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.
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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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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.
[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]
The New York Knicks will be well-represented on All-Star Weekend with the announcement of Steve Novak and James “Flight” White being named to the Three-Point Shootout and Slam Dunk Contest.
Novak is shooting 44.4% (third in the league) from downtown this year. White has vowed to deliver a “classic” dunk performance that will be the best since Vince Carter’s memorable 2000 win.
Novak and White will mark four Knicks participating in All-Star Weekend, with team captains Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler playing in the All-Star game.
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Maybe I’m a tad bias, but I’m predicting Novak takes the three-point contest easy. Unless he gets a severe case of nerves, the three-point contest pretty much mirrors his warm-up routine. And White’s dunk acumen needs no introduction. All we need now is Melo to show out in the main game.
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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.
Sorry Kings, but us Knicks fans and apparently the team didn’ forget about that buzzer-beater you hit us with back in late December. With this game having Melo, Stat, and Felton in the lineup, it was no-contest from the middle of the first quarter as New York completely embarrassed Sacramento by 39 points at Madison Square Garden. Just how much of a beatdown was it, you ask?
THE SWITCH GOES OFF: Even with the Knicks being 3-0 going into last night with their five-game homestand, the glaring issue during the streak has been slow starts in the first quarter. This was one of the more horrid starts as several players missed dunks and the team overall shot just 1-13 (7%) in the first seven minutes. The Kings, lead by an aggressive DeMarcus Cousins, held a 18-6 lead, prompting Coach Woodson to sub in Amar’e Stoudemire and J.R. Smith. That would be the turning point as Stat got several dunks as a part of a 10-0 run that brought the Knicks within five, 15-20. Smith added back to back threes later to cap a 19-2 run to give the Knicks a 25-22 after one quarter. Then it got real ugly for the Kings.
THE COMPETITIVENESS ENDS IN THE SECOND: The Kings offense was ice-cold in the second quarter. They stayed on 22 points for most of the period while the Knicks delivered a barrage of threes courtesy of Steve Novak, who went 4-4 for 12 points. Prigioni’s pesky defense yielded several steals and Stoudemire continued to abuse whatever defender was thrown at him, including old nemesis Chuck Hayes. At one point, the Knicks were on a 40-4 run and outscored the Kings in the second 31-11.
There was no letdown in the third as the Knicks starters remained focused with JR Smith nailing multiple threes to ignite a 15-0 run and push the lead to 82-43. Smith really had it in his mind to humiliate the Kings; our fearless gunner even chucked a three from the Knicks center court logo, prompting Coach Woodson to give him a quick talking to.
The benches emptied in the fourth and even Kurt Thomas got in on the action with multiple jumpers and swishing a three-pointer. That prompted “Kurt Thomas” chants to end the ballgame.
JR, STAT AND TYSON SHOW: These three dominated the game. Smith finished with 25 points, 21 of them coming from downtown. Stoudemire was perfect from the field (10-10) and finished with 21 points, 6 rebounds and just one turnover. Tyson Chandler had his second consecutive 20 rebound game, the first Knick to achieve this feat since the first run of Marcus Camby.
18 THREE-POINTERS: The last time the Knicks dropped 18 threes was in December when New York annihilated the Heat by 20. They matched it last night, just missing the franchise record by one.
MELO’S STREAK ENDS: Carmelo Anthony shot just 4-12 for nine points, ending his streak of consecutive 20 point games at 31. I doubt he was that worried — after the second quarter he stopped trying to force his offense and seemed pleased to not have to worry about the offensive load.
The Knicks end their homestand on Monday against the Pistons. No reason for them not to go a perfect 5-0.
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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.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4QbrJff9AE&feature=youtube_gdata_player]
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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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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.
[youtube http://youtu.be/EzvZIYf2zus]
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NEW YORK KNICKS LOYALIST 