This is how the game would've looked to you if you were a piece of the hardwood. Reason #431 why it's good not to be a floor board. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

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 said during the preseason that there’s a danger into reading into too much from those games, clearly it’s equally presumptuous to make large scale assumptions based on a single game.  But that won’t stop me.  Here are my comments: (more…)

You may not be able to tell from the looks on the Raptors' bench, but Toronto won the game. (source: Yardbarker.com)

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 the Charlotte Bobcats.  The Bulls didn’t play their part, instead winning and thus hanging onto their last-minute theft of that final playoff spot.

More depressing to the people of Toronto is that perhaps this helped further the death knell of Raptors’ all-time-scoring-and-rebounding-leader Chris Bosh’s stay north of the border.  The man is on record as having said he wants to be surrounded by enough talent to make his team a contender.  It’s pretty clear that Toronto ain’t nowhere near that.

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The Knicks' gave the Garden Faithful something to cheer about as they left their final home game. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

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.

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Pacers' coach, Jim O'Brien, watches, appalled that the Knicks made him seem competent by forcing his team to look like an offensive juggernaut (source: Yardbarker.com)

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 make our defense look better than it is?  Turns out we decided to go 50/50.

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The Celtics' Rajon Rondo drives to the hoop and is shocked to find that the Knicks have a 7-footer playing defense there. Meet Earl Barron. (source: Yardbarker.com)

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.

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Back in 2001, Earl Barron played for Memphis. Both he and the Knicks thought they had a promising decade ahead of them. They were wrong. But perhaps now we can combine forces and make the Tens be OUR decade. (source: Yardbarker.com)

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.  Although to be fair to Isiah, he only had a few years of being in charge to screw up the Knicks, versus Sterling had the entire decade (& more).  I’m sure if Isiah had a larger time frame in which to work his (black) magic, he could’ve stunk up the joint just as poorly as The Donald did.

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(source: Yardbarker.com) This isn't from Friday's game, but it's exciting lookin', ain't it?

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.

Basketball is a fun game, but it's also work. Sometimes you lose that fun, and that's when you gotta be a professional and still force yourself to go all out. (source: Yardbarker.com)

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 the one shooting the ball or (not) defending his hoop.

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Al Harrington passes out exhausted after setting a Guiness Record for "Most Bad Shots In A Minute" (source: Yardbarker.com)

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, pretending to shoot.  Yes, I shouldn’t sound bitter ‘cuz it was our star player who got the shots, but I hate that rule.  Players like Kobe, Paul Pierce and Reggie Miller always do this lame move.  And actually Danilo Gallinari’s done it a bunch and will likely continue to incorporate it into his game.  I think they’ve gotta get rid of both that rule and the one where you get your defender to jump into the air on a pump-fake, then jump into him for the foul.  I don’t get why they can’t just tweak the rule slightly so that it’s only a foul if the defender initiates the contact.

Wait, wait, how’d I get into this diatribe?  Oh yeah, the point was that TMac had 3 free throw attempts with the Knicks down by one at the end of the third.  He hit the first to tie it, then just had to hit one of the remaining two to give the Knicks’ the lead for once.  He missed ‘em both.

It was a fitting omen, ‘cuz bizarrely enough what cost us this game wasn’t our defense for once, but our inability to put the ball through the hoop.  In the fourth quarter we only managed 11 points.  The Jazz struck for just 16 points, and those five points were the deciding margin.  What happened?  Well…

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When the Knicks have it going, it's like the circus has come to town. Which, coincidentally, it did two nights ago. (source: Yardbarker.com)

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 supporters of the orange and blue are for a winning team.

“That’s why it’s New York, it’s the best,” Mike D’Antoni said. “Every game is a show.”

Let’s be honest, the outcome of our games don’t matter at this point.  If we win, we ain’t making it to the playoffs.  If we lose, we ain’t improving our lottery odds since we traded our picks away.  Yet still, fans cheer for the Knicks like crazy.  Or, when the team’s sucking, we’ll boo like crazy.  Either way, the fans clearly are crazy.  The players may be inconsistent, but our fans’ mental instability remains constant.  Like spurned lovers, all we want is someone to count on.  Danilo Gallinari was declared one of NYC’s most eligible bachelors in January, but only recently has he shown he may be the one true one for us.

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(source: Yardbarker.com)

After Jordan Hill’s solid play Sunday against the Knicks, Tom Ziller of NBA Fanhouse examined the issue of whether Coach Mike D’Antoni plays rookies:

Hill [...] hardly played for Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni, despite the fact that N.Y. remains one of the worst teams in the league and that the franchise needed all the boosted assets it could manage.  [Hill returned as] a legit rotation player with Houston, mind you.

Hill had tantalized at various times while playing for the Knicks, but he was never given much room to learn and grow and well… time to play.  Many fans rightly felt Coach Mike D’Antoni should’ve given Hill more burn, particularly since it’s been clear for a long, long while that we ain’t making it to the playoffs.  In his return the other day, Hill himself stated that D’Antoni doesn’t like to play rookies.  As we mentioned yesterday, unfortunately D’Antoni responded with his comment that he just doesn’t like to play “bad rookies.”  Other players & fans have also leveled the accusation that Coach D doesn’t play rooks (& truth be told, many coaches prefer to rely on the consistency of vets), but Ziller has D’s back:

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Poor Outlet Passing

On two separate occasions, the Knicks turned the ball over in the backcourt.  The first comes after a Rockets three pointer:

Now, both J.R. Giddens and Chris Duhon are at fault here:

(source: NBAPlaybook.com)

This is because Trevor Ariza is hanging around and it should have been noticed by either guy (or at least 1).  This is something that a lot of teams do to get the ball out of the PGs hands, but it rarely turns into a steal.  However, Giddens grabs the ball out of the net and just tosses to where Duhon is without looking.  For his part, Duhon floats away from the basketball as it comes to him instead of meeting the ball and ensuring the catch.  The Rockets went from being down 14 to being down 9 after this.  This was a huge 5 point swing in this game as the Knicks went from pulling away to trying to hang on to the lead.

This happened yet again later in the game, this time coming off of a missed basket:

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Gallo didn't shy away from contact ...which seemed to include head pats mussing up his hair plus kidney bunny punches (source: Yardbarker.com)

Friday night, David Lee missed his first game of the season due to a sore right knee.  What made it hurt as much for fans as it did for him is the fact that he inexplicably played 40+ minutes in the previous game even though we were getting blown away by the Celtics.  However, in the continuing saga of a bizarre season where nothing makes sense: we won.  What made the win against the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers even more unlikely? Our second (or third?) best player, Wilson Chandler, missed the game again due to injury (at this point it’s possible Wil might not return this season).  Throw in that our fourth best player, Tracy McGrady went 0-for-7 in 29 minutes.  Gently stir and mix in that our replacement starting center, Jonathan Bender, left the game when he broke a finger on his left hand in the first half (which’ll cause him to miss the rest of the season).

Yup, East is West, Black is White, Up is Down.  I’m pretty darn good at math, but I can’t figure out the calculus of how we won this thing. You figure, well, Al Harrington must’ve had one of those nights when he exploded.  Nope, the dude played 40 minutes, yet only tossed in 11 points on a pathetic 25% field-goal shooting.  We came into the fourth quarter trailing.  We’d been down as much as 12 points.  The Sixers, who killed us on the boards in the last game (as most teams do), even had their point guard snag 8 rebounds — yet somehow they lost the battle of the boards by a sizable 13 of ‘em!  It’s like this game took place in Bizarro World or something.  In a bit of nostalgia, Coach Mike D’Antoni played Chris Duhon an astounding 31 minutes.  In a ton of normalcy, Duhon responded with three points on 20% shooting and not a single assist.  Nice to see some things don’t change.  EVER. (more…)

Would legendary Boston coach Red Auerbach be more likely to roll over in his grave from not only Celtic cheerleaders, but ones with kilts, or... (source: Yardbarker.com)

For those who didn’t watch last night’s game you can be forgiven for thinking that a 97-109 loss to the Celts doesn’t sound too, too bad.  That’s ‘cuz you didn’t have to sit through it.  And ‘cuz the Knicks had a useless run in the fourth against the Celtics’ bench-warmers to make the game seem more respectable than it was.  The boys in green didn’t need the luck of the Irish on St. Patty’s Day to maintain a 20+ point against us for most of the game. This iteration of the Celtics over the past few years has made its mark on defense, not offense.  We made ‘em look like the high-octane Phoenix Suns, letting them shoot over 50% from the field.

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Is it just me or have the Knicks looked a little different lately?

With the Knicks racking two wins in a row, rumors have really rapidly run rather rampantly.  Is it true that the players’ life-forms have been inhabited by aliens?  How else do you explain wins over a top team like Atlanta, ending Dallas’ 13 game winning streak in a blow-out, and not playing down to Philadelphia’s level last night and losing like we like to do?  We here at Buckets Over Broadway are not afraid to plunge into such hard-hitting journalistic investigations to uncover the truth for you.  Are these the same Knick players we’ve known all year?  Or are they hosts to a possibly hostile race of space creatures who’ve come to slowly yet surely destroy any sense of logic in our world, thus creating chaos, leaving us unable to know up from down, and easy pickings for interplanetary conquest?  At this point, either seems feasible.  Let’s compare what clues point towards being a Knick versus an Alien:

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Yes, Douglas was sensational last night along with Walker both adding 20+ points and shot the ball extremely well. Sergio did not even see the court last night, and in a surprise lineup change Duhon was inserted back into the rotation.

The Knicks shot the ball extremely well, and the Mavs couldn’t hit anything all night. The Knicks were able to do whatever they wanted all night and dominated the Mavericks in all facets of the game.

The Knicks travel to Philly tomorrow to take on the Sixers in what should be a winnable game.

One positive note, however, was Bill Walker and leading the 4th quarter charge he put on and brought the Knicks within in 5 in what would have been a miraculous comeback. Walker has certainly made a name for himself since being dealt here and has in my mind earned a spot on next year’s squad.

Gallinari continued his horrid shooting slump tonight shooting 1-8 from 3 and 3-12 overall. The fact that he’s still starting is beyond me, and will hopefully be replaced by Walker in the starting lineup sooner rather then later. I’m not saying I’ve given up on Gallo, but something is certainly wrong and maybe rest will get him back on track because his shooting is killing us.

T-Mac was once again non-existant on offense, which is another killer for this team. McGrady has not taken the shots he should be taking and is being lazy on both sides of the court. McGrady needs to stop recruiting and focus on being a player fighting for a contract. McGrady needs reminded if he doesn’t start performing better there is no guarantee we bring him back.

Lee and Chandler did their thing once again and continue to be the only consistent players on this team.

July can’t come soon enough.

The Knicks effort tonight was really poor. They came out slow and were down 9 after the first and never really recovered. Shooting 11.8 from 3 didn’t help either. Seeing this team live and die by the 3 is getting very frustrating and doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.

McGrady was a non-factor along with Gallo. Gallo has been awful since the T-Mac trade and these poor performances from him are really discouraging going forward. McGrady really just didn’t play with any intensity and didn’t attack the Spurs inside like he should of. McGrady has to take more then 8 shots and Al Harrington doesn’t need to take more then 10.

Which brings us to the only consistent player on this team, David Lee. Lee battled Duncan well inside and really kept the Knicks in the game.

On a last note, the Knicks clinched yet ANOTHER losing season with this loss and things are as gloomy as ever. This team needs a makeover, which unfortunately won’t come until after this season.

The title of this post isn’t a joke, as one would assume. The Knicks were up by 1 with the ball and about 20 seconds left, but they turned it over. The Hawks were now breaking down the court with the chance for a win. How did the Knicks stop them? Let’s look:

Wilson Chandler meets Josh Smith at the top of his dunk attempt and gets the block. Now, his physical ability is what allowed him to get the block, but Chandler used his basketball IQ to get himself in position to let his physical tools take over.

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After playing so well, Gallo felt like he was sitting on air. (source: yardbarker)

This year the Atlanta Hawks picked up former Knick Jamal Crawford, who is second on the team in scoring and is the likely winner of the Sixth Man Of The Year Award for the most valuable player off the bench.  In addition, their should-be-All-Star power forward, Josh Smith, aka JSmoove, has taken his game to the next level by no longer settling for hoisting up three-pointers, thus greatly improving his field goal percentage (& shot selection).  As a result, the Hawks have taken that next step to where they’re almost up there with the big boys in the league.  No one would likely pick them to beat Cleveland or Orlando in a seven game series, but they’re no longer the gimmes they used to be.  And if the Cavs or Magic came out with less than their A game, the Hawks could easily come out as victors. All of which makes it more amazing that the Knicks beat the Hawks yet again last night.  Particularly right after losing to one of the historically worst teams ever in the Nets.

To further highlight the difference, in the Nets game the Knicks made negative NBA history by attempting the most threes (18) without hitting one (aka 0).  Against the Hawks, the Knicks came out and went four-for-four from out deep to start the game.  Of course they didn’t keep up that insane pace, but they still finished off hitting 10 of 15, for a whopping 66.6%.  Teams would kill to shoot that well from two-point range, so to do that from beyond the arc is just downright amazing.  And don’t kid yourself into thinking that it has anything to do with the other team’s defense — the Nets are one of the worst teams at defending from the three-point line.

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Sadly, Big Al goes in for the layup even if it means shoving others aside. (Source: Yardbarker)

Maybe all the cold weather in New York this year has made the Knicks think it’s still Christmas, ‘cuz they’ve been non-stop giving out the gift of victories to any team that comes near them.  The New Jersey Nets, who had won only 6 our of 61 games, were on a path to be the team with the worst record in NBA history.  The previous record low is only 9 games (out of an 82 game season) held by Washington in like 1982 or something (their leading scorer was Fred Carter).  If the Nets kept at that 6 of 61 pace, they not only would’ve been unable to win more than those 9 games, they wouldn’t have even won 9.  Now though at 7 of 62 after we let them whup us on Saturday, suddenly they’re on pace to out-do those 9 games.  Not a bad gift from their cross-river rivals?  This is one mark in the record book for which ya don’t wanna become famous.

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Wilson Chandler missed his second game, er I mean first game, since that game I imagined against the Cavs was just a bad dream.  Al Harrington started in his place, and Big Al kept his hot streak going.  He was hitting three-

pointers like they were going outta style.  Wait, “going out of style?”  What kind of dumb expression is that?  I feel like in today’s style conscious society, if something’s going out of style we try to instantly get rid of it, not accumulate ‘em.  Maybe in the old days if you knew a pair of pants were going out of style you might get a bunch of ‘em before they disappeared forever, but now it’s gotta be the opposite, right?  Like what kind of idiot would I be if I put up an Obama “Yes We Can” poster now?  Or if I decided that the way to make big money is through internet start-ups and real estate?  Actually, real estate might be coming back, but then that’s more like going retro.  Like getting me a pair of moon boots now might be kinda fun, but back when that fad was dying we knew they were awful even at the time.  Sorry, sorry, I’m rambling.  Where was I?

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For those who don’t know, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ center, a large man by the name of Shaquille O’Neal, had surgery on his finger which is causing him to miss the next month or so.  In addition they traded away their back-up 7+ footer, Zydrunas Ilgauskas (although due to an odd loophole he’ll be able to return to the team in 30 days).  That’s not to say we should’ve expected the Cavs to be anything less than awesome, but it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to hope that we wouldn’t get quite as hammered on the boards since they also wouldn’t have a single seven-footer in their line-up.  No such luck.  They nearly doubled our rebounds, 60-to-31.

That is, if this game actually existed, that might’ve been what happened.  But as we all know it was just a bad dream.

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We were up by 5 points with about two minutes to go in regulation, and it looked like we’d have a nice win.  But then we let ‘em score 6 unanswered points, with the last five happening in a mere 18 seconds.  Yikes.  Al Harrington hit only one of two free-throws to tie it up.  Then Harrington got a layup and a foul, meaning a chance to give us a  nice three-point game with 32 seconds left.  But again Harrington missed the gimme.  And in less than 7 seconds we let ‘em score and tie it up.  And while Harrington could’ve iced the game if he’d hit those two free-throws, if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have even been there in the first place.

Big Al shot a nice 12-of-21 from the field for 37 points.  He hit 5-of-8 three-pointers.  Yet somehow from the closer range of the free-throw line, and with no defenders, he shot about the same, 66%, missing 4 freebies.  The overtime was also odd, ‘cuz all game long it was just an offensive fest.  Washington rang up from 26-30 points in each quarter (we ranged from 24-31).  Yet in the five minute overtime, they managed only 4 points.  And we had only 6.  And we only got those last two points with seconds left, thanks to David Lee.  Of note, TMac, who had another solid game with 23 points, did not play at the end of regulation or during overtime (I’m unsure if this was due to his knee hurting or a lack of conditioning).

TMac's been great about driving to the hole rather than settling for the jumper... when he's able to make it on the court

Last thought about that game.  As some of you know, I used to write a Clippers blog (even though I’m a New Yorker, I currently live in Los Angeles and have pathetically adopted the Clips as my secondary team).  As a result, it was bizarre noticing this version of the Wizards had five, count ‘em, five former Clippers.  The day of the game they signed former Clip prodigy (before a devastating accident), Shaun Livingston (who sadly had a costly turnover for the Wiz late in the game), plus newly acquired Al Thornton, James Singleton, Quinton Ross and Earl Boykins.  I mean knowing how bad the Clips are/have always been, how dumb do you have to be to acquire five of ‘em?  And not even just any five, but five who pretty much always came off the bench.  So you’re not just choosing players from a bad team, you’re choosing players who couldn’t get much playing time even when they were on an awful team?  Moving on…

Saturday’s loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, we remained competitive for most of the game, even taking a lead into the fourth quarter.  Once again, Al Harrington was unstoppable.  31 points on 18 shots.  Again he was on fire from three-world, hitting better than 50% at 6-of-11.  And again, oddly, he was worse with free throws, making only 3-of-6.  McGrady had his first terd of a game, 0 points and 2 assists in only 15 minutes before having to sit out the whole second half due to knee pain (yikes!).  The thing that really killed the Knicks though was the rebounding disparity.  The Grizz used their superior length to outrebound us by 20 rebounds.  Pathetically, we allowed former Knick Zach Randolph to get a career high in rebounds with 25.  Our team, combined, managed to get just 32 boards.  Yup, one man almost outboarded our whole frickin’ team.

Comedian Tracy Morgan (from TV's "30 Rock"), watching the Knicks get whupped on the boards, ain't laughing

Last thoughts:

-D’Antoni has started regularly playing new acquisition Bill Walker, ‘cuz he’s been impressed with his athleticism.  Walker does have potential, so it’s nice to see him get some run so we can determine if he can be a piece down the road.

-Sergio Rodriguez didn’t have that non-stop energy in Saturday’s game.  Maybe he was tired from the back-t0-back, or just from being on a team where he often didn’t play at all to now getting big minutes and needing to initiate everything.

"Oh my God, your jaw is so strong & square! I must touch it!"

-As much crap as we’ve given Chris Duhon here over the last few months, we oughta comment that the dude has been pure class since not only losing his starting gig, but also losing all minutes whatsoever.  He’s gone beyond being a professional about it.  Always the first guy jumping up and cheering, and he seemed as thrilled as anyone when the Knicks pulled out the Wiz game.  He even issued a statement acknowledging that he sucked and that he was given MORE than enough of a chance to right things but he couldn’t, so he thinks it’s a good move to go another direction.  And I used to think a classy guy meant someone who didn’t eat with their fingers.

-Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler, despite being the only key players who’ll definitely be here next year, remain marginalized in the offense, usually getting at best the fourth or fifth shot attempts.  And mostly getting those off of broken-down plays rather than having plays run specifically for them.  This is a very, very bad trend.

Chandler rarely gets the ball 'cuz he takes low percentage shots like this. Oh wait, he drove past his man for an easy dunk. ...Hmmm, then I dunno why he don't get the rock more.

That disclaimer aside, the Knicks played worlds better against the Celtics (a team that’s one of only like 4 or 5 legit title contenders at this point), plus this good showing was in Boston so they didn’t even have the home crowd behind them.  Well, there was one exception.  New acquisition, Eddie House, got a standing ovation from his former fans.  Likewise, new Celtic, our former L’il Him, Nate Robinson, got tons of applause when he checked into the game to play his first minutes as a Celt (Krypto-Nate had been ill so he hadn’t played in any of Boston’s last few games).

Happily, once again Chris Duhon did not get off the bench (I believe I may’ve seen him wearing a suit, so maybe he wasn’t even on the active list for the game).  Sergio Rodriguez, still a bundle of energy, already has grown to better understand how to run D’Antoni’s offense.  He played 38 minutes, racking up 18 points on a fabulous 7-of-10 shooting, with 3 three-pointers, five rebounds, six assists, two steals, and one block to top it all off nicely.  This is a guy who was a third-string point guard for a team mired in mediocrity (the Sacramento Kings) who couldn’t get off the bench.  He’s always shown flashes of brilliance, but no NBA team has ever let him just go to town.  If he can keep up this level of play, I’m betting the Knicks will try to bring him back for next season (at a reasonable low salary).  This is a win-win situation for both sides.  We’re giving him a chance to prove himself, and in return we might get a great bargain for the future.

If we're gonna assume the Knicks lost from now on, we can also assume David Lee had a great night on offense and the boards. At Boston he racked up 28 points and 15 rebounds. Dang.

House gets a standing ovation from the crowd. Except for the rich people in front. They don't get up for nobody. Damn rich people.

Surprisingly, instead of Toney Douglas coming off the bench, D’Antoni gave new shooting guard Bill Walker some minutes.  I’d always assumed Walker was end-of-the-bench material who was thrown in to make salaries work in the Nate Robinson trade.  Sorta like how we also tossed in Marcus Landry who was our 15th man who rarely got to see the floor.  Now of course there’s the possibility that D’Antoni gave Walker some extra burn ‘cuz we were going up against his old team, but the kid looked good.  Yeah, he accumulated four fouls in just thirteen minutes, but he’s got some serious athleticism and potential.

Is it just me or does this look like one of them Lord Of The Rings shots were they digitally shrunk Eddie House so he'd look like a hobbit next to normal humans?

There was fear Tracy McGrady wouldn’t be able to play last night since we’d played the night before and he’d talked about how he was feeling all these minutes in his surgically repaired knee.  Again, he drove several times which was friggin’ awesome.  He did put up one or two ill-advised outside jumpers.  That, combined with him not getting some foul calls that he should’ve gotten, resulted in a less-than-stellar 3-for-8 shooting night for a mere six points.  Plus he only had enough energy to play 27 minutes.  But as I said, just the fact that he played at all was a great sign.  And while his shooting stank like skunk poo, that court vision was in full effect, allowing him to get eight assists.  Most point guards don’t even get that many assists in a game, so to get that from a shooting guard is a beautiful thang.

Battle Between Two Formerly Exciting All-Stars With Bad Knees Who Are Now Shadows Of What They Once Were. On A Tuesday Night.

Between McGrady, Rodriguez & Eddy House, we got nearly 20 assists, which resulted in us getting a ton of easy baskets against one of the best defensive teams in the league.  How easy, you ask?  We shot a sick 52.5% from the field.  The other thing that kept us in the game?  Our rebounding.  The Celts have taller big men than us in Kevin Garnett and Rasheed Wallace, plus much stronger big men in Kendrick Perkins and Glen “Big Baby” Davis.  Not only did we not let them dominate us on the boards, we actually out-boarded them by one!

The last impressive part about the game was that even though we got down by something like 14 points within the first quarter, the team never gave up.  In the fourth quarter we got within one point and were in it until the very end.  With less than 50 seconds remaining, we were down by three.  After several great passes getting the Celts out of position, we got it to Wilson Chandler for an easy lay-up at the basket with no one in front of him.  Then a truly unexpected thing happened.  Ray Allen, never known as a good defender and having lost a bunch of lift in his legs, came and blocked Chandler from behind.  Probably if Chandler had just dunked it instead of flipping it up it would’ve gone in, but there was no way he could’ve anticipated being blocked from behind by Ray friggin’ Allen.  It would’ve been a one-point game with less than a minute to go, giving us a real shot at stealing the game.  ‘Course if we did that, then I could’ve turned to you and said, “Guess what?  We won the lottery today.”

Sergio: "Hey, how come Nate's shooting at our basket?? What, he's not a Knick anymore?"

The Good:

1. New point guard Sergio Rodriguez took over the starting gig from Chris Duhon.  Spanish Chocolate was a never-ending blur and managed an unbelievable EIGHT steals!

2. New undersized shooting guard, Eddie House, played point when Spanish Chocolate went out, which meant: Chris Duhon didn’t play at all!  Not a second!  And that was goooood.

3. The Knicks did a good job hustling and scrambling on defense, holding the Bucks to a mere 43% fg shooting.

4. Tracy McGrady did not just settle for easy jump shots and instead had a few nice drives to the hoop.  Yes, none were dunks and a couple didn’t go in, but it’s excellent that he’s not shying away from contact with the big boys.

TMac, unafraid, drives to the hole, yet the Knicks still seem to be playing in the dark

5. At halftime the fans were thrilled as the Knicks honored the 40th anniversary of the 1969-1970 championship team.

6. To show how truly stupendous that 1970 team was, the current Knicks, in an outstanding show of support, got together before the game and decided to purposely play horribly so the fans would appreciate the old-timers even more. (more…)

"Dude, you said the Knicks sucked!" "Yeah, well you said TMac was done!"

The Oklahoma Thunder have made one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NBA history.  After winning only 21 games last year (or in a glass half-empty view, losing 61 games), they now are 5th in the ultra-competitive Western Conference.  They are in the middle of the longest current winning streak in the league (nine games), and they have third-year phenom, Kevin Durant, a legit MVP candidate.  It could be argued that Durant is second in the MVP race to only LeBron.  Plus, he’s in the middle of a streak of having scored 25+ points in 27 straight games.  At first that last statement didn’t seem that impressive to me, ‘cuz after all like LeBron and Carmelo are averaging nearly 30 a game, while others like Kobe and Allen Iverson have averaged that much (or more) for a whole season too.  However, in the last 35 years there is only one person who has ever accomplished that feat: Michael Jordan.  Yup, no other active player has done it.  Not LeBron, Kobe, Wade, Shaq, AI or even the Knicks’ newbie, TMac (a man who’s lead the league in scoring a couple of times).

All of which goes to say that after the way the Knicks have been playing, it was pretty darn remarkable we almost won this game, let alone played well.  The big story, as everyone’s already heard, is Tracy McGrady’s big game.  That he’s back.  Not to be glass-half-empty again (what am I, thirsty or something?), but I’m skeptical that he can bring that kind of production regularly.  What I do think that he can help keep bringing back is the energy in the Garden.  The crowd was more alive than they are on Free Taco Night.  Okay, there’s no Free Taco Night (the correct question here is: why the hell not?), but Madison Square was rocking Saturday night.  For once, people came to see the Knicks, not the other team, or just to be “seen.”

McGrady's most athletic play of the night: When a Thunder-ite goes to block his shot on the right, mid-air Tmac does a loopedy-loop and scoops it in lefty

(more…)

Not A Good Sign When The Bulls' Cheerleaders Do "The Dance Of The Dead"

Word is that the Knicks’ have chosen to go in a new direction since they clearly no longer have a shot at the playoffs after their month-long visit with mediocrity (actually mediocrity’s too good a term for them, let’s substitute that with suck-itude).  No, that new direction alas, is not “let’s play well” or “at least pretend to play some defense,” but rather “we suck so much, why don’t we at least let the rookies lose for us so we can see how they are.”  Thus last night we went out and made the Chicago Bulls look like they still had Jordan & Pippen, losing to them by a mere 33 points.

Bad Sign #2: The Players Join The Fans In "The Wave"

In fairness, Derrick Rose came out on fire, and I believe shot 9-for-9 for 19 points in the first half before he even missed a shot.  Rose, not know for his jumper, had it going last night, which makes him nearly unguardable.  Of course the Knicks’ persist in using Jared Jeffries to defend opposing teams’ point guards, which basically means he backs off and dares them to shoot the jumper.  If they hit ‘em, like Rose did, then we’re outta luck.  Actually, even when Jeffries plays up on ‘em, then if he gets beaten off the dribble it leaves players like Chris Duhon, Danilo Gallinari & David Lee to help out, none of whom are shot-blockers or particularly good at help defense.  It’d seem smarter to have Jeffries on one of the big men so that he can be the one who helps out.  Not only is he (sadly) the Knicks’ best shot blocker (out of the players who get minutes), but he also actually leads the league in drawing charges.  Meaning if Rose was to beat Duhon off the dribble, Jeffries could position himself so Rose would have to run him over, forcing Rose to commit a foul.

Bad Sign #3: Harrington Gives Up, Starts Doing One-Handed Push-Ups

When Rose went out at the end of the first quarter, the Knicks actually battled back and looked like they might make a game of it.  That lasted until about midway through the second quarter, and then I believe they lost interest when they saw a shiny object.  Or maybe they started to think about what they’d type if they were on Twitter.  Perhaps I’m short-changing them.  For all I know, they could’ve been contemplating the tragedy of Haiti.  Regardless, the focus was definitely on the game.

Wilson Chandler Spots Shiny Object Off-Court, Loses Focus

However, particularly with Nate Robinson out, the two kids we drafted (Jordan Hill and Toney Douglas) got some run.  Heck, the game got so out of hand that even Marcus Landry and Jonathan Bender got to jog up and down the court a few times.  Oddly, with the game clearly out of hand, Coach Mike D’Antoni still kept starter Chris Duhon in.  Maybe it was his way of punishing Duhon for his awful play the last two months.  And y’know even putting aside the fact that Du hasn’t hit a shot since the first Gulf War, it seems like all Duhon does offensively is run pick-and-rolls with David Lee.  I got nothing against pick-and-rolls, but how about doing some with Gallo, Wilson Chandler or Al Harrington?

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Smack 'Em

Anyway, the good news is that we won’t have to play Chicago again for at least a few more hours.  Yup, they’re coming to the Garden tonight.

These last few months may end up being very, very long…

Why's Chicago's Derick Rose Smiling So Big? He Gets The Knicks Two Nights In A Row!

Clusters of spectators occupy sections in every arena, waving Israeli flags, chanting his name, pleading for an autograph, a high-five, or even a glance.

These past few days in particular have been a blur of activity: Pregame and postgame chats with a throng of fans Sunday in Toronto; a post-practice gathering Monday at Madison Square Garden with members of the media, including several Israeli television and print journalists; a private audience with Commissioner David Stern in his Olympic tower office hours later; a reception sponsored by the Israeli Consul General in the early evening and, finally, tonight’s long anticipated Kings-Knicks matchup that is being marketed as Jewish Heritage Night.

A Jewish acappella group sang the National Anthem

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Bucks ride all over Knicks. "You my horsie now, Harrington!"

Friday night the Knicks played the Milwaukee Bucks, and their star center, Andrew Bogut (who also got passed over for an All-Star nod), came out on fire.  In the first five minutes he went 3-for-3 for six points, had 3 rebounds and a block.  Then it looked like he injured himself and he went to the locker room.  Oddly, it was then reported that he’d then miss the rest of the game not because of an injury, but because of a migraine.  With him gone, and injured former All-Star Michael Redd already out for the rest of the season, the game should’ve gotten remarkably more easy.  Instead, we allowed their defensive stud, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (who by the way is a genuine prince in Camaroon), to be extremely efficient offensively, going 6-of-7 for 16 points.  Since that alone wouldn’t have been enough to ensure us losing, we then decided to let second-year bench player Ersan Ilyasova (from Turkey, but not royalty) go for 25 points, nine rebounds, and two threes.

Danilo Gallinari again was a non-factor on offense, only attempting six shots and hitting two.  More bizarre, despite being the NBA’s best outside shooter from three-point land, he only went 2-for-6 from the much-closer and not-at-all-defended free throw line.  Al Harrington needed 20 shots for 22 points (it’s never good when your shot total is almost as high as your point total — as a counter example, David Lee scored 32 points on 18 shots).  If the Knicks still have any delusions about making a push for the playoffs (and honestly, there still is enough time), then these are the games they need to come out fired-up and win.

Buck: "Wait, there are no unicorn over here- D'oh! You're scoring right now, aren't you?"

(more…)

Um, Jared, for a bounce pass you're supposed to bounce the ball on the ground, not your butt...

However, the Knicks seemed fairly disinterested for much of the first half.  Kinda like they’ve looked in general.  One amazing exception was Larry Hughes, who got an early call off the bench and decided to play with energy this time instead of sulking.  He played well enough to get minutes in the second half too, and afterward D’Antoni said that if Hughes keeps playing like that then he’ll keep getting minutes.  Of course the bigger more important question is whether this means Hughes will shave his beard.  Early word says he’s not ready to commit to that just yet.  We’ll keep you on top of this vital news as soon as more information breaks.

Hughes: "One, two, step, kick and... jazz hands!"

(more…)

2. Chris Duhon’s shot is starting to come back, but whenever it does briefly return he then seems to follow it with some ill-advised jumpers.  It’s like a shooter who gets hot and then keeps trying harder and harder shots, looking for a heat check.  Except Duhon (who’s been like 3 for 912 over the last few games) has been in such a rut that if he hits just one shot he seems to think he must be on fire.  Weird.  Going from passing up open shots and layups to forcing looks ‘cuz he thinks he might be feeling it.

Duhon: "Who cares if I'm surrounded by 4 Wizards? I hit my last shot, so I'm shooting this one!"

(more…)

Wizards' Mike Miller: "Aww yeah, it's white boy versus white boy now!"

We all know David Lee is extreeeeeeemely undersized for a center, but because he hustles, he usually holds his own in the rebounding department.  Plus, even though he’s short, Jarred Jeffries at 6’11″ and Danilo Gallinari at 6’10″ are pretty darn tall for the forward spots, while Wilson Chandler at 6’8″ towers over all SGs.  So they shouldn’t have trouble rebounding.  For the most part, that’s been true.  This weekend teams battered us so badly on the boards that we looked like a little boy jumping for his hat while a tall bully just holds it above his reach.  In Saturday’s loss to the Washington Wizards, 5’9″ Nate Robinson (have we officially moved to calling him 5’9″ instead of 5’8″ like he used to be?  Has he actually grown?), was tied for 3rd for most offensive rebounds.  Meaning he got just as many as Lee, Chandler, and 7’0″ backup Jonathan Bender.  And more than Gallo’s 0 offensive rebounds.

Maybe if we did this with our players they'd get up higher & snag rebounds.

That isn’t meant to single out Gallo, as he actually lead the team in rebounds in that game with 10, so he stepped up his game in that department.  However, when you see that we shot 44.7% versus the Wizards’ nearly identical 44.9%, yet we got to the free throw line more, getting 14 points to their 7, it would seem like we shouldn’t have lost by 10 points.  (Side note: even though we did get 7 extra points at the line, we should’ve gotten even more as the team shot a miserable 63% from the charity stripe, highlighted by Jeffries’ 1-for-5 showing.)  So what was the big difference, the Short White Boy asks rhetorically because he already told you what this was all about?  Rebounding.  We was outrebounded 59-40 by the Wiz.  They had 24 grabs on the offensive glass, meaning, yes, 24 extra shots.  Against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday our boardwork was even worse: we were outrebounded 58-36.

(more…)

For the Knicks I don’t usually examine teams in a position-by-position analysis since the team does a lot of switching, swarming and zoning, very rarely leaving one guy isolated to play D against another one.  So for instance, we don’t have any good low-post defenders, meaning Big Al should kill us, but in the last game we double-teamed him whenever he got it.  That said, I think the Wolves’ weakest spot is SF where they’ve rotated Gomes and Damien Wilkins and haven’t gotten the consistency they’d like.  Earlier in the year I would’ve said SG ‘cuz Corey Brewer was defending great but was an offensive liability.  Now he’s huge on both sides of the court.

As I mentioned, in single-coverage, we can’t contain Al Jefferson.  Jonny Flynn also would be too much for Duhon to handle, but for the most part we’ll probably have Jared Jeffries on him instead.  He kept backing off Flynn, daring him to shoot a jump shot.  If Flynn doesn’t take at least a few of those to keep Jeffries honest, he’ll have a tough night again.

Positions are almost irrelevant for the Knicks since they switch so much and use such unusual matches, like having Jeffries often cover the point guard.  We tend to not post up normal sized SGs, so we don’t gain any advantage there, but if a team does choose to play like 2 PGs then we will post-up.  Defensively, when going up against a Kobe-type, we just double, so again it don’t really matter that whoever is considered SG doesn’t have the lateral speed.  The big general disadvantage is that besides Jeffries, we don’t have great individual defenders, which is why we have to resort to such a chaotic D (which can kill us if the other team has good outside shooters).

The Knicks have played so poorly of late (except for that game), that if anything I’m less confident.  Teams sometimes get more pumped for better teams, so if the Knicks even slightly think they can take the Wolves for granted…  well, we ain’t playing well enough to do that and we’ll get shellacked.

See above.

6. What is your prediction for the game?

The Wolves will get a solid 10-point lead early on.  The Knicks will climb back up at some point.  Will they have enough energy to then take the lead too?  I dunno.  But I gotta put my sunglasses on and say in the end it’ll be a beautiful sunshiney day & we’ll win.

A few question unrelated to the game

1. Was David lee the biggest snub?

No, I think Josh Smith was.  But Lee’s second.

2. Are both Lee and Nate Robinson gone after this season?

Sadly, I think so.

3. Scale of 1-10 how much do you miss Isiah Thomas?

On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d say I miss Mr. Thomas about a negative infinity.  Plus or minus two.

]]> http://bucketsoverbroadway.com/2010/01/31/thoughts-on-todays-knickswolves-game/feed/ 0 http://bucketsoverbroadway.com/2010/01/29/david-lee-snubbed-as-all-star-knicks-snuffed-out-in-end-by-toronto-raptors/ http://bucketsoverbroadway.com/2010/01/29/david-lee-snubbed-as-all-star-knicks-snuffed-out-in-end-by-toronto-raptors/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:44:08 +0000 Alex David, aka Short White Boy http://bucketsoverbroadway.com/?p=358 David Lee found out shortly before the game that he was not one of the players chosen by the coaches to be an All-Star this year.  He was bummed, but as he realized, it seemed that the coaches only chose players from teams that are .500 or better.  The Knicks ain’t.  The odd thing was [...]

David Lee Snubbed As All-Star; Knicks Snuffed Out In End By Toronto Raptors - Buckets Over Broadway - Buckets Over Broadway - A New York Knicks Fan Site - News, Blogs, Opinion and More

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David Lee: "Excuse me, Bosh, if you won't let me into the All-Star game with you, will you at least let me go by 'cuz, well, I'm trying to hold it in, but I gotta piss."