Great Win...altho I only watched the last 34 seconds on the flash HTML

Knicks Win!! Knicks Win!!

I dont like the 103 but considering the start the raptors got off to scoring 39 in the 1st quarter so 103 isnt too bad.

Nazr was a revelation. And Marbury had an awesome game as well. 35 pts and 9 assists. Also great to see Houston getting his shot back.

This was an absolutely huge game for a lot of reasons. Standings wise we get some separation. And morale wise this is good too... We essentially had 9 available players (Shandon left with a stomach virus). We were down double digits several times, including down 12 in the 3rd quarter. But they really fought back. The defense wasn't great but they made the stops at the end when they needed it. And they were awesome on the boards, especially the offensive boards. Good win.

Martin, don't you mean NAZR?

I feel sorry that so many of you did not see this game. Fortunately, I have NBA League Pass. This was a very good win for the Knicks. They could have easily blown this one but they played very tough in the 4th quarter. Steph, Allan, Penny, Nazr, and K. Thomas played most of the 4th. Tim Thomas played well but Penny did a better job defensively so Lenny left him in.

Very good win. I am especially happy after reading this article in the Toronto Star.


Yet again, Wilkens spoils a team
But GM Thomas also hurting Knicks


DAVE FESCHUK

A month removed from being the talk of the NBA, the New York Knicks capped a six-game losing streak with Sunday's loss in Denver. Theirs being an ill team, the players got to ticking off a list of acute ailments.

"Defensively we're brutal right now," said Penny Hardaway, the reserve swingman. "This isn't a New York team. We're not playing hard."

Said Allan Houston, the captain: "Everything seems at a standstill. Everybody seems confused right now ... we're a team that's trying to play our way through a cloud."

If Hardaway and Houston were surprised by the fog of lassitude that had suddenly enveloped a once-buzzing franchise, they shouldn't have been. Brutal defence, soft effort, players standing around looking confused — it all sounded suspiciously familiar to anyone who spent the previous three seasons watching Lenny Wilkens coach the once-promising Toronto Raptors into an apathetic stupor.

Wilkens, fired by the Raptors after moulding them into the league's worst defensive unit last season, made an unlikely prodigal return to his hometown in January when he was hired out of retirement by Isiah Thomas, New York's against-the-grain general manager. But sure enough, after Wilkens' laissez-faire approach worked its usual honeymoon magic — after a 9-3 start with the 66-year-old on the sidelines — the sinking Knicks appear to be arriving at the startling realization that their helmsman, not to mention Wilkens' sleepy assistant Dick Helm, has a nasty habit of dozing at the rudder before, during and after games.

Or perhaps they haven't quite figured Wilkens out.

Said Hardaway the other day, defending the hall of famer: "You can't second-guess the winningest coach in the league."

That'd be true, Penny, if Wilkens wasn't also the losingest coach in league history, the owner of a sub-.500 playoff record and a reputation for working at his craft as steadfastly as a sailor on shore leave.

Whatever, tonight's Air Canada Centre reunion finds both the old coach and his old club residing in slumpville.

Over their last 10 games the Raptors (1-9) and Knicks (2-8) are the coldest teams in basketball. And if you're a hard-core Wilkens critic, you could blame both clubs' woes on the same coach, paint the Raptors' troubles as a product of the bad habits he instilled, colour the Knicks' malaise as the natural state of any club put in his laconic charge.

Or you could put the GM-authorized spin on both situations, opine like Glen Grunwald that the Raptors are a good team with a bright future, or — to crib a far more convincing crud salesman — back Thomas' assertion that the Knicks are something to brag about.

"I'm extremely pleased where we are," Thomas said the other day. "Sitting in March in the sixth spot, I'm proud of that."

Thomas, who frequently professed his pride in minuscule achievement when he was Toronto's honcho, too, has had a performance curve remarkably similar to Wilkens'. He made a brilliant move in repatriating Brooklyn-born point guard Stephon Marbury back in January. But his roster-shuffling savvy has been called into question by last month's jettisoning of Keith Van Horn and Michael Doleac in a deal that fetched Tim Thomas and Nazr Mohammed. Trading a starter and a backup for two backups is always iffy. The Knicks are 2-6 since the swap.

They're also standing around looking confused, playing with all the enthusiasm of three-toed sloths, and waiting, no doubt, for their hall of fame coach to inspire a turnaround with an effective speech or a strategic tweak or a flat-out shouting session. In the Raptors' locker room, they stood around waiting for all of the above for three squandered years, but all the coach ever produced was his defining innovation: Shorter practices.

The Raptors still haven't recovered from that three-year chill-out.

One thing about Thomas we know for sure: Wilkens will be fired before he does that kind of damage in New York.
Additional articles by Dave Feschuk

On the day of the trading deadline, Isiah told Francesa on WFAN that he thought Sweetney would be "fantastic" (he wasn't as laudatory about FW). I thought he was just saying it to pump him up for a trade, and may be he was, but he is showing signs of being a very good player.

btw, Now I know what Isiah meant when he said Nazr was the key to the KVH trade.

Posted by VDesai:

Martin, don't you mean NAZR?

whoops. Slip of fingers.

NAZR.

Posted by martin:

so, how many threads titled "The KVH trade RULZ" are we going to have to contend with tomorrow?

officially speaking, is it the KVH trade, the TT trade, or the NZAR trade?

I wouldnt say that the trade rules...but I'll stick with my original oppinion, It was a good trade, and will look much better with Houston back...

In a couple games, people might want to take back some comments about Isiah

I love how Shandon only got 6min!

hopefully when Othella comes back he's nailed on the bench. Sweetney is the man!