VDesai wrote:

Papabear wrote:

orangeblobman wrote:No, they don't. We have so many bananas right now, this is the most balanced attack in the L. Just need relief for the Amar'e and Felton, that's all. You have to remember Gallinari will continue developing and he has superstar potential.

Papabear Says

Amar'e and Felton will burn out before the playoffs. Gallo may be a year or two from becoming a star. Chandler will arrive by next year. We need another star like Carmelo and a Big stop center and a stronger bench with a point guard who can back up Felton. If Amear goes down we a sunk and that should not be. We should have players ready to step up. If D'antoni continue to play 7 players we are doomed. We need to get Randolph in the game and see if he could help. If not trade him. We had such high hope for that kid. We give up on our young players too quick.

So I'm not sure I get your logic. If you're worried about good players burning out and one player needing time to develop, then wouldn't your argument be for more depth now? Especially if you believed the roster as currently constituted has long-term viability.

Melo certainly would make you stronger now, but he's gotta make you a title contender now and for the next 3 years. The argument is go for broker and take Melo now and hope he and Amare make the term long term viable, or keep the guys you have right now and retain the flexibility to add more depth and hope that scenario is more long term viable. I'm leaning towards the latter right now based on what I've seen this year.

Papabear Says

Until we get that killer instinc like Boston , Miami, LA, San Anton, we are not going to be an elite team. Let's get Carmelo and the end of the season or if Carmelo goes someplace else then we fill our roster with other players. Every game we play is stress at the end of the game. We need to blow out these bad teams but we don't. We play to thier level.

VDesai wrote:

Papabear wrote:

GodSaveTheKnicks wrote:

iSergio wrote:It's not just about how many ppg Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. It's how and when those ppg happen. We don't have a legit 2nd go-to-scorer who can get his own shot or draw a foul in a close game. Last night when Amar'e Stoudemire went out of the game, we lost two leads. That doesn't happen if we have Carmelo Anthony. And in the final five minutes, we don't have a player who you can isolate on the perimeter.

Last night KG took people in the post multiple times and got HIS OWN rebound and put it back. That doesn't happen if we have someone to guard him or rebound.

Look, I'm not saying what you're saying is incorrect but the above is also true no?

It seems like what you're saying is that without having a Joe Johnson/Melo type to iso in the final 5 minutes you can't win close games. Is that what you're saying? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Papabear Says

Here is the problem. We still do not have the killer instinc. Every game we win is always a close game even with a bad team. Camello is a Killer and so is Amear. We need to teach our young how when a team is down we don't slack off we step on thier neck and keep them down. We always play down to a bad teams level and we should be blowing them out and that would give the bench a chance to play in some of these games.

You can't win 8 games in a row or 13/14 without playing with a killer instinct. If we were losing a lot of close games you could make that argument, but I think we have been making good offensive plays down the stretch lately. What we're lacking is the ability to close out defensively and grab key defensive rebounds. I think we have more of a need for a defensive closer than another offensive closer.

For some reason we keep missing this point. We need what AR was supposed to give us!!! Point is that this kid is exactly what we're needing. He can rebound, block shots and he's got some offensive ability. The biggest disappointment of this year is getting ZERO out of AR so far this year. I must admit that I didn't expect that to happen. Neither did Mike or Donnie. You look at this team and you think OK, we'll get some 15-20 mins from AR and a few spot minutes from Timo and we're set. When AR looked completely lost it totally messed up the plan. It's still early so I think Donnie is reluctant to give up on that plan. I agree. If we didn't have AR already on the roster, then I would say make a big deal for someone, but DANG. We got this big talent on the bench and somehow we've got to coach this kid up and get him going.

Small lineup isn't going to help the Knicks much guys with good big teams. Forget beating Celtic that is not in the cards in a series. Amare is going to have to go off for 40 points to beat these teams and even then it will be a close game. MDA has to get some use out of AR and Mozgov he has to keep them game ready. It is a giant failure on MDA part for not having them ready to play. I don't like his rotation I know the Knicks have had some success but for the long run his unwillingness to let player off the bench is going to hurt the Knicks. MDA needs to stop chalking up players as they suck and get them into the game and get some run out of them. Last night it was clear that the bench was not producing he needed to go deeper to find out who could contribute minutes.

This is a huge problem with MDA he needs to stop the BS and get minutes to what is going to help him when the playoffs roll around. Oh and the Knicks need Melo, for the simple reason that when STAT is out of the game Chandler and Gallo need someone who can lead them. Players like Chandler and Gallo need Superstars to feed off of.

Allanfan20 wrote:

iSergio wrote:

GodSaveTheKnicks wrote:

iSergio wrote:It's not just about how many ppg Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. It's how and when those ppg happen. We don't have a legit 2nd go-to-scorer who can get his own shot or draw a foul in a close game. Last night when Amar'e Stoudemire went out of the game, we lost two leads. That doesn't happen if we have Carmelo Anthony. And in the final five minutes, we don't have a player who you can isolate on the perimeter.

Last night KG took people in the post multiple times and got HIS OWN rebound and put it back. That doesn't happen if we have someone to guard him or rebound.

Look, I'm not saying what you're saying is incorrect but the above is also true no?

It seems like what you're saying is that without having a Joe Johnson/Melo type to iso in the final 5 minutes you can't win close games. Is that what you're saying? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Of course we need more size.

And yes, you need an elite wing scorer to win close games. Look at all of the elite teams ...

Lakers - Kobe
Celtics - Paul Pierce
Magic - Vince Carter
Heat - LeCon, Dwyane Wade
Mavericks - Dirk Nowitzki
Thunder - Kevin Durant

You need a player who you can isolate in the final 5 minutes or when the shot clock is running out imo. We don't have that.

Uhh Hello, Amar'e...

The more I look at it, the more I realize that Chandler and Gallo are becoming closer and closer to second tier scorers. They are becoming that much more reliable and yes, you can go to them in the clutch. To me, we don't NEED Melo as of this point. WE NEED to stock up our front court. If you think we need Melo and that's going to carry us into elitness, I'm going to have to disagree. Our frontcourt is going to get destroyed in the playoffs in seconds, especially against Boston and Orlando. Adding Melo and subtracting our good young players will not change that and we'll be a second round team for a very long time if this is the case. We wont win a championship.

I never said we were Carmelo Anthony away from winning a title. I agree we do need another big or two. Someone like Udonis Haslem who can play in this system offensively but anchor the D for at least 30 mpg. And I still cannot believe some of you think Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler equal Carmelo Anthony.

orangeblobman wrote:No, they don't. We have so many bananas right now, this is the most balanced attack in the L. Just need relief for the Amar'e and Felton, that's all. You have to remember Gallinari will continue developing and he has superstar potential.

we need gallo to show for four quarters. like i said in the gallo intervention thread. amar'e and felton can get gallo paid, talking david lee paid. but gallo needs to be a rockstar everytime he is playing with em. trust they need gallo. they want to dish him the ball and have him do the superstar stuff he did second half of celtics game.

martin wrote:

VDesai wrote:

Papabear wrote:
Papabear Says

Until we get that killer instinc like Boston , Miami, LA, San Anton, we are not going to be an elite team. Let's get Carmelo and the end of the season or if Carmelo goes someplace else then we fill our roster with other players. Every game we play is stress at the end of the game. We need to blow out these bad teams but we don't. We play to thier level.

THis killer instinct argument makes no sense. We've been closing out games and we didn't lose last night because we lacked a killer instinct. We played as hard as we could play all the way untill the end and almost had a gamewinning shot or go ahead shot a couple of times. The only reason we didn't win last night is down the stretch in 4th quarter we couldn't keep Boston out of the paint or clean up the defensive glass.

I kinda agree with the Killer Instinct theme but I'll reshape it for you. If Gallo comes to play in the first half - Killer Instinct oozing out ever inch of his body - perhaps the Knicks win. He loafed and played OK, but not at the top of his game. This is what is separating Gallo from All Stars. He has the talent.

IMHO Chandler is somewhere near his peak; his decision-making and recognition may get better but he is what he is (which is VERY good, he is no slouch by any means and I dont mean to put a bad slant on him). Not so with Gallo, he has plenty more upside, but he is still deferring and still settling.

To me I'm seeing more variety from Chandler in terms of his offensive game this year than I've seen in prior years. I think he's taken a pretty significant step forward. There is room for another step forward and that will come from his jumper being more consistent and perhaps the ability to add a go to move- a la Paul Pierce and his step back. There's no guarantee either of those things are going to happen, but I have don't see him as having peaked. I think he's coming along quite well.

I understand what you're saying about Gallo- I don't think he lacks the killer instinct, I think its focus that will only come with experience. And I do think we need to highlight him more in our offense. Thats part of the problem.

- Mike Lupica

nixluva wrote:

Vmart wrote:The Knicks need a second go to player a star player that draws attention. I like Chandler and Gallo but lets face it with STAT out of the lineup they become less effective. Last night the Knicks took an 11 point lead. For some reason MDA put a lousy lineup out there Williams, Douglas, Felton, Gallo and Turiaff. The lead dwindled down to 2 withing a few minutes. He quickly got Stat and Chandler to the scorers table, realizing his mistake luckily Douglas launched a prayer of a three with time running out on the shot clock. Forget defense because the Knicks let teams score at will. STAT isn't a great defender as illustrated by how Garnett abused him down low. The man was catching the ball two feet in front of the basket WTF.

Small lineup isn't going to help the Knicks much guys with good big teams. Forget beating Celtic that is not in the cards in a series. Amare is going to have to go off for 40 points to beat these teams and even then it will be a close game. MDA has to get some use out of AR and Mozgov he has to keep them game ready. It is a giant failure on MDA part for not having them ready to play. I don't like his rotation I know the Knicks have had some success but for the long run his unwillingness to let player off the bench is going to hurt the Knicks. MDA needs to stop chalking up players as they suck and get them into the game and get some run out of them. Last night it was clear that the bench was not producing he needed to go deeper to find out who could contribute minutes.

This is a huge problem with MDA he needs to stop the BS and get minutes to what is going to help him when the playoffs role around. Oh and the Knicks need Melo, for the simple reason that when STAT is out of the game Chandler and Gallo need someone who can lead them. Players like Chandler and Gallo need Superstars to feed off of.

How can Mike help the fact that guys like AR and Timo just aren't ready yet to help us? You think he's not working with these guys in practice? The thing is that I agree we need to get something out of AR. In fact he's the missing piece to the puzzle. He was supposed to be a contributor to our success this year. Still you can't make someone do something they aren't ready to do. AR has to the one to change his thinking so that he goes out there doing the things we NEED him to do. We know he has the talent, but he's got to be able to put it all together on the floor.

ALso you need to understand that this team has been WINNING! How do you risk a win just to force feed a kid into the rotation? AR has to show that he's ready to do what we need in PRACTICE! If he's not doing then how on earth is Mike gonna believe he can do it in games? I want to see AR play. I also understand if he's looking bad in practice, then he's not gonna get in there.

I personally think that MDA has put Mozgov, AR into the Curry, Milicic group they are pretty much done, it would be a miracle or a huge blowout if you saw them in action for the Knicks. He is basically going to rot them on the bench. He really has no clue how to play anyone who is over 6'10. He can tell these guys what he wants all he needs is defense out of them in spurts. He has totally taken them out of the game to the point that they will not be game ready. He is basically going to shatter their confidence.

misterearl wrote:"Wilson Chandler... makes big plays inside and outside and looks to be a perfect fit for the rest of them. If the Knicks had a big who could rebound and play defense – because nobody on this team plays a lick of defense – they wouldn't just be fun to watch, wouldn't just be a good opponent again, they would be a real contender already."

- Mike Lupica

mike lupica took a break from david jeters undergarments to type that, ok. he's a baseball beatwriter moonlighting. ny has a lot of those. one reason i like have two nba ball clubs, is we will have more local full time basketball coverage in ny.

ny plays defense. that bold comment tells me mike dont watch many knicks games this season. wil.i.am on the bench is the perfect fit. i know papabear considers it a demotion because mda treats the bench as a demotion. but its not. real team wins include the bench.

Vmart wrote:

iSergio wrote:

nixluva wrote:

VDesai wrote:

Papabear wrote:

GodSaveTheKnicks wrote:

iSergio wrote:It's not just about how many ppg Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. It's how and when those ppg happen. We don't have a legit 2nd go-to-scorer who can get his own shot or draw a foul in a close game. Last night when Amar'e Stoudemire went out of the game, we lost two leads. That doesn't happen if we have Carmelo Anthony. And in the final five minutes, we don't have a player who you can isolate on the perimeter.

Last night KG took people in the post multiple times and got HIS OWN rebound and put it back. That doesn't happen if we have someone to guard him or rebound.

Look, I'm not saying what you're saying is incorrect but the above is also true no?

It seems like what you're saying is that without having a Joe Johnson/Melo type to iso in the final 5 minutes you can't win close games. Is that what you're saying? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Papabear Says

Here is the problem. We still do not have the killer instinc. Every game we win is always a close game even with a bad team. Camello is a Killer and so is Amear. We need to teach our young how when a team is down we don't slack off we step on thier neck and keep them down. We always play down to a bad teams level and we should be blowing them out and that would give the bench a chance to play in some of these games.

You can't win 8 games in a row or 13/14 without playing with a killer instinct. If we were losing a lot of close games you could make that argument, but I think we have been making good offensive plays down the stretch lately. What we're lacking is the ability to close out defensively and grab key defensive rebounds. I think we have more of a need for a defensive closer than another offensive closer.

For some reason we keep missing this point. We need what AR was supposed to give us!!! Point is that this kid is exactly what we're needing. He can rebound, block shots and he's got some offensive ability. The biggest disappointment of this year is getting ZERO out of AR so far this year. I must admit that I didn't expect that to happen. Neither did Mike or Donnie. You look at this team and you think OK, we'll get some 15-20 mins from AR and a few spot minutes from Timo and we're set. When AR looked completely lost it totally messed up the plan. It's still early so I think Donnie is reluctant to give up on that plan. I agree. If we didn't have AR already on the roster, then I would say make a big deal for someone, but DANG. We got this big talent on the bench and somehow we've got to coach this kid up and get him going.

LOL Anthony Randolph is not that player. Kid is a total bum.

I disagree with you on AR. He isn't a bum, MDA being stubron and not letting the kid play. Tell him what he wants out of him and tell to do that and get out there and play. This is MDA being stupid he really doesn't know how to play big players there is like a cut off with MDA if you are above 6'10'' you are basically screwed. He wants a F'ing team of guards and SFs. Its not going to work with big skilled teams. Did anyone observe what the Celtics did they put KG, Allen, Perice, Rando and Nate out there to match the Knicks and guess what they were able to do that. AR would have helped, MDA needs to get the kid run and get him game ready. It amazes me that MDA doesn't have a clue how to get something out AR.

Anthony Randolph has shown nothing (going as far back as training camp) that says he deserves to play or can help. He's a 12th man on a team.

I know the Knicks missed 2 shots down the stretch, but Amare's shot was a good look that went in and out and Felton got hammered without a whistle. Was another offensive player really going to get us a much better result than the opportunities we had? Or would we have been better off denying KG the ball or keeping him off the offensive glass down the stretch. My ultimate point was there was a much more glaring need for the latter. We seem to operating just fine without the established 2nd banana right now. We have a whole bunch of guys that are acting like that "2nd banana" already on the roster- they just haven't been established as that kind of player by leaguewide perception as of yet.