The Knicks improved to 54-28 on the season, which gave the Knicks their most victories in a season since the 1996-97 season.

Apr. 17, 2013; New York, NY, USA; Atlanta Hawks shooting guard John Jenkins (12) dribbles the ball past New York Knicks small forward Iman Shumpert (21) during the first half at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports

It turned out to be a battle of the benches as the Hawks rested their starters as well. For the Knicks, the likes of: Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, Raymond Felton, Jason Kidd, Tyson Chandler, Kenyon Martin and Marcus Camby all sat this one out.

That meant it was just another opportunity for Chris Copeland to shine, as the rookie led all scorers with 33 points, just one game after dropping 32 against the Charlotte Bobcats on Monday.

The Knicks shot 42 percent from the floor and drained 37.5 percent of their attempts from behind the arc. The difference in this one though was the fact that they limited the Hawks to only 2-of-21 shooting on three-point attempts.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how the Knicks graded out to close the regular season.

Individual Grades

Pablo Prigioni (8 points, 3-of-3 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal)

Prigioni got off to a monster start and was on his way to putting up a monster line before spraining his ankle at the end of the first quarter. His status right now is unknown for Game 1 of the playoffs on Saturday, but even though he played only 11 minutes, he earns a high grade for his start. Grade: A

James White (20 points, 8-of-15 shooting, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals)

White got 43 minutes of playing time to show what he could do and he didn’t disappoint, scoring 20 points on 8-of-15 shooting. The impressive part was that he knocked down 3-of-6 attempts from behind the arc. He also grabbed some rebounds and moved the ball successfully. In addition, he was solid at the defense end of the floor. Even though it wasn’t against great competition, White was impressive. Grade: A

Iman Shumpert (18 points, 7-of-11 shooting, 7 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals)

Shumpert had a great all-around game Wednesday night and was very efficient doing so. He was able to successfully break down the Hawks’ defense. He also thrived as the primary point guard once Prigioni went down. I think it is safe to say that Shump looks like a much different player right now than he did a couple of months ago. Grade: A

Chris Copeland (33 points, 14-of-29 shooting, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 2 blocks)

Copeland shined once again and made his case for minutes in the postseason. He scored from all over the floor, getting to the basket, scoring inside and drawing contact and getting to the free-throw line eight times. He only attempted four three-pointers on the night which makes his all-around game even more impressive. He wasn’t very active on the glass, but it was a great performance nonetheless. Grade: A

Apr. 17, 2013; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks center Earl Barron (42) on the court against the Atlanta Hawks during the first half at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports

Earl Barron (11 points, 5-of-14 shooting, 18 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block)

Making his Knicks season debut, Barron owned the glass, grabbing eight rebounds, including six offensive boards. He was extremely active in the paint and found a way to get open in the lane a lot. He missed a lot of shots, but that probably should have been expected from a guy who hasn’t played a game in a very long time. Grade: A

Steve Novak (3 points, 1-of-8 shooting, 1 rebound, 3 assists, 1 steal)

Novak played 41 minutes and threw up a ton of bricks. He missed on 5-of-6 of his three-point attempts and didn’t do much to contribute in other areas. Not a pretty way to end the regular season for Novak. Grade: D

Quentin Richardson (5 points, 1-of-11 shooting, 10 rebounds, 1 assist)

Richardson showed some rust, but this also was expected after not playing a game since the preseason. After making his first shot of the night, Q went on to miss his next 10 attempts. He did show some aggressiveness on the glass though and grabbed 10 boards, five of them offensive. Grade: C

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The team announced on Wednesday that it has signed veteran big man Earl Barron for the remainder of the season.

Oct 30, 2012; Cleveland, OH, USA; Washington Wizards power forward Earl Barron (30) during a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena. Cleveland won 94-84. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

Barron is the second player signed in as many days and like Quentin Richardson, who was inked to a deal yesterday by the club, is a former Knick.

New York is one of seven teams Barron has played for during his seven-year NBA career, also playing for the Miami Heat, Phoenix Suns, Milwaukee Bucks, Portland Trail Blazers and Washington Wizards.

Barron posts career averages of 4.9 points and 3.6 rebounds per game in 123 career games played.

Most recently, the seven-footer appeared in 11 games for the Wizards earlier this season, averaging 2.5 PPG and 3.9 RPG with the team before he was released.

If the name sounds familiar to Knicks fans, it  should as Barron averaged 11.7 points and 11.0 rebounds in seven games with the Knicks back in 2010, which is probably the best seven-game stretch of his career.

Barron is eligible for the postseason roster, although I wouldn’t expect him to see much time.

With many of the Knicks’ injured bigs, including Tyson Chandler, Marcus Camby, and Kenyon Martin, expected back for the postseason, there won’t be a lot of minutes available.

But Barron should at least provide some frontcourt depth in case any of the Knicks’ regulars are injured again.

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Amar'e In Vogue Magazine

* Mr. Stoudemire, moving to New York has seriously raised your profile. Hasn’t it.

* Not to overreact to this comment too badly, but even if you believe this, Carmelo, there’s no need to say it publicly.

* Tonight the Knicks play the Celtics. Or as it’s better known to ESPN, Spike Lee takes on Kevin Garnett.

* Fantasizing about a Knicks-Nuggets finals matchup.

* The Times recap.

* Latrell sat courtside during yesterday’s loss. The fan’s serenaded Carmelo with a “Sprewell’s Better” chant, which goes to show the level of basketball knowledge found in Milwaukee.

* The Newsday recap.

* Carmelo’s video reaction to the loss.

* Ronny Turiaf is truly one of the league’s great ambassadors. A really good person.

* After taking about 30 shots yesterday, Amar’e wants the Knicks to actually pick up their tempo. I’m going to suggest worrying about the defense instead.

* This little snippet found at the bottom: The Knicks are keeping an eye on Earl Barron. All our problems are solved!

Gallinari, apparently bored with the game, throws up his arm ("forget y'all!") and walks away while Melo scores. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

The Knicks, who had been down by as much as 16 points in the fourth quarter, clawed their way back to a tie, only to run out of time in the end against the Denver Nuggets.  For once, the offense didn’t grind to a halt.  However, much like in the game against Golden State, Amar’e Stoudemire had key misses from the free-throw line that likely cost us the game.

Over the last five years, Stat’s free throw percentage has been superb for a big man, ranging from 77.1% to 83.5%.  This year he’s shooting 72%, the worst he’s done since his second year in the league.  Last night he didn’t just shoot poorly for himself at the line, he shot poorly for like Shaq or Dwight Howard, going just 3-of-8 or 37.5%.  In a game decided by two points, that’s pretty huge.  When you miss free throws, particularly if you tend to miss them more toward the end of games, it’s clearly a mental issue.  Stat called out the team after the last game, saying they lacked a winning mentality, but one could easily make a case that he’s been the most responsible for not closing out games.

Though Stoudemire ended up with 24 points on a nice 10-for-19 shooting, he had only 6 rebounds and needs to dramatically improve his shot selection.  He tends to get the ball a little past the free throw line and then likes to try to drive to the side of his defender, getting some contact and putting up an awkward shot.  It only occasionally results in foul shots, but it always results in tougher attempts than had he just shot the open jumper when he caught it.  In fact, there were many times where he caught it in that area, with his man playing several feet off of him, and Stoudemire didn’t even look to shoot, instead passing it off to someone else.  For him to be truly dangerous, he needs to get his defenders to respect that outside shot.  That will force them to close out on him and make it easier for him to drive past them.  Right now they play a step off of him, making his drives tough even when no help defenders come over to clog the lane.

On the other side of the coin, in the world of and-that-guy-is-who?, the game featured two wonderful performances from unheralded rookies.  The Nuggets’ undrafted rookie, small forward Gary Forbes, notched 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting, going 3-for-3 from distance, and adding an impressive 9 rebounds.  Not to be outdone, our own Landry Fields, who many people thought shouldn’t have been drafted, rang in an even more impressive 21 points on 10-of-15 shooting, plus an insane 17 rebounds.  By contrast, our three centers (Timofey Mozgov, Ronny Turiaf and Anthony Randolph) only combined for a paltry 5 boards.

Point guard Raymond Felton also had a good all-around game, with 19 points, 8 rebounds, 11 assists, and only 1 turnover.  Actually, we were pretty darn good in keeping our turns down, only having 11 of ‘em.  Stoudemire too had a good game in that regard, only losing the ball twice.  One thing that seemed to help him get some easier buckets is that often after getting a defensive rebound with his man right on his back, Stat handed off the ball to Felton and then just sprinted down the court.  Felton would then pass the ball ahead to Amar’e who, yes, ugh, would take a few dribbles, but at these points at least there was usually just one defender, and that guy was backpeddling.

Other bits:

-Mozgov and Randolph were useless.  Actually, often they were worse than useless, frequently doing dumb things that hurt the team.  On one play, a Nugget was fouled, and because of continuation, took another step and just lobbed up the ball to ensure he got free-throws.  Randolph came over, trying to be like Kevin Garnett, and swatted the ball away.  However, since it was continuation and not, as KG does, a block on a shot taken after a dead ball, it was goal-tending, giving the Nugs two free points.

-Toney Douglas’ shot still wouldn’t fall, and since he doesn’t really know how to pass like a real point guard, it limits his usefulness.  Luckily, coach Mike D’Antoni seems to have realized this and thus limited Toney to just 16 minutes.

-Too many threes.  Heading into the fourth, the Knicks had already attempted 22 threes, only hitting five of ‘em.  In the fourth, they finally started to hit ‘em, going an excellent 4-for-9, but 31 threes on just 29% shooting is ridiculous.

-Speaking of threes, we’ve seemed to have trouble hitting them and thus keeping the opposing team honest.  Toney, Landry, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and Anthony Mason have all been unable to consistently hit from range.  I’ve hoped that Kelenna Azubuike might eventually return and provide that steady threat, however maybe we already have our guy.  Last season, in his 27 games with us, Bill Walker shot an insane percentage from deep.  Last night he went 2-for-3 from downtown, so I was surprised that D’Antoni didn’t reinsert him when we needed a three at the end.  Walker hasn’t been as unconscious as he was in his limited run the previous year, but he’s still shooting a very impressive 36.8% (for comparison sake, since three pointers obviously get you more points than two pointers, shooting 33% from deep is the same as shooting a very impressive 50% from two-point land).  Maybe it’s time for D’Antoni to start giving him more than 14.3 minutes a night?  I dunno.  We clearly need to switch something up and get a boost from somewhere.

-Lastly, although we won the battle of the boards last night, clearly we need help at the center position.  It is thus with heavy heart (and still much confusion) that I write that last year’s surprising end-of-the-year flier, Earl Barron, has finally signed on with an NBA team — the Phoenix Suns.  I assume he’s getting the minimum and it’s just a one-year deal, so I still have no idea why we didn’t bring him back.  Is it really better to instead use that roster spot on keeping Shawne Williams glued to the bench?

Wilson Chandler, aka Wil The Thrill, has been one of the few good Knicks the last two years. Will he be a starter again this season, or could he >gasp< find himself glued to the bench? (Source: Yardbarker.com)

With a few days before training camp and positional battles begin, today we discuss who will likely be the Knick starters, part of the rotation, and the bench boys.  We have considerable depth, but as we said when discussing previews from other sites, Coach Mike D’Antoni has consistently shown himself to be someone who likes a short rotation.  Why?  A combination of it being easier to develop chemistry amongst a smaller group and the fact that he literally doesn’t seem to trust lots of players.

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Walsh may get credit for snagging one of these All-Stars, but he definitely takes a hit for losing out on the other one. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

We’ve already evaluated Donnie Walsh based on his Drafting ability in Part I, resulting in a big ol’ zero, meaning he was neither particularly good or bad.  In Part II, when we discussed Trades, he definitely performed well, scoring a +3.  Today we’ll examine perhaps the most important aspect of his legacy so far: Free Agency.  For many execs this doesn’t play a huge role, however since Walsh’s stated goal from Day One has been to clear cap space for a run at the max players this past summer, then it’s only fair that this should be a hugely significant factor in his evaluation.  Once again, reprinting the rules:

1. I don’t believe in negative Monday morning quarterbacking, so I don’t punish people for making decisions that were widely held to be smart at the time, but ended up working out poorly.  Meaning if LeBron James breaks his leg in seventeen places in a car accident tomorrow and can never really play better than an average player again, I can’t fault Pat Riley for signing him down the road.

2. I do, however, believe in giving credit for decisions that seemed poor/insignificant at the time but turned out great.  When the Suns reacquired Steve Nash from the Dallas Mavericks, many pundits felt they overpaid due to Nash’s back issues and age.  Two MVPs and many amazing seasons later, it’s clear that was a good move.

3. Draft-wise, in addition to no negative Monday morning quarterbacking, I also don’t believe that if someone makes a pick that turns out surprisingly great, you can’t fault all the other teams for passing on the guy.  Like Isiah Thomas gets kudos for finding David Lee at #30, but since no one thought he’d be as good as he ended up being, I can’t penalize all other 29 teams for passing on him.

4. For each positive thing, I’ll add some points (the # of points will depend on how big a thing it was).  Similarly, for each negative decision, I’ll subtract some points.  We’ll keep a rolling tally.

Free Agency Signings

December 2009 – Jonathan Bender

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Anthony Randolph is thrilled to be out of Don Nelson's doghouse in Golden State, with a chance to finally explode in the Big Apple (Source: Yardbarker.com)

The proposed sign-and-trade that Chase wrote about (David Lee to the Golden State Warriors for Anthony Randolph, Kelenna Azubuike and Ronny Turiaf) has been finalized. As I wrote in the comments section of that post, I’m not thrilled with the move. While Randolph (the heart of this trade) has otherworldly potential, he does play the same position of power forward as our big new signee, Amar’e Stoudemire. For potential to blossom, a player needs minutes like a flower needs water. Sure we could possibly move Amar’e over to center for a bit, but Amar’e has said many times in the past that he prefers to not play that position. Personally, I think we should’ve kept David Lee to make up for Amar’e rebounding deficiencies, ‘cuz it ain’t like Randolph is known for doing the dirty work or the little things. Plus Lee is a known commodity that could be used in a trade. If Randolph doesn’t develop, then we gave away a home-grown All-Star for nuthin’.

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Is J.R. Giddens a good defender? Philadelphia's Andre Iguodala looks skeptical. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

Like with most of New York  -Hell, like with most of America, we here at Buckets have recently become a teeny, eensy, weency bit obsessed with this summer’s upcoming free agency extravaganza.  However, in our desire for newness, we shouldn’t completely forget about what we already have.  Thus we return to our ongoing Clash-song-inspired series, Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now?, where we look at our players from last season who don’t have fully guaranteed contracts with the Knicks for next year.  We’ve gone alphabetically, already covering the following:

Earl Barron

Jonathan Bender

Chris Duhon

And now we bring you our first player with whom we hold all the cards: JR Giddens.   (more…)

Duhon may shoot the ball like a blind paraplegic, but he's one of the few Knicks to play some defense. Is that enough to warrant keeping him? (Source: Yardbarker.com)

For those of you who are new to the neighborhood, no, the title of the post isn’t a stab at Chris Bosh’s recent Twitter post — it’s a Clash homage.  We introduced the idea to this series a couple of weeks ago: an analysis of the 10 Knicks who we don’t have under contract for next year.  Going alphabetically, we already examined Earl Barron and Jonathan Bender.  Skipping over definite returnees Wilson Chandler, Eddy Curry & Toney Douglas, we now arrive at the man who was our starting point guard for the majority of the last two seasons: Christopher Riley Duhon.  Okay, I made up the Riley part, but it sounds right, don’t it?

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Should the Knicks keep their one 7-footer who rebounded and played defense? Yes. Will they? Now that's where the question gets tough. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

Going alphabetically, our first look at potential returnees is late-season addition Earl Barron.  During his short stint here in New York, Le Barron averaged an impressive double-double with 11 rebounds and 11.7 points.  For a big man his field goal percentage was a disappointing 44.1%, likely due to his preference to shoot from the 10-15 foot range rather than post up by the basket.  However, as his rebounds show, it’s not like he went all Rasheed Wallace on us and drifted out from the paint.  No, Barron wasn’t afraid to go down low to fight for a loose ball, but he also wasn’t that comfortable going back up in a crowd with it either.

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Should we have Sergio Rodriguez, JR Giddens and Bill Walker return next year for us? It's time to start thinking these things through. (source: Yardbarker.com)

In a homage to the seminal band The Clash, I present the beginning of the “Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now?” series where we look at each of the Knicks’ 2009-2010 players and examine whether… well, whether they should stay or go. We’ll be discussing not simply if they were good for us or not, but also factoring in how much it would cost to retain them, how it would effect our salary cap space, and what role we would want from them. For instance, it’s a no-brainer we don’t want to pay Chris Duhon $6 million to be our starting point guard again. However, giving him the veterans’ minimum of like $1+ million to be the backup (or simply a bench/practice presence) becomes a far more interesting question.

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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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Andrew Bogut, Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer, Tim Duncan, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard, David Lee, Kevin Love, Troy Murphy, Steve Nash, Joakim Noah, Chris Paul, Zach Randolph, Gerald Wallace and Deron Williams.

Me, I was surprised to learn that Gerald Wallace has averaged over 10 rebounds a game this season, but what surprised Ridiculous was the one player I hid:

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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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