Usually I would be fumming for a loss, especially to the Heat, but I love the young Knicks too much and see this game as an important one because of its message. We are not that far away from the Heat, but we need to make a few chances to compete with them. Main problem: our bench.
We need a starting center as our most desperate need. Amar'e needs to go back to the 4 and Will needs to be our main offensive punch off the bench. We need a guy that can defend, rebound and give us valuable minutes.
We need a backup PG mainly because Felton is too important to lose because we burnt him out. We were in the game at first, but we ran out of energy.
I cant believe guys like Douglas, Walker and Williams, who have been effective in many ocasions, cant be now. We need good minutes from them but its not happening. This bench needs to at leas be decent, but lately has been pretty bad.
And of course, we need Melo. While I love Gallinari and he cetainly has lots of potential, Im starting to fear this inconsistent player is more of what we can expect for his career. The truth is we need a guy like Melo to balance things out with Amar'e and take a little pressure off Ray in terms of shooting. Andwe need consistency from the guy because teams can plan their defense centering on denying Amar'e but a guy like Melo makes it difficult to.
I can live without Melo for now if the trade is too difficult to make, but te others are a must becase we ARE ready to compete in the playoffs this season.