I opine many of you have been correct in part. I also am with those that believe D'Antoni does not want to change his style to suit his players. He believes in his system. He did change it in the recent stretch of games....he slowed it down to suit his personnel. It was borne of necessity and is not 7 seconds or less.

Nate is a great talent. Maybe we should call him Taz instead of Krypto-Nate. He can be disruptive. On either end. Harnessing such talent is a difficult task. What some of you are saying is that D'Antoni benched NRob for personal reasons. I like the idea he's trying to impress 'team' accomplishments on his players and those that play that way are getting time. Good to see him back and it was obvious his teammates thought so too. I was worried he would be Marburied.

I do not agree with the tight rotations. When you play back-to-backs those short rotations are hell on the starters. D Lee haad 89 minutes in the last two road games. And it showed in the 4th of the second game. Short rotations may give your starters more continuity but limit substitution based on match-ups and flexibility as well.

Duhon is pretty much immovable at point right now. The most consistent offense for the Knicks has been Lee-Duhon and the pick and roll. It's what D'Antoni wants as part of his system. No one on the roster can do it better for now. It's why Duhon is still the point. Me I am not so sure that is 'the style' but I ain' the coach.

I agree the switch every screen thing was kind of unique.`Makes a nice change-up on defense and works well with the slower system. Don't think it will be all that is needed to get you an NBA title...but it's a nice chip to use in the right situation and likely caught some teams off guard and got a game or two for the team. Nice play there. How to make it go all the time? Well you trade everyone under 6-5 and take back no one under that height. Then maybe you mix 7 seconds or less with a motion offense and use two or three combo guards/small forwards. NOt many 6-5 points in the league.

Bender is a great story. And that's about it. I don't see him long term doing much. So far all he's done really was take minutes from Hill and Hill needs those minutes and would seem to have more upside. I know what Bender was...but he isn't what he was.

Not much doubt December was a more favorable schedule. 50+ to go. I said at the beginning 43-41 so far that looks a pipe dream. I frankly expected TD to take Duhon's job. My impression so far is that D'Antoni's motivational tactics are to disparage his players in front of the press ('he ain't the best shooter in the world') put unrealistic expectations on them('he's the best shooter I ever saw') and bench them if they give him any trouble at all( Shaq/Kerr-Marbury).. 'my way or the hightway' How is it he inspires such loyalty from the big names? He wrote a book so now he's a genius(sarcasm doesn't translate well on the net so I'll just point out this is what that last sentence is). Hey...it cannot be that bad..it's just how it looks from the outside.

@ oohah- love that handle.

nixluva wrote:MDA has been playing short rotations for years. It's something he's won a ton of games with. I fail to see any evidence that it has hurt his teams in the past. 2 trips to the conf. finals is a great result IMO. Especially given the teams he had, which weren't deep teams at all. This team doesn't have

I guess it's OK for armchair coaches to try and knock a guy that has been a success everywhere he's been, doing pretty much the same things he's doing here. Our roster wasn't ready to start the year, I guess it's valid to knock MDA for that, but now that the team is playing better you'd think there would be a sense of reason about how the team is developing. I guess it's too much to ask for some of the fans here to be reasonable.

What's been the biggest knock on MDA, a lack of emphasis on D? Even in PHX he didn't have a lot of great defensive personnel and yet he still managed to be in the middle of the league defensively and of course won a ton of games. We don't have great defensive personnel here either and yet he has the team playing respectable D. I guess you can't give him any credit for that either...

Please stop saying D'Antoni has been a success everywhere he has been. His record when Nash isn't his point guard in the NBA is 79-146. Come on man you gotta come up with some facts to back up your MDA love.

Talk about Mike D'Antoni in Phoenix has been hampered by the common thought that the Bulls -- built for defense, sans a Steve Nash figure -- aren't his kind of team. But I agree with BlogaBull, how do we know what a D'Antoni team looks like? He has had Steve Nash, and has coached a certain way that suits Nash. Without Nash, we don't know squat about what he'd do. Alos, as I have written before, I think a new approach in Chicago could be powerful, and D'Antoni would sure be a new approach.

I think we have an idea what his style will be like without a point guard like Steve Nash based on his one-year stint with the Denver Nuggets.

The San Antonio Spurs bring out the worst in the Denver Nuggets.

After holding the Nuggets to a franchise-low 61 points less than two weeks ago, the Spurs added another black mark to Denver's record book with an 86-65 victory Thursday night.

The 65 points were the fewest Denver has ever scored at home, and the lopsided loss was the third by 20 points or more for the Nuggets this season. All three have come against the Spurs.

"Well, at least we're done with San Antonio for the year," Denver coach Mike D'Antoni said. "It's hard to point to one thing. It was a complete meltdown."

Tim Duncan scored 28 points and David Robinson added 12 points and 13 rebounds for the streaking Spurs, who have won nine straight against Denver and 12 of 13 overall.

Vainly trying to defend both 7-footers, the Nuggets had no answer for San Antonio's inside game. Denver shot 31 percent from the field and were outscored 44-20 in the paint.

"They're kind of undersized," Robinson said. "They start two forwards at 6-9 and then a center at 6-7, so there are tough matchups for them. They're athletic, but at the same time, it's hard shooting over 7-footers every time you turn around."

Sounds familiar? Let's see... a 6-7 guy playing center? Let's check the roster. Hmmm... must be this guy.

But D'Antoni's team was very athletic and they like to run. Before Nash and Amare, Mike had Nick Van Exel and super-athlete Antonio McDyess in Denver as "the hip-hop Stockton and Malone." Did not work as well though.

This was the starting five Dantoni used for most of the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season:

Players Games GamesStarted
Antonio MyDyess 50 50
Nick Van Exel 50 50
Chauncey Billups 45 41
Danny Fortson 50 38
Bryant Stith 46 32

D'Antoni also like shooting big guys like Raef Lafrentz, who as a rookie started for the Nugget's first 12 games before suffering a season-ending tear of his left anterior cruciate ligament.