Knicksfan wrote:

nixluva wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

Even the elite teams have games like this. The schedule has been brutal and this team has had to fill in every off day with some kind of practice in order to try and get it together as fast as possible. What was this stretch, 7 games in 10 days? That can wear out just about any team except for the super deep teams like the Mavs.

I understand being upset with the lack of effort, but they've been playing hard lately with the exception of tonight. Let's see how they respond the rest of the way. One game is nothing to go crazy over.

I have loved their effort in the last few days, no matter if they have been wins or losses, but what killed me in this game was that it felt they really thought they were playing with house money and therefore made no strong effort to win or stay close. They had that 3rd quarter run, yeah, but never tightened up the D enough to make it a game.

I hope they realize once the playoffs start, they can't get a night off like they seemed to do tonight.

couldn't agree more. once they fell behind by 8 in the first quarter, the game was OVER. It was appalling

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Jeff Van Gundy and coaches like him get the best defensive effort out of their players. Another guy like this is Scott Skiles. they do more with less.

what does rooting for your team have to do with not liking a coach? I still enjoy every victory. That doesn't mean I have to like the coach. Not liking the coach doesn't mean I hate the Knicks or I'm rooting for them to lose. It means I do not think this coach is right for the long-term success of the team and want him replaced as soon as possible. Dragging that into me not rooting for the team is lame and amateur.

How am I taking this from one game? Did you read the part where I said it's more than one game...it's 3 seasons? Yeah, we had a bad roster. Okay. He had a good one this year and the defensive effort was still poor. It still is now. Nobody cares about being blown out. It's about getting your team to consistently show up on the defensive end.

Teams with good defense don't just have all great defensive players. They usually have a coach who preaches it and instills it in his players through his schemes and techniques. Not every player on every defensive team is some great defender that everyone here keeps bringing up when they say the Knicks "don't have the personnel". Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were never great defenders. Now they're quite good. Odom was always a subpar defender, now he's quite good. Even guys like Jason Terry were not defenders yet they play better defense now under a defensive coach like Rick Carlisle. This coach has not gotten the most defensive effort out of ONE guy since he's been here. Not even one. The most offensive effort, sure. The most defensive effort? No.

It's not one game. I've been upset at this hiring since the first day it was rumored we were signing him. I tried to give him a pass the first 2 seasons. But guess what? This ain't a honeymoon anymore. We're not playing any differently and the coach is still the same stubborn fool with poor rotations. Honeymoon is over. Put up or shut up time. We're not a title contender right now but that doesn't mean we have to play defense like a biddy league team either.

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Jeff Van Gundy and coaches like him get the best defensive effort out of their players. Another guy like this is Scott Skiles. they do more with less.

what does rooting for your team have to do with not liking a coach? I still enjoy every victory. That doesn't mean I have to like the coach. Not liking the coach doesn't mean I hate the Knicks or I'm rooting for them to lose. It means I do not think this coach is right for the long-term success of the team and want him replaced as soon as possible. Dragging that into me not rooting for the team is lame and amateur.

How am I taking this from one game? Did you read the part where I said it's more than one game...it's 3 seasons? Yeah, we had a bad roster. Okay. He had a good one this year and the defensive effort was still poor. It still is now. Nobody cares about being blown out. It's about getting your team to consistently show up on the defensive end.

Teams with good defense don't just have all great defensive players. They usually have a coach who preaches it and instills it in his players through his schemes and techniques. Not every player on every defensive team is some great defender that everyone here keeps bringing up when they say the Knicks "don't have the personnel". Paul Pierce and Ray Allen were never great defenders. Now they're quite good. Odom was always a subpar defender, now he's quite good. Even guys like Jason Terry were not defenders yet they play better defense now under a defensive coach like Rick Carlisle. This coach has not gotten the most defensive effort out of ONE guy since he's been here. Not even one. The most offensive effort, sure. The most defensive effort? No.

It's not one game. I've been upset at this hiring since the first day it was rumored we were signing him. I tried to give him a pass the first 2 seasons. But guess what? This ain't a honeymoon anymore. We're not playing any differently and the coach is still the same stubborn fool with poor rotations. Honeymoon is over. Put up or shut up time. We're not a title contender right now but that doesn't mean we have to play defense like a biddy league team either.

How about Malone/Stockton/Horny? If they could play great defense anyone can. But Jerry Sloan would not settle for anything less.

As I've said countless times:

You hear D'Anti-D (not bad :-)) screaming in the huddle "we need to push the ball we need shots push push push"

you hear Sloan/Popovitch/JVG/Rivers/PJax screaming "no easy shots! get in their face! rotate on the PNR! Nothing easy! Hustle!"

Nuff said.

Bush didnt get it "its the economy stupid"

MDA doesnt get it "its defense stupid"

Defense wins championships! The knicks in the Ewing era and in 99 were not a good offensive team but were great defensively. Oh but they didn't win the ring - NO RESPONSE NEEDED

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Winning a tile has nothing to do with it. Did Jerry Sloan win a title? No. Is Popovitch better than Sloan because he's won? Uh ... no. Does that make him a bad coach or not a great coach? No. What they did do with inferior talent was make their players play and when they felt that the players were no longer willing to give it their all, they were done.

MDA does not get his players to play DEFENSE day in and day out - he would not know how to even if he actually wanted to. The knicks will live and die from the outside which is not the right recipe.

The JVG teams would / could shoot horribly but still win the game. Why? Because they made the other team shoot EVEN WORSER!!

Defense wins championships! Prove me wrong and let me know what recent memory team won without being an elite defensive team.

Just like JVG won while shooting horribly..MDA has won his share of games with subpar defense? What's the point. Are we just erasing his success with his Suns teams when he had his pieces? His Knicks rosters before this season were horrible with mid season trades within all of them. We had Larry Hughes starting games last season. David Lee was our offensive centerpiece and Jared Jefferies our defensive centerpiece last year for Heaven's sake. Knicks have won 6 of 10 games since the trade..you prorate that to the full season thats 48 to 50 wins..which to me is lowballing if we started with this roster from jump. Give the guy a playoff chance at least before griping. He deserves that much.

I agree with most of what you say about his defensive principles (switching, funneling, etc) but lets see what they do by end of season and in playoffs before saying he can't win in the playoffs with this style.

nixluva wrote:The overreaction from Knick fans is comical. The Mavs are one of the best teams in the league and we're still trying to develop our team chemistry and get healthy. This team is still going to be a threat in the playoffs. There won't be any Back to backs in the playoffs and we should hopefully be at full strength and with better chemistry by then. Lets keep things in perspective. The team has been playing better lately, but it's still a work in progress.

I'm more concerned about the wear and tear on STAT. This has been a grinding season and he's getting beat up.

And there are no such "overreactions" and overestimations of our roster as a team when the Knicks win?

Par for the course.

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Winning a tile has nothing to do with it. Did Jerry Sloan win a title? No. Is Popovitch better than Sloan because he's won? Uh ... no. Does that make him a bad coach or not a great coach? No. What they did do with inferior talent was make their players play and when they felt that the players were no longer willing to give it their all, they were done.

MDA does not get his players to play DEFENSE day in and day out - he would not know how to even if he actually wanted to. The knicks will live and die from the outside which is not the right recipe.

The JVG teams would / could shoot horribly but still win the game. Why? Because they made the other team shoot EVEN WORSER!!

Defense wins championships! Prove me wrong and let me know what recent memory team won without being an elite defensive team.

Just like JVG won while shooting horribly..MDA has won his share of games with subpar defense? What's the point. Are we just erasing his success with his Suns teams when he had his pieces? His Knicks rosters before this season were horrible with mid season trades within all of them. We had Larry Hughes starting games last season. David Lee was our offensive centerpiece and Jared Jefferies our defensive centerpiece last year for Heaven's sake. Knicks have won 6 of 10 games since the trade..you prorate that to the full season thats 48 to 50 wins..which to me is lowballing if we started with this roster from jump. Give the guy a playoff chance at least before griping. He deserves that much.

I agree with most of what you say about his defensive principles (switching, funneling, etc) but lets see what they do by end of season and in playoffs before saying he can't win in the playoffs with this style.

Of course I am not saying to fire him now. But, after the season if the knicks show up sub par in the playoffs I want him gone and some will say "he only had the players for half the season, he needs time ..."

I want him gone because I don't believe in his philosophy. While I believe that Defense and Offense wins rings, you can't win without a top defensive team while you can win with ok offensive teams.

JVG was an incredible underdog in 99. MDA had a two time MVP and STAT. What did the Knicks have? Camby? Houston? C'mon. I don't believe that MDA exceeded expectations with phoenix. I did think that he got outcoached too often in the playoffs.

I never felt that JVG was outcoached or under acheived.

Also, being predictable is not a bad thinng in BBall. Look at the Jazz with Stockton and Malone, the triangle offense ... its not like football and Kevin Killdrive

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Winning a tile has nothing to do with it. Did Jerry Sloan win a title? No. Is Popovitch better than Sloan because he's won? Uh ... no. Does that make him a bad coach or not a great coach? No. What they did do with inferior talent was make their players play and when they felt that the players were no longer willing to give it their all, they were done.

MDA does not get his players to play DEFENSE day in and day out - he would not know how to even if he actually wanted to. The knicks will live and die from the outside which is not the right recipe.

The JVG teams would / could shoot horribly but still win the game. Why? Because they made the other team shoot EVEN WORSER!!

Defense wins championships! Prove me wrong and let me know what recent memory team won without being an elite defensive team.

Just like JVG won while shooting horribly..MDA has won his share of games with subpar defense? What's the point. Are we just erasing his success with his Suns teams when he had his pieces? His Knicks rosters before this season were horrible with mid season trades within all of them. We had Larry Hughes starting games last season. David Lee was our offensive centerpiece and Jared Jefferies our defensive centerpiece last year for Heaven's sake. Knicks have won 6 of 10 games since the trade..you prorate that to the full season thats 48 to 50 wins..which to me is lowballing if we started with this roster from jump. Give the guy a playoff chance at least before griping. He deserves that much.

I agree with most of what you say about his defensive principles (switching, funneling, etc) but lets see what they do by end of season and in playoffs before saying he can't win in the playoffs with this style.

Of course I am not saying to fire him now. But, after the season if the knicks show up sub par in the playoffs I want him gone and some will say "he only had the players for half the season, he needs time ..."

I want him gone because I don't believe in his philosophy. While I believe that Defense and Offense wins rings, you can't win without a top defensive team while you can win with ok offensive teams.

JVG was an incredible underdog in 99. MDA had a two time MVP and STAT. What did the Knicks have? Camby? Houston? C'mon. I don't believe that MDA exceeded expectations with phoenix. I did think that he got outcoached too often in the playoffs.

I never felt that JVG was outcoached or under acheived.

Also, being predictable is not a bad thinng in BBall. Look at the Jazz with Stockton and Malone, the triangle offense ... its not like football and Kevin Killdrive

I agree with firing him if he flops badly in playoffs though. He has enough to put up a good showing.

Also the Jazz offense is motion driven...Stockton and Malone was not the only pieces..you forget Jeff Hornacek and some of their other role players. The Triangle offense is far from predictable.

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Winning a tile has nothing to do with it. Did Jerry Sloan win a title? No. Is Popovitch better than Sloan because he's won? Uh ... no. Does that make him a bad coach or not a great coach? No. What they did do with inferior talent was make their players play and when they felt that the players were no longer willing to give it their all, they were done.

MDA does not get his players to play DEFENSE day in and day out - he would not know how to even if he actually wanted to. The knicks will live and die from the outside which is not the right recipe.

The JVG teams would / could shoot horribly but still win the game. Why? Because they made the other team shoot EVEN WORSER!!

Defense wins championships! Prove me wrong and let me know what recent memory team won without being an elite defensive team.

Just like JVG won while shooting horribly..MDA has won his share of games with subpar defense? What's the point. Are we just erasing his success with his Suns teams when he had his pieces? His Knicks rosters before this season were horrible with mid season trades within all of them. We had Larry Hughes starting games last season. David Lee was our offensive centerpiece and Jared Jefferies our defensive centerpiece last year for Heaven's sake. Knicks have won 6 of 10 games since the trade..you prorate that to the full season thats 48 to 50 wins..which to me is lowballing if we started with this roster from jump. Give the guy a playoff chance at least before griping. He deserves that much.

I agree with most of what you say about his defensive principles (switching, funneling, etc) but lets see what they do by end of season and in playoffs before saying he can't win in the playoffs with this style.

Of course I am not saying to fire him now. But, after the season if the knicks show up sub par in the playoffs I want him gone and some will say "he only had the players for half the season, he needs time ..."

I want him gone because I don't believe in his philosophy. While I believe that Defense and Offense wins rings, you can't win without a top defensive team while you can win with ok offensive teams.

JVG was an incredible underdog in 99. MDA had a two time MVP and STAT. What did the Knicks have? Camby? Houston? C'mon. I don't believe that MDA exceeded expectations with phoenix. I did think that he got outcoached too often in the playoffs.

I never felt that JVG was outcoached or under acheived.

Also, being predictable is not a bad thinng in BBall. Look at the Jazz with Stockton and Malone, the triangle offense ... its not like football and Kevin Killdrive

I agree with firing him if he flops badly in playoffs though. He has enough to put up a good showing.

Also the Jazz offense is motion driven...Stockton and Malone was not the only pieces..you forget Jeff Hornacek and some of their other role players. The Triangle offense is far from predictable.

Jeff Hornacek, Byron Russel, Shandon Anderson, Howard Eisley ... were players that played great for a great coach/system.

How did they fear elsewhere? I think we know the answer to that :-)

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Winning a tile has nothing to do with it. Did Jerry Sloan win a title? No. Is Popovitch better than Sloan because he's won? Uh ... no. Does that make him a bad coach or not a great coach? No. What they did do with inferior talent was make their players play and when they felt that the players were no longer willing to give it their all, they were done.

MDA does not get his players to play DEFENSE day in and day out - he would not know how to even if he actually wanted to. The knicks will live and die from the outside which is not the right recipe.

The JVG teams would / could shoot horribly but still win the game. Why? Because they made the other team shoot EVEN WORSER!!

Defense wins championships! Prove me wrong and let me know what recent memory team won without being an elite defensive team.

Just like JVG won while shooting horribly..MDA has won his share of games with subpar defense? What's the point. Are we just erasing his success with his Suns teams when he had his pieces? His Knicks rosters before this season were horrible with mid season trades within all of them. We had Larry Hughes starting games last season. David Lee was our offensive centerpiece and Jared Jefferies our defensive centerpiece last year for Heaven's sake. Knicks have won 6 of 10 games since the trade..you prorate that to the full season thats 48 to 50 wins..which to me is lowballing if we started with this roster from jump. Give the guy a playoff chance at least before griping. He deserves that much.

I agree with most of what you say about his defensive principles (switching, funneling, etc) but lets see what they do by end of season and in playoffs before saying he can't win in the playoffs with this style.

Of course I am not saying to fire him now. But, after the season if the knicks show up sub par in the playoffs I want him gone and some will say "he only had the players for half the season, he needs time ..."

I want him gone because I don't believe in his philosophy. While I believe that Defense and Offense wins rings, you can't win without a top defensive team while you can win with ok offensive teams.

JVG was an incredible underdog in 99. MDA had a two time MVP and STAT. What did the Knicks have? Camby? Houston? C'mon. I don't believe that MDA exceeded expectations with phoenix. I did think that he got outcoached too often in the playoffs.

I never felt that JVG was outcoached or under acheived.

Also, being predictable is not a bad thinng in BBall. Look at the Jazz with Stockton and Malone, the triangle offense ... its not like football and Kevin Killdrive

The predictability at end of games killed them several times over the years..even back to the Riley years. One thing I like about Doc Rivers is at the end of halves or end of games you never know what to expect or who it's going to.

Showtime Lakers won with a Great Offense and an ok defense.

The Knicks did not have the pieces or even close to it as some of the other teams. Though predictable, I believe it made sense for his personel. Doc Rivers has a bunch of stars. The knicks had none. But they had grit and that is from the coach.

The lakers were an excellent defensive team with byron scott, michael cooper (defensive player of the year!!). That is partly what led to all those fastbreaks. Even Magic was a great TEAM defender.

Great is exaggerating..they were okay on defense like i said..not Top 5..hovered within 7th to 12th best in league through the showtime years.

The Celtics showed grit in their 24 win and 58 loss season?

The Showtime Lakers always had a defensive rating in the top ten with a high of being ranked 7th twice (and they were the best offensive team ever). MDAs teams have NEVER been in the top ten in defensive rating ...

I don't get your "grit" response/corrrelation. The reference is for teams / coaches that are talent deficient that rise up through true "grit" and compete

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

mreinman wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

FoeDiddy wrote:

Childs2Dudley wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Let the no defense and fire the coach threads begin. Oh and the Anthony Randolph thread should be revived, in fact I am pretty sure there's a half dozen threads on Jordan Hill that should be googled as well.

Help me out because Im really confused. I give no heck about the trade and Randolph, but don't games like this make you really hate the coach? When you see the boxscore, you don't necessarily see a bad night for NY. Only Shawne helped from the bench, but we still got 109 as a team.

Then you see how the other team torched NY, how they out rebounded us by 10 and then you find out most of the last minutes of the game, after cutting the lead to 11, were spent on missing 3s while allowing Dallas turn it again into a laugher really make you hate this.

COME ON!!! THIS IS SURREAL! NO FRIGGIN INTENTION OD PLAYING D! And the only big man we can bring to help is Jeffries?

Should I jump of joy because we have D'Antoni when games like this make you be extremely afraid of the playoffs, where D is more important?

This wasn't a game we battled and just lost to a better team, this was practically quitting, not giving up a damn about it. I hope you understand me here, its not that they lost, its that they never really tried.

No, it's supposed to be all swell.

If you are mad at the coach you're an idiot and not a real fan.

You just pointed out rebounding..do you think D'Antoni has the ideal roster to fix that problem. In Phoenix he had a guy like Shawn Marion to clean up the glass. Hopefully we fix that problem during the offseason. This is not a finished product and we still are winning more than we are losing. What were your expectations when starting the season? TNT just showed some stats and the OPP FG% since the trade is 47%..not bad defense by any stretch but rebounding of course is a issue. Moral of the story is this team is only going to get better..this season and seasons to come.

The moral of the story is that the coach needs to be fired before we can consider ourselves contenders.

We aren't playing his lame style anymore, which renders him worthless considering he is not a good defensive coach - scheme wise, rotation wise, coaching wise.

You want to win - hire a defensive guy. Hell, I'd give JVG a call. People complain about how he doesn't care about offense. We have offense. We need defense. Good defensive coaches get the most out of their players. JVG had even the likes of McGrady and Francis playing defense when he was coaching there. We need someone like him to come in here and hold guys accountable - and that includes Amare and Carmelo.

It's not one game. It's 3 years. It's this entire year. The defense has been lackluster at best and a few good ones here and there will not erase that. This team needs to take defense seriously. Rebounding can be fixed in the summer. Good defensive schemes, rotations and solid effort cannot be fixed with roster moves, but by coaching.

That is how you win championships - defense and rebounding, not scoring. We have scoring. We can score in the playoffs. We need great defense. Mike D'Antoni will never coach that and as a result the players will not take it as seriously. And even when Mike coaches it, his defensive techniques stink. I've seen him coach defense in practice. He coaches high school defense. We are in the pros. He needs to wake up an hire an assistant or else he will be on the hot seat next season guaranteed.

Did JVG win a title when he coached the Knicks? I'm not D'Antoni's biggest fan but he hasn't even got to the playoffs yet and you already saying they can't win 4 games in a series. That's not call rooting for your team. We have faults and are definitely not going to win all 82 games. We rarely have gotten blown out this season so how can you take so much from ONE game.

Winning a tile has nothing to do with it. Did Jerry Sloan win a title? No. Is Popovitch better than Sloan because he's won? Uh ... no. Does that make him a bad coach or not a great coach? No. What they did do with inferior talent was make their players play and when they felt that the players were no longer willing to give it their all, they were done.

MDA does not get his players to play DEFENSE day in and day out - he would not know how to even if he actually wanted to. The knicks will live and die from the outside which is not the right recipe.

The JVG teams would / could shoot horribly but still win the game. Why? Because they made the other team shoot EVEN WORSER!!

Defense wins championships! Prove me wrong and let me know what recent memory team won without being an elite defensive team.

Just like JVG won while shooting horribly..MDA has won his share of games with subpar defense? What's the point. Are we just erasing his success with his Suns teams when he had his pieces? His Knicks rosters before this season were horrible with mid season trades within all of them. We had Larry Hughes starting games last season. David Lee was our offensive centerpiece and Jared Jefferies our defensive centerpiece last year for Heaven's sake. Knicks have won 6 of 10 games since the trade..you prorate that to the full season thats 48 to 50 wins..which to me is lowballing if we started with this roster from jump. Give the guy a playoff chance at least before griping. He deserves that much.

I agree with most of what you say about his defensive principles (switching, funneling, etc) but lets see what they do by end of season and in playoffs before saying he can't win in the playoffs with this style.

Of course I am not saying to fire him now. But, after the season if the knicks show up sub par in the playoffs I want him gone and some will say "he only had the players for half the season, he needs time ..."

I want him gone because I don't believe in his philosophy. While I believe that Defense and Offense wins rings, you can't win without a top defensive team while you can win with ok offensive teams.

JVG was an incredible underdog in 99. MDA had a two time MVP and STAT. What did the Knicks have? Camby? Houston? C'mon. I don't believe that MDA exceeded expectations with phoenix. I did think that he got outcoached too often in the playoffs.

I never felt that JVG was outcoached or under acheived.

Also, being predictable is not a bad thinng in BBall. Look at the Jazz with Stockton and Malone, the triangle offense ... its not like football and Kevin Killdrive

The predictability at end of games killed them several times over the years..even back to the Riley years. One thing I like about Doc Rivers is at the end of halves or end of games you never know what to expect or who it's going to.

Showtime Lakers won with a Great Offense and an ok defense.

The Knicks did not have the pieces or even close to it as some of the other teams. Though predictable, I believe it made sense for his personel. Doc Rivers has a bunch of stars. The knicks had none. But they had grit and that is from the coach.

The lakers were an excellent defensive team with byron scott, michael cooper (defensive player of the year!!). That is partly what led to all those fastbreaks. Even Magic was a great TEAM defender.

Great is exaggerating..they were okay on defense like i said..not Top 5..hovered within 7th to 12th best in league through the showtime years.

The Celtics showed grit in their 24 win and 58 loss season?

The Showtime Lakers always had a defensive rating in the top ten with a high of being ranked 7th twice (and they were the best offensive team ever). MDAs teams have NEVER been in the top ten in defensive rating ...

I don't get your "grit" response/corrrelation. The reference is for teams / coaches that are talent deficient that rise up through true "grit" and compete

I guess you are more generous with the term great. And how are you showing grit only winning 24 games. They lost several of those games badly as well that year.