Knicks Culture Is the New “Heat Culture” | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Knicks Culture Is the New “Heat Culture” | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Here’s my question for you the Knicks are 11- two in January in the last 16 Games first in defensive rating by like a mile like they are theyve been the best defensive team now for more than a month is Nicks culture the new heat culture because the heat the heat got

Annihilated tonight by Boston now granted you know whatever it’s the heat it’s the regular season but the Knicks have done their own version of what the heat did the type of players the heat Target and go after the type of people they put together and the Knicks have

Basically said to everybody like you have to be able to play defense to play for the Knicks yeah you have to play hard and you just have to be diving for balls and you be able to switch and just fight and if you can’t do that you’re

Not playing so they added OG they’re 11 and two in January they feel like they’re a trade away from being kind of a nightmare firstr opponent and I’m starting I have Nicks fans in my life who are beaten down who don’t want to believe who don’t want

To get sucked in and all them are like I really like this team I really like where this is going I am super happy as a mick fan right now where do you stand I think they’re a trade away from being something much more dangerous but they’re already a nightmare firstr

Opponent this is a team that no one should want to play in the regular season or the playoffs because the Knicks I think what their what their defining characteristic is is they do not [ __ ] around they show up they play hard they have intense Focus they don’t

Give you things and yeah there’s some times where their offense like kind of spins its wheels or it’s like a little too much Julius Randall time or maybe a little undersized on the perimeter with some of their groups but they give a [ __ ] in a league where there’s like a

Lot of unserious teams in the regular season and you could see it in this one that the Nuggets were not prepared for this level of physicality in a random January regular season game even during rivalry week registered trademark I don’t know what the Nuggets Nicks rivalry is but there must be one

Somewhere on the books nuggets Nick let me think yeah no I’m out of ideas I don’t know how that nuget nuggets at the end of a road trip and it was like one of the they were like in the pickup game where there was that one guy on the

Other team trying too hard and guarding everybody full court and they’re like dude I’m hung over can you leave me alone well that guy was ogan anobi and I think he’s gonna be in Jamaal Murray’s nightmares for a really long time like he he is such a big part of how the

Knicks physicality can just rock you on your axis as a team yeah and i’ I’ve been thinking about this too with with the way defense is afficiated right now and just how the way offense is exploding the real defensive difference makers they just feel immensely valuable

In even Far and Away than they did before Far and Away more than they did before and it might only be like three or four guys in terms of perimeter players who can actually do stuff like this and I think OG is clearly one of them he can neutralize a matchup he can

Zero out a player as dangerous as Jamal Murray and if you you can get one of those guys or develop one of those guys that is a transformational experience for your team so that’s why the Knicks were good and they were competent but now they’re really dangerous they’re a

Team that if you’re a contender and you see the Knicks as your first-r opponent they could ruin your season really easily even if they themselves aren’t necessarily a favorite or or you know co-favorite to win the title we did the didn’t we do the uh I

Came on were you on that pod yeah yeah the emergency trade pod the emergency pod it was me and barrier right absolutely and we all liked the trade for the Knicks and we all thought OG was the best part in the trade and we all thought the theory of the trade we

Liked since we did that pot I I think the trade has turned out way better than I thought and I think the thing that I don’t think we none of us gave enough credit to is like you’re kind of wasting that dude on like a 500 team or a team

That you know doesn’t have that this kind of identity now he just makes sense on this team you think about him in the playoffs I think one of the things that’s scary about them is pick pick the the team you could probably throw OG at whoever the problem is yeah like could

He guard embiid in a series like I think he actually could Tatum Brown um nobody guards Jan Giannis but he could at least try to take TR take uh you know charges from him Miami you could throw him on anyone on that team you go down the line

So now now that they have that I want to know what the next trade is because they have to trade fornier now they’re pretty close and fornier is making 18 they can get to basically 20 22 24 in a trade and get one more guy but for me it has to be

A guy that fits into what they’ve created yeah like it can’t be like oh we can finally we have a we have a mulligan here we can acquire a Zack LaVine we can get away with one guy who doesn’t play defense I don’t think they want to be

That way I think they wanna from what I’ve seen what with tibs and tibs seem super happy the look on his face when he sat down at the press conference tonight it was like it was like the serial killer at the end of the movie about to give his monologue

In the interrogation room that’s end of the fer miniseries yeah I this is the team he wants so anyone else they trade for I think has to come in and have that same kind of intensity I maybe it’s de jante Murray I don’t know I don’t he’s another

One that I wonder in the Ron atmosphere could he rekindle some of the defense we saw from him in San T we’ve not seen in Atlanta but um they’re clearly going to make a make a deal I think the crowd really helps too for the type of team

They have and I’m I think I’m gonna go next week next weekend because we’re in New York for the rewatchables the live show and they’re playing the Lakers on Saturday I want to see it I want to you know I’ve seen that crowd in various stages of uh e either just complete

Sadness bitterness or kind of like over hopefulness based that compared to what the actual product is but they’re just dying to have a team they like and it seems like they like this team Rando is The X Factor yeah it can be a he can be

A lot but in games like this he’s flexing on Nicole yic getting putbacks right like when he when his game is properly aligned and relatively imbalanced we know who he can be when he’s just hitting every jumper that’s great but it’s more about like the replicability of how physical he can be

How dominant he can be going to the basket in addition to that kind of uh yo-yoing pull on a defense from being able to shoot so if he can do a little of all those things and Jaylen Brunson has just been such an efficient driver of that offense so good at getting into

The lane creating problems and also another one of these guys who’s just a really successful emerging three-point shooter at at pretty good volume this season they’re so dangerous they’re they’re they’re really hard to play even apparently when they’re down to their third string Center you know Jericho

Sims is out there giving Nicole yic the best he’s got and that’s good enough to win by nearly 40 points and some precious precious is getting thrown out there here precious little Silence of Lamb’s action right now the Knicks are fourth that would put them in a a

Cleveland Nick series that I’m not sure I want rather either yeah yeah I think we should shake the snow globe on that one but um it would be really fun if Philly had just bounce back a tiny bit and all of the sudden Cleveland kept ascending and then we could just get

Nicks Phil in round one with just an absolute shitload of Pressure

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to discuss the Knicks’ dominant defense and OG Anunoby seeming like a perfect fit.

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