knicks1248 wrote:Your gonna run with nine guys, maybe a 6 min 10th guy on back to backs. When you start playing 12 guys to figure out what you got, it looks mumble jumble. No one gets into a rythem playing spot minutes, and it's no way to build chemistry.

MDA's is in a tough situation cause his talent is almost equal across the entire roster, aside from fields and Amare, no one has stood out..they look good for a few plays, and horrible on others.

PEJ, is trash and is only here out of respect for his father..i keep saying this, but some of you think otherwise,
AR is 21 and plays like it, gallo is taking baby steps, chandler is also taking baby steps, felton i trust will find his way, td will be a solid back up, fields should see more time then bill and mason...bill and mason should be traded for one play with there combine skills.

AR's last 12 games of the year in 2008 when he was 19 years old with extended minutes

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/4476/gamelog;_ylt=Ak_g1hZY.nv.GhYvrPDAu87ZPaB4?year=2008

13.5 points 10. 5 rebounds 2 assits 2 steals 2 blocks

the following year when given around 30 minutes 11 games
15.5 9.8 rebounds 2 assits 2 blocks 2 steals

So I think that with a sample of almost 25 nba games--hes give you basically a double double with excellent defensive numbers and some assists.

So it's on BOTH MDA and AR to get him into better position to do what he does--without having to look over his shoulder. I think setting up and practicing that 3 point shot has made his mid range jumper strong--the guy should NEVER be more than 14-16 feet from the basket--top of the key in and all the way around. When a shot goes up go right to the basket for a rebound--if you are 26 feet away you are not getting to it. Its not working with AR or anyone else--were NOT getting the most out of our players. Gallinari should score 20 points every night without taking 9 3's and be in position to get 6-7 rebounds. Its hard to start a drive or rebound 25 feet from the basket. Not working and NO excuses

Olbrannon wrote:Expect Moz to give up that 2 hands going straight up crap going forward too.

in fact, I am not too worried about that. He knows he has to keep this arms straight up but just has to realize where he is on the court (within the arc underneath the rim) and if he gets to his spot before the offensive player. I think he also needs to adjust to playing defense along the baseline - no need to ride his man out of bounds when he can just contain.

I prefer what our coach did. It gives more players a chance to get comfortable, to get their errors out of the way and to adjust to a productive style of ball.

What's more, I reckon come February April time the Celtics will regret their gung-ho atitude to preseason and we will be gelling nicely.

What the Celtics did sounds great as a headline but IMO is a dumb move longterm.

Maybe it's just the preseason and these things will be better when the real games start but a young team with so many new parts needs to be working on these things in the preseason. They can't be treated as throwaway games like a more established veteran team might be able to brush off.

tj23 wrote:Besides the turnovers and attempting to guard Rondo Felton has been fine. He's not a dominant guard but he's not Duhon either. Hard to run the pnr without amare. He was coming around the pick and kicking the ball out to a shooter with a little space. He was keeping the offense uptempo but everyone else was slowing it down, not moving the ball or attempting to penetrate. Toney just doesnt show any consistency whatsoever to play pg. He's a defensive stopper that can be a SET shooter. He can't shoot off the dribble at all. You need Felton alongside of him which mean we need another pg. Rautins is a good passer but idk if he can stay with opposing point guards. Maybe if Toney guarded the 1 and Any guarded the 2 as our 2nd unit. Also, I dont get how andy can shoot lights out in college and throw up brick after brick in the nba.

Haven't seen much of Douglas play have you?

Watch a few more games before you disparage a players game

JohnWallace44 wrote:I could't be more tired of the organizational kowtowing to this kid and all the feel good stories about D'Antoni and his dad.

I just don't know what he's supposed to be. Right now, he's a chuck and duck guy who goes 8-10 some nights and so his percentages end up looking decent, but when you're trying to put together a team that wins 50% of their games, you can't have a guy who puts up 3-13 numbers 2/3 of the time.

Chandler is far and away the better player at this point. He shoots a lower overall percentage, but he's consistent and based on the preseason he looks to have improved his shooting. Gallo's always made out to be this super intelligent player who "knows the game" which is total BS. How often have you seen Gallo pump fake his man and drive to the basket to draw a foul when the other team is right at the bonus? How often does he try to get a 2 for 1 at the end of quarters? Have you seen him use our pick and roll offense to get onto a guard and post him up? He never does that sheet. "He knows the game" is code for, "he's white and made it to the NBA" to me. Rautins "knows the game" and happens to be white. There's a difference.

I'm Italian. I'd love for this guy to be dominant, but he's just not. He doesn't even really stretch the defense.

This team looks like a disaster right now. I was pumped about Felton because of what he's done to us as an opponent, but he really doesn't seem to be able to initiate pick and roll. TD has looked better initiating offense and everyone knows my opinion on him as a point guard.

You know what really bothers me? This team always has some wierd assortment of players that have a major flaw. With Lee as the best player there was basically no back line defense. These guys have defense down to a point, but are all so skinny that they can't board and get pushed around. Felton can't run pick and roll. Duhon could run pcik and roll, but wasn't dynamic on offense. ZBo and Crawford were dominant scorers but had bad shot selection and couldn't play defense. Steph was a local legend but ate vasoline on occasion. Curry could dominate the low block but couldn't receive the ball and was terrible at everything else.

It always seemed like D'Antoni won with various groupings of players in Phoenix. I guess Nash was the constant, but this has been a little crazy here. He's going to get booted if he doesn't perform this season and I have always defended him as a coach. I mean, if having that Nash type of PG is so vital, why hasn't that been the priority? You'd think they would have jumped on Jennings or Teague or Beaubois or Maynor or Holiday if they knew that was the major issue to making this system go.

I can just smell that this season is going to be a constant stream of "if we only had a rebounder" and "what happened to Amar'e's pick and roll play?" Gallo would probably be perfect on OKC. I wonder if you could get back Maynor and Harden for Gallo and TD? That would give us a real pick and roll partner for Amar'e, AR and Mozgov while filling our glaring need for a shooting guard.

Walker and Chandler are more consistent shooters than Gallo anyway, so what are you losing?

I don't know what the answer is, but its frustrating as hell that we're playing this poorly after rebuilding again.

I do not disagree with you that gallos problem is inconsistency but your overreaction is epic. Here are the stats of 3 guys from their second season in the league:

% games shooting above 60%
Eric Gordon 16%
Gallo 14%
Chandler 10%

% games shooting above 50%
Gordon 48%
Gallo 40%
Chandler 35%

% games shooting above 40%
Chandler 62%
Gallo 59%
Gordon 57%

% games shooting below 30%
Gordo 1 out of every 8 games
Chandler 1 out of every 6
Gallo 1 out of every 5

Gallos inconsistency seems pretty much right in line with Gordon and Chandler in his second year. 'Ost of the games he shoots very well for us. He's above 40% as often as the other two. In terms of being under 30%, he was under 17 times and Wilson 14. Not much difference. No need to overreact and pretend he is doing something that other 2nd year players aren't also struggling with. If he works hard he will show progress in year 3 as he becomes more confident just like Chandler. Also don't forget that last year was really his first full season. So take a deep breath, its not close to as bad as you make it out to be, realize he's young and should develop with time. Doesn't mean we don't demand more, just means your overreaction to his performance is ridiculous.

"Instead, (Mozgov) merely produced four points and three boards in 20 minutes (while Amar'e Stoudemire had 39 and 11), and sat out the final quarter of the Knicks' 117-111 victory over a team that already has Brook Lopez in the middle."

- Steve Adamek, Bergen News...who obviously was looking the other way when Amare reported into the game in the fourth quarter

One more thing. Keep Landry Fields.