Posted by Bonn1997:
Learning to be a team? They play nothing but one on one offense.
What exactly did they learn? What specific knowledge do they have now that they didn't before the season started?
Did you read the entire article? It explains what the writer means by this.
Knicks’ Biggest Success: Learning to Be a Team
By HOWARD BECK
Published: April 12, 2007
Another Knicks season is winding down amid angry shouts and bruised egos and embarrassing play. The tension was almost tangible Tuesday night after the Knicks took a 29-point thumping in Chicago.
But this is less alarming than it appears. The anger is directed outward now, toward insensitive opponents who score too many points and toward the nonbelievers who dare express skepticism at the Knicks’ evident progress.
The rage can come off as misplaced — as it did when players accused the Bulls of running up the score, when Chicago put up only 20 points in the fourth quarter — but it plays better than the images and words of last April.
A year ago, the rage was aimed inward, as players turned on Coach Larry Brown and Brown in turn battled his players and his bosses in the final days of a horrific season. These Knicks (32-46) will most likely miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season, but their progress can be found in the least measurable category: team dynamics.
Quentin Richardson recalled a day in training camp last October when Isiah Thomas, who feuded with Brown and then replaced him on the bench, set the tone for the season.
“He told us, ‘I don’t care what nobody else says about us,’ ” Richardson said. “ ‘Everybody else doesn’t matter. What matters is what’s in this room and if we believe. I’m telling you right now, we got what it takes. We just got to believe in each other and put in the work.’ ”
Throughout their many low points this season, the Knicks have put meaning to those words. They were unified, not splintered, by their December brawl with the Denver Nuggets, a clash colored by notions of disrespect and wounded pride.
Thomas established this theme in the third game of the season, when he chided the Indiana Pacers for whooping it up in a rout of the Knicks.
“One day,” Thomas vowed that night, “we’ll be the team that’s on top, doing the kicking and the stepping.”
That day remains somewhere out on the horizon. But the Knicks now move with a swagger that eclipses their winning percentage. They are still the target of late-night quipsters, but the barbs come less frequently.
(Jon Stewart on Monday asked Bill Bradley, the former senator and onetime Knick, if his new book addressed “why the Knicks can’t get their stuff together.” Bradley responded, “Jon, there are some things beyond the capacity of someone who is in public life for 20 years.”)
The Knicks firmly believe the world would view them differently had they not been racked by injuries. Between Feb. 27 and March 10, they lost Jamal Crawford, David Lee and Richardson to injuries that eventually ended their seasons. The three were among the Knicks’ top six scorers, their two leading rebounders and their best playmaker.
From Dec. 18 to March 3, the Knicks went 19-16. Their record never approached .500, but they occupied eighth place in the Eastern Conference on March 10 and remained in the playoff race until the past two weeks, when the injuries became too much to overcome.
That, Richardson said, is why this team should not be viewed as “the same old Knicks.”
“Any team in the league, you take three or four of their best players, it’s going to be tough,” he said. “I don’t care who they are, I don’t care what players they got. Even with us losing those key guys, our team is still fighting, in every game, playing hard.”
They have done so recently despite also losing Stephon Marbury, and relying heavily on two rookies and two second-year players. The blowout Tuesday was an exception; most of the Knicks’ recent losses have come down to the final minutes.
With their playoff hopes all but extinguished, the Knicks have little to achieve in the final four games. There is no payoff for losing — their first-round draft pick will be used by the Bulls as the final compensation from the Eddy Curry trade. (The Knicks get the Bulls’ pick.) The best the Knicks can do is avoid falling deeper in the standings, thus improving Chicago’s draft position. Before yesterday’s games, the Knicks were tied for the seventh-most losses in the N.B.A.
Thomas bristled Tuesday when a Chicago reporter suggested that the players might have relaxed after they “saved” his job. (The Knicks are 3-12 since Thomas received a contract extension.)
“I’m pretty secure in who I am, and I’ve done all right in my life, so I don’t need people saving me,” Thomas said sternly. “But thank you.”
Richardson seemed to regret that the Knicks could not do more for Thomas. After last season’s misery, he said, Thomas had the Knicks enjoying the game again and “working toward the same goal.”
“I was severely impressed to be around him this year and see how he handled everything from top to bottom,” Richardson said. “They were trying to throw him away for dead, and I mean he stood right there the whole time and he told us from Day 1, and I still believe him, that if we were all healthy that we could beat anybody. I think everybody will go home with their heads up high.”
Are these things not true? Is it too much to ask to actually accept that there were some good things that came out of this season? Perhaps that there's a case to be made that this team had a great chance at being in the playoffs if it didn't have so many injuries all at once? I for one could see that this team really came together and remained together this season. That's a HUGE development for this group which they can take with them going forward.
4/12/2007 9:16 AM