all right guys, i had the pleasure of being at the game last night and actually seeing the knicks win in person!!! i go to a handful of games every year and i swear i don't think i've seen them win in 3 years. it felt great, regardless of the quality of the competition (which was pretty low).

first off some name-dropping. sat at the game with . . . the one and only nalod!! and the very lovely mrs. nalod!! what a treat to take in a game with ultimate's king of comedy. and we were joined later by america's #1 mia man, dj. he better get his butt back on this board!

as for the game, for me it was all about balkman. he was freaking phenomenal. only 1 game in, but he showed it all last night. super knack for the game, confidence, terrific dexterity. yeah he has the "plastic man" elongation a la stacey augman but he's already so much more of an instinctive offensive player than stacey ever was. i am so glad we have him and want him getting major minutes right away. yes i agree we should have talken williams at 20 and balkman at 29 but i'm just real glad we have him.

re: evryone else, it's mostly all been said;

curry - just horrible. really.

q - looked like the player from the clippers. with him it's gonna be all about the back - whether it holds up or not.

dlee - great. he showed all this last year too. just needs to keep being aggressive offensively. needs to see himself as an nba scorer.

nate - still love what he brings to the game. kid's a keeper. he could really bust open some games for us.

jj2 - same as what we've seen - some nice spurts at time but still big periods when he disappears out there.

but mainly the story of the game for me:

Posted by fishmike:

I was at a wedding so only caught some of the game, from what I saw and read from you guys this is what I took:

Frye and Lee looked great. It looked to me like Lee's ball skills really improved... he grabbed a couple boards and pushed the ball right up court.

Curry is a fat SOB and no matter who he works with its pointless unless you WORK. Kinda like hiring Steven Hawking to tudor Forrest Gump.

Balkman looked super. I'm really glad... kinda wondering why we spent 5 years and $30mm on JJ if Balkman seems better? Time will tell. Briggs wrote a nice "I'm happy to be wrong" I hope I get to right some of those

Was it me or did our starters play even against their starters (minus Carter and Kidd) ????

Thats not a good sign

The starters weren't great last night, but that was mainly Curry with the offensive fouls/turnovers, breaking the flow. Francis and Marbury looked solid together in the second and third quarter. Francis/Marbury/Curry/Frye kind of busted the game open and built the lead to 60-49 to end the half and then started strong in the third quarter before Curry picked up more fouls.

yeah, the only guy to be really disappointed in was Curry. Francis and Crawford can shoot better, but they played well over all.

I really hope that QRich is not being showcased for a bad trade. IF his back holds up, I think he's a major piece on this team.

Really what I like is the depth here: Marbury, Francis, Crawford, Nate, Balkman, QRich, Jefferies, DLee, Frye can all play at a high level and get up and down the floor. That's nine guys. Hopefully Curry can be the 10th productive guy, but that's nine highly athletic horses to run the floor with and they rebound well and for once a fair portion of them can actually defend. This is a different team. We won't be leaning on Malik or Mo Taylor or Matt Barnes or Jermaine Jackson - we have a deep squad that can all play complimentary to each other. The additions of Jefferies and Balkman were subtle, but they seem to make everything make a lot more sense.

Posted by Marv:

all right guys, i had the pleasure of being at the game last night and actually seeing the knicks win in person!!! i go to a handful of games every year and i swear i don't think i've seen them win in 3 years. it felt great, regardless of the quality of the competition (which was pretty low).

first off some name-dropping. sat at the game with . . . the one and only nalod!! and the very lovely mrs. nalod!! what a treat to take in a game with ultimate's king of comedy. and we were joined later by america's #1 mia man, dj. he better get his butt back on this board!

as for the game, for me it was all about balkman. he was freaking phenomenal. only 1 game in, but he showed it all last night. super knack for the game, confidence, terrific dexterity. yeah he has the "plastic man" elongation a la stacey augman but he's already so much more of an instinctive offensive player than stacey ever was. i am so glad we have him and want him getting major minutes right away. yes i agree we should have talken williams at 20 and balkman at 29 but i'm just real glad we have him.

re: evryone else, it's mostly all been said;

curry - just horrible. really.

q - looked like the player from the clippers. with him it's gonna be all about the back - whether it holds up or not.

dlee - great. he showed all this last year too. just needs to keep being aggressive offensively. needs to see himself as an nba scorer.

nate - still love what he brings to the game. kid's a keeper. he could really bust open some games for us.

jj2 - same as what we've seen - some nice spurts at time but still big periods when he disappears out there.

but mainly the story of the game for me:

Great report. Good to hear about Q. He can really use a fresh season and that's going to be valuable to us, especially from the 3 shooter. I noticed he scored 14 and didn't hit any three's. That's what um talking bout. Hey dude, don't mean to be mean in any way, but it always bothered me that Balkman looked like someone, but I could not finger it, not until you put that pic up of him. He reminds me of the dude that tried to blow up the plane, by trying to light his sneaker. Now that I got that out of the way....................

Looks a bit like both.

Posted by Panos:

Posted by PhilinLA:

Balkman looks like the cat from Digital Underground, not Richard Reed.

Good call!

Fair enough, but I knew I seen him somewhere before.