Posted by SlimPack:
I remember marbury sitting out the fourth of a cleveland game that we won as well. but I dont understand why the knicks would play better with marbury out of the lineup. the knicks are 1-10 without him this year. some people say that that is becuase he is being a cancer on the bench and it is affecting the players. but even if that were true, it would also be true in the case of the times where marbury sat out just the fourth quarter, and the knicks won.
Those are two very different scenarios. The effect chronic effect that Marbury has on a clubhouse is very different than the acute effect of sitting him and you can't expect their effects to exactly parallel each other.
The times we did better with him on the bench were usually because he was playing lethargically relative to his replacement, but that's totally different from being a cancer. Even Nash can have sluggish nights, he just keeps them to a minimum.
When we went 1-10 or whatever it was when Steph was out there were several contributing factors. The team was probably dispirited that their first sense of optimism might (did) diminish. AD got suspended then traded. Several players, most notably Crawford (steph's replacement) were rumored in many trades and Crawford had his bags packed for Orlando. Rose came in to potentially displace someone else at SF, and Francis came in to potentially displace someone at PG or SG. So it was a time of much turmoil and pressure.
with the Marbury knicks it's always been about effort. Some time ago I said I recalled three periods of the season when the knicks showed effort: in the beginning when they were still trying on D; in the middle when we went on our streak; and at the end when guys like JC, Q, Nate, etc were praising Larry and taking over as the new leaders.
after saying that I actually looked it up and confirmed that. Our best moth was January where we went 7-9, followed by the first month of the season where we went 5-7, followed by the last moth were we went 4-7 without Marbury. I believe had the season gone longer those latter months would have eventually surpassed the priors as to "new guard" players gained confidence and worked hard for the coach they were embracing. That's the period when we say JC winning games and shunning steph's love, not giving him skin and stuff. The new guys were putting the distraction of marbury and the feud behind them and taking the coaching.
That kind of evolution doesn't occur in a quarter, or a game, or a week, it takes time.
However, we did see many times that the kids simply outworked the veterans, including and especially marbury, and those are the times a quarter, or even 5 minutes, can make a big difference. It was in those times that Nate was a greater difference maker than Steph, by a long shot, in spite of his lesser "talent."
