NBA – Page 12 – NEW YORK KNICKS LOYALIST

Knicks Game-Winner Falls Short, Thunder Win 95-94

I’m not even mad at this one. Well, I’m not mad at the players. Coaching, that’s another matter. With Melo again sitting, no one gave the Knicks much of a chance to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder last night. But for the entire game, the Knicks fought tooth and nail, putting themselves in position to take the win off a buzzer-beater from JR Smith, who spent much of the game lighting up whoever was assigned to guard him.

SURVIVING THE FIRST PUNCH: Coach Woodson started James White and Kurt Thomas again, but this time they contributed in their limited minutes. White hit two treys and Thomas hit a jumper and played decent defense. Nonetheless, the Thunder promptly began abusing the Knicks in transition to the tune of a 16-0 run to take a 23-13 lead. It was looking ugly, but the Knicks rallied behind their defense. Although they produced way too many fouls (10 free throw points), it kept the game from getting too out of hand, and the Knicks faced a 26-35 deficit after one quarter.

JR’s GREEN LIGHT: With Melo out, JR gunning was a formality. He delivered a scorching second quarter with 18 points. His shooting, which came on a nice mix of treys and drives to the basket, ignited the rest of the Knicks. Kenyon Martin was very physical with Kevin Durant, and K-Mart also supplied offense with a putback dunk and alley oop from JR.

THUNDER LIVES AT THE LINE: As hard as the Knicks played, their fouls allowed the Thunder to stay in it no matter the runs. Of course, there were questionable fouls. Other times, NY just made mental mistakes. A game like this is a perfect example of why Woody’s philosophy of constant defensive switching is bad news. On multiple plays, you saw Chandler and Stat isolated out on the perimeter against the likes of Durant and Westbrook. In all, OKC got 29 free throw attempts and made 25 of them. The most annoying pair came in the closing minutes when Woody took out Felton, who had just scored on a nice driving layup, to insert Martin on Durant. K-Mart promptly fouled in out 5 seconds, but gave up two free throws to Durant. You don’t want to pin a one-point loss on a random play, but that foul sticks out.

STAT HELD IN CHECK: We were all hoping for a big game from Amar’e, but OKC is not the Pistons. Serge Ibaka harassed Stat all night and turned him back at the rim no less than 4 times. Stat got a couple of good moves on him (including a nasty facial), but he never got a sustained rhythm, going 5-16 for 16 points in 28 minutes. On a positive note, Stat nabbed eight rebounds and made a concerted effort to crash the boards.

4TH QUARTER COLLAPSE, PART 2: Might be weird to read that considering the Knicks only lost by a point, but this was a slow death. No, it wan’t as dramatic as the damage the Heat did last weekend, but the same problems surfaced. The Knicks couldn’t score consistently (13 points in the quarter), who was settling for jumpers that were now off the mark. Going small with 3-4 guards only truly works if said guards can create their own shots, and the length of the OKC on the perimeter made that increasingly difficult. Still, the fact that the Knicks seemed content on jumpers with nothing going to the hole was frustrating to watch. And even with that, the Knicks got two stops in the final minute to get a chance to win it with 7 seconds left.

A TOUGH FADEAWAY JUMPER?: Of his 29 shots, the only one that truly baffled me was the long fadeaway JR took to end the game. His shot had been off for most of the fourth, so a drive to at least get him facing the basket for a better look would have been ideal.

As I said in the beginning, this loss doesn’t bother me much. K-Mart got significant playing time (which hopefully has opened Woody’s eyes), the team played with excellent effort, and nearly won a game they had no business even being in without their best player. Onto the next one, which is a home game against the Jazz Saturday night.

*************

Without Melo, Knicks Win Ugly in Detroit

Nothing comes easy for this Knicks team, even when playing a banged up Detroit Pistons with only eight available players. New York got some scares throughout the night, but this one was decided in the end by talent and execution. A win is a win, but we better see a massive improvement tonight if our team hopes to be competitive against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

WHITE AND THOMAS STARTING?: When I saw James White and Kurt Thomas in the starting lineup, I expected a long night. They played for a combined 12 minutes in the game, so there wasn’t too much damage from this. But when you see Kenyon Martin still languishing on the bench, you wonder what could possibly be going through Coach Woodson’s head. Marcus Camby got six minutes, so at least there was some progress made in opening up the lineup.

STAT EATS UP DETROIT: The Pistons only had two players (who happened to be rookies) 6’10 or taller in the lineup last night, making it a feast on the inside for Stoudemire. Stat bullied his way to 10 points in the first quarter and 17 at the half. Woody made a misstep in taking Stat out with a few minutes left in the second. That, combined with the horrid ball-handling (15 turnovers), lead to a Pistons 13-2 run to get within six (44-38).

Stat started the second half, but the Knicks were more interested in chucking long jumpers than really working through Stat again. He would only post five points over the second half, but contributed solidly on the boards (9 rebounds, 6 offensive).

CHANDLER OUT OF SYNC: Tyson Chandler was mentally out of it on defense and offense for most of this game. The interior defense, which starts with him, was inconsistent and particularly bad in the opening quarter with Detroit scoring the majority of their points on layups and dunks. With Detroit’s lack of bigs, Tyson should have been feasting inside like he did to the Warriors last week in the absence of David Lee.

JR FEAST AND FAMINE: The Knicks kicked off the third quarter on the wrong side of a 10-2 run and a big part of that was due to JR chucking from the outside (4-16 early on). Brandon Knight got hot due to lazy defense and the run extended to 18-4 with the Knicks facing a 65-55 hole with just over two minutes left. JR then found his three-pointing (as did Raymond Felton) and helped erase the lead and tie it at 65.

JR nailed three treys in the fourth but his most significant contribution came when he got three big steals to help deflate Detroit.

FELTON CAN’T MISS: When Melo’s out, no other player on this Knicks squad decides to pick it up on the offensive end more than Raymond Felton. He did it in the December when he lit up the Heat for nearly 30 points and did again last night, going 10-15 from the field (4-5 from trey) for 26 points. How in the zone was Felton? The man caught a lob from Pablo Prigioni like he was Chandler.

MORE FROM SHUMP AFTER THE FIRST: I’m liking this trend of Iman Shumpert coming out aggressive and being…well… a shooting guard that actually shoots. He dropped 9 points in the first quarter off three treys but like previous games, his offense disappeared after that.

KNICKS SLOPPY BUT PISTONS “SLOPPIER”: The Knicks average a league-low 11 turnovers and had 20 last night. However, the Pistons also had 20 and theirs were way more costly with six of them coming in the fourth quarter.

WHEN MELO COMES BACK: Can we just cut the nonsense now, Woody? You’re getting a lot of deserved heat for the constant and unnecessary defensive switching and parading these crazy lineups out there. Our starting lineup needs to be Felton, Shumpert, Melo, Stat and Chandler. Mix and match as you please, but our Big Three needs to start and end games. They either prove definitively they can play together or they crash and burn. This team was put together to “win now” and that only happens with your best players on the floor.

No time like the present to get that lineup going tonight against the Thunder.

[youtube http://youtu.be/6XFCRgoPoDY]

****************

[youtube http://youtu.be/ycemt85J4n0]

Rest Easy, Melo — Knicks Come from 22 Down to Stun Cavs

They do a lot of switching… a lot of stuff where you can get caught in laziness and hanging back. So we’re just moving and cutting and guys are cutting hard. And we got Luke Walton out there so it makes it easy. – Cavs guard C.J. Miles on the Knicks’s first half defense

As you can see from the above quote, the Cavs were feeling themselves in the first half against the Knicks. They had reason to be cocky on 68% shooting and at one point in the second holding a 22 point lead (52-30). The Knicks couldn’t make basic defensive rotations and Luke Walton was dishing dimes like a prime John Stockton. And to add to the misery, Carmelo Anthony had a Benny Hill moment in tripping over his own feet and badly hurting his right knee to knock him out the rest of the game.

But halfway through the second, the Knicks began showing signs of life and very gradually it seemed to dawn on them they were playing the Cavaliers. Without Melo, Coach Woodson was forced to do what should become a regular end-game lineup in playing both Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler.

MEET THE LATEST BENCH PLAYER TO TORCH NY: Center Marreese Speights got the start today and promptly began going to town with jumper after jumper. He hit his first 10 shots and had 15 points after the first. Whether it was Chandler or Stat, he was the Cavs’s dominate scorer in the first half. However, reality (and the Knicks defense) made him a non-factor in the second half where he only had 2 points.

MELO’S INJURY TRIGGERS RUN: The Knicks looked completely demoralized down 22 and the Melo injury appeared to signal this would be a blowout evening. The Knicks instead rallied with a 17-4 run to close the quarter and take a 49-61 deficit into halftime. In the third, the Knicks stormed out with a 10-0 run to pull within 59-61 behind tough interior defense that triggered jump balls, and solid shooting from Jason Kidd and JR Smith. Still, the Knicks couldn’t quite get over the hump despite holding the Cavs to just 1 point six minutes into the quarter and outscoring them 21-13 overall. Going into the fourth, they were still down 70-74.

LIVE BY THE THREE: The Knicks drilled seven treys in the fourth and everyone got in on the party. Novak rebounded from the horrid Sunday game against the Heat and had three treys in the quarter. Kidd nailed two crucial ones, and Raymond Felton added one of his own late. Kidd’s last trey in the final minutes put the Knicks up 97-91, which proved to be just enough breathing room down the stretch.

THE STAT N TYSON SHOW: For the first time in what seemed like ages, Woodson played our two elite bigs in the fourth to devastating effect. Guards Pablo Prigioni and Felton had Stat feasting on pick n rolls for easy dunks and Chandler was all over the boards. The game-changing plays in the last minute came down to this duo. With a slim 97-95 lead, Stat attacked the rim, got blocked and went back up strong to push the lead to 99-95. Later, a missed Stat jumper was tipped out by Chandler to Jason Kidd, leading to a free throw to push the lead to 100-97. And finally, Irving’s three-point attempt to tie was promptly blocked by Chandler to ice the game.

LOSING STREAK ENDS: For some inexplicable reason, the Cavs have been a huge problem for the Knicks even after the LeBron era. Before tonight, the last time the Knicks had won in Cleveland went back to November 2006. To put that in perspective, current Cavs all-star Kyrie Irving for 14 years old at the time.

At this time, we don’t know how much time Melo will miss. Even though the Knicks are claiming it isn’t serious, I don’t have much faith in an early prognosis from the Knicks medical staff considering what we’ve seen happen this year with Rasheed Wallace, Stoudemire and Camby.

Next up is the Pistons, so the Knicks should be able to handle that squad again without Melo.

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

Knicks Implode in Second Half, Fall to Heat 99-93

I needed 24 hours to cool down before writing about this game. For one quarter, the Knicks looked like the formidable team we saw in November and December — sweet passing, hot three-point shooting and our bigs rolling to the basket for easy slams. As expected, the Miami Heat made a second half run that was exacerbated by bad defensive rotations and head-scratching lineups down the stretch. No, yesterday’s game isn’t a sole reason to become irate as a Knicks fan, but it sure as hell was one to make you highly annoyed.

JASON KIDD RESURRECTED: Without question, the Knicks highlight of the game was Kidd retrieving his jumper from El Segundo. The man was on fire in the first half in nailing fourth straight treys. In addition, he nabbed eight rebounds, caused several deflections and got three steals. The Heat defense phased him out in the second half, but hopefully this performance will do wonders for his confidence.

REALLY ONE GOOD QUARTER: A lot has been going around over the last 24 hours about the Knicks playing really well over the first half, but it was really just the second quarter, where NY outscored Miami 37-22. In the first, no one could score outside of Melo, who had 17 of NY’s 22 points.

THE WALKING USELESS: James White got the starting assignment again and might as well have been wearing a Heat uniform. In less than five minutes, he had three fouls, one of which being a three-point play given up to Mario Chalmers on the Heat’s first possession.

Steve Novak had three open looks from downtown that he bricked. His biggest detriment was on defense, where he gave up a defensive rebound by being out-hustled by Ray Allen which lead to the LeBron James trey that tied the game.

Why these two got burn while Kenyon Martin and Marcus Camby languished on the bench was mind-blowing.

JR GUNNING: Jr Smith went 5-18 from the field and took 14 treys! Where was the leash for this man? Another Woodson blunder had JR still in chucking while benching Stoudemire, who had been giving Miami fits down low. JR was handling the ball way too much with his more blatant mistakes being two telegraphed cross-court passes that LeBron picked off (the last being the game-killer in the last 30 seconds).

MELO HURT AND SHUT DOWN: Melo had 24 points at halftime but injured his arm on a three-pointer in the second. He only went 3-11 in the second half which was combination of James, the Heat help defense, and Stat not being on the floor. When they did play together, Melo’s pick and roll with Stat lead to two easy dunks.

GET IT TOGETHER, WOODY: Coach Woodson is quick to give guys the Ice Cube early 90’s screwface when they mess up. He needs to give himself that face in the mirror. The Heat experimented with many lineups, but in crunch time their Big Three is on the floor, and that’s why they closed the fourth strong (outscoring the Knicks 26-16). On our end, Stat rotted on the bench while JR was cold and the Heat defense zeroed in on Melo.

And again, not playing K-Mart or Camby while guys like Novak weren’t scoring and getting the red-headed stepchild treatment is inexcusable.

CRYING AND GIVING UP POINTS: Sure, LeBron James did his share of complaining (and even gets caught on camera calling a ref a “bitch ass nigga..”). But guess what — King James doesn’t do it when the game is still in play. Raymond Felton did it at the end of the third and didn’t get back on defense, leading to an open three-pointer from Shane Battier that brought the Heat within four, 77-73. In the fourth, James got away with a foul on Chandler, who sat on his ass and literally threw a fit while James sprinted back, got an offensive rebound, and put in a layup to get the Heat up 91-87. Those two sequences where huge momentum swings and five important points the Knicks literally gave away.

The Knicks get to redeem themselves tonight in Cleveland against the Cavaliers. This is by no means a guaranteed win, as the Knicks have had a lot of problems winning up there in recent years going back to the LeBron era.

Have a Seat, Kidd — Knicks Clamp Down in 4th, Defeat Wizards 96-88

It took Jason Kidd shooting 19% from the field over the entire month of February for Mike Woodson to take away his starting spot before last night’s game against the Washington Wizards. Unfortunately, Woodson’s stubborness came back on display in the fourth quarter and for a while seemed like it may cost us the game. Lucky for the Knicks, the Wizards give you a lot of room for error and New York got themselves right to hold a three-game winning streak before facing the Miami Heat tomorrow.

NEW LINEUPS BUT SOME OLD BAD HABITS: James White made the start at small forward with Iman Shumpert finally getting moved to shooting guard. White didn’t supply anything in the way of offense, but he also wasn’t a defensive liability, which had been the problem with Kidd trying to defend faster guards. Unfortunately, Carmelo Anthony was off (1-6 in quarter), but JR Smith and Raymond Felton were aggressive looking for their shots and getting to the rim. And Steve Novak hit a nice bank shot and a trey to help the Knicks lead 26-23 after one.

With Pablo Prigioni out with back spasms, Woodson had Kidd man a new second unit of Kidd, Shump, Novak, Stat and Chandler. The defensive rotations were still off and Chandler was visibly annoyed at times, but at least a deficit wasn’t created. Things tightened up with Melo and JR coming back in and the Knicks took a 54-48 lead into halftime.

After a horrid third quarter where the Knicks went six minutes without a field goal and were outscored 29-19 to give up the lead (73-77), Woodson resumed his love affair with Kidd getting major minutes in the fourth despite bricking several open shots. He would keep him in there until the 3:21 mark. Stat had words for Woodson when he sat for most of the fourth after getting some good points in the post, and he wouldn’t come in until Kidd got benched. Shumpert got in when the game was all but already decided by the cold shooting from the Wizards.

Knicks fans can only hope Kidd doesn’t get this much burn against Miami tomorrow.

NO K-MART?: I would have really liked to see what Kenyon Martin could have done last night. I guess with the Wizards not having Nene, Woodson didn’t feel the need to play him. I feel his defense could have really helped stifle that crazy 21-6 run the Wizards had in the third quarter. K-Mart and Camby are expected to be available for Sunday.

CLOSING STRONG: Outside of the third, the Knicks closed every quarter with a run. They had shutout runs of 8-0 and 9-0 in the first half, and the Wizards were held to just three field goals in the entire fourth quarter (outscored 23-11 in the quarter).

MOMENTUM PLAY: The Knicks were down 75-77 early in the fourth when a steal lead to a Kidd fast break. Wall chased him down for a block that was ruled a goaltend, sending Wall into a brief tirade that earned him a tech. That three-point swing gave the Knicks a 78-77 lead, which they would not relinquish the rest of the way.

FELTON HITS A FLOATER?!: Hell has frozen over. Not only did Felton hit a floater, but it was the shot that iced the game. That shot has been broken all year, making this one of the most unintentionally funny Knicks-related videos of the season.

ANOTHER CAREER-HIGH: Surprise, surprise — another guard gets their career-high on the Knicks. Last night it was Bradley Beal scoring 29 points with 12 coming from downtown. Luckily he was off in the fourth with the rest of his team.

BACK IN 2ND PLACE: The Knicks are back in second place in the Eastern Conference, but the hold is very tenuous — a bad loss or two and the Knicks could be as far down as fourth place. That makes the Heat game on Sunday very important.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcj4V84MT4&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

[Video] Are You Not Entertained?! Curry & Chandler Post Career Highs, Knicks Win Thriller Over Warriors

Games like this will have you beside yourself. Warriors point guard Steph Curry walked into the Garden last night, became possessed, and put on one of the most amazing shooting displays I’ve ever seen. I think I speak for every Knicks fan when I say I’m thankful we only have to see this kid twice a year (We damn near got a repeat of the infamous “Double Nickel”). But luckily we had our own beast last night in Tyson Chandler, along with high-level scoring from Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith to pull out an important home victory. While the game wasn’t decided until the final seconds, the Knicks made some crucial adjustments to pull this one out.

CHANDLER HAS A GAME FOR THE AGES: With no David Lee to counteract him in the middle, Tyson Chandler was feasting from the opening tip. Our man in the middle had 13 rebounds in the first quarter along with seven points. He never let up throughout the entire game and snatched 10 offensive rebounds and ended up with a career high of 28 rebounds (the most by a Knicks player in over 20 years).

While we can’t expect Chandler to grab that many rebounds regularly, the team definitely needs that high energy as the defense begins and ends with him.

FELTON TAKES A BEATING BUT PROVES HIS WORTH: For most of this game poor Raymond Felton was getting the Ike-Tina Turner treatment from Curry. Sometimes it was Curry taking advantage of the Knicks’s overall poor transition defense and popping pull-up treys off fast breaks. Other times it was beating Felton off the dribble and getting to the rim or nailing short jumpers. At halftime, the kid had 27 points and was 4/6 from downtown.

Curry dropped 11 points on Felton’s head in the third and a three-pointer briefly gave them the lead (67-65) with over 7 minutes left. Felton responded with his own three that helped NY get back in front 77-73, but Curry continued blitzing from downtown. He had four more treys (one being an absolute dagger with just 4 seconds left on the shot clock to put the Warriors up 103-102).

At this point, you’d think Felton would have been sufficiently demoralized. But the man remained focused even after missing two wide-open momentum threes and bricking two free throws. On the other end, he finally succeeded in pushing Curry off the three-point line and forced him into a jumper he was able to block. The key defensive play resulted in a score off a JR Smith jumper to make it 107-105. Felton would later steal a simple inbounds pass to burn more time off the clock and even though he bricked two more crucial free throws, he secured his own offensive rebound to kill additional time.

His stat line overall doesn’t jump out at you (10 pts on 3/10 shooting, 4 assists), but Felton’s 4 steals were invaluable.

JR FROM DOWNTOWN: The only Knick consistently hitting from downtown last night was JR Smith, who had a great game on 10/19 shooting (6/11 from the arc). Smith is much better from the arc when he catches and shoots as opposed to a bunch of dribbling. He was quick with the trigger and seemed to have a timely triple every time Curry started feeling himself. And another overlooked contribution from JR was his five aggressive rebounds, several on them in the key fourth quarter.

STAT CORRECTS 1ST HALF WOES: Amar’e Stoudemire came in with a dunk late in the first quarter and promptly caught two cheap fouls. He picked up his third early in the second and got a tech for mocking the referee. Wasn’t solely his fault, but Stat’s problems were huge in the second unit going scoreless for six minutes. That allowed Golden State to make a run behind Curry’s hot hand to tie midway in the second and only be down 58-53 at halftime.

The third was a little better but Stat too often found himself switched onto the perimeter on defense. The fourth was different with Stat, Melo and Chandler playing at the same time. Melo made it a point to look for Stat when he drew double teams, resulting in Amar’e getting several easy dunks.

While the rebounding (4) could have been better, Stat ended up with a very solid 14 points on 6/7 shooting.

MELO’S 35 POINTS: Melo went 10/26 but there’s more behind those numbers. Yes, he took a few bad shots (two very ball iso ball possessions late in the fourth), but other times it was the result of the offense being stagnant and the guards passing to him late in the shot clock looking to be bailed out. With his shooting erratic, he got to the line (13-15) and moved the ball to the open man (Felton, Stat etc.) and notched 8 assists. Overall he made the right decisions, and his late three-pointer and post-up jumper are two of the baskets that took this game from Golden State.

WOODY’S HEAD-SCRATCHER: Coach Woodson left me dumbfounded with the decision to leave Felton on Curry. A few times JR got the assignment, but it wasn’t until Shumpert got on him that we got a breather from the three-point barrage. Granted, no one was going to be stopping Curry last night, but at least Shumpert would have made him work a little harder, as he did in the second quarter in being physical. Shump made his defensive presence known all the night to the tune of 6 steals and securing a key turnover late in the fourth — he and Chandler forced Jarrett Jack into a baseline trap resulting in a travel.

Outside of that, the most important decision Woody did right was making sure Jason Kidd and Novak had nice seats on the bench as their contributions were nil.

IT’S A TEAM GAME: In all the marveling about Curry’s 54 points, people forget that basketball is a team sport for a reason. The rest of the starters combined for 5 points at halftime and 13 points for the game. The team outside of Curry had 51 points. Once the ball got taken out of Steph’s hands down the stretch, the Knicks victory was sealed.

JASON KIDD IS MIKE BIBBY STATUS: I get no joy out of saying that, but Kidd should be in the doghouse for the foreseeable future. The man cannot hit an open shot to save his life — he bricked four wide open threes and couldn’t get anything going. I do think Kidd gets out of this slump, but for now he needs a mental and physical rest… on the bench.

K-MART’S WELCOMED DEFENSE: Kenyon Martin had a very limited 5 minutes of work in the second quarter. But in that stretch we saw why he should have a nice place on this team. He got switched off on Curry and forced him into a pass and later on covered up Novak getting burned with some timely help defense. If Woody insists on playing Stat and Novak at the same time, a guy like Martin can help tremendously in covering the defensive mistakes those two are prone to make.

The Knicks get to enjoy their victory today but need to get refocused on Friday when they face the Wizards, who embarrassed them earlier in the month.

Rasheed Wallace to Have Foot Surgery, Done for Season

My season ain’t over,” Wallace told reporters when the team was in London in January. I’m going to be back. I was laid off for three years, so one little foot injury ain’t going to stop me. I’m good. – Rasheed Wallace in January

The mystery of whether Rasheed Wallace would return soon the Knicks has ended with the announcement the All-Star forward will undergo season-ending surgery on his left foot.

Wallace’s most recent X-ray found a fracture in his fifth metatarsal and a scheduled surgery for next week has an eight-week recovery time.

Wallace has been out of the Knicks lineup since December 13 with that was initially called a “stress fracture.” Although both Wallace and the Knicks management maintained that a return was imminent, Wallace had only been able to do light running since the injury.

Early in the season, Wallace’s outside shooting and defensive presence helped the Knicks storm out to a fast 17-5 start. During his 20 games played, he averaged 7 points and 4 rebounds.

At press time, it’s not known if Wallace will attempt to play in the post-season.

********************************************

So we waited 2 months for an even more severe injury? What happened? Was Sheed brawling in some NYC bar and messed up his foot further stomping someone’s head in? Slipped in the shower? Fell down stairs? I’m just completely dumbfounded how the simple running messed his foot up further.

Thank God the Knicks made that move for K-Mart, because our frontcourt defensive presence and rebounding is in sore need of a boost (especially with the prospect of facing Boston or Chicago in the first round).

My gut tells me the Knicks knew well beforehand Wallace was likely done. Let’s hope we don’t have a similar situation when it comes to Marcus Camby’s comeback.

[youtube http://youtu.be/hu6CplaS3gk]

The Bleeding Stops — Knicks Outlast Sixers 93-99, End Four Game Skid

A win! It’s been a long time, 2 weeks actually, since the Knicks had notched a victory. While the ship wasn’t completely righted with this W, the Knicks showed signs of life in the areas of ball movement and getting timely defensive stops.

MELO FEASTS AT THE LINE: One of the indicators that the offense is stagnant is when you see Melo shooting 20-plus shots. Tonight, he took 18 shots but was masterful in drawing fouls and getting easy points at the line. He had a season high in free throws (16) and for the first time this year had more points there than from the field (13).

STAT UNSTOPPABLE: After a passive first quarter where he wasn’t looking for his shot, Stat came alive at the start of the second with back to back tip-ins. From there the man couldn’t miss, banking long-range jumpers and punishing Philly in the post. In the end it was fouls (5 by mid-fourth quarter) that muzzled him. Nonetheless, the damage had already be done to the tune of 22 points on 9-10 shooting and 4-6 at the line coupled with 5 rebounds.

THE TURNER AND HOLIDAY SHOW: On Philly’s end, the offense was anchored by Jrue Holiday (30 points) and Evan Turner (21 points). They did the majority of their damage in the second half and had to play from the behind. On the bright side, these two at least are highly talented as opposed to the unheralded players that had been lighting the Knicks up in recent weeks.

KENYON MARTIN ALREADY RUBBING OFF ON THE KNICKS?: Looks like that old Denver “Thuggets” mentality is creeping into the Knicks. In the third quarter, Melo took exception to a Spencer Hawes box out and promptly slapped the bigger man in the back of the head. Hawes immediately got in Melo’s face only to be shoved hard by Tyson Chandler, earning our All-Star center a technical and a very appreciative chant from the Madison Square Garden faithful. Melo got a flagrant 1 out of it, but it was great to see our team not only playing well, but showing a legit “take no shit” attitude instead of the bitchiness and ref whining we’ve seen over the losing streak.

Speaking of Martin, he didn’t get any playing time tonight (Woodson didn’t want to play him off one practice). From the problems the Knicks had with pushing back guard penetration in the paint with Holiday and Turner with Chandler off the floor, you can’t help but be hopeful that Martin will be able to quell some that defensive bleeding.

FELTON PICKS UP THE BACKCOURT SLACK: Jason Kidd was abysmal again, scoring just three points on 1-7 shooting (0-6 from downtown). It wasn’t a killer as it’s been in recent games since Raymond Felton was aggressive in attacking the rim and scored 14 points.

A FOURTH QUARTER THAT WOULD NEVER END: The Sixers just refused to go away. The lead hovered around 12-13 points before the Sixers chipped it down to eight. Luckily, JR Smith’s three-point silder was high and he drained several treys to keep the Sixers at arm’s length. In addition, Smith forced a turnover late on Turner. The Sixers got as close as 98-93 with a little over a minute remaining before Jason Kidd’s free throws sealed it.

With this win, the Knicks take the season series over the Sixers 3-1.

New York makes another national TV appearance on ESPN this coming Wednesday (February 27) against the Warriors.

[youtube http://youtu.be/UsBrZ0YMY7A]

Welcome to 3rd Place! Knicks Defense Fails Again, Raptors Win 100-98

Rinse and repeat… the Knicks yet again showed a lack of defensive awareness and late-game execution last night and suffered their second disappointing loss to the Toronto Raptors in consecutive weeks. The losses before were infuriating, but at least fans could hold on to the fact the squad was still firmly #2 in the Eastern Conference. Well, now these embarrassing defeats are sliding New York further down the ranks and now at the third seed.

PLAYING DEFENSE WHEN THEY WANT TO: How erratic was the defense? The Knicks gave up 32 points in the opening quarter as the Raptors shot a crazy 58%. Then the Knicks clamped down in the second and hold Toronto to just 16 points on 6/22 shooting. They follow that up with a wretched third quarter where they give up 31 points, which ended up being too much for the Knicks to overcome in the fourth despite outscoring the Raptors 28-21.

Several extremely lazy defensive plays stood out during the game. In the first quarter, Melo let a Raptor guard come down the lane for layup while putting a half-hearted push on him, resulting in a foul and a three-point play. In the second, Steve Novak failed to rotate when the Raptors swung the ball around the perimeter and gave up an open three. JR Smith foolish gambled on a steal in the third and got burned for a trey, and Amar’e Stoudemire lost track of his man on an inbounds play and got dunked on.

The constant defensive switching continues to be the death of this team. It is completely inexcusable that this hasn’t been corrected as the recurrent mismatches down the stretch gives teams, no matter how mediorce, great chances at winning. The guards (all of them) have to fight harder to get over simple screens. And when they can’t, our big men (Stat, Tyson), need to briefly trap and scramble back to their man as opposed to trying to D up a guard on the perimeter. Rudy Gay made a mockery of Stat on the perimeter because of the constant switching and Chandler got duped into a bad foul on Demar Derozan near the three-point line. Until this is fixed, the Knicks defense will remain broken.

THE TURNING POINT: As inconsistent as the defense was, the Knicks got several emphatic stops late in the fourth that gave them chances to win. Jason Kidd had a huge block on Lowry that led to Felton pushing the ball up the court with the Raptors defense in disarray and the game tied at 95. He passed to a wide open Kidd at the top of the key. But Kidd, despite hitting two treys earlier in the game, passed the ball right back. Felton fired it to him again as Kidd still had a good look until he bungled the pass. The Knicks would come up empty on that trip and Rudy Gay wouldn’t hesitate on the other end — he nailed a jumper to put the Raps up 95-93. The Knicks would tie it once more, but there momentum was effectively gone.

Remember the Jason Kidd that hit this three-point dagger on the Nets earlier this season? That man is long gone.

PLAY SMARTER, NOT HARDER: The hard effort and play was there for most of the fourth — Melo dropped 30 points and Chandler had an impressive 5 blocks. It was the end-game mental lapses that killed any chance of a win. With this cast of veterans, the decision-making has got to get better. Chandler should not have been guarding Lowry on the perimeter late (again the result of defensive switching), which lead to a floater that gave the Raptors the lead for good with less than 30 seconds left.

WOODY’S HYPOCRISY: You know what’s sad? When the Knicks were still flying high in December, Woodson had no problem experimenting with different starting lineups. Sometimes Ronnie Brewer would get the call and other times it’d be Chris Copeland or even James White. So why when the team is playing its worst basketball of the season do you stick with a lineup that’s been failing for weeks? It makes zero sense.

Onto another important Atlantic division game on Sunday when the Knicks face the Sixers.

JR Smith Takes the Guesswork Out of Courting

It’s no secret that JR Smith is a ladies man with several notable conquests already (K. Michelle and Tahiry the most prominent). Yesterday, our shooting guard provided some more hilarity with the leak of several Twitter DMs with one of his “fans.”

Ladies, we as men know you’re very big on honesty and being upfront with our intentions. JR adheres to that philosophy — no pretentiousness, no deception… just up and direct about his “pipe dreams” as you’ll note below.

From the below pic he posted on Instagram, one of these pipe companies might want to endorse our man JR.

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word:

Spread the Word: