Tyson is a great defender, but aside from dunks has no offensive game, so he clogs the middle
STAT is a great PnR player, but dunks like Tarzan and rebounds like Jane. Guy is the worst defensive PF starting in the league.
Melo is really an inefficient scorer that plays D sometimes.
Shump is really a great defender, but just a touch off offensively.
Jared is an excellent team defender that can't make a clean layup consistently to save his life.
Lin played the best defensive game i've seen tonight, but overall he's been torched on D. I'll give him a chance to disprove he's not a 2 way player.

It just goes on and on as you go down the team. Now with role players it's somewhat acceptable if you have a few specialists but GEEZ!!! It makes it super tough to come up with a rotation that will play well consistently on both ends.

Perkins, all defense.
Ibaka, defensive player who socre on dunks and tip ins.
Thabo is a defensive player (though he has improved on his 3 point shot this year)
Cook (3 point specialist. Thats pretty much it)
Durant & Westbrook are offensive players who are not to be confused with Lebron or DWade on the defensive end.

Its up to our coaching staff to find that balance with the roster to make it all work.

Uptown wrote:You are not wrong in your assesment, we do have alot of one-way players but we are not the only team. OKC has a lot of one-way players aswell:

Perkins, all defense.
Ibaka, defensive player who socre on dunks and tip ins.
Thabo is a defensive player (though he has improved on his 3 point shot this year)
Cook (3 point specialist. Thats pretty much it)
Durant & Westbrook are offensive players who are not to be confused with Lebron or DWade on the defensive end.

Its up to our coaching staff to find that balance with the roster to make it all work.

I don't understand your point in that I never said that we were the only team full of One Way players. I said the KNicks were the MOST one sided!

Of course you could go up an down every roster and find some guys but this team is really pretty bad in this regard. Also I doubt highly that Durant and Westbrook are as bad as STAT and Melo defensively as a duo of starts leading their team.

Also I do acknowledge that they need to figure out how to balance the lineups, but it's a really difficult thing to do.

yellowboy90 wrote:I think there is hope if given an offseason with Woodsen. Those last 7 minutes was a thing of beauty from everyone except for a few laspes on the rebound. I saw everyone play great man and team D. I liked what I saw from Amar'e as a defender hedging on the top of the key. He had his bad moments but he looked better.

Regarding the line ups Shump has got to play for his defense and I do not like Lin at the 2.

Woodson really isn't the main issue IMO. I do think he helps, but it's about having all of our best defensive players able to play healthy. The work Woodson and the staff put into the role players already shown in the games they played well defensively. We lost a lot of games not due to defense but being out of synch on offense. The defensive lapse seems like it will be a temporary thing. This team can play better defensively and I believe they will.

Baron and Lin worked very well together! You have two ball handlers who are smart and skilled and Lin can shoot. Baron is getting stronger. This was another experiment for MDA and I say why not cuz no matter what he's got to try things out in games to know if they'll work or not. He can experiment on a road trip like this without his 2 defensive anchors, so I say go for it. In the end this team has too much talent not to eventually settle down and win games. I still think they'll figure out a rotation and lineups that work and will be a tough out in the playoffs no matter who they play.

From what I can see this team has too much talent to be down for long. At full strength this team is gonna be tough, but it just isn't easy cuz they have so many players that really aren't consistent 2 way players. STAT was better tonight tho still not great. Lin showed some really good Man D on Jennings. I can't get too crazy about Shump not playing cuz I think MDA wanted to get a look at JR and then later wanted to see the Baron/Lin duo, which looked good.

Melo is all about his Iso scoring, which right now is pretty inconsistent. Amar'e is all about PnR, thats it. They suck on D, on rebounding and on leading. Their presence has the rest of the team grounded.

Lin was the miracle that we needed to understand how amazing this system can be in maximizing the talent willing to play as a team.

Iman? He is a great defending, but his offensive ineffectiveness is helped greatly by Lin, so you get his great Linsanity stretch. Jeffries also applies here. He was close or in double double territory during the streak.

Novak is a sharpshooter, but actually credit goes to him that he was always active on D, making us lose no ground there when he came in.

The rest of the guys went with the same flow that simply died with The Returns. Thats the reason why Im not optimistic about this season anymore. I lost hope in Amar'e getting that he has to try his hardest on D. I also lost hope in Melo ceeding his crown to Lin, because Melo isn't a real leader. He is a weapon whose strengths don't work to perfection with the system, but its actually the focus he "deserves" as a star that killed Linsanit and keep us from flying again.

Moonangie wrote:MDAs system is defense via scoring. That's just not clicking with Melo ball-stopper getting so many touches. When he was out, the ball zoomed around and we got lots of open looks. Once Tyson is back the interior defense should be a lot better. Too bad Stat doesn't come by his nickname honestly anymore.

Yeah, we obviously lost becuase of poor spacing . Knicks shot over 50% and had 29 assists last night. The ball moved plenty. We gave up 119 points and 50% shooting from 3. Not to mention 17 offensive rebounds. We lost and are losing on this current streak because of our defense or lack thereof.

Lin was playing GREAT defense during that streak and he has just goten burned out. His legs were gone, but never his vision. Clearly his defense is starting to come on again lately. I just think he is getting some of his legs back lately. But now with Baron and him playing together (which seems to work), Lin is back to getting the most minutes on the team. Double edged sword perhaps, time will tell.

I am on record that he might be the best fee agent signing since God knows when for this team and his the value of his presence over the last few games is a testament to that fact.

Uptown wrote:You are not wrong in your assesment, we do have alot of one-way players but we are not the only team. OKC has a lot of one-way players aswell:

Perkins, all defense.
Ibaka, defensive player who socre on dunks and tip ins.
Thabo is a defensive player (though he has improved on his 3 point shot this year)
Cook (3 point specialist. Thats pretty much it)
Durant & Westbrook are offensive players who are not to be confused with Lebron or DWade on the defensive end.

Its up to our coaching staff to find that balance with the roster to make it all work.

Wow, excellent post Uptown.

Scott Brooks gets it, and he gets it pretty well.

Mike Dantoni? Well, that's a whole different story.

Knicksfan wrote:

JrZyHuStLa wrote:

Uptown wrote:You are not wrong in your assesment, we do have alot of one-way players but we are not the only team. OKC has a lot of one-way players aswell:

Perkins, all defense.
Ibaka, defensive player who socre on dunks and tip ins.
Thabo is a defensive player (though he has improved on his 3 point shot this year)
Cook (3 point specialist. Thats pretty much it)
Durant & Westbrook are offensive players who are not to be confused with Lebron or DWade on the defensive end.

Its up to our coaching staff to find that balance with the roster to make it all work.

Wow, excellent post Uptown.

Scott Brooks gets it, and he gets it pretty well.

Mike Dantoni? Well, that's a whole different story.

You guys are close to the truth, but not quite. Don't you remember how good out one-sided players looked when they played as a team during Linsanity? Our one-sided stars returned and have remained one-sided while haven't helped the team play, which was our bread and butter during the Lin streak.

If the coaching staff can transform Amar'e into a defensive player and Melo into a team player, Im all for it. But the truth is that its harder to teach an old dog some new tricks. Unless they prove everybody wrong, I think the only solution is divorce.

The Anti-D'Antoni crowd in NY is huge and they think it's his fault, but whenever he's had a group that actually plays TEAM ball the way he teaches it, the teams win!!! We saw great defense from our scrubs and Lin and yet over and over arond the web all I read is how _'Antoni doesn't preach D. The team is top 10 in Pts per 100 possessions even after the losing streak, which shows you how good the D was before. Once STAT and Melo came back the D immediately dropped off a level.

Last night STAT actually helped on PnR a few times and that was a good sign, but he and Melo fell asleep on the boards. The more games we play the clearer it will be to MDA just which combinations work. They will have to include Tyson and Jared in the future cuz we need them for D and rebounding.

nixluva wrote:

earthmansurfer wrote:NixLuva - Everything you said is true, except for Lin. Lin outplayed Jennings last night and mostly stayed in front of him, quite well actually.

Lin was playing GREAT defense during that streak and he has just goten burned out. His legs were gone, but never his vision. Clearly his defense is starting to come on again lately. I just think he is getting some of his legs back lately. But now with Baron and him playing together (which seems to work), Lin is back to getting the most minutes on the team. Double edged sword perhaps, time will tell.

Yeah I think you may be right. Perhaps it was a little fatigue that got to Lin. He was great last night! I was so impressed with Lin's D on a really quick Jennings. It seems to me that one on one Lin is fine, it's just those constant picks that allowed guys to burn him. It was good to see the old aggressive Lin.

Good point, I forget to mention the picks. Did you notice Lin wasn't switching? He was going over them, not under them, every time from what I remember. I'm sure the coach told him to (at least I hope). I hope we modify the switching, it is painful to watch and a play to be used by the opponents when they need a mismatch.