me feel more than a little bitter. I spat on the floor once or twice. Anyway, part of that experience continues tonight. Here are the games and SB Nation blogs about the teams in those games:

7:00: TNT- Boston Celtics (Celtics Blog) vs. Philadelphia 76ers (Liberty Ballers)- Series is tied 1-1

9:30: TNT: Los Angeles Lakers (Silver Screen and Roll) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Welcome to Loud City)- Thunder lead 1-0

Games! Comment along here if you're watching, check out the blogs, and be kind to one another and everybody and animals and plants and most inanimate objects.

What was the Knicks' best win of the year?

2012-05-16T17:57:17Z

It's a quiet day, so I figure now's a good time to have this talk. Oh, no! Not like a "talk". Just a fun little discussion. Relax. The Knicks won 36 games this season. I spent the last little while combing through the recaps and threads and determined that quite a few of those wins were easy/uninteresting or embarrassingly close ones over bad teams. A handful of them, though, were real keepers. Of those, which was the greatest?

Will Leitch made his Top Ten list a couple weeks ago. As I told him initially, I liked his choices, but disagreed with his pick for number one, the Valentine's Day win over the Raptors on Jeremy Lin's big-balled three. That, to me, was a great shot (following a great pick and coast-to-coast finish by Iman Shumpert) to close an otherwise uninspiring game for Lin and the Knicks. Jared Zwerling followed up with his top ten moments today, including a few games. His are in chronological order, though, and he didn't pick a favorite win.

Anyway, here (in chronological order) are the games I think might contend for Win of the Year. The links will take you to the recaps of those games, so you can go back and see how we were feeling (and the foolish, hopelessly wrong things we said) after each win.

12/25: Carmelo Anthony was cookin' soup to start the season and led the Knicks to a narrow opening day defeat of the Celtics. Iman Shumpert and Jared Jeffries got hurt, though.

1/11: This was one of the few games I missed this season (Osborn did the recap), but I understand this defensive win over the Sixers was a great one.

2/4: The original Jeremy Lin game. He locked down Deron Williams, went bananas off the dribble, and started the craziest two weeks ever.

2/7: Melo went down in the first quarter and we were all like "welp, there goes that", but then we got the Lin Game Part Deux (with help from Steve Novak and Jared Jeffries).

2/10: I think this might be my choice. This is the "Linsanity" win over the Lakers. After Kobe Bryant pretended he didn't know about Jer-bear, Jer-bear went and torched L.A. with drives to the basket and some of the best outside shooting we ever saw from him.

2/14: The aforementioned "Linsanity" Raptors game. It was part of that road trip in which the Knicks got two ugly, improbable wins (the other one over Minnesota) to keep the streak alive.

2/19: The "Linsanity" Mavs game. He tore apart a Dallas defense designed to stop him. This was also the game in which Steve Novak exploded in the second half.

2/29: The Knicks played like shit in the first half against the Cavaliers, but lost their damn minds in the second half and ended up blowing them out. This one included Novak cookin' soup and two of the best alley-oops of the season.

3/26: Right after Amar'e Stoudemire and Jeremy Lin went down, the Knicks had a crucial but hopeless-seeming match-up with the Bucks. It was hideous, but they got a huge win that gave them a huge boost toward reaching the playoffs. (I suppose you could argue that reaching the playoffs was a huge mistake, but...)

3/28: Tyson Chandler shut down Dwight Howard, Melo and Shump played terrifically, and the Knicks climbed above .500 for the first time in a while by just peeing on the Orlando Magic. At the time, this felt like the best win of the year, but that was right when the Magic started falling apart. Plus, the Knicks went and thumped them again a week later.

4/8: Melo was cookin' soup again and hit those huge threes in regulation and overtime (after the Bulls missed some crucial free throws) to give the Knicks the win over Derrick Rose and the Bulls in the first of a back-to-back (they'd go on to lose the second game sans Rose).

4/17: The Knicks hit all of the three-pointers and beat the Celtics by double digits. I was at that game and it felt gooooood.

5/6: The Knicks won a playoff game.

Oddly, nothing from the post-D'Antoni win streak really stands out to me (though I guess those back-to-back Indiana wins were pretty great). Am I missing anything? If not, which one was the best? Reminisce! Comment! Vote! Skip school!

Open Playoff Thread: 5/15/12

2012-05-15T22:15:17Z

Happy Quince de Mayo, children! Welcome to another night of non-Knicks playoff basketball here at Posting and Toasting, a members-only web forum for Knicks fans and reptiles. There are two lovely games for us to watch tonight. Here they are, along with the blogs at which you'll find the most writing about them:

7:00: TNT: Indiana Pacers (Indy Cornrows) vs. Miami Heat (Peninsula Is Mightier)-- Game Two (Heat lead 1-0)

9:30: TNT: Los Angeles Clippers (Clips Nation) vs. San Antonio Spurs (Pounding the Rock)-- Game One

Those are the basketball games. You can talk about them here or at the blogs I linked above. You can also talk about carrots or carrot cake or pictures of carrots or movies about carrots or whatever you want here (but probably not at the blogs I linked above). Please don't post links to illegal streams of the games or of carrots or anything. Thank you.

The last "Knicks Power Rankings" of the year.

2012-05-15T21:41:33Z

The last "Knicks Power Rankings" of the year.

"The Yearbook".

Iman Shumpert Won Rookie of the Year According to One Person!

2012-05-15T15:02:22Z

Kyrie Irving officially won Rookie of the Year today. He deserved it. Here, via The Sporting News, is the full voting for R of the Y:

Rookie, Team 1st 2nd 3rd Total

Kyrie Irving, Cleveland 117 2 1 592

Ricky Rubio, Minnesota - 49 23 170

Kenneth Faried, Denver 1 30 34 129

Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio 1 9 15 47

Iman Shumpert, New York 1 7 7 33

Klay Thompson, Golden State - 5 15 30

Isaiah Thomas, Sacramento - 6 10 28

Brandon Knight, Detroit - 6 3 21

Chandler Parsons, Houston - 3 5 14

MarShon Brooks, New Jersey - 1 1 4

Kemba Walker, Charlotte - - 3 3

Josh Selby, Memphis - - 1

Somebody voted Shump for Rookie of the Year! I want to know who it was so, so badly. REVEAL YOURSELF, HERO! The basketball community at large will shun you for your impertinence, but we at P&T will happily give you asylum. Also, whoever gave a third-place vote to Josh Selby (the same person, perhaps? Wait, did Carmelo Anthony get a vote??) can come hang out as well. Must be a lovely individual. Oh, and shame on everybody for giving zero votes to Josh Harrellson and Jerome Jordan. Did you voters not watch the April 26th Knicks-Bobcats game?

Get better, Shump.