Tag: rudy gay

Taped Again — Knicks Complete Back to Back Sweep of Raptors 110-84

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Begone, lowly Raptors! With Rudy Gay again out of commission with back spasms, the Knicks needed to take care of business emphatically at Madison Square Garden. That’s what they did from the second quarter on through a strong overall team effort. And what made this easy victory even sweeter was our conference rivals all lost (Pacers, Nets, Celtics), allowing the Knicks to slide back into second place.

There wasn’t much to complain about, so let’s get right to the highlights…

 

KENYON MARTIN REMAINS IN BEAST MODE: K-Mart ran roughshod over Toronto yesterday and did so again tonight. His active presence does so much to keep the offense flowing — he catches lobs, cleans up misses and NEVER lets anyone come into the paint without getting checked hard. He got away with a hard misse foul on Carl Lowry which turned into an Iman Shumpert three-pointer in the second.

In the same quarter, Martin got a huge block on John Lucas outside the paint. The hard-nosed defense got contagious with Shumpert blocking Landry Fields inside a few seconds later. The Knicks got possession, and Melo found K-Mart inside for a three-point play which pushed the lead to 59-47 at halftime.

Most impressive was Martin doing all his damage while sitting out the fourth, scoring 18 points, grabbing 7 rebounds and notching 2 blocks.

 

MELO DINES ON FIELDS: I normally have love for ex-Knicks, but Landry Fields lost a lot of good will from me when he started doing interviews basically blaming Melo for his post-rookie year regression (Riiight, like Melo was the reason you shot 56% from the free throw line last year). It’s no secret that these two don’t like each other, and Melo even got a flagrant 1 for a retaliatory shove from a Fields elbow.

Thankfully, Melo did the majority of his talking by torching Fields for 28 points on 9/19 shooting coupled with 8 rebounds. And in a big improvement from Friday’s game, Melo hit all his free throws (10 in all) and just had 2 turnovers. Melo feasted in the paint on an array of turnaround jumpers. Alan Anderson couldn’t do much better when he got the defensive assignment.

And like Martin, Melo did all this work in just three quarters and got to chill for the fourth.

 

THE SUPPORTING CAST: Melo and Martin were the leaders, but this was a strong team effort. JR Smith had 25 points (9/16 from the field) and kept his efficiency high by going strong to the rim. JR also managed to give the Raptors one final huge disrespect by scoring a layup in the final second after both teams had clearly stopped playing.

Shumpert continues to gain confidence defensively off ACL surgery — the second year guard forced the Raptor perimeter players into contested jumpers and logged 4 steals. Copeland got a Woody tongue-lashing for some first half bad defense, but tightened up and still brought it on offense (12 points). Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni didn’t have big scoring outings, but their defense was solid and helped to deflate the Raptors in the second half. And even Novak hit a long jumper off the dribble! *GASP*

 

THE LINEUP MOVING FORWARD: With K-Mart playing so well the last two games, the rumblings have already begun among fans about him starting. As a natural power forward, he increases our defense and offense, which takes some of the load off Tyson Chandler, and allows Melo to move back to his natural small forward position.

Coach Woodson put all that to rest by stating Martin will be off the bench when Chandler returns. I understand his reasoning. Our frontcourt depth has been ruined by injuries and with Martin also being an older player, he wants to make sure he’s fresh for the playoffs. If Martin were to start, the only true big we’d have off the bench is Marcus Camby (who’s been injury-prone this season).

It’s so frustrating when you think of how formidable this team could be with everyone healthy.

The Knicks get a few days of deserved rest before a big road game on Tuesday  against a hated division rival in the Celtics. I’m sure I speak for all Knicks fans when I say I want that game badly.

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

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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.

Unblemished No More: Grizzlies Frontline Wears Down Knicks 105-95

This was touted as a matchup between the teams with the two best records in the league. For the first two quarters, both teams executed plays and shot well. New York was shooting over 60% and making key steals, but still couldn’t get more than a 2-3 point lead due to giving up too much second-chance points on the offensive board. Melo was having to work extremely hard on defense, contending with Zach Randolph and Marc, Gasol who both outweighed him by 30-40 pounds. But as he’s shown over the winning streak, Melo made the right passes to guys like Kidd and Brewer for open shots. Unfortunately, Melo had to sit after getting two fouls, as did the Grizzlies’ Rudy Gay, leaving it a tight game of 29-25 in favor of Memphis after one.

Rasheed Wallace went to work in the post in the second, hopefully a sign of future things to come. That forced double teams and allowed for guys like JR Smith to get going with outside jumpers. Unfortunately for NY, Memphis’ outside shooters were hot, in particular their point guard Bayless. Matters would get chippy with him when a JR elbow and Bayless shove resulted in double technicals. The hard play continued and Melo began to complain too much about the lack of calls for him inside. The Grizzlies scrambled hard for every loose ball and even a Knicks block from Rasheed Wallace went in the Grizz’s favor, as the loose ball went to Mike Conley who hit a three to give them a 54-49 halftime lead.

Then disaster struck in the third. Melo caught a suspect third foul early and less than two minutes later got another while being tangled up with Marc Gasol. Melo got irate and earned a technical before hitting the bench. Tyson Chandler got his fourth foul and the team just became unglued. Think the playoffs last year in game 1 where the Heat got a bunch of fouls and ran the Knicks out of the building. This was very similar as the Grizzlies went on a ridiculous 19-1 run and ended up outscoring the Knicks 31-18 for the quarter. Chandler got his fifth foul, coach Woodson his own technical and next thing you know the score was 74-56 Grizzlies.

Chandler’s foul trouble forced Woodson to do something he should have done from the outset; put Kurt Thomas on Randolph. Immediately, Randolph had a much tougher time scoring and had to work harder in the paint for rebounds. Unfortunatly, the damage had been done. Although the Knicks rallied to pull as close as 8 points in the fourth, a few quick  Grizzlies scores off pick and rolls effectively iced the game to give the Knicks their first defeat.

You’d think we would have had a good shot of winning having shot 51%, but having our best players in foul trouble and Woodson being stubborn with the lineup sealed our fate. Thankfully, Woodson is already on record stating some of his substitutions hurt us down the stretch. This game is a clear example that while Melo has had success at the 4 spot, that can become a weakness against a team like the Grizzlies and we have to adjust accordingly.

Melo’s been great this year, but the one glaring flaw he needs to get in check continues to be the ref complaining. He’s going to start to get, if he hasn’t already, a reputation with the refs and the techs will start coming quicker. Our team follows his lead; when he became irate and unfocused in the third, the rest of the team followed suit. I’m sure his patience wasn’t helped matters by getting banged around by Randolph and Gasol, but he needs to check this behavior ASAP.

It’s back home on Sunday to face the Pacers. All in all, it was a good road trip going 2-1. Let’s hope we don’t see Melo trying to guard Roy Hibbert tomorrow.