Tag: Amar’e Stoudemire

The Free Fall Continues – Pacers Hammer Knicks 125-91

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This team, man. What else is there to say? All-Star Break, sufficient rest, and the Knicks still delivered one of their worst all-around performances for the year. Having now lost four of their last five games and just a half-game removed from third place, now is the time to be very concerned about where the Knicks are headed over the second half of the season.

 

PUTRID OFFENSE AND DEFENSE: The Pacers are known for their phenomenal defense but also for their struggles to score. In fact, they are one of the lower teams in the league when it comes to scoring. Last night you’d have no clue as damn near the entire team lit up the Knicks to the tune of 53% shooting and over 100 points while still in the third quarter.

The Pacers were getting open treys at will since the Knick guards couldn’t fight through picks to close out. It’s become a tradition as of late to have some unheralded guard drop a career or season high against the Knicks, and last night it was Orlando Johnson (8 pts, 2-2 from downtown) and Sam Young (7 pts) — the latter could be seen slamming home windmill dunks in the fourth.

The Knicks offense (33.7% shooting) was pathetic with zero ball movement and hoping for Melo to be hot (he wasn’t). Melo went 7/21 for just 15 points and no one else stepped to fill the void except Tyson Chandler (19 pts, 11 rebounds), who got 11 of his points at the line. Amar’e Stoudemire had 7 points and just one field goal as he struggled to handle Tyler Hansborough and was nearly ejected for yelling at a ref.

Raymond Felton tried (12 pts) to make things happen, but the pick and roll with Chandler was well scouted and there was zero cutting from any of the players around him. The guards of Iman Shumpert, Jason Kidd and JR Smith would go a combined 2-17 for just 9 points.

 

GAME ENDS IN THE 2ND QUARTER: This game didn’t feel promising from the outset. A four point deficit in the first felt like 10 the way the offense was going. The Pacers bench took full advantage and outscored the Knicks 44-26 in the second quarter to take a 77-44 lead into halftime.

 

WOODSON REMAINS STUBBORN: Coach Woodson had a terse rebuttal when asked in the post-game if he’d consider changing the starting lineup. He said it was a matter of getting better, not changing lineups. Has Woody gone mad? Going back to when Felton went down with the hand injury, Kidd has been a disaster in the starting lineup. Over his last three games, he’s only made one shot and is getting torched on defense. Last night it was Lance Stephenson (14 pts) abusing him. And it was sad to see Iman Shumpert trying to be play small forward and at times having to body up much bigger guys like David West.

This lineup is not going to cut it. Woody’s love affair with Kidd will have this team looking at the fifth seed if this keeps up. First off, Kidd needs to be benched, Shumpert to shooting guard, Stat to power forward and Melo at the 3. We need as many offensive weapons as possible and as we’ve seen, just dropping it in to Melo will not suffice.

 

A MENTALITY OVERHAUL: For a team that likes to administer bully ball, they sure do not handle it well when a team gets physical with them. Once again, the Knicks resorted to whining (Stat), and cheap shots when the game got away from them. JR Smith got ejected for his shenanigans with Stephenson, and the team just seemed to literally bend over like we’ve seen far too many times this year.

We’ll see if this was a wake-up call on Friday when the Knicks look for revenge against the Toronto Raptors.

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[Video] Knicks 2/12/12 Practice Roundup: Chandler Banged Up, Energy and Focus High

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Coming off a very disappointing performance against the Clippers on Sunday, word is the Knicks had a great practice yesterday in preparation for tonight’s game against the Raptors. Tyson Chandler was apparently pulled early from practice because of soreness (it sounds in the below video that Woodson says it’s his ankle), but he’ll be playing tonight.

The Knicks are currently three games behind Miami for the #1 seed.

WOODSON

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STAT

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MELO TALKS WHITE AND NOVAK AT THE ALL-STAR GAME

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PRACTICE FOOTAGE

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[Video] A Bench Massarce: Clippers’ Second Unit Runs the Knicks Out of MSG

NBA: Los Angeles Clippers at New York Knicks

It was not a pleasant Sunday for the Knicks yesterday as a fourth quarter hammering (outscored 31-18) at the hands of the talented Los Angeles Clippers resulted in a bad 102-88 loss at home. The Knicks were never completely in sync throughout the game but had a slim lead to start the fourth before everything simply collapsed. Want to know what went wrong? Let’s start with what else but the perimeter defense…

 

CP3 FEASTS ON SHUMPERT: We’ve been begging for Shumpert to get moved off guarding small fowards to the guards that have been killing us in recent games. Well, Shumpert had no easier time stopping Paul, who drained several three-pointers off picks and got by Shumpert at will in the first quarter. Coach Woodson said Shumpert’s timing and lateral movement are still slowly coming back since his ACL tear, so we just had to live with CP3 going off, unfortunately.

 

USELESS DOUBLE-TEAMS AND SWITCHING: We’ve seen it every game. Our Knicks players end up switching defenders way too easily and we end up with a gross mismatch in someone like Tyson Chandler trying to guard Paul (that happened a few times yesterday). Or we double-team players that aren’t that big of a threat leading to open threes when we can’t rotate back soon enough. The most blatant example yesterday of a useless double was on players like Lamar Odom, who haven’t warranted that type of attention since 2010.

Still, a lot of this stems from the fact our guards can’t stay in front of their man.

 

CRAWFORD ON FIRE, SMITH ICE-COLD: The battle of best bench players in the NBA was definitively won by Crawford, who dropped 27 points on an array of long treys and circus shots in the paint. JR Smith was a woeful 1-9. And it wasn’t like it was the Clippers defense that kept JR in check — he bricked plenty wide open shots. We’ve come to expect these type of games from JR, but it’s a death sentence when he plays this bad and we also don’t get big contributions from Amar’e.

 

STAT STRUGGLES: Amar’e Stoudemire had his worst game since early January with 9 points and 6 rebounds. The Knicks had problems getting the ball to him in the second half. And defensively Stat missed a few assignments.

 

NOVAK EXPLOITED: Novak had another scoreless game and his defensive liabilities swung the momentum in the Clippers favor early in the fourth. The Knicks had a 73-71 lead and the Clippers went straight at Novak to kick off a 7-0 run. At times like this, it would have been better to go with Ronnie Brewer. It would have done nothing for the offense, but at least our defense would have vastly improved.

 

MELO’S 42 AND FELTON’S 20 WASTED: Melo and Felton were the only two that had energy and really seemed to want this game. Melo had an amazing first three quarters where he dropped 38 points. That worried me because he was carrying nearly all the offense (including an 18 point 3rd). We saw in the last game against Brooklyn he had nothing left in the fourth. While Grant Hill did a good job guarding him in the last quarter, I feel the real reason he only had 4 points was due to fatigue.

Felton suffered whiplash but toughed it out and did his best to try and contain Paul, who dropped back to back buckets (one of them a three-point play), to seal the game in the fourth 96-86 with just a few minutes remaining.

 

HORRID REBOUNDING:  The Knicks gave up way too many offensive boards but this isn’t on Chandler, who have 11 rebounds and several tip-outs. Melo even contributed 8 rebounds. With Camby and Wallace out, other players have to crash the boards. In recent games, we’ve seen Shumpert and SMith do this. Yesterday, they only had 4 rebounds combined. The Clippers nabbed 13 offensive rebounds and won the board battle 43-35.

 

BENCH SLAUGHTER: How badly did the Clippers bench outplay the Knicks’s second unit? How about a scoring edge of 48-15. Only one Clippers bench player, Ryan Hollins, failed to score. Our bench had no scoring outside of Stat and JR, who combined for 15 points.

JR Smith went on Twitter yesterday and called Wednesday’s home game against the Raptors a must-win. Let’s pray the whole team brings that mentality to the Garden.

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[Video] Didn’t Need to be This Hard: Melo’s 36 Points Help Knicks Escape Wolves 100-94

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This was way harder then it needed to be. With a little less than seven minutes in the game, the Knicks were down 11 points (76-87) to the lowly Timberwolves. Their guards, whether it was Luke Ridnour or Ricky Rubio, were looking like superstars blowing by Knick defenders. The prospect of back to back losses to sub. 500 teams had most Knick fans on Twitter going irate. Thankfully, the Knickstape woke up and did what they should have done all game in executing defensive stops.

 

MELO CARRIES THE LOAD: With the team dead in the water on offense and defense, Carmelo Anthony had to work through his shooting struggles to create something. Although he would take 26 shots, Melo found fire in the 4th to the tune of 12 points, including a game-sealing 20 foot jumper in the final minute. Melo was also strong on the boards with nine rebounds.

 

MORE STAT PLEASE: Amar’e Stoudemire went 5-7 from the field for 11 points. The Wolves tried to play him physical and got a few turnovers, but we would’ve have been wise to go into the post more, especially that atrocious third quarter that saw us get outscored 18-31. However, we have to remember that Coach Woodson is big on defense and the lapses made by Stat at times did him no favors. Not to mention, Stat got a stupid technical for ref complaining at the beginning of the fourth. Stat had another nice block (he’s been getting at least one per game), but Woody and the rest of the coaching staff have to realize playing Stat and Novak together creates too many defensive liabilities when our guards keep getting beat.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n9P52d4kvU&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

 

WHERE ART THOU PERIMETER DEFENSE?: This is the biggest problem with our defense and frankly I don’t know for sure what’s the solution. We had better defense with Ronnie Brewer starting, but suffered on offense and constantly had to fight out of deficits after the first quarter. With Kidd starting, we get better offense (sometimes), but can’t keep the other guards out the paint. Felton has been back for 8 games and Iman Shumpert 11, so in theory we should still be giving them some slack about getting back into the swing of things (especially Shumpert coming off ACL surgery). But with February being very favorable schedule-wise, we cannot afford to be dropping games to trash teams. Leave that nonsense to the Nets (ha!).

One lineup we haven’t seen recently is Felton and Shumpert in the backcourt, Brewer at the 3, Melo at power forward and Chandler at the 5. But even this is problematic as Shumpert and Brewer struggle to finish at the rim and Shump’s 3 in not a consistent threat at this point. *Sigh* When are Marcus Camby and Rasheed Wallace coming back again?

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2aQdA7Yecs&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

Knicks Complete Perfect Home Stand with 99-85 Win Over Pistons

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Five and counting! The Knicks extended their winning streak to five games last night with a dominating 99-85 win over the Pistons. The Knicks are back to what they were doing in November and early December in destroying teams that aren’t on their talent level. Onto the game’s notable points.

 

NO FIRST QUARTER SLUMP: There was no slow start in this one as the Knicks held the Pistons to just 13 points, a record for their season thus far. Detroit was being out-hustled to every ball and their frontcourt of Andre Drummon and Jason Maxiell struggled to score over Tyson Chandler (a combined 4 points and 7 rebounds). The Knicks shooting was erratic (at times under 40%), but the defense and offensive rebounding gave them plenty of opportunities to the tune of six treys to take a 28-13 lead.

 

THE GAME ENDS: You know a team is doing well when they can laugh about an airball free throw (courtesy of JR Smith). Much to Coach Woodson’s chagrin, the team decided to turn this into a pickup game in spots with JR chucking threes and the team trying wild alley oops. However, the Pistons couldn’t take advantage with JR and Tyson crashing the boards and Novak getting hot from downtown. The half would end with the Knicks holding a 57-36 lead.

 

SECOND HALF SLOPPINESS: The Knicks mentally were clearly elsewhere no matter how much Woody yelled and glared. Chandler got lazy on defense and gave up easy layups to Drummond and Calderon early in the third. Melo, who had 19 points in the first half, also started slow in picking up his third and fourth fouls. Still, this is the lowly Pistons we’re talking about, and they could only get as close as 70-54 before some timely hoops by Stoudemire and Chandler helped to push the lead back up to 20 (76-56).

 

NOT MUCH REST: Since he was not pleased with the effort, it seems like Woody left the starters in for the fourth quarter to prove a point. The offense got bogged down in isolation ball for Melo and long JR treys. On defense, NY started getting beat a lot backdoor by speedy Detroit guards like Will Bynum. Nonetheless, three-pointers by Smith and Novak effectively iced the game at 91-75, and the starters were pulled at the 1:31 mark.

 

CHANDLER’ HISTORICAL MARK: Tyson Chandler had his third consecutive game with 20 rebounds, being the first Knicks player to do since Willis Reed 43 years. With the Wizards coming up next, he may just set a  new record.

 

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[Video] The Buck Stops Here: New York Knicks Defense Stifles Milwaukee 96-86

 

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“If we played like this for entire games, we’d be #1 in the league.” – JR SMITH

 

J.R. Smith is a wise man. While New York had a underwhelming first half in terms of offensive and defensive cohesion, there were a few things the team did good that served them well in a second half that culminated in a fantastic fourth quarter that saw the Bucks held to just 13 points. This was a game the Knicks couldn’t afford to drop and NY has now put themselves in position tonight to overtake Miami as the #1 team in the East.

 

BUCKS HOT 3 POINT SHOOTING: The Knicks did an excellent job in keeping the explosive backcourt of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis under wraps in the first half. Problem was they couldn’t completely control the three-point shooting (6-13) helmed by Mike Dunleavy and Ersan Ilyasova. At one point their team was shooting over 60% from downtown, but the Knicks would go on a 10-0 late in the second to get it close and only be down 53-47 at halftime.

 

THE STAT N’ TYSON SHOW: Melo had 25 points but it was a very rough night shooting (7-22) and when it came to decision-making (season high 7 turnovers).  However, our Big Three frontcourt showed its versatility with Tyson Chandler being an absolute terror on the boards (20 rebounds) and Stoudemire continuing to put that Hakeem Olajuwon camp money to good use by living in the post and contributing 17 points, 7 rebounds and 1 block in 24 minutes.

 

3RD QUARTER WAKE-UP: After the Bucks reeled off six-straight points in the third to go up by 12, the Knicks finally woke up for good. JR Smith would drill back to back three-pointers as part of a 10-0 New York run to pull within two. The Bucks would go on a 7-0 run to get some breathing room at 66-59, but the Knicks would outscore them 27-20 in the quarter to take a slim 74-73 lead into the fourth.

 

4TH QUARTER FINISH: The Bucks couldn’t buy a bucket in the final 12 minutes as their shooting dipped to 39%. Prigioni drew a crafty offensive foul on Dunleavy early on and Stoudemire continued to feast in the post. Iman Shumpert, who got burned backdoor on a few plays, got aggressive in causing two deflections and finishing two tough layups inside. The Bucks kept fighting, but two threes courtesy of Raymond Felton and Shumpert closed the book on this giving the Knicks a 92-81 lead with just a few minutes left.

After that heart-breaking game-winner the Kings pulled on the Knicks in December, New York should have revenge on their minds later tonight.

 

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[Video] One for History: Melo Sets Knicks Record in 113-97 Win Over Magic

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We started slow but ended strong at Madison Square Garden last night as the New York Knicks notched their third win over the Orlando Magic this season. Our prolific scoring leader Carmelo Anthony had a “quiet” scoring night by his standards with 20 points, but it was enough to put him alone in Knicks history with 30 consecutive games of 20 points or better, surpassing Richie Guerin’s 51 year record. With the rough month that’s been January, the Knicks showed improvements in crucial areas in the second half that will hopefully translate into additional easy wins during a favorable February schedule. Onto the game’s notable points.

 

MAGIC GUARDS ON FIRE: Once again, poor Raymond Felton found himself getting lit up by the opposing team’s point guard. Jameer Nelson went at Felton from the outset and got deep into the lane at will (19 points in the first half). Iman Shumpert fared no better in attempting to guard J.J. Redick, who drained numerous three-pointers for a 17 point first half.

Coach Woodson was irate at the defense which had the Magic shooting 63% at one point and the Magic guards accounting for 46  of the 51 first half points. Thankfully, the Knicks shooting was equally as hot with guys like Shumpert hitting their own threes and Tyson Chandler establishing his offense down low, which keep the game even after the first (31 all) and second (51 all) quarters.

 

PRIGIONI LEADS CHARGE: Pablo Prigioni once again provided a huge spark off the bench. He was aggressive looking for his shot (11 points, 9 from downtown), which forced the guards to stay with him on pick n’ rolls and allowed Amar’e Stoudemire to feat at the rim.

 

FRONTCOURT EFFICIENCY: We’re finally starting to see how devastating our Big Three frontcourt of Melo, Stat and Tyson can be. The trio shot a combined 25-35 from the field for 55 points, nabbed 18 rebounds (7 offensive), 11 assists and 3 blocks. Stat in particular went 7-7 (14 points) from the field and Chandler (21 points) really opened up the offense by driving to the basket and even shooting a jumper. And with the additional offense, Melo was able to be much more efficient and ease back on the Iso ball.

[youtube http://youtu.be/x1XXeFHdTI4]

 

DEFENSE STILL WINS GAMES: Even with the offense flowing in the second half, it was the defense that closed this one out. Jameer Nelson finished with 21 points but only 2 came in the second half. Redick had a game-high 29 points, but found it much more difficult to get open down the stretch. The Magic would end up shooting 46% compared to the Knicks 57%.

 

NOVAK FINDS HIS SHOT: Steve Novak had been in a bad shooting slump the last few games and finally opened up, albeit mostly in garbage time. Novah had 8 points but nailed two long three-pointers which we can only hope will get him going.

 

MELO NEW RECORD: Richie Guerin set the Knicks record of 29 straight games of 20 points or better back in the 1961-1962 season. Melo’s 20 points last night was his 30th to set the new mark, much to the happiness of the the now 80 year old Guerin, retired in Florida.

 

The Knicks will look to hold off our Friday night curse when we face the Bucks at home tomorrow.

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RICHIE GUERIN MIX

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Ran Off the Court: Sixers Rout Knicks 97-80

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The hell with this game. That was my thoughts just a few minutes into the third quarter when the Sixers extended their lead to 20-plus and it became obvious the Knicks had completely phoned it in. How bad was it? Melo, Shumpert and JR shot a combined 9-42. The team well into the third was shooting 32%. The lane was wide open for any Sixer player that wanted an easy bucket *stares at Tyson Chandler*. Jrue Holiday abused a returning Raymond Felton (and anyone else that tried to guard him, for that matter), to the tune of 35 points.

The sole bright spot for the Knicks was Amar’e Stoudemire got going for his first 20 point game and played decent defense. Other than that, the Knicks are lucky that the Bulls and Nets also dropped games allowing NY to keep their tenuous #2 spot in the East.

All in all, it was an absolutely disgraceful night of basketball. The Knicks better had redemption on the mind today when they face the Hawks on ESPN.

Rusty Stat and Defense-Phobic Knicks Fall to Blazers105-100

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It was the start of a New Year, but the ugly trends that marred the end of 2012 reared their ugly heads again in the form of bad defense and rebounding. These factors are the main reason the Knicks are on a two-game skid and now 2 games behind Miami and just one more loss removed from the third seed.  It’s looking like some serious changes might have to be made before we face off against San Antonio tomorrow.

OUR STARTING LINEUP DIGS ANOTHER HOLE: The defense and rebounding was very bad to start this game. How bad? How about the Blazers outrebounding the Knicks 14-5 in the first quarter with 8 of them coming on the offensive glass! We had nothing going to the basket and our jumpers, even the open ones, were not falling. The Blazers shot 52% in the first half and the only reason their lead was only 11 at the half was due to Melo’s literally carrying the entire offensive load on his back, including a desperation heave three-pointer before halftime. Might be time to start JR as we can’t keep trying to overcome these first half deficits with late game heroics.

MELO’AND JR CAN’T DO IT ALONE: Melo had 45 points in this game with 24 of it coming in the first half. He had some nice three-pointers and his outside jumper was working well.  JR didn’t have the best shooting night, but he was very active all over the court in contributing 28 points, 11 rebounds (team high), 5 assists and 3 steals. Outside of these two, the rest of the team might as well have continued celebrating New Year’s are they only combined for 24 points! Outside of Melo, the starting lineup only had 15 points the entire game (10 for Tyson and 5 for Brewer).

IT”S GOING TO BE A LONG MONTH: Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni have more than proven their value to this team over the last two months. But without Felton, we’re seeing the limits of their abilities. The younger guards of the league have been blowing by them at will which puts more pressure on Chandler and our also thin front line. Damian Lillard had 21 points and Nicolas Batum was the latest player to come into the Garden and go off, dropping 26 points and going 6-7 from downtown. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do but gut it out over the next month. Iman Shumpert’s return will help a lot, but everything can’t be put on him as he’s returning from major surgery. Which leads me to my next point…

GIVE AMAR’E TIME: Stat made his return last night and got a very nice standing ovation. After that there was a lot of struggling on the offensive and defensive end. Stat managed 6 points, missing his first 5 shots, getting beat backdoor by the likes of JJ Hickson, and missing two key free thorws down the stretch. With all that said, Stat did show glimpses of good things to come in working a nice pick and roll with Prigioni and getting a monster block and later a facial. It’s going to take a lot of time, probably after the All-Star break, before we see any semblance of the old Stat, but he’s sorely needed.

MORE CAMBY AGAINST BIG FRONTCOURTS: Camby held up well in the limited minutes he had last night. While he’s not a scoring threat, his presence is sorely needed when we have to deal with large frontcourts. We made nice run when he was paired up front with Chandler.

Happy New Year! Amar’e Stoudemire to Make 1/1/13 Debut Against Trailblazers

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Knicks co-captain Amar’e Stoudemire will make his long-awaited season debut tonight at Madison Square Garden against the Portland Trailblazers.

Stoudemire had been sidelined the entire season after undergoing a left knee debridement procedure in October. He completed his first scrimmage on December 19 and completed a full contact practice with no problems.

Stoudemire is expected to come off the bench for the forseeable future, manning a formidable second unit with the team’s second leading scorer, JR Smith.

Source: Yahoo Sports

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A low-post presence? More rebounding? Scoring help? Stat’s return couldn’t have come at a better time with Melo and Sheed questionable for tonight. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Stat has a monster game to start his season off right. I know for sure the Garden will give him a thunderous ovation. Once Shumpert is back, the circle will be complete.