Harrington-I really like Al. I think he has a genuine love for the Knicks, wants to be here and really wants to win. I want to root for him, but he really is stuck in that playground mentality. He's convinced in his head that if the team is struggling, the star player takes his man one on one and singlehandedly gets his team back in the game. Now Al has actually done this a few times in his career. Many quality offensive players have been able to do this(even Nate has been able to do this). Problem is, only the superstars can do this every night. The Michael's and Kobe's and Duncan's could do it regularly, Al cannot. Unfortunately Al is emulating the superstars of the game and has not realized that this is not the way to go. For the majority of the players in the leauge the game is not played this way. When the team is going poorly you have to set it up, run your offense and get your points within this flow. I personally don't think Al will ever get this.
David Lee-I think he played very poorly last night. He got his points and rebounds but his defense was atrocious. He was abused by O'Neal and not once did he give a hard foul or show any sign of being competitive. His playing of the pick and roll is about as good as Shaq's. Three times in a row Miami ran the same exact play against us. Two ended in dunks and one ended in an uncontested jumper. It was so bad the Heat players were laughing when D'Antoni called a timeout. All three times Wilson got above the screen and all three times lee stood there staring at the floor. He had two choices, switch immediately. Realize that he was in no man's land and therefore pressure the ball handler to make the pass to his man tougher. Or 3 stand there, wait for the guy to dunk and throw your hands up in disgust like you are mad at something, when in reality you aren't.
Jared-What summed it up for me was during Gallo's hot streak. Here Gallo has hit 14 3's in a row and what does Jeffries do. First he steps on the out of bounds line. A play later he tries to take Dwayne Wade off the dribble and gets stripped. Time to go back to you roots Jared, grab some rebounds, hustle on D, and stay out of everyone's way on offense
Duhon-In my 30 years of watching basketball his play in pre-season and the first game have been the worst I have ever seen a PG play in a New York Uniform. He doesn't run the offense. He does not create, he is the ring leader along with Wilson when it comes to take shots out of the flow of the offense. I'm not going to lie, he has been tough to watch.
WilsonWilson should watch video of the 2nd half and compare it to his first half. In the 2nd half most of his shots were from 18 feet and in. He attacked the basket and took open shots. In the first half he jacked up disjointed shot after disjointed shot(example: Duhon tries to feed Darko in the post. Miami is cheating over so it's not there so he does the proper thing and swings it to Chandler. Chandler should have kept the swing going and eventually we would have found Gallo wide open in the corner. Instead Will hesitated and then jacked up a contested 3 pointer with time on the shot clock and out of rhythm. The result "clank"). I personally have never seen a player take shots like this so often. Eventually he has to start showing some learning.
Gallo Teams are figuring Gallo out and now he will need to adjust. They started with big guys and that did not work. they went to the standstill slow jumpshooting guys to defend him and that didn't work. they are now using the 6-5 to 6-7 guys and that works at times at other times it does not. These smaller guys are able to take his penetration and dribble away from him, but he is able to pretty much get his jumper off at will. I think as he gains confidence and IF he improves his handle/strength and is able to bully these types they will eventually be forced to guard him with the starting SF's of the world. Until then the 6-5, 6-7 types do give him problems. Regardless, I can't complain about his game last night. He was poor in the first half when we needed him. Yes. But in the second half he single handedly gave us a tiny bit of a spark. Judging by what I've seen of him, I do think he will have games were he literally wins the game with his dagger shots. I still don't see a superstar but I do see a player that will be an asset
DarkoFor his short time on the floor I thought he played the best. He tipped rebounds, got his hands in the passing lanes, harrassed guards on the pick and roll and just had an overall presence. I haven't seen enough of him to know if he is a tough player, but if he is I can really see him as being a solid bench intangibles guy on a good team.
OverallPretty obvious, no earthshaking stuff here. Disjointed offense, shots out of the flow, too many threes, no defense, no anger when the team was collapsing. Surprisingly good ball movement, too bad we could not take advantage of it. I really do think this team is infected. The losers of the past have passed the loser mentality(where it's okay to quit when the chips are down. Nobody gets upset at a lack of passion) from generation to generation. There is no leader that steps up and gets in the faces of others when they aren't performing. It's just half the team staring straight ahead like a deer in headlights and the other half trying to win the game singlehandedly and jacking up 3's. This is why you gut teams like this and do not try to build on top of them with mediocre players you can obtain with the MLE
10/29/2009 2:47 PM
