SU watched the Knicks’ game last night and clearly, Mike Brown screwed up with the lineups in the 4th quarter. He has the analytics to know that the Knicks are better with either KAT or Brunson on the court. Sitting both of them at the same time was not ideal and the lead that they had built after 3 quarters quickly evaporated.

Contrary to the NBC broadcast, they did not have a timeout at the end of the game and Bridges did well to advance the ball up the court but should have driven to the basket to get the foul call. But SU says you never blame a player for the game if he misses the last shot. Should not have come down to that – do not hate on Bridges.

But here is the issue for SU. In both game 1 and this game, they built a nice lead playing more or less a team style offense. However, in both games, they resorted to the hero ball, slow down offense with Brunson dribbling, dribbling, dribbling and then forcing up some high degree of difficulty shot as the 24-second clock ran down. They blew a big lead on Saturday doing that and same thing this game. Atlanta, to their credit, started to double him late in the shot clock and forced up difficult shots.

I know Brunson is “Captain Clutch” and all of that. He is a great crunch time player but mix it up please. Others are open and can play. There are stretches with the 2nd unit where the ball really moves and they are running. Atlanta certainly wants the fast pace.

This is the Knicks year to get to the finals. It won’t be easy as Boston in the 2nd round will be tough. Atlanta clearly has confidence now and they have some athletic, young talent. CJ McCollum has been good but SU says he can also put up a 5 for 24 game in game 3 – he has done that his whole career. Runs hot and cold. He has been killing Brunson and the Knicks have some good defenders – make the change there.

A long way to go but Knick fans still have PTSD from the Pacers loss in game 1 last year. Buckle up.

And speaking of bad, how about those Mets? Losing 11 in a row is pretty uncommon these days for any team. SU is sure they will right the ship and of course, we are still in April. Mendoza is a good manager and they should not think he is the reason they are losing here.

Finally, Ben Rice is the man. Surely Aaron Boone will see that and keep him in the lineup every game instead of overthinking the matchups with lefties. Of course, SU is not so sure. Yankees’ bullpen is not good but you have to figure Cashman was planning to move some starters into the pen once Cole and Rodon came back. Or maybe he just screwed up. The good news is that it’s always easy to pick up relievers at the trade deadline. The Yankees are not world beaters but the AL is medicore and no excuses this year.