ramtour420 wrote:Ok, there are 2 sides of this arguement. Side one says that Knicks minus Billups and minus Amare = the suck and therefore its totally expected to lose the series to the Celts(being the only team swept is not relevan't really). I completely agree, because it is a bulletproof arguement and its true. The 2nd side to this arguement is that game 2,for whatever reason(take your pick of MDA being amazing, Celtics being vulnerable, Melo being the man, all of the above thats not really relevant either) it was our game to take. Game one was taken away by the refs and the alley hoop to Garnet, game 2 we just had to make that little huge play that separates the teams that lose games from the teams that win games. We were the former. And here is the salt of this side of the arguement. The reason why we couldn't make that little huge play in game 2 in very relevant. Please take your pick out of the following: A. Jeffries is a scrub. Fair, but he should not have had the chance to be responsible for that play. Which brings us to why: B. Melo is a scrub, he should not have passed it to JJ and just take the shot. Also fair, given how he was having the playoff game of his career. But he was covered by 2 or even 3 guys and in BB thats a bad shot. So him passing it off should have led to a pretty play to finish off the Celts, except that it didn't. Why? Well, let me bring up the 3rd, and my favorite reason as to why. C. MDA. Was there a solid play drawn up to be run during the most important possession of the last 7 years? Were the correct players in the game at the time when D was irrelevant and we just needed a score? Aren't those the things that a coach is responsible for? No, NO and apparently NO. I don't understand why MDA gets a pass just because we had injuries, there are still things that are expected from a coach no matter what.
Carmelo gets a pass because he made the right basketball play. He was double-teamed and he passed to an open guy about five feet from the basket. It's not his fault that Jared Jeffries gets paid to be an NBA big man but can't finish from that spot. Jared Jeffries is a joke. Hell I could have a shot from right there.
As far as the D'Antoni argument goes, it's easy to say that Jared Jeffries shouldn't be in the game and you're right, but him even being there goes back to the injuries, doesn't it? If the Knicks were completely healthy, I don't think Jared Jeffries would be in the game at that point and neither should anybody else. If the healthy lineup of Chauncey, Melo, Amare, Turiaf and Douglas/Fields is in there it probably turns out differently.
As far as having a play drawn up, I don't know how that possession could have gone any better. He gave the ball to Melo and said "make a play," which Melo did. You can't really ask for anything easier than your center basically having a dunk, and it's not Mike D's fault that Jeffries is so offensively inept that he's too scared to put the ball in the hoop.
Jeffries is a scrub, and that's why the play went the way it went. D'Antoni's job is to put the ball in the hands of his best player at the end of the game, which he did, and it's Melo's job to make the best basketball play, which he did also. At the end of the day, you need better players than Jared Jeffries and everybody knows that.
