Thursday Black-billed Magpies

Good morning! I find myself enjoying this bit of peace between playoff games, and I hope you and the Knicks are, too. I'm sure there'll be pre-Game 3 news in the near future, but until then, here are some links I've collected over the last few days.

- Magpies aren't that exciting-- and especially not the black-billed species that lives out West-- but I had a dream last night that a bunch of magpies were attacking me and I grabbed one by the beak and accidentally broke the beak when it tried to fly away. I feel bad, so this is my peace offering to the magpie community. I guess this would be a bad time to note that, when we were little, my brother and I called black-billed magpies "tree penguins". They'd probably find that racist. Sorry, magpies.

- There's a We'll Always Have Linsanity book reading on Saturday! I won't be able to attend, but some of the other bros will and they are fine bros.

- There have been a lot of IS J.R. SMITH GONNA GET HIS MINUTES REDUCED!?!?! headlines, but Mike Woodson didn't quite announce that. He just suggested that, yeah, if J.R. keeps playing poorly, he might redistribute some of his minutes. We'll see. Of course, the real guy to seek for comment is J.R.'s dad, who gave some typically defensive quotes about J.R.'s recent play and his nighttime habits. Please just start hitting shots, J.R. That would solve everything.

- It's worth noting that J.R. himself called his shot "lost", and may have messed his back up a little bit on Tuesday. I hope both issues are remedied by Saturday.

- Incidentally, our in-game lip-reading of Woodson's J.R. admonishment was on-point. That was a silly technical after what should have been a great play.

- Beckley Mason wrote a great thing on the Knicks' more aggressive, more cohesive defense in Game 2. You saw them finishing stops they couldn't quite complete in the previous game. Here's Coach Nick's breakdown of said defense in the fourth quarter.

- Chris Herring investigates Pablo Prigioni's on-court influence on Carmelo Anthony. Spoiler: It is a very good influence, because Pablo is only capable of wonderful things.

- Iman Shumpert, on playing away: "I like when people boo me." <3 <3 <3 <3

- And here's Nephew Shumpert saying "Knickstape", just because.

- We haven't gotten a real update on Amar'e Stoudemire in the last day or two, but Game 3 is still the target. We'll know much more tomorrow, probably. No matter what happens, it won't be a long spin, just a few minutes to see what's what.

- Not only does Jared Wade give us some great Pacers perspective on what happened in Game 2 (Edit: That piece is by Jon Washburn), he helps us affirm the Knicks' superiority over the Miami Heat. See? They're clearly better.

- This Kevin Lincoln piece on Jason Kidd's utter inability/unwillingness to score in recent games was written before Game 2. I wish it were obsolete now, but it is not.

- I can attest that Knicks media guides do not look nearly as spiffy as they did in the early '90s (via NBA Offseason).

That's all for now. Game 3 is Saturday at 8. Game 4 was just announced as Tuesday at 7. (On that note: If anyone wants Aziz Ansari tickets in Albany Tuesday night, get at me. I don't know why you would, since you're all Knicks fans, but...maybe a friend does?). More updates as they come!