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.
Last night, Carmelo Anthony appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to speak on the Knicks returning to the elite of the Eastern Conference, the All-Star break, and his number being retired by Syracuse University. Melo will be starting for the East during this weekend’s All-Star game.
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.
With the All-Star Break and trade deadline looming, Knicks coach Mike Woodson and team captain Carmelo Anthony spoke out against the rumors that guard Iman Shumpert will be traded.
News broke last week that the Knicks were interested in Suns player Jared Dudley and would consider dealing Shumpert for him. Anthony, who called the current Knicks team “the most talented” squad he’s ever played with, told the New York Post that the Knicks organization should not entertain any trades.
He [Shumpert] shouldn’t be worried about that. The Knicks shouldn’t even be in trade talks right now.
Coach Woodson echoed those sentiments, but stopped short of making a guarantee that Shumpert would definitely be staying.
I don’t think you can ever tell a player he’s not, that’s kind of out of my hands. If te owners came to me and said we have to do a deal, then you do the deal. I sat him and told him. He knows how I feel about him. We show him love and he’s a big part of what we’re doing. Those are just trade rumors.
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I wonder how much traction these rumors would be having if Shumpert did get torched by Chris Paul yesterday afternoon. Dudley would be a nice player to have, but he does nothing to fix our current biggest woe, which is perimeter defense. Shumpert is around 11 games back from an ACL tear; I’m fully confident that he’ll be close to the pesky defender he was in 2012 by the end of this season.
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.
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?
Looks like the Knicks needed another reminder that you can’t play zero defense and expect lower level teams to roll over for you. Coach Mike Woodson made it a point to say in the last game that although they blew out the Pistons, they were outplayed in the second half and lucky to have had a big cushion. The Knicks didn’t have that cushion tonight and paid dearly for it in the deciding quarter.
THE TREYS NEVER STOP: From the first quarter the Knicks had a horrible time defending the perimeter shooters and keeping John Wall out of the paint. Wall would blow by his man (in most cases Felton) and that lead to wide open threes for Trevor Ariza and Martell Webster, who would go a combined 10-16 from downtown.
WHEN DID WALL BECOME A SHOOTING THREAT?!: Everyone knows John Wall can’t shoot. Hell, it’s hard not to shoot bricks with him in NBA 2K with his sliders on 100. So why on earth were our guards playing him tight? That allowed him to attack the rim and then it seemed like our whole team collapsed allowing for wide open three pointers.
WASHED IN THE 4TH QUARTER: The Knicks took a 73-70 lead in the fourth which evaporated in a matter of seconds with Melo fouling Ariza on the perimter for a four-point play. The Wizards took advantage of unexcusably lax Knicks defense, which on multiple occassions saw them late to get set down the floor and give up dunks to Nene and drives to Wall. With them unable to get stops, the Knicks resorted to iso Melo ball and long stepback jumpers from JR Smith… you know how those turn out in the long run. The Wizards would go on to outscore the Knicks 36-23 to emphatically close the game.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE FEELING YOURSELF: The Knicks were able to turn it on at will the last two games against the Kings and Pistons. They came into D.C. feeling themselves and got a rude awakening of what happens when you play trash defense and have a lazy mentality for most of the game. Let’s hope this is a wake-up as the Knicks head to Minnesota to face the Timberwolves, another sub .500 team.
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.
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.
We’ve seen this scenario before. Just last month against the Sacramento Kings, we saw the ball get batted around and end up at the three-point line where we got our hearts broken. Deja vu looked to be in the cards as Josh Smith, who had swished a three earlier in the quarter, got a wide open look at the basket. Instead, the open shot careened off the rim and the Knicks overcame their bad defense to escape with a narrow 106-104 win.
I wouldn’t call this a good win; it was more of a relief when the final buzzer sounded. Onto the reason’s why.
BAD DEFENSE: From the opening tip, the lane stayed wide open and ATL’s Jeff Teague took full advantage of Raymond Felton to the tune of 18 first half points. Felton found his own jumper but couldn’t get any help defense and at times the game resembled a layup drill.
The Hawks would shoot 60% from the field and notch 50 points (!) in the paint. The Knicks continually shot themselves in the foot but having their inept defense eliminate their good offensive runs. At several points throughout the game, the Knicks would go on runs ranging from 16-0 to 7-0 only to have their work erased in a minute by giving up open 3s and layups.
Iman Shumpert was one of the few bright spots on defense in the first half by holding Kyle Krover, coming off 8 three-pointers in his last game against the Celtics, to just 1 point in the first half. For whatever reason, Coach Woodson didn’t play him much at all in the second half.
STOUDEMIRE GREAT ONCE AGAIN: Stat put up some excellent numbers again with 18 points on 6-9 shooting and 8 rebounds (4 offensive). With that type of output, we can live with the occasional blunders (3 turnovers) and bad fouls (4). Woodson knows this team’s future is dependent on the chemistry building between our Big Three and he wisely played them together down the stretch.
MELO ON FIRE: When he went 1-5 in the first quarter, I expected Melo to have a hard time dealing with Josh Smith for the rest of the night. That went out the window in the second quarter when Melo hit three straight from behind the arc (one damn near at half court). I was highly annoyed when he slammed the ball after getting poked in the eye which lead to a tech late in the fourth, but he immediately redeemed himself with the game-winning “And 1” drive on Josh Smith.
PRIGIONI AND SHUMPERT: Prigioni gave us 6 points (all from three) and 4 assists in 10 minutes which was essential early on in the second quarter. And although he didn’t get to contribute much in the second half, Shumpert provided 2 steals and 8 points in his 19 minutes.
Melo’s hero ball worked tonight, but let’s hope the offense gets more varied and in sync as the chemistry builds with Felton and Shump back on the court.
It was an ugly game on the offensive end, but a key JR Smith 3-pointer and two huge defensive stops on Paul Pierce allowed the Knicks to get their first win in Boston last night since November 2006. I was not in the mood to see another Pierce dagger jumper and thankfully JR saw to it that NY fans didn’t get another disappointing loss. Onto the game’s notable points.
MELO WAKES UP, BUT OFFENSE PROBLEMS PERSIST: Melo had a horrid first half going 4-13. It wasn’t all his fault either — the refs allowed him to get pounded down low and swallowed their whistles on several calls. To his credit, Melo keep his cool and picked up his aggression in the second half, finishing with 28 points and nailing a key three-pointer in the fourth to help push the lead to 10.
So why was the game so close in the end? There was way too much iso Melo in the last few possession with everyone just standing around. Yes, Melo is our best player, but let’s get some cuts to the basket to help him out. You could see in his body language that Melo was getting exasperated in continually getting the ball with the shot clock running down, which brings me to my next point…
STICK WITH KIDD OR GIVE PRIGIONI A SHOT?: PAblo Prigioni gave us good minutes last night. He got Stat going on some pick n’ rolls and hits two 3s to keep the defense honest. I understand that Coach Woodson has a lot of faith in Jason Kidd — who can forget his early season heroics, especially in the San Antonio and Brooklyn comeback games? Nonetheless, the season is wearing on and Kidd’s legs aren’t as fresh. Rajon Rondo was abusing him in the fourth and like in the Sacramento game, his holding the ball late instead of getting the offense going lead to several bad possessions. I can’t help but think Prigioni would’ve done more than just dump it in to Melo.
STAT GETS GOING: I must say, I like the progress that Amar’e Stoudemire showed today. His block and reverse dunk sequence in the second gave me flashbacks of Stat’s 2010 form. He also got a few offensive boards, 2 blocks and worked the ball in the post. For whatever reason, Stat was ignored on offense during the last few minutes of the fourth which was a huge mistake. If Stat would’ve gotten some of Melo’s and JR’s bad shots, I’m certain he would’ve had his first 20 + game of the season.
KNICKS IN THE ZONE: On defense New York went for long stretches using zone defense which provided excellent results. During one stretch in the first half, the Celtics missed 11 straight field goals. And in the fourth, their offense went stagnant again to allow the Knicks to pull out front 80-70.
I LIKE KURT THOMAS… ON THE BENCH: Unless the Knicks are having a blowout, it’s best that Kurt Thomas stays on the bench and gets his 90s Herb Williams on. In less than a minute during the second quarter, Thomas bricked an open jumper, blew a layup and got beat by Garnett on an alley oop. Woodson did the smart thing pulling him immediately on a timeout and that’s the last we saw of him.
SHUMPERT’S JUMPER: I’m praying that Iman Shumpert’s shooting isn’t fool’s gold like Ronnie Brewer’s early season success. In the second quarter, Boston went on a 8-0 run to take a 33-31 lead and Pierce was lighting us up to the tune of a 15-point quarter. It was Shumpert who hit back to back 3-pointers to kill their momentum and allow NY to take a slim 50-48 lead into halftime. We’re in desperate need of a third reliable scorer, especially when Melo and JR are struggling. If Shumpert can be that, it’ll do wonders for the rest of the season.
CHANDLER NOT AT HIS BEST: Although he picked it up in the second half, Tyson Chandler had a subpar game by his standards. Guys were getting into the lane too easy without him contesting. I’m sure foul trouble played a role, but he had some strong finishes at the rim in the third for “and 1” finishes that helped NY to take a 72-66 lead into the fourth. He finished with 5 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks. Most importantly, he held Kevin Garnett to eight points.
WHY YOU STAY WITH JR SMITH: When you don’t shoot well, you have to contribute in other ways. That’s exactly with JR did last night. He shot 3-16 for just 9 points, but with him off the floor we lose. With Boston threatening to take the lead, JR single-handedly made Paul Pierce look like a fool on two possessions. The first was a deflection off Pierce after breaking up a Jason Terry pass. The second was the game-clincher in JR thwarting a potential three-pointer by slapping the ball away and off Pierce. JR should’ve took a bow and blew a kiss at the crowd to prove a point.
A STATEMENT GAME: After getting pushed around for most of the season by teams with physical defense, the Knicks proved they could get it done in a grind-out, playoff type game. It was made extra sweet being against a hated division rival, pushing their record two games under .500 (20-22),and extending their losing streak to five. I couldn’t ask for better “revenge” game ending to the whole Honey Nut Cheerios nonsense.
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