All Amare has done is show up, play hard and win a lot of games. We took Boston to the last second and almost won the game but ran short of .02 seconds. We beat the Nuggets, the Bulls, the Thunder but thats not enough for LZ Granderson. The Knicks are finally playing ball and beating some good teams and Donnie is not done rebuilding! Why does ESPN hate NY?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=granderson/101224

For those NBA fans who love stats, allow me to present a few:

• 36 and 5.

• 33 and 15.

• 41 and 7.

Those are just a handful of the numbers in points and rebounds posted during Amare Stoudemire's team-record nine consecutive 30-point games for the Knicks. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

And it would be even more impressive if those numbers belonged to Stoudemire.

Instead, those are the stats the opposing team's big men managed to accumulate on the road in Madison Square Garden while chants of MVP were being thrown the $100 million man's way by the home crowd. Not to be the Grinch about this, because Stoudemire has been far and away the most consistent of the big-name free agents playing on a new team this season. But it seems that while he was busy getting his, so was his man. Or at least someone he spent some time guarding.

Those numbers aren't attached to the names you might expect, either, such as Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan or Dwight Howard. Instead, they were put up by Brook Lopez (36 points, 5 rebounds on Nov. 30), Kevin Love (33 points, 15 rebounds on Dec. 6), and Andrea Bargnani (41 points, 7 rebounds on Dec. 8) -- talented players, but not exactly the kind you'd expect to play "STAT" to a draw.

In Phoenix, Stoudemire infamously called Lamar Odom's 19-and-19 performance against his Suns in Game 1 of last year's Western Conference finals "lucky."

"I focused so much on [Pau] Gasol and [Andrew] Bynum to where he snuck in there and got 19 boards," he said.

I wonder, then, who had his attention when Love went for 31 and 31 in Minnesota on Nov. 12, making NBA history?

While I'm sure Knickerbockers fans are happy just to see their team over .500, I can't help but notice that lesser-light players such as the Raptors' Amir Johnson and the Cavaliers' Anderson Varejao have had the best nights of their careers against the Knicks this year.

Did all these "lucky" dudes do their damage exclusively against "STAT"? Of course not. But …

"He's never been known as a defender," says a veteran East Coast scout. "I will give him credit for growing as a player, but he still doesn't impact the game physically like he could. As long as they are winning, I think you have to take the good with the bad. But if for any reason they stop beating bad teams -- and let's face it: For the most part, that's all the Knicks are doing -- then eventually fans are going to notice how easy it is to score against him."

Stoudemire is a smart guy, and I admire the way he overcame a rough childhood and, against all odds, has become one of the most exciting players in the game today. I still get excited about his 37-points-per-game average against Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs during the 2005 conference finals. The dude has always been a handful … on offense. He is the Knicks' best player, and they are entertaining for a change and will be winners to a certain point. But until the player he is on offense consistently shows up on defense, too, New York will never be a legitimate title contender. Not if he's their centerpiece. Showing up in big moments is what All-Star-caliber players are supposed to do. Making players disappear is what champions do.

That's just history talking.

Kobe locks up. Wade locks up. KG locks up. Duncan locks up. Jordan locked up. Hakeem locked up. Bill Russell has championship rings on his toes because he was all about locking up.

"The little success the Knicks are having right now is all relative," said one East Coast executive. "It's based on how bad they've been over the past 10 years, so the local media there is hyping it more than they should. "Depth, toughness and defense is what makes you a real contender, and they don't possess those three things."

Stoudemire played on Suns teams that led the league in possessions for five consecutive years, and yet he's never averaged 10 boards a game; while David Lee, the man he replaced in New York, is working on his fourth double-double season for his third different coach. The point is that some numbers reflect a team's system, and some reflect a player's desire. If "STAT worked as hard on the ugly stuff the way Lee or Ben Wallace or Dwight Howard do, then Phoenix might have gotten over the hump and made it to the NBA Finals during his time there. It's not entirely his fault the Suns didn't get there, but his penchant for giving up "lucky" games certainly didn't help.

When he came to the Knicks, he said New York is back. He must've meant back to the 1980s, when they had a high-scoring Bernard King and a soft defense. No way would the Charles Oakley/Patrick Ewing teams of the 1990s let a rookie go off for 44 and 15 against them the way Blake Griffin did back in November.

No, in order to back up bold statements like that, "STAT" has to decide he's going to limit the number of big games big men have against them.

Considering the history of tension between Stoudemire and Mike D'Antoni from their days in Phoenix together, it seems a shift like that in New York will have to come from within the player, not imposed by the coach. At least not this coach.

Otherwise, the Knicks will be the East Coast version of the Stoudemire/D'Antoni Suns -- near the top in points scored, near the top in points given up. And ultimately, nowhere near the top at the end of the postseason.

TMS wrote:there isn't a player in the league that can put forth max effort on defense & still produce at an elite level on the offensive end throughout the entire game... players have to pace themselves... Amare picks his time to turn up the intensity on defense, like he did today in the 4th quarter... his shotblocking has been huge all year & has made a major impact in every game we've won, but this guy conveniently seems to have left that out of his article.

+1. Man, what a rediculous article, seriously. Laughable -- this guy is playing the best ball of his career..He's a difference-maker in every sense; someone the crowd is chanting "MVP" for on a regular basis (and deservedly so)..He's been everything I've expected AND SO MUCH MORE..Go ahead ESPN jerkoff, rip the Knicks, Amar'e, NY and whoever else you feel like laying into -- we all know better around these parts. This team is finally on the road back and everyone around the NBA knows it except for this putz..

I can't believe this idiot gets paid to write baseless garbage like that.

Silverfuel wrote:

"The little success the Knicks are having right now is all relative," said one East Coast executive. "It's based on how bad they've been over the past 10 years, so the local media there is hyping it more than they should. "Depth, toughness and defense is what makes you a real contender, and they don't possess those three things."

Ha ha, someone sounds bitter- my guess is its someone from the Nets.

Who cares about the rest. Who cares about melodrama? I'm enjoying the most important thing: the game,

holfresh wrote:Part of what the author is saying is true...I think it has more to do with style of play than Amare himself as a defender...Right now MDA is trying to save his job...He knows he can't show up winning 30 games again at the end of the season...People were calling for his head a little over a month ago...So he is doing what he know best with a short rotation...But at some point after acquiring the personnel, he has to implement some defensive schemes into his game plan, and I don't meant the one where a 6'10" guy is covering the point guard of the opposing team...

Fact is the coach had to choose his style of play..Like TMS basically said, you can do it all...U can't be an all out defender and try to run the other team off the court with your pace on offense... The coach has to find a balance...Right now he is trying to play speedball and it's working because teams won't be prepared for the Knicks' pace from one game to the other during the season...The playoffs are another story...There has been many other players who has had career nights against the Knicks this season that are not PF or playing against Amare..So I think the author is misreading it...He this it's Amare and I think it's style of play and the coach...

If you have a less than perfect roster you are going to have to pick your battles. We operate better with Amar'e at C, cuz it creates mismatches on offense and that is our primary style as a team. This isn't a defense 1st team. So when we enhance our efficiency on offense we're playing to our strength.

Now I really am growing tired of this notion that we aren't playing D. We are, cuz you can't get leads without stops. We have to get stops in order to win games. It's not possible to win if you can't get stops or at least play more efficiently than your competition. So in the end we may not be a defensive juggernaut, but we play enough D to win games. We actually do a LOT of good things defensively, but the fact that we don't have anyone that is a great rebounder really hurts us.

Amar'e, Chan, Gallo play a ton of minutes but aren't great rebounders. Turiaf and Williams aren't either. The one guy that is puttin in work is Fields, but we don't get it from out bigs in the paint and so teams get a lot of extra chances against us. If we were to fix that one thing it would make a HUGE difference in how you feel about the Defense Mike has been coaching. His D is actually pretty good, but we need help inside. That was the initial idea of playing Timo, but he's not the answer.