Knicks played the Timberwolves for the first time since their blockbuster offseason trade. The trade involved Karl Anthony-Towns traded for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo which I breakdown in this article. Randle, out of the three, was the only one not the play in the preseason game, leaving Donte's play to represent the value of trade. Even though the Wolves fell short Donte found himself in a rhythm and was fired up chirping with Rick Brunson, Jalen's dad. That's where the real story of this game is as the competitive play fired up Anthony Edwards as he seemed locked in from the jump hitting eight threes in twenty-seven minutes. Even when the starters were pulled out, as thats the preseason normality, the game was still competitive as the Knicks only won by five. The intensity didn't stop there. Rick and Donte continued to go back and forth as Donte was shaking previous teammates. Talks didn't escalate into anything and didn't really seem like they were going to escalate, but even so Timberwolves coaches moved Donte along to the locker room.
The Knicks, being the winners of this game, played some weird preseason basketball that felt like they were trying to acclimate the new guys. Josh Hart played twenty-five minutes and didn't even shoot the ball, which is why I felt like KAT thought he needed to really carry the offense shooting some ill-advised shots. He shot 5/13 Fg and 2/6 3 Pt. Same with the win against the Wizards where KAT shot 7/20 Fg 1/7 3 Pt alongside Hart shooting 0/2 Fg in the game. Yes, I understand that both of these games resulted in wins, and it's just preseason, but this gelling technique is frustrating to watch. I think it's an almost extremest way of Knicks offense as KAT is taking deeper threes than usual and even though Hart may not be a scorer, being a non-option is not going to help KAT find a fit with this team. On the flip-side, the rebounding of this team is very good and you can see the impact of KAT as he got 16 boards against the Wolves. I would like to see more actions where Brunson is an orchestrator not only get KAT better looks, but also new accusation Mikal Bridges. Where even Mikal's shooting has been off shooting back to back 1-4 3 Pt after changing his jumper in the offseason.
Bridges can be seen in numerous offseason workout videos where he appears to have a new hitch to his jumper. Many on the internet questioned it immediately and after some games it hasn't looked pretty. Anthony Edwards even noticed something's up, getting captured in an audio clip by @legendz_nba on X.
The Wolves approach to this game is how they should approach every game in this season. They first started the preseason without Edwards and let Rob Dillingham rock out and lead the offense dropping 21 points. Inb the second game they reintroduced Edwards into the lineup but gave him the same amount of minutes (24min) as Dillingham (23min). Dillingham, however, didn't perform at the same volume resulting in him getting end of game minutes in the Knicks game. Donte who's played all three preseason games really kicked it into gear against his former college teammates. Donte had 15 Pts, 7 Ast, 3 Reb and 1 steal in seventy-two minutes. Donte, even though clearly fired up for this game, never got out of his element, showcasing his catch and shoot ability and his off guard playmaking. Edwards fed off his teammates energy dropping 31points with 8 threes and really seemed engaged defensively.
My big takeaway from these teams preseason so far is that there is definitely something missing for the Timberwolves that I think Randle will solve resulting in some wins. For the Knicks, it shows me that their team isn't this "perfect" well rounded team. With Bridges shaky shooting I wonder how often both defensive wings can be out there especially with lineups with Hart who won't shoot. I do think the Knicks can find a balance but the preseason offense to me has been hard to watch.
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