FistOfOakley wrote:

Melo2NYK wrote:
The problem in the Heat game wasn't our interior defense. The problem became the fact that the Heat simply are just as good, if not better, at our running game (if they get the opportunity to run) but can also play excellent half-court defense.

i dunno what you were watching but they scored 46 points in the paint and yet another frontcourt player destroyed us, this time his name was bosh.

some of those points were scored in transition... Bosh had a big 1st half but this team stayed right there w/them... Lebron & the Heat defense were what destroyed us in the 2nd half, not Chris Bosh... i don't know how much another frontcourt player helps when Lebron is hitting pull up J's in transition on what seemed like 4 or 5 consecutive possessions & we have no answer on the other end of the floor.

OldFan wrote:

Melo2NYK wrote:

Vmart wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:the heat are a great defensive team. melo would've struggled against them also.

and the heat also shot 55%. you can't win too often when they shoot that well.

That is on MDA. defense will always be the thorn in his side. Until he starts to get with the program and utilize a defensive minded center other teams will always shoot a great percentage vs the Knicks. Lack of interior defense is basically a product of being undersized.

The problem in the Heat game wasn't our interior defense. The problem became the fact that the Heat simply are just as good, if not better, at our running game (if they get the opportunity to run) but can also play excellent half-court defense.

And Melo helps our 1/2 court defense how?

We are not an elite team. Melo would be great at the right price. But I have a couple of concerns - how much we give up and is he the right player for this team. You may need more stars to win but that does not mean any two stars will win. All the teams we need to beat have stars that are multi-dimensional. I thing amare is great. But he's not a great rebounder, defender or passer. Melo is a great scorer and very good rebounder but pretty bad on defense.

Notice how most of the elite teams we want to compete against have stars who play defense:

2009-10
Dwight Howard, Orlando
Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers
LeBron James, Cleveland
Rajon Rondo, Boston
Gerald Wallace, Charlotte
Tim Duncan, San Antonio
Dwyane Wade, Miami
Thabo Sefolosha, Oklahoma City
Josh Smith, Atlanta
Anderson Varejao, Cleveland

2008-09
Dwight Howard, Orlando
Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers
LeBron James, Cleveland
Chris Paul, New Orleans
Kevin Garnett, Boston

Tim Duncan, San Antonio
Dwyane Wade, Miami
Rajon Rondo, Boston
Shane Battier, Houston
Ron Artest, Houston

2007-08
Kevin Garnett, Boston
Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers
Marcus Camby, Denver
Bruce Bowen, San Antonio
Tim Duncan, San Antonio

Shane Battier, Houston
Chris Paul, New Orleans
Dwight Howard, Orlando
Tayshaun Prince, Detroit
Raja Bell, Phoenix

Dude, there is only one great scorer "rebounder, defender, passer" in the league and his name is LeBron James. Every other star has flaws/weaknesses. On another note, I don't think Melo would be the only addition necessary to be considered a favorite for the title but I think he puts us pretty close. You can tell me about defense all you want but the fact of the matter is that your best player doesn't need to be a HOF defender to be elite. Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki were marginal defenders at best but share 3 MVP's between the 2 of them and have lead two one of the league's best teams for the better half of the decade. Melo is every bit as effective as the two and has been the best player of one of the league's best for several years. When it comes time to play defense(the playoffs), he has shown to be more than capable of doing so having covered Kobe in the 2008 Western Conference Finals.

FistOfOakley wrote:better at our running game? they scored 10 fast break points and we scored 17!

You forget the other part of my statement ("playing uptempo"). You can score in an uptempo offense and not have it considered a traditional break. What the Heat did exceedingly well in the 3rd is push the ball and not allow our defense to set up aka uptempo offense. That (in addition to the breaks they did have) is what turned the game in their favor and what I'm referring to.

TMS wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:

Melo2NYK wrote:
The problem in the Heat game wasn't our interior defense. The problem became the fact that the Heat simply are just as good, if not better, at our running game (if they get the opportunity to run) but can also play excellent half-court defense.

i dunno what you were watching but they scored 46 points in the paint and yet another frontcourt player destroyed us, this time his name was bosh.

some of those points were scored in transition... Bosh had a big 1st half but this team stayed right there w/them... Lebron & the Heat defense were what destroyed us in the 2nd half, not Chris Bosh... i don't know how much another frontcourt player helps when Lebron is hitting pull up J's in transition on what seemed like 4 or 5 consecutive possessions & we have no answer on the other end of the floor.

Exactly.

TMS wrote:

martin wrote:

Melo2NYK wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:

TMS wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:the heat are a great defensive team. melo would've struggled against them also.

and the heat also shot 55%. you can't win too often when they shoot that well.

the Spurs are a great defensive team too but Melo went off on them the other night... i agree it's hard to beat teams when they shoot 55%, but it's also hard to win when you only have 1 reliable guy to get you points in crunchtime... the strategy for teams to beat the Knicks is to stop Amare, because they don't respect any of our other players' ability to carry the load... Melo changes things dramatically.

danilo was doing a great job in the first half. and guys were hitting open shots when they were open. there weren't open that often though.

Yeah but where was Gallo in the 2nd half aka the half when games are won? The guy is not fit to be our no.2 scorer. He simply can not create for himself or others.

Did you see how many times he took it to the rim against BOSTON? And did you see him get fouled as he tried to cram the rim against Miami? Refs robbed him in Miami game.

i actually liked what i saw out of Gallo, he was taking it strong to the hole & not just settling for 3's, & i liked the defense he was playing on Lebron in the 1st half... he didn't get any calls tonight... but even still, teams aren't game planning to stop Gallo... when Amare gets shut down, our entire offense stalls.

I agree. With a guy like Gallo we have to project a little. What is he going to be like next year?

At the beginning of last year all he was was a stiff legged spot up 3point shooter with a bad back. Realistically, he came off of summer back surgery and had zero practice time. Towards the end of the year he showed promise.

This year, he has shown us halves of games where he goes toe-to-toe with Melo, Pierce, LeBron. Not yet a complete player by any stretch. But he plays D. He is herky-jerky and gets to the line. Every once in a while he goes to the hole and tries to cram (and if he made that one dunk tonight against MIA his confidence goes through the roof).

Is this kid done growing? Has he even scratched the surface? But for a bad wrist at the beginning of the year, he is shooting like 45+%FG 40+%3pt FG 90%FT (look at game logs and trending from month to month http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/gamelog?playerId=3428).

He actually plays defense. Tries really hard and is effective; moves his feet against LeBron, Piece, Melo and gets the calls - hard to do.

But he is inconsistent. Needs Amare and MDA to light a fire in his jock before the game or at half time. Can he put it together?

If he can, then getting another SF is a waste. That's the devil of a question for Donnie GM to figure out. He has this year to spend $11-15M in cap space. Does he use it redundantly on a guy like Melo or does he use it to fill other holes?

OldFan wrote:

Melo2NYK wrote:

Vmart wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:the heat are a great defensive team. melo would've struggled against them also.

and the heat also shot 55%. you can't win too often when they shoot that well.

That is on MDA. defense will always be the thorn in his side. Until he starts to get with the program and utilize a defensive minded center other teams will always shoot a great percentage vs the Knicks. Lack of interior defense is basically a product of being undersized.

The problem in the Heat game wasn't our interior defense. The problem became the fact that the Heat simply are just as good, if not better, at our running game (if they get the opportunity to run) but can also play excellent half-court defense.

And Melo helps our 1/2 court defense how?

We are not an elite team. Melo would be great at the right price. But I have a couple of concerns - how much we give up and is he the right player for this team. You may need more stars to win but that does not mean any two stars will win. All the teams we need to beat have stars that are multi-dimensional. I thing amare is great. But he's not a great rebounder, defender or passer. Melo is a great scorer and very good rebounder but pretty bad on defense.

Notice how most of the elite teams we want to compete against have stars who play defense:

2009-10
Dwight Howard, Orlando
Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers
LeBron James, Cleveland
Rajon Rondo, Boston
Gerald Wallace, Charlotte
Tim Duncan, San Antonio
Dwyane Wade, Miami
Thabo Sefolosha, Oklahoma City
Josh Smith, Atlanta
Anderson Varejao, Cleveland

2008-09
Dwight Howard, Orlando
Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers
LeBron James, Cleveland
Chris Paul, New Orleans
Kevin Garnett, Boston

Tim Duncan, San Antonio
Dwyane Wade, Miami
Rajon Rondo, Boston
Shane Battier, Houston
Ron Artest, Houston

2007-08
Kevin Garnett, Boston
Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers
Marcus Camby, Denver
Bruce Bowen, San Antonio
Tim Duncan, San Antonio

Shane Battier, Houston
Chris Paul, New Orleans
Dwight Howard, Orlando
Tayshaun Prince, Detroit
Raja Bell, Phoenix

since when are Varejao, Gerald Wallace, Sefolosha, Battier, Camby, Bowen, Prince & Raja Bell "star" players? the Knicks have role players that play defense too... Wilson, Turiaf, Felton, Fields, Douglas all play solid-very good defense... as for not having a star that plays D, Amare's defense has improved by leaps & bounds since he got to NY also... even still, u can easily see that we're still lacking another go to scorer that can get off his shots w/o having to have a play called for him to run off a PnR or a spot up J.

anyway, defense is more mentality & effort than skill... i don't see why Melo couldn't up his intensity on defense if he came here, it's not like Amare was ever known as a strong defender either... when you have leaders on your team leading by example, everyone else follows... when i watched Melo man up on Kobe during the WCF, his defense was the most impressive thing i saw out of his game... he was getting up on Kobe on every possession & being very physical in the paint... frustrated Kobe on plenty occasions & went shot for shot on offense.

we absolutely could use another defensive bigman in the paint, but w/the style of basketball that MDA likes to employ, a role player like that would see limited opportunity to impact the games in crunchtime... he usually goes with a small lineup to close out games... he did that all throughout his time in Phoenix as well... a player like Melo on the other hand, would have a huge impact on games in crunchtime when things get tight & plays tend to break down.

FistOfOakley wrote:

Melo2NYK wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:better at our running game? they scored 10 fast break points and we scored 17!

You forget the other part of my statement ("playing uptempo"). You can score in an uptempo offense and not have it considered a traditional break. What the Heat did exceedingly well in the 3rd is push the ball and not allow our defense to set up aka uptempo offense. That (in addition to the breaks they did have) is what turned the game in their favor and what I'm referring to.

i still don't know what game you were seeing. a lot of their breaks came in the first half and most of their shots came with under 15 seconds under the shot clock. they kept passing the ball and going towards the basket and we were late on a lot of rotations. that might look like it's uptempo from an offensive standpoint but it's really just bad defense.

This is a hard discussion to have unless we're sitting next to one another and I can point out what I'm talking about specifically. Without that opportunity, this becomes a discourse of pure opinion but I will say that the commentators shared my opinion. Towards the end, when the game had already been won in the 4th, I saw alot of missed rotations but not so much before then.

martin wrote:

TMS wrote:

martin wrote:

Melo2NYK wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:

TMS wrote:

FistOfOakley wrote:the heat are a great defensive team. melo would've struggled against them also.

and the heat also shot 55%. you can't win too often when they shoot that well.

the Spurs are a great defensive team too but Melo went off on them the other night... i agree it's hard to beat teams when they shoot 55%, but it's also hard to win when you only have 1 reliable guy to get you points in crunchtime... the strategy for teams to beat the Knicks is to stop Amare, because they don't respect any of our other players' ability to carry the load... Melo changes things dramatically.

danilo was doing a great job in the first half. and guys were hitting open shots when they were open. there weren't open that often though.

Yeah but where was Gallo in the 2nd half aka the half when games are won? The guy is not fit to be our no.2 scorer. He simply can not create for himself or others.

Did you see how many times he took it to the rim against BOSTON? And did you see him get fouled as he tried to cram the rim against Miami? Refs robbed him in Miami game.

i actually liked what i saw out of Gallo, he was taking it strong to the hole & not just settling for 3's, & i liked the defense he was playing on Lebron in the 1st half... he didn't get any calls tonight... but even still, teams aren't game planning to stop Gallo... when Amare gets shut down, our entire offense stalls.

I agree. With a guy like Gallo we have to project a little. What is he going to be like next year.

At the beginning of last year all he was was a stiff legged spot up 3point shooter with a bad back. Realistically, he came off of summer back surgery and had zero practice time. Towards the end of the year he showed promise.

This year, he has shown us halves of games where he goes toe-to-toe with Melo, Pierce, LeBron. Not yet a complete player by any stretch. But he plays D. He is herky-jerky and gets to the line. Every once in a while he goes to the hole and try to cram (and if he made that one dunk tonight against MIA his confidence goes through the roof).

Is this kid done growing? Has he even scratched the surface? But for a bad wrist at the beginning of the year, he is shooting like 45+%FG 40+%3pt FG 90%FT (look at game logs and trending from month to month http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/gamelog?playerId=3428).

He actually plays defense. Tries really hard and is effective; moves his feet against LeBron, Piece, Melo and gets the calls - hard to do.

But he is inconsistent. Needs Amare and MDA to light a fire in his jock before the game or at half time. Can he put it together?

If he can, then getting another SF is a waste. That's the devil of a question for Donnie GM to figure out. He has this year to spend $11-15M in cap space. Does he use it redundantly on a guy like Melo or does he use it to fill other holes?

that;s the thing... with Melo u don't have to project, he's already an elite scorer... there are no consistency questions when it comes to him offensively... he gets his points on a nightly basis... can Gallo turn into Dirk in a few years? maybe, but how likely is that? it's not redundant to add Melo if you're trading guys that play his position to get him... he represents a significant upgrade at the SF position... the logical strategy would be to fill the holes after u assemble the stars u want to build around, not the other way around... defensive role players are readily available in the NBA... star players like Melo are not.

don't get me wrong, i love Gallo & if we end up passing on Melo then rooting for a kid like that to do well in NY would be very easy to do, he's a very likable kid... but if u loved seeing Gallo taking it strong to the hole & trying to dunk the ball in traffic, u will love seeing Melo do the same... & Melo will actually GET the calls from the refs that Gallo won't... something like that can make all the difference at the end of games in crunchtime.