nyknickzingis wrote:If you read the entire quote he makes it clear the coaches are also lost as what to do because nothing is working. He isn't saying the coaches didn't try, rather that they tried multiple things to make it work because nothing really has.

Maybe his criticism is that the team should stick to one thing. However, wasn't KP saying just 10 days ago how he loved the Triangle and wished the team ran it all season?

Again, this is going to happen when the team keeps losing. People want to tank bad, but tanking brings out the worst in everyone on the roster. You won't see a happy Porzingis with all this losing. He's playing well, he's super competitive, and the team keeps losing. Not a great situation for a young player, but hopefully a great draft pick comes out of it.

You win in this league with defense, spacing, and ball movement. No matter what style of ball you play these are all necessary in order to win regularly. We lack 2 out of the 3 elements required to win regularly. Kristap is a tweener at the moment until he gets strong enough to play center regularly. And he isn't imposing enough at the moment to outweight his defensive deficiencies guarding the perimeter. When KP is able to be effective defensively at center. And we could out 2 defensive forwards next to him like Lance displayed the our defense will have way better balance. Basically waiting for KP to develop into a full time center is half of the reason why the team is out of sync balance wise.

Lack of ball movement fall on Rose and Melo. Rose is instant offense off the bench on a good team. We need players who do little things away from the ball like rebound & defend. Hit open shots and keep the ball moving. Look at Houston. Who has Beverly and Ariza alongside of Harden. Beverly puts up stat lines like 8-10pts, 6-9rebs, 4-6ast, 1-3 stls, 2-3 3s. Ariza plays defense rebounds gets stls and 3s. Guys *like* this need to be the target.

newyorknewyork wrote:

nyknickzingis wrote:If you read the entire quote he makes it clear the coaches are also lost as what to do because nothing is working. He isn't saying the coaches didn't try, rather that they tried multiple things to make it work because nothing really has.

Maybe his criticism is that the team should stick to one thing. However, wasn't KP saying just 10 days ago how he loved the Triangle and wished the team ran it all season?

Again, this is going to happen when the team keeps losing. People want to tank bad, but tanking brings out the worst in everyone on the roster. You won't see a happy Porzingis with all this losing. He's playing well, he's super competitive, and the team keeps losing. Not a great situation for a young player, but hopefully a great draft pick comes out of it.

You win in this league with defense, spacing, and ball movement. No matter what style of ball you play these are all necessary in order to win regularly. We lack 2 out of the 3 elements required to win regularly. Kristap is a tweener at the moment until he gets strong enough to play center regularly. And he isn't imposing enough at the moment to outweight his defensive deficiencies guarding the perimeter. When KP is able to be effective defensively at center. And we could out 2 defensive forwards next to him like Lance displayed the our defense will have way better balance. Basically waiting for KP to develop into a full time center is half of the reason why the team is out of sync balance wise.

Lack of ball movement fall on Rose and Melo. Rose is instant offense off the bench on a good team. We need players who do little things away from the ball like rebound & defend. Hit open shots and keep the ball moving. Look at Houston. Who has Beverly and Ariza alongside of Harden. Beverly puts up stat lines like 8-10pts, 6-9rebs, 4-6ast, 1-3 stls, 2-3 3s. Ariza plays defense rebounds gets stls and 3s. Guys *like* this need to be the target.

Great post
I agree
KP has to become either fully capable to be a 5 or better on his feet defensively to be a 4
Then we need role players that do the following - Defence and 3 point shooting
And of course we need a point guard that is good enough to find the open man and put pressure on a defender with dribble penetration

The question is Why and how to fix it.

If you fire Phil, the question still need an anwswer. If you fire phil, then we are being short term oriented.
I'd be on the phuch Phil agenda if we leveraged picks for guys like Bargnani, Eddy, etc. Picks for short term solutions that only make it worse.
Then you have the problem of how to fix it with few assets.
That's were we were three years ago. Shump and JR were not the answer. "But we should have gotten more for them".....Really? JR was untying shoes and laughing, Shump was injured frequently and into his hair and music.
Next to Lebron, they look good. I agree. I would have liked more for them, maybe phil did two.
Tyson traded? Flu Tyson? He played better Post knicks that most thought, but at that moment in time..........

This season? Knicks keep trying different things. Good for them. MIght as well go full tilt triangle. Why not?? Nothing to lose.

newyorknewyork wrote:

nyknickzingis wrote:If you read the entire quote he makes it clear the coaches are also lost as what to do because nothing is working. He isn't saying the coaches didn't try, rather that they tried multiple things to make it work because nothing really has.

Maybe his criticism is that the team should stick to one thing. However, wasn't KP saying just 10 days ago how he loved the Triangle and wished the team ran it all season?

Again, this is going to happen when the team keeps losing. People want to tank bad, but tanking brings out the worst in everyone on the roster. You won't see a happy Porzingis with all this losing. He's playing well, he's super competitive, and the team keeps losing. Not a great situation for a young player, but hopefully a great draft pick comes out of it.

You win in this league with defense, spacing, and ball movement. No matter what style of ball you play these are all necessary in order to win regularly. We lack 2 out of the 3 elements required to win regularly. Kristap is a tweener at the moment until he gets strong enough to play center regularly. And he isn't imposing enough at the moment to outweight his defensive deficiencies guarding the perimeter. When KP is able to be effective defensively at center. And we could out 2 defensive forwards next to him like Lance displayed the our defense will have way better balance. Basically waiting for KP to develop into a full time center is half of the reason why the team is out of sync balance wise.

Lack of ball movement fall on Rose and Melo. Rose is instant offense off the bench on a good team. We need players who do little things away from the ball like rebound & defend. Hit open shots and keep the ball moving. Look at Houston. Who has Beverly and Ariza alongside of Harden. Beverly puts up stat lines like 8-10pts, 6-9rebs, 4-6ast, 1-3 stls, 2-3 3s. Ariza plays defense rebounds gets stls and 3s. Guys *like* this need to be the target.

Good post. I think we also need the Harden type guard to build around, too. If you have a stud PG and KP down low, you can just get high functioning, efficient role players to fill in the blanks. Lonzo Ball would be the dream, Frank Ntilikina is moving up in my estimation, Fox would be solid, but maybe not stud-level.

To me - this idea that you can focus only on the defense being our issue is a misnomer. Basketball is a two-way sport. The way you play D effects your offense and vice versa. A team built to play offense can't necessarily play defense and if they're built for offense, it's not necessarily something you can fix.

I think you have to consider the team defense in foundational roster decisions. You can't just put together an offensive team and say "now we need to learn how to defend". You can IMPROVE on D, but to me making a good defensive team is a foundational roster makeup decision. You have to have the right group of guys assembled who fit into the same concept together. Maybe you can swap out a guy or two, but the foundation of the D is basically roster driven. Like the Warriors with Draymond and Klay and the Spurs with Kawhi and Green - they swapped out Duncan for Gasol/Dedmon/Aldridge... but their foundation was so strong they basically barely skipped a beat.

So I'd also be in favor of a foundational defensive wing guy in this draft who meshes really well with KP and frees KP for weak side blocks and rim protection and helps limit KP's silly fouls on the perimeter.

anrst wrote:this is not good for playing development

KP ought to be counting the days till he's a free agent

He's not going anywhere. Phil, Melo, Rose, etc will be long gone before KP even becomes a free agent. What star young player isn't going thru crap right now/losing and such? All of them have to deal with bumps along the way. KP understands what playing in NY is all about. The bad stuff gets magnified, but if things turn around at some point, he will be viewed as a savior. Winning in NY is just better than anywhere else. He understands that. He has time to figure it all out, there's no rush here.

nyknickzingis wrote:KP is good in a system. He has gotten more post up chances and more ball in better spots since we began running more Triangle than he did most of the season.

nyknickzingis wrote:The key is to find a guard who is also good in a system or open to it, one that is young enough you can mold his habits into it.

nyknickzingis wrote:The mistake we made is choose two mega stars like Rose/Melo who are simplistic minded and have formed habits on offense that will never go away.

nyknickzingis wrote:So where Phil has to learn here is that you aren't coaching anymore. You're not the one down there, Hornachek is. He is not on your level. He won't transform players into system players when they can not do that. So you have to find Hornachek the players that fit, like Goran Dragic did. Like San Antonio does. Phil must stop trying to get players like Melo and Rose to buy in. They never will. Instead do what you do best, which is develop and find players that actually would like to play your system. Look at how Baker, Randle, KP, Willy, Lance Thomas and Lee all seem more comfortable than Melo/Rose.

stanleybostitch wrote:Let's be clear what KP is getting at; I believe it is less on Jeff and Phil than it is a broadside at his teammates. Let's unpack each quote.

Quote #1
"There's a lot of confusion," Porzingis told Marc Berman of the New York Post. "A lot of times it's basically one-on-one. Whoever, me, myself, Carmelo [Anthony], Courtney [Lee], we try to make something happen, and that's not how it's supposed to be."
Translated: Melo and Rose are not playing team ball, and any time they try to move to a team concept of spacing and ball movement, these guys don't participate and only do their thing, which is 1:1 ball. I believe KP puts Lee and himself into the sentence to soften the criticism and not burn bridges, but the message is clear.

Quote #2
"We've been switching things up because never at any point this season, we played like we wanted to," said Porzingis. "Maybe this will work. So we are looking for stuff. The coaching staff obviously is trying to do the best job they can to give us the information, but we never got it all together."
Translated: there's only so many times you can tell a player to get with the program. At some point, it's clear they're not on board and not going to play in a system. The coaches have tried every possible way to get it through to the intransigents, but they won't change. It's on the players.

Quote #3
Porzingis went on to add that it is not just the offense that is struggling, saying, "From top to bottom, everything. A lot of stuff that's not clear. … [The frustration] is pretty high. <b>Concentration was tough when we're not doing the right thing and not working together right now.</b> We need to find solutions the next 16 games."
Translated: We're a collection of players, not a team. Melo and Rose aren't playing defense. I'm frequently out of position and have to improve.

Quote #4
"...It's going really bad right now, doing the best I can. Hopefully the situation gets better. Once next season comes, it's a different year, a new life. Right now, we got to keep fighting."
Translated: Let's cut the poison out in the offseason.

So what do we need to do in the offseason to get this ship on the right track?

1. Draft a stud (losing=winning for this season)
2. Cut the poison out = trade Melo, even for cents on the dollar, and let Rose walk
3. Improve the coaching = fire Rambis, who is in _way_ over his head. The guy cannot coach, period.
4. Build a new identity = in preseason, do some serious team-building, get guys to commit to each other, with KP as the leader
5. Do NOT throw out the baby with the bath water = don't fire Phil, don't fire Hornaceck - these guys get it, need a year without poison to show the value of their approach
6. Clarify system v. triange = Phil and Jeff need to be on the same page; part of me thinks the focus on triangle and late year confusion is part ploy to make Melo throw up his hands and ask out. Regardless, Phil and Jeff need to be on the same page going into training camp next year. My hope is that we focus on good system ball, less on the specific implementation (triangle).

The future is bright for the Knicks if they just cut out the poison and keep building...

1. Draft a stud (losing=winning for this season)

2. Cut the poison out = trade Melo, even for cents on the dollar, and let Rose walk

3. Improve the coaching = fire Rambis, who is in _way_ over his head. The guy cannot coach, period.

4. Build a new identity = in preseason, do some serious team-building, get guys to commit to each other, with KP as the leader

5. Do NOT throw out the baby with the bath water = don't fire Phil, don't fire Hornaceck - these guys get it, need a year without poison to show the value of their approach

6

. Clarify system v. triange = Phil and Jeff need to be on the same page; part of me thinks the focus on triangle and late year confusion is part ploy to make Melo throw up his hands and ask out. Regardless, Phil and Jeff need to be on the same page going into training camp next year. My hope is that we focus on good system ball, less on the specific implementation (triangle).

nyknickzingis wrote:He's basically saying the team has tried to play many different ways, many styles of offense and defense, none have worked or led to consistent wins.

This happens. The Knicks top 3 players are Melo, KP and Rose. All 3 are relatively high usage players, with a tendency to focus on offense. When you have situations like that, where one is a rising star looking to prove himself and develop his game (KP) and the other is a declining star who is looking to keep getting his numbers up in the scoring books (Melo) and the third is a former MVP heading into free agency who is looking to get paid (Rose) the sacrifices needed to be made just weren't.

No matter what offense we ran, early on when it was less Triangle, or now when it's majority Triangle, we were able to score. We are the highest scoring team outside of the playoffs. We put up points with ease, despite being fiddled with problems like Melo and Rose going one on one way too much. Despite the flaws in Melo/Rose games and the toughness of getting the Triangle, on offense we had/have more than enough to be a good team.

The problem is/was defense. Again with our big 3 of KP, Melo, Rose, you would like to have some guys who know defense and can play defense. KP's a great rim protector and tries, but he's outmatched against small 4's and he can not recognize many things still on defense. Melo and Rose have always been suspect defenders at best. So where do you get the defense if your best players don't commit to defense? They are afterall the guys that you play the most minutes.

The only way for this team to win was to outscore teams with a powerhouse offense. Being able to drop 112 a night. For that you need a primary star/scorer who is more consistent and a better shooter than Melo. A better point guard than Rose. And KP needed to have a post game to max out our O potential.

I blame the coaching staff and the Knicks big 3 of Rose/Melo/KP for poor defense. KP is the least to blame in my book because he's in his 2nd year and he's still learning defense (as well as showing some value with his great rim protection). Hornachek, Melo and Rose are just an awful mix, You can even see it on TV. The interactions. Hornachek and Melo/Rose have a huge gap. You don't see that gap with Hornachek and the young players like KP, Willy, Randle, Baker, Kuz etc.

It is what it is, but the positive we should take from this is we saved ourselves from investing $100 million deal on Rose and trying to make the Rose/Melo/KP core into a contender, which was just never happening. We're going to draft somewhere really good. Better to really be a bust like we were and draft in a better spot, and know you can't invest in these players longterm, than having a solid season where you make the playoffs and then have a false sense you can grow that team into a contender. That is the false sense the Knicks had after the 2012/2013 season.

All this season has done in my eyes is expediated the process that was inevitable. Moving on from Melo. Building around Porzingis. By that I don't mean you build a team thinking KP will drop 25-30 points a game. You simply rebuild the team, with KP more of the featured player. You get younger. More athletic. YOu find players that fit and blend in well with the young talent (like KP, the 2017 lottery pick) you already have. It's far better to be in this situation knowing for sure you can not get this done with these veterans and type of team than to have a false sense that it will work out if you keep changing the chairs/furniture around. We've changed the furniture around enough. Time to get new furniture. Melo and Rose need to go.

Boom!