loweyecue wrote:I agree with this. Amare and Melo are not people who will give consistent effort on defense, otherwise George Karl would have had an effect on Melo by now and whoever replaced MDA in PHX would have gotten more out of Amare defesively. But the argument is that we don't need STAT/Melo to be stellar on defense, we need them to be adequate.

My problem with the whole 'surround our two best players with defenders' is name me a championship team in the past 10 years where at least one of the two best players isn't also an excellent defender?

Lakers- Kobe (and Pau)
Heat- Wade (and Shaq in 2006)
Spurs- Duncan
Celtics- Garnett
Pistons- Billups (in 2004)

With our limited cap flexibility and no upside in skills due to lack of youth (players at 26 are not going to get better, let's face it) we are stuck with this team. Stuck. Unless Landry becomes even better, and we get some great waiver wire/D League pickups, we are not going anywhere past the 1st/2nd round.

AnubisADL wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:

loweyecue wrote:

AnubisADL wrote:

loweyecue wrote:Setting unrealistic expectations doesn't really help anyone but nay sayers. This thread is bogus.

We can beat Chicago, Orlando, or Atlanta in a 7 game series.

Amare and Carmelo would need to have monster games coupled with guys stepping up for us to beat Miami and Boston. Point is anything can happen in the playoffs. All we need to do is steal a game or 2 and your are in the ECF.

Carmelo and Amare both have jumpers which will be valuable in the playoffs. Plus we got the battle tested Billups running the point.

I think we can sneak into the finals.

Yes anything can happen. But if Carmelo and Amare don't have those monster games let's not come back here and spin that into MDA doesn't coach defense.

The basic problem regarding our D, is that except for Amare's shot blocking, he and Melo are poor defenders, and Billups has lost a step or two at his age.

I've said it before- being a good defender is more about heart and desire than it is about some magic instructions from some defensive guru coach.

Guys like Jordan, Clyde, Kobe, Wade, James, Pippin, Rodman, Ewing, etc., took it personally if you beat them on D, and this showed in their tenacity. I love the way Amare has come in and helped turn the team around, but his D is spotty at best, and like Melo, he is not the type that sweats getting beat on a play.

At best we may be the 4th best team in the East- most likely we are the 5th, unless Orlando's slide continues.

Carmelo and Amare have proven they can good defenders when they apply themselves. I dont think Carmelo's defense will be an issue in the playoffs.

Carmelo has never shown himself to be a consistent defender.

You might have waited a couple of weeks to do this thread.

Bonn1997 wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:

knickstorrents wrote:

loweyecue wrote:I agree with this. Amare and Melo are not people who will give consistent effort on defense, otherwise George Karl would have had an effect on Melo by now and whoever replaced MDA in PHX would have gotten more out of Amare defesively. But the argument is that we don't need STAT/Melo to be stellar on defense, we need them to be adequate.

My problem with the whole 'surround our two best players with defenders' is name me a championship team in the past 10 years where at least one of the two best players isn't also an excellent defender?

Lakers- Kobe (and Pau)
Heat- Wade (and Shaq in 2006)
Spurs- Duncan
Celtics- Garnett
Pistons- Billups (in 2004)

With our limited cap flexibility and no upside in skills due to lack of youth (players at 26 are not going to get better, let's face it) we are stuck with this team. Stuck. Unless Landry becomes even better, and we get some great waiver wire/D League pickups, we are not going anywhere past the 1st/2nd round.

I did one of my few threads on this and nobody came up with any teams that had two all offense/little or no defense type players like Amare and Melo who won a title.

This franchise has dug a hole, and it will take everything Donnie can do to get us out of it, that is if he is actually given the chance.

That might be giving him too much credit since he locked us into at least one of not both of the two players who you're complaining about for being all offense, no defense.

I'm in the camp which thinks Walsh did not want to give up Gallo or Mosguv. We gave up nothing to get Amare except cap space.

The crux of the matter is that we took away 4 of the better defenders on a team that was already challenged defensively because of the lack of a big man.

Easy to compensate for 1 defensive liability...not so easy when you have 2 in your starting 5.

Amare has his moments on D, especially as a shot blocker, but he has gaps in his attention span and does not seem to have the ability to be consistently tough in 1/1 situations. Melo is another case altogether.

The simple fact is that they are fundamentally similar in what they bring to the table on offense and defense, and we are seeing issues on both ends of the court which may, or may not be repairable.

Back in the days of old, the Knicks got rid of Bellamy and Komives so Reed and Frazier could do their respective things without hindrance. The lane became open for Reed, and Clyde was given the reins on offense.

We made the reverse of that trade- we cleared out guys who could compliment Amare, got rid of the player who might someday be our stopper in the middle, got a guy more likely to compete for the ball with Amare and a PG, who while still crafty, is not going to give us the energy we had in Felton.

I'm much happier with Billups than I am with Melo. Hopefully this changes, but no matter how folks look at things, this franchise still has major issues, and they may get worse if the new CBA is not crafted the right way.

BlueSeats wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:

knickstorrents wrote:

loweyecue wrote:I agree with this. Amare and Melo are not people who will give consistent effort on defense, otherwise George Karl would have had an effect on Melo by now and whoever replaced MDA in PHX would have gotten more out of Amare defesively. But the argument is that we don't need STAT/Melo to be stellar on defense, we need them to be adequate.

My problem with the whole 'surround our two best players with defenders' is name me a championship team in the past 10 years where at least one of the two best players isn't also an excellent defender?

Lakers- Kobe (and Pau)
Heat- Wade (and Shaq in 2006)
Spurs- Duncan
Celtics- Garnett
Pistons- Billups (in 2004)

With our limited cap flexibility and no upside in skills due to lack of youth (players at 26 are not going to get better, let's face it) we are stuck with this team. Stuck. Unless Landry becomes even better, and we get some great waiver wire/D League pickups, we are not going anywhere past the 1st/2nd round.

I did one of my few threads on this and nobody came up with any teams that had two all offense/little or no defense type players like Amare and Melo who won a title.

This franchise has dug a hole, and it will take everything Donnie can do to get us out of it, that is if he is actually given the chance.

Magic/Worthy/Divac

I gave a few examples of pairs where only one of the two were good defenders.

Take a situation like Isiah/Dumars. Dumars was the better defender but better than Amare? Amare's raised his D and isn't all that bad now. He'd be a lot better if he had a hint of help in the frontcourt.

Melo is the help in the front court.

Thomas and Dumars were not bad on D, and I seem to recall that Dumars did a good job with Jordan. That was also a team with length and guys willing to get dirty when they had to. Rodman, Salley, Mahorn, Edwards, Laimbeer, etc- ring a bell?

Did Magic/Worthy/Divac win a title? Worthy was not a terrible defender, and Magic put in the effort on D. Divac could block some shots, but he was not a star at the time, and never averaged over 16 PPG in his career. He was a classic Euro player- and never seemed to be a me first guy, from what I can remember.

By the way, the Laker team that lost in the finals to Chicago was the [b]second best defensive team in the league regarding points, and Divac was no real star at the time. You might also look at their roster, especially the length.

No.	Player	        Pos	Ht	Wt	Birth Date	Exp
35	Tony Brown	F-G	6-6	185	July 29, 1960	 5	
41	Elden Campbell	C	6-11	215	July 23, 1968	 R	
12	Vlade Divac	C	7-1	243	February 3,1968	 1	
10	Larry Drew	G	6-1	170	April 2, 1958	 9	
45	A.C. Green	F-C	6-9	220	October 4, 1963	 5	
32	Magic Johnson	G-F	6-8	215	August 14, 1959	 11	
14	Sam Perkins	F-C	6-9	235	June 14, 1961	 6	
4	Byron Scott	G	6-3	195	March 28, 1961	 7	
34	Tony Smith	G	6-3	185	June 14, 1968	 R	
20	Terry Teagle	F-G	6-5	195	April 10, 1960	 8	
30	Irving Thomas	F	6-8	225	January 2, 1966	 R	
43	Mychal Thompson	C-F	6-10	226	January 30,1955  11	
42	James Worthy	F	6-9	225	February 27,1961 8

Once again, I would say that we are in a hole as a franchise with two star who will need a lot of help if the Knicks are to even reach the conference finals.

Hope I'm wrong.

markvmc wrote:The best thing about the Melo trade is that we now have a piece we can trade straight up for Dwight Howard or CP3.

Do you think that is something even being considered by anyone in the organization?

Interesting to speculate on, but it would mean that this trade was a failure, since the trade was not made with this in mind.

You guys consider Chicago a contender? Rose and Boozer are both below average defenders.