NEW YORK — Cam Reddish’s first appearance in a Knicks jersey “should be any day now,” coach Tom Thibodeau said Thursday. That day wasn't Thursday night’s matchup against the Pelicans, which Reddish missed alongside Nerlens Noel. But the new trade acquisition is “pretty close” to returning from his ankle injury, according to Thibodeau.
Reddish re-aggravated the ankle on Jan. 9 in what would be his final game with the Hawks. Four days later, Atlanta dealt him to New York for a first-round pick and lottery bust Kevin Knox, who played three minutes in his Hawks debut on Wednesday night.
The Knicks have a glut at Reddish’s position on the wing, and Thibodeau has previously said that the third-year player will have to earn his minutes when he’s healthy. He praised Reddish’s work ethic on Thursday. “He’s learning what we’re doing, so that takes a little time,” Thibodeau said. “But we love his size. He’s been terrific. He comes in early, he studies, he works hard. He’s doing all the right things, which is the first step.”
BS in NY?
With the NBA trade deadline three weeks away on Feb. 10, Sixers general manager Daryl Morey cracked open the door to dealing Ben Simmons before then. Morey openly lowered his price for the mercurial bricklayer in an interview with a Philadelphia radio station. “Because Joel’s been playing amazing,” he said the day after Embiid dropped 50 points in 27 minutes, “now we might be able to do it with a top-40 player who’s a great fit.”
The Knicks reportedly have internal interest in Simmons, but there are multiple high barriers to acquiring him. Before Thursday, it was unclear if they even had the assets to meet Philly’s asking price, and even less clear if doing so would be a good idea. And Simmons was unvaccinated as of December, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which would leave him ineligible to play in New York. Still, Simmons is a stellar defender, and Morey could grow desperate to improve around Embiid while the center is healthy and having an MVP-caliber season.
Even as he slapped a “30% OFF” sticker on Simmons, though, Morey tried to take a hard line on trading him, calling a pre-deadline deal “less likely than likely.”
Rose-y outlook
Derrick Rose was eighth among Eastern Conference guards in fan voting for the All-Star game, according to totals released by the league Thursday. Rose was the only Knick in the top 10 of voting for guards or forwards; he hasn’t played since Dec. 12 because of an ankle injury. He had surgery on Dec. 22 that the team said at the time would keep him out for eight weeks.
Rose was working out on the court before Thursday night’s game. “He can spot shoot, but that’s basically about it,” Thibodeau said. “He’s right on schedule for where we thought he would be.”
Defending the defense
The Knicks have, according to nearly all metrics, improved on defense recently — a stretch that coincides with five wins in eight games — but Thibodeau said that he believes those metrics have been unfair to his team. “You look at the markers that are important to me, it’s points allowed, points in the paint, your transition points, your rebound margin — those things have been good all season long,” he said Thursday in an expansive answer about what the defensive guru values on that end of the court. “Sometimes I think there’s a premium put on steals. ...Teams that are high steals have a high defensive rating, but they’re not good defensively. They can turn you over, but the rest of the defense isn’t there, so it’s high-risk, high-reward. It seems to be that defensive rating is slanted toward that.
“So I look more at containment of the ball, moving around flight of the ball, are we keeping the ball out of the paint, are we challenging the shot correctly? Are we protecting our basket in transition? Those are the things that I look at.”
