Tuesday Rufous Motmots

Hi! Hello. Welcome to Tuesday afternoon. The Knicks play their second game against the Pacers tonight and it is a Very Important Game. We'll talk more directly about that game in a few hours. For now, a few links from this uneasy period between Games 1 and 2.

- Motmots are South and Central American kingfisher relatives with nice pointy beaks, colorful feathers, and (in most cases) cool tail-rackets for communicating with one another. I'm partial to this Rufous Motmot, but they come in all different colors. I want to breed a Motmot with a Hoopoe.

- Steve Novak's back is still an issue, but he sounds surprisingly hopeful about tonight. I'm...kinda hoping he doesn't play much either way. I prefer Chris Copeland in there.

- After the 3-on-3 stuff yesterday, it sounds like Amar'e Stoudemire will go 5-on-5 later this week.

- As a few of you pointed out, the totally unnecessary weirdness surrounding Bernard King's constructive, innocuous Twitter posts (Bernard, it was obviously you. It's okay.) is the Knicks at their very Knicks-iest. That they interfered with King posting stuff mildly critical of Carmelo Anthony while having no apparent problem with Larry Johnson's homophobic tweets a few weeks ago just makes the whole thing Knicksier. None of this matters, I suppose. It's just funny to me.

- This is revolting, incredibly disappointing news. This matters.

- This is a very important, indispensable Iman Shumpert .gif.

- Jason Kidd SAYS he's confident, but he certainly doesn't look it out there. It consistently feels like he's passing up good shots for bad ones.

- The Knicks are one of several teams perfectly willing to send mice into the...hice.

- Alan Hahn mulls Carmelo Anthony's off-ness following a long stretch in which he was unquestionably on.

- And here's Amar'e Stoudemire's explanation for why you only occasionally see him on the bench.

- David Crockett's adjustment suggestions for Game 2.

- Danny Chau's D.J. Augustin-Travis Best comparison made me a little queasy yesterday. (I originally typed "queasty", which is one of my grossest-sounding typos yet).

- Lots of interesting notes from Zach Lowe's report on Game 1, including Roy Hibbert's position creeping (by request) farther away from the rim during the game.

- From a little bit ago, but the Knicks' analysis of Mike Woodson's beard, as told to our beloved Knicks kid reporters, is excellent. J.R. Smith wins this one.

- I enjoyed this Chris Herring tweet.

- Chris Smith, still around.

- A plea for the Knicks to not try to out-Pacer the Pacers. (And another). Agreed here.

Those are the links! Have a pleasant afternoon. I'll be back soon. Dune.

UPDATE: Two additions: 1. Melo's clothes-picker. 2. Herring's look at how the Pacers contained Melo despite his underpants being so carefully selected.