Knicksfan wrote:martin wrote:Knicksfan wrote:Childs2Dudley wrote:What do you know, Miami is winning a game with good DEFENSE...
What? According to D'Antoni, we always play solid defense.
Really. Stop reading just snippets of what's posted online, if you watch any of the post game stuff or pregame interviews he is alway talking about needing to play better D.
Really. I saw interviews and he always find our defense solid and either ball movement, turnovers and missed shots were responsible for the loss. I know you are in a defend D'Antoni crusade, but call it like it is. He has talked defense, won't deny that, but its never the reason for our problems from his point of view. Meanwhile, we keep allowing 115+ points or we can't be able to stop anyone in the 4th quarter.
you have to distinguish when he is talking about big picture versus a couple of plays during stretches of games.
These guys aren't stupid. Everyone on the Knicks staff KNOWS that they are very good on offense and very bad on defense. Get past what they may say in response to a point-in-time question from a reporter.
Right now the Knicks' offensive is decent somewhere about 1/2 to 2/3 (generously) of the time and their D is good maybe 1/4 of the time at best.
Staff and everyone including Donnie has said that it will take time to fix both, something that should be reasonably understood. And the staff also knows what is easier to fix first and what will most likely take right up until playoffs and probably extend until next season.
Let's break this down logically: Most offenses do have all 5 guys coordinated dependent on what they run (PnR vs. post-up vs. motion vs triangle) but realistically speaking it's a 2-3 guy combo that are the primary players with 2 dudes that are either spreading to floor or clearing out in some manor - that's a simplified generalization.
With defenses, it takes all 5 guys to move, rotate, and work together at all times for it to be effective (not to mention the actual effort that needs to be put in). 1 glaring weakness and the whole thing breaks down. It's one of the reasons MDA wants a guy like JJ on the floor with Amare and Melo; not only is JJ able to guard his guy (with some relative success, he is not really a lock-down type IMHO), he is also able to provide extra help for both of these guy and more when the defense does not react as it should (and another way to say it is that HE is the guy that does all the work to kinda make the defense work).
Guys like Amare and Melo are usually 100% honed in on the offensive side and yet they are STILL off as a team. We all see that both of the leaders on the Knicks take off possessions and quarters at a time on defense when all that is asked is effort. But let's fire the coach who is not coaching effort with these 2. What's his recourse? Sit them? Yell at them more?
The Knicks just traded away 4 rotation guys. 4 guys who were supposed to know where and when to be on the court so that defense can be played. They got back a guy in Melo who gives less effort on defense than say Gallo/Chandler and also needs to be worked into the scheme. Chauncey, for all of his accolades on a very good Detroit dynasty, is older, hurt and also needs to be integrated. The Knicks also got smaller. This means Amare is gonna guard guys who are bigger than he is for larger blocks of minutes on the court.
How is it that we suddenly expected the defense to be BETTER right away after the trade in light of the above? Cause that's what it seems like the expectation was.
3/19/2011 10:31 PM LAST EDITED: 3/19/2011 10:31 PM