Regular Season Game ’09-’10

The Knicks won their season opener 98-93 over the Toronto Raptors, thanks largely not to Amar’e Stoudemire but to the just-relegated-to-the-bench Wilson Chandler.  Just last week we asked who would be the Knicks #2 behind Stat.  Danilo Gallinari was the runaway favorite by our voters, followed by Raymond Felton and even Toney Douglas before we got to Chandler.  Okay, in fairness, after Gallo the next highest total was that a different player would step up each night, and chances are that’s what’ll happen rather than Chandler regularly being this unstoppable. What are the takeaways from this game?  Just as we [...]

Toronto annihilated the Knicks last night 131-113 (if we were playing Mastermind we’d say at least the Knicks’ score got all the same correct #s as Toronto, but just in the wrong order).  In the first half, the Raptors shot 70%.  No, not from the free-throw line, but from the field where you’re supposedly allowed to play defense.  The Canadian fans were excited, so why the depressed looks on the bench?  While Toronto needed this final win to get into the playoffs as the eighth seed, they also needed something else: the Chicago Bulls to lose their simultaneous game against [...]

Last night, the final home game of the season, the Knicks gave the crowd something to cheer for on Fan Appreciation Night.  Losing wouldn’t help our lottery chances, winning wouldn’t help our playoff chances.  We were going up against an equally sucky team in the Washington Wizards, a team without even an exciting superstar.  And yet if you listened to the amazing crowd at Madison Square Garden last night, you’d’ve thought it was Game 7 of the Finals.

We all love an epic battle between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.  The Knicks’ game last night against the Pacers was the opposite.  Indiana, the third worst shooting team in the league, is far from an unstoppable force on offense.  And us, New York, tied for second in allowing their opponents to shoot the highest percentage, is no one’s idea of an immovable object on D.  They like to shoot only .442, but we like to give up .482.  In backwards world it meant: could we force them to score more than they normally do, or would they [...]

Two seasons ago the Boston Celtics were the cream of the crop with Kevin Garnett leading their monstrous defense.  Last season they started out strong until KG went down with a knee injury which kept him out of the playoffs.  As a result, they struggled to get past the Chicago Bulls, then were eliminated in just the second round.  This year Garnett is back and ostensibly healthy.  But the mojo is gone.

For those who don’t know, though I’m a born and bred New Yorker, I’ve spent the last decade-plus in Los Angeles.  While here, I’ve adopted the Clippers as my sad, pathetic little brother to encourage.  That resulted in my creating the site FullyClips.com for the FanSided Network here before I got promoted up to the big leagues and was given the Knicks’ site.  For my first post on this site, I did a piece on The Smackdown Battle For Title Of The Past Decade’s Worst NBA Franchise.  Much to Isiah Thomas’ chagrin, I gave the award to Donald Sterling’s Clippers. [...]

In my last post, I complained about the Knicks’ lack of energy and hustle.  Clearly the players read my blog ‘cuz Friday night they were willing to work.  Yeah, yeah, they lost, but sometimes you can’t control that.  You can always control whether you come to PLAY.

I’ll admit it: I stopped watching the game at halftime.  Well, I fast-forwarded through the first few minutes of the second-half to see if the Knicks were gonna show up, but nope, they never made it to the game.  Now I haven’t always been a big fan of some of Coach Mike D’Antoni’s substitution choices, the way he communicates with players, or his lack of an emphasis on defense, but it comes down to this: the players still gotta go out there and play.  They still gotta have some pride.  The coach can only do so much, ‘cuz he ain’t [...]

In last night’s game, the Utah Jazz came out not just on fire, but darn near explosive.  In the first quarter they shot 7-for-7 from the three-point line, whipping up 44 points in just 12 minutes.  It seemed like another blowout.  However, the Knicks kept fighting, miraculously tying the game in the third.  In fact, they even had a shot at taking the lead when Tracy McGrady was fouled on a three-point shot “attempt.”  I use quotes there ‘cuz it was one of those annoying plays where the defender has their arm sticking forward, so the star player forces contact, [...]

Frank Isola of the NY Daily News wrote about last night’s crowd at Madison Square Garden: The Knicks don’t really deserve their fans. Not yet anyway. On Tuesday, the Garden was alive and kicking as Danilo Gallinari and Carmelo Anthony went back-and-forth in the third quarter of the Knicks thrilling win over the Nuggets. The quality of play and sound of the crowd made it seem like May. The Knicks will likely lose 50 games for the second consecutive year and their fans act as is they are a championship contender. It just goes to show you how desperate the [...]