Posted by BlueSeats:

IMHO, having to treat these guys with kid-gloves and try everything in the world to find something that works for them only adds to the crowds frustration.

Fair points, BlueSeats. I think the difference between what we're seeing now and the occassional boos the good Knicks teams would get is that the fans just have an incredibly short fuse. Pardon the analogy, but it's sort of like the difference between spanking a kid for acting like an absolute brat vs. hitting him because he's annoying you. One might be more or less benign in the long run, but the other isn't.

Take tonight for example. The booing started to get heavy tonight in the second quarter after a string of Knicks TOs. Well, guess what. The Knicks are slightly below league average in terms of limiting their TOs, and the Bulls are #1 (and it's not even close) at forcing TOs. So a string of TOs is really not that surprising to see and not really something that deserves booing. Quite the contrary, given the competition, to some extent it's to be expected. This is like booing if we were playing Phoenix and they went on a 12-0 run at some point. That's just what they're good at, and if you're on the players' cases for going through a stretch where the opposition is flexing their strength, you're basically giving very little leeway for error. And that's not a winning formula, especially for a team that's still striving to just get to .500.

Posted by simrud:

In my opinion with enough games played their road record will become worse and the home record will improve to something more ordinary. At some point soon we'll get into a loosing streak on the road, and we'll win some games at home against bad teams.

I have no doubt that things will even out in the long run. You have a fair point about the sample size, but in statistics there is sort of a tradeoff between sample size and effect size. The bigger the effect you see, the smaller the sample size needed to infer a significant result. Given that the expected result for all teams is that home performance should be much stronger than road performance, the effect size we've seen in these handful of games (in the opposite direction of expected results) is actually pretty formidable. All in all, it's hard to deny that something out of whack is going on, though you have to think it will smooth out eventually.

I think the mindless booing is ridiculous. just stupid, I mean does it even work? has a team played better after fans boo them. what bothers me is that they are now booing when the other teams play good, not when the knicks play bad, but when the other team plays good..... It is a joke..

Posted by tomverve:

Posted by djsunyc:

1. can go out partying at home. we see tons of pics from these guys out and about in the clubs you know.

Right, because we've been worse at home than on the road for a few years now. That's how long we've been seeing those pictures you know.

2. shifting shootaround to the garden right before the game. maybe the long day at the garden puts them in a funk.

Maybe it's something in the water at MSG.

3. they're a bunch of pansies

Plus, you're right and I'm wrong, so I guess no point in going further.

STUPID ARGUMENT AND EXCUSE. tom, you're better than that.

It ain't rocket science. Home court advantage is real. For HC advantage to completely flip, something must be up. What could it be? Oh, shootaround before the games, right. I know my productivity at work wouldn't suffer if I had someone standing over my shoulder yelling at me every time I did something wrong, that's for sure.

The argument isn't half as stupid as all of the counterarguments I've seen so far. And this whole "excuse" thing is lame. I don't know what you think I'm trying to say, but if you think it's an "excuse" you're either misunderstanding me or knocking down a straw man. Probably a bit of both.

you think this is isolated to just this season? this is a culmination of bad on court performances for over a year. and the boos are directed mostly towards isiah via his 2 biggest acquisitions - steph + curry. this is an extension of last year. same team and all we heard this summer was that it was lb's fault. if you're going to constantly point the finger away from the players and the gm (the spin from msg), then you better perform. but when you don't, then the fans are going to turn. i'm telling you man, the fans are fed up with msg and it's BS. this isn't about "booing" the players. it's about booing the management of the team. according to season ticket holder feedback, the only problems they have are with isiah and steph. and why are you so bothered by it? i mean really, do you not hear the SELF STARTED "defense" chants? without prompting by the sound guy? knicks crowds don't stand for BS. boos like this weren't heard during the last 2 years of layden's teams. why? no BS. the crowd was apathetic b/c the team was boring. this team likes to point fingers so the crowd reacts accordingly.

Posted by djsunyc:

and why are you so bothered by it?

It bothers me because at this point I think it's pretty evident that the short-fuse booing is affecting the performance of the team, and as a fan I want the team to do well. It's analogous to getting pissed off when the refs are botching a game badly, except in some ways it's worse because as bad as refs can sometimes be, I doubt their destructive influence is ever intentional.

i mean really, do you not hear the SELF STARTED "defense" chants? without prompting by the sound guy?

Why are you so bothered when the Knicks fall behind by 20 in the first half of every home game? Do you not see them make a big run in the second half? Why are you so bothered by Jerome James, do you not see David Lee? Same thing. Crowd isn't all bad all the time, but right now on balance it's probably one of the lousiest home crowds to be playing for in the league.

Posted by islesfan:

That's fitting because right now on balance it's probably one of the worst teams to be rooting for in the league.

pretty much. this isn't knee jerk reactions by the crowd. what we're seeing is a culmination of frustration with this team. the crowd is near the end of it's fuse with this team. like i said, this isn't isolated to just this season. this is an extension of last year.

you would like to think the team would feed off of it and take it as a challenge instead of complaining about it. why isn't isiah saying "we have to win the fans back and the only way is by results on the court?" he can use it as a "us against them" with them being the crowd. but instead, he continues to perpetuate the "it's them not us" culture. knicks fans are not stupid. they are remembering everything isiah has said and done. they remember everything the players say and do.

Posted by tomverve:

Posted by djsunyc:

and why are you so bothered by it?

It bothers me because at this point I think it's pretty evident that the short-fuse booing is affecting the performance of the team, and as a fan I want the team to do well. It's analogous to getting pissed off when the refs are botching a game badly, except in some ways it's worse because as bad as refs can sometimes be, I doubt their destructive influence is ever intentional.

i mean really, do you not hear the SELF STARTED "defense" chants? without prompting by the sound guy?

Why are you so bothered when the Knicks fall behind by 20 in the first half of every home game? Do you not see them make a big run in the second half? Why are you so bothered by Jerome James, do you not see David Lee? Same thing. Crowd isn't all bad all the time, but right now on balance it's probably one of the lousiest home crowds to be playing for in the league.

tomnerve- I must take blame also for the knicks failure. I have picked them to lose every game this year on gamepicker. so lay it on me--its a subliminal thing Im going to take the heat off the paying fans here

Yup our mission this season is to see Isiah fired and banned from Professional Basketball. I am completely dumbfounded how any Knick fan wouldn't want to see this guy fired. I've seen better guys get fired for far less than the sins Isiah has committed.