NBA Summer League is a weird funhouse mirror. Excel there (like when Kevin Knox scored 29 points against the Lakers), and a player might be declared a franchise cornerstone. Drop a stinker (as Mohamed Diawara did yesterday, with seven points on 1-of-9 shooting), and some will call the player a bust. Both are overreactions\u2014but it is fair to admit that Mo disappointed us after signing a new 4-year, $11.2M contract this summer.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the Knicks opened Las Vegas Summer League with a 91-65 loss to the Nets on Friday night. New York actually competed well early, taking a slim lead after the first quarter. After halftime, the game unraveled. Brooklyn dominated the third period 30-9, turning a close contest into a runaway before cruising through the fourth to win 91-65.<\/p>\n
Pacome Dadiet logged 20 points and seven assists for the Knicks, and rookie sharpshooter Tyler Nickel impressed, scoring 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from deep. Brooklyn got 20 points apiece from M. Brown, Jr. and Egor Demin.<\/p>\n
The Knicks\u2019 summer coach, T.J. Saint, started Jaden Akins, Dillon Jones, Pacome Dadiet, Mohamed Diawara, and Liam Robbins. Dadiet has been a fixture of the Knicks G League team and the bench at MSG since being drafted in 2024. After scrimmaging in practice against the rotational Knicks for the past two years, we expected him to fare well against these junior Nets. As for Diawara and his -39 plus-minus rating, the less said, the better. Both he and Dadiet shot 1-of-7 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
The most pleasant surprise of the evening was Nickel. Coming off a standout senior season at Vanderbilt, the 6\u20198\u201d wing was drafted 47th by New York this summer. He was regarded as one of the best movement shooters of the draft crop. That skill was on display in Vegas, and we\u2019re excited to see more of it when he gets reps with the Westchester Knicks.<\/p>\n
Egor D\u00ebmin had a strong outing for the Nets, shooting 7-of-15 from the field while adding seven rebounds. He was aggressive attacking the rim and showed solid playmaking and efficiency as one of Brooklyn\u2019s standouts. Selected eighth overall by the Nets last year, D\u00ebmin enjoyed a promising rookie season, averaging 10.3 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.3 assists in 52 games (45 starts) before plantar fasciitis sidelined him. He\u2019s considered to be one of the key pieces in the Nets\u2019 rebuild.<\/p>\n
The Knicks continue their Summer League schedule tomorrow against the San Antonio Spurs. Who\u2019s betting that the Texans will want revenge for losing the Finals? Rest up, Knickerbockers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA Summer League is a weird funhouse mirror. Excel there (like when Kevin Knox scored 29 points against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[134565,355,99],"class_list":["post-755986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-knicks-scores","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}