FoeDiddy wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:A guy with Amare's size and athletism he trumps most PFs should become a great defender like a Karl Malone. Amare trumps KG psychically. It's a shame no one ever taught him how to defend in the nba because he is absolutely clueless on D.

You look at someone like Paul Pierce who before the Doc Rivers & Garnett influence was known as a teribble slow defender..now he is more than average. It's coaching. Like someone said..MDA has coached him almost all of his career..what would we expect.

good point on Pierce. Im sure Doc would even get Melo to play D consistently

Uptown wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

nixluva wrote:Everyone has seen the team NOT defend, so what are the things you see that this team needs to correct defensively?

It appears to me that they need to address how they're dealing with picks and also the weakside defense. Teams are killing the Knicks off the PnR and backdoor.

The starting perimeter D is horrid. TD and Fields are constantly being broken down and that's messing up the defensive balance on the floor. TD is not the defender that we thought he was. He seems to get beat more and more and I think it has to do with his spacing and the angle he takes to cut off a penetrating player.

STAT has to get focused on D. His defensive IQ is LOW as can be. He just makes the wrong decision way too often and he's always done it. He blamed it on coaching but it's not the coaching. He's had MDA, Terry Porter, Alvin Gentry and now MDA and Woodson as coaches and still he makes the same exact mistakes he's always made. IMO it's not coaching, but the player. NO coach would want a big to literally step away from a guy driving to the basket like STAT does.

I LOVE the way Shump changed the game when he came in. The kid just oozes presence. Also I thought Balkman did a good job when he came in too. Aside from that not much went well. I do think we could use Jared on D tho. He's a very solid team defender and understands defensive concepts.

Look behind the seens on the court..Amare is always asking tyson where to be and what to do. His IQ is super low and it'ts not hard to tell. people keep blaming the coach, thats like not holding the players accountable.

Its not that he has a low BBIQ, its just that he's never been on a team that really emphasized defense. If this is the case, why/how would he know? Of all the yrs he's played in the NBA, only 1 of those yrs was without MDA. And this is a player that never went to college.

The defense has to start with your star player, your leader (rakim said it best FOLLOW THE LEADER)..

I don't care how good oakly and starks were defesively, if Ewing defended like STAT do really think they would be known for strickly there defensiv Riley was a run and gun showman ship coach.all of a sudden he was this great defensive minded coach..Yeah Right.

All of the great defensive teams, usually their best player is one of their top defenders..

gunsnewing wrote:A guy with Amare's size and athletism he trumps most PFs should become a great defender like a Karl Malone. Amare trumps KG psychically. It's a shame no one ever taught him how to defend in the nba because he is absolutely clueless on D.

This is just a straight up bogus thing that STAT used as an excuse. NO NBA player goes thru their career with no one telling them how to defend. When he was in PHX, the Suns actually had a defensive assistant, Mark Iavaroni and that team as a whole was a decent defensive team. They were never in the bottom half of the league on D. That team was one of the league leaders in Point Differential and that had to do with being able to play at least some decent level of defense.

Marc Iavaroni- Obviously has history with D’Antoni in Phoenix, helping lead the Suns into the top half of the NBA in defensive rating. Born and raised in New York, Iavoroni was played for the successful Sixers teams of the 80s, helping them win a title in 1983.

After MDA left they had Terry Porter who was brought in specifically to coach D! STAT didn't improve. STAT also played with guys like Kurt Thomas, Raja Bell, Marion and Grant Hill. You think those guys never talked about defense??? Under Alvin Gentry STAT actually put forth more effort, but that was only for a short stretch at the end of the season. Gentry is a MDA assistant and was there the entire time. STAT doesn't defend cuz he's mentally lazy!

FoeDiddy wrote:

nixluva wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:A guy with Amare's size and athletism he trumps most PFs should become a great defender like a Karl Malone. Amare trumps KG psychically. It's a shame no one ever taught him how to defend in the nba because he is absolutely clueless on D.

This is just a straight up bogus thing that STAT used as an excuse. NO NBA player goes thru their career with no one telling them how to defend. When he was in PHX, the Suns actually had a defensive assistant, Mark Iavaroni and that team as a whole was a decent defensive team. They were never in the bottom half of the league on D. That team was one of the league leaders in Point Differential and that had to do with being able to play at least some decent level of defense.

Marc Iavaroni- Obviously has history with D’Antoni in Phoenix, helping lead the Suns into the top half of the NBA in defensive rating. Born and raised in New York, Iavoroni was played for the successful Sixers teams of the 80s, helping them win a title in 1983.

After MDA left they had Terry Porter who was brought in specifically to coach D! STAT didn't improve. STAT also played with guys like Kurt Thomas, Raja Bell, Marion and Grant Hill. You think those guys never talked about defense??? Under Alvin Gentry STAT actually put forth more effort, but that was only for a short stretch at the end of the season. Gentry is a MDA assistant and was there the entire time. STAT doesn't defend cuz he's mentally lazy!

One Player down..whats the story on the other 10 players playing awful Defense?

I wasn't trying to address each player in my response but of course I can. Has Melo been known as a great defensive player? Right there that's 2 of your starters. Then you have Landry not being confident at all and playing poor defensively. TD has been letting guys get by him and he's not fighting over picks. Most of the problems are EFFORT based.

I'm just not going to let the players off the hook. Players on the floor are responsible for executing the game plan. Players have to also take responsibility for what they do wrong.

Just to remind you that MDA coached up a team with no Center and no Amar'e and got to the WCF's in the toughest conference in the NBA. You think that the guy can't coach or inspire players. Not many coaches have taken a smaller team as far as he did that year. Diaw was his starting Center!!! Remember Diaw was a NOBODY back then. No way that team gets that far if they didn't defend and they did it with NO SHOTBLOCKERS!!!

gunsnewing wrote:Again it is up to the HEAD COACH to preach defense no one is listening to assistant coaches preaching it during practice. The head coach needs to know what the hell he is doing defensively & what defensive adjustments to make during the game. He is the one doing most of the coaching in game

+1 Yes sir.

Mray20 wrote:Fire Dantoni this team isn't built for his style of play the Knicks cannot score 130 points a game so Dantoni is worthless just let Woodson finish out the year as head coach pleeeeease

I understand that your upset with the early losses, but that would be a horrible decision! You make a major change like that now and you really set the team back even more. This team needs more time together HEALTHY so that they can develop chemistry on both ends. You don't want to change what they've been working on just cuz they lost a few games.

I've got a question for all of those that want a change. What is the one thing that this team hasn't had in the last 4 years? CONTINUITY!!! All we've had is CHANGE and more change. At some point we need to set things in stone and roll with it. Anyone who really thinks this team isn't going to eventually get it going is nuts.

No we don't need a coaching change. We need some consistency and time to let these guys all get on the same page and to develop team chemistry. Coaches and players. Let's also keep in mind that yet a gain we have 8 new players in the mix here that haven't played here before. Tyson, Shump, Bibby, Jorts, Jordan, Novak, B. Diddy & Lin are all new. The guys who returned are STAT, Melo, TD, Fields, Walker, Jared and Balkman. Developing chemistry is not just an automatic thing as some seem to think. Add in some minor injuries and it's somewhat understandable to some extent that the team is struggling.

nixluva wrote:

Mray20 wrote:Fire Dantoni this team isn't built for his style of play the Knicks cannot score 130 points a game so Dantoni is worthless just let Woodson finish out the year as head coach pleeeeease

I understand that your upset with the early losses, but that would be a horrible decision! You make a major change like that now and you really set the team back even more. This team needs more time together HEALTHY so that they can develop chemistry on both ends. You don't want to change what they've been working on just cuz they lost a few games.

I've got a question for all of those that want a change. What is the one thing that this team hasn't had in the last 4 years? CONTINUITY!!! All we've had is CHANGE and more change. At some point we need to set things in stone and roll with it. Anyone who really thinks this team isn't going to eventually get it going is nuts.

No we don't need a coaching change. We need some consistency and time to let these guys all get on the same page and to develop team chemistry. Coaches and players. Let's also keep in mind that yet a gain we have 8 new players in the mix here that haven't played here before. Tyson, Shump, Bibby, Jorts, Jordan, Novak, B. Diddy & Lin are all new. The guys who returned are STAT, Melo, TD, Fields, Walker, Jared and Balkman. Developing chemistry is not just an automatic thing as some seem to think. Add in some minor injuries and it's somewhat understandable to some extent that the team is struggling.

Olbrannon wrote:

Uptown wrote:Still trying to figure out why the H## do we switch on every pick? How many times did we see Amare trying to guard Augustine out top? This is a poor defensive philospophy to employ vs. a professional team that has scouts. Its easy to play against this type of defense. All you do is screen baseline and and set picks up top and you'll get a mismatch every time. Big on a small on the top of the key and small on a big in the paint. When this happens it opens up penetration lanes for the guards to blow by the bigs trying to defend (or open jumpers because the bigs sag off afraid to get beat on dribble-drives) and you have a small defending a big inside making it easier for offensive rebounds by the opposition. Seriously, what is going on here?!?!

Most astute response yet.

How does Douglas go from ACC Defensive POY to garbage? He played mostly man2man in college. They have looked best in zone. Why did we give up so many points this game? Amar'e is just lost completely.

They hand out these awards based on Stats, I.E. steals, blocks etc. Douglas is not a good position defensive player...Cant keep anyone in front of him.