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Killa4luv
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December 6, 2005
Knicks Are Facing an Identity Crisis
By HOWARD BECK
For a telling snapshot of just how befuddling and karmically adrift the Knicks are, one only needed to track their steps this past weekend. On Friday, they lost to Coach Larry Brown's former team. On Saturday, they waived one of their strongest perimeter defenders. On Sunday, unable to guard a pair of great perimeter scorers, the Knicks lost again.
Five weeks into the season, the Knicks (5-11) are feeling the full weight of a clumsy start to the Brown era. And Brown, regarded as one of the best coaches ever, sounds as perplexed as the neophytes he is teaching.
"It's pretty confusing right now for me," Brown said Sunday, assessing his roster choices before the Knicks lost at home to the Boston Celtics, 102-99.
When Brown leans on his veterans, they sometimes appear too slow and too limited to carry the load. When he turns to his energetic youngsters, they often manufacture great rallies only to misfire in crunch time.
It happened Friday night in Detroit, when a fourth-quarter comeback against the Pistons fell short. It happened again Sunday, when a late surge was stunted by youthful errors.
"There are things, unfortunately, that through the course of the game you have to explain, and hopefully it helps you the next time you play," said Brown, who simultaneously sounds impatient and preaches patience to the public.
"I look at our young kids and they're improving a lot, and there's still a lot of time left," he said, later adding, "I don't think you can focus on the record."
It is much too soon to say the season is in peril. Despite the slow start, the Knicks are only two games out of the Atlantic Division lead, and no one in the division has a .500 record. The Knicks have shown moderate improvement. Since an 0-5 start, they have gone 5-6, with four of the losses coming against division winners from last season - Denver, Miami, Detroit and Boston.
The schedule has been unforgiving. The Knicks have played 10 of 16 games on the road and have played consecutive home games only once, Nov. 4 and 6. They open a three-game trip - their second visit to the West - tonight in Seattle. But the schedule softens after that, with six of the next nine games at Madison Square Garden. In January, the Knicks play 10 times at the Garden, sandwiched around five one-game trips.
By then, they hope to be healthy as well. So far, the Knicks have received little return on their $90 million summer splurge on centers. Eddy Curry and Jerome James have been slowed by injuries and poor conditioning. Without their post presence, the Knicks have looked like the same jump-shooting team that lost 49 games last season.
In the losses to Detroit and Boston, the Knicks' center in crunch time was Jackie Butler - a raw 20-year-old who had played in only three N.B.A. games before this season.
"Eddy's not ready to play, Jerome James is not ready to play," Brown said Sunday. "Our best center by far is Jackie, and he's younger than all of them."
Then there is the puzzling decision to waive Matt Barnes, the team's opening-night starter at small forward. Barnes outplayed Trevor Ariza in the preseason and showed himself to be a strong defender, a capable rebounder and an unselfish player. A foot injury sidelined Barnes for seven games, and although he is now healthy, he never had a chance to earn his way back into the rotation.
Brown said Barnes simply did not fit into the Knicks' plans - an odd explanation because he has lamented his other options at small forward (power forwards Malik Rose and David Lee and shooting guard Quentin Richardson). The mystery might have been answered yesterday, when the Knicks worked out Qyntel Woods; they are expected to sign him to a contract today. Woods, a 24-year-old small forward, is expected to be with the team for today's shoot-around. Woods was drafted by Portland in 2002 out of junior college and finished last season with Miami. He has been suspended twice - once for violating the league substance-abuse policy and once after he was charged with animal abuse. He was sentenced to probation in a case involving one of his pit bulls.
Isiah Thomas, the team president, has not explained the team's roster decisions; he has not spoken to reporters in nearly three weeks. The Knicks still need a backup point guard, as Brown continues to bemoan the imperfections of Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson. Stephon Marbury, although he has not complained recently, has made it clear he prefers to be a shooting guard in Brown's offense.
On Sunday, Brown started Robinson alongside Marbury, but the move backfired; Marbury, who is 6 feet 2 inches, had trouble defending Ricky Davis, who is 6-7 and scored 27 points.
It is a constant juggling act for Brown as he tries to develop five young players (Robinson, Lee, Ariza, Butler and Channing Frye) while attempting to keep his veterans productive and the Knicks on track. Brown has started 12 players and used 10 starting lineups - two more than the Knicks used all last season. The rotation changes minute to minute.
But Frye has been a revelation, Marbury has been steady and the injury list has shrunk. And there are 66 games left for Brown to tinker. "I'm not worried about that right now," Brown said when asked about the team's struggles. "This is a marathon."
REBOUNDS
After playing for the first time in two weeks Sunday, Eddy Curry said that his left calf was "definitely not 100 percent," but that he intended to keep playing. ... Jerome James will play against the Seattle SuperSonics for the first time since leaving them for the Knicks last summer. James said the Sonics "made a strong campaign" to re-sign him, and offered a contract close to the five-year, $30 million deal he got from the Knicks. "But all my life, I wanted to be a New York Knick, so there was nothing they could say or offer me to get me to come back to Seattle," he said. So many interesting tidbits here, where do we begin? [Edited by - Killa4luv on 12-05-2005 11:12 PM] |
12/5/2005 11:15 PM
