franco12 wrote:

Juice wrote:

nyk4ever wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

nyk4ever wrote:i would love to see the reaction from you guys when d'antoni benches amar'e and melo for not playing defense. yeah that'll send the message.

Would love it but unfortunately that would definitely get him fired. Fans paying exorbitant amounts of dough dont wanna see their "stars" on the bench. I myself would give him a standing ovation. At least I would see that he cares.

to what end? do you think the Knicks have bench guys that can carry the team for stretches?

I don't think the bench can really carry them but the message is the most important.

The bench actually played really well in our 6 wins.

hey, a message would be nice. But then you are forfeiting the game for the most part, and MDA would also probably signaling the end of his time with the team too.

That is exactly what I was saying. It would be great but it can't happen. He would be signing his death certificate.

yeah, that's kind of boring and played. This fire the coach thing doesn't seem too well thought out. It's like Isiah GM mentality.

Knicks aren't doing well, certainly, but it's not obvious that they should be winning all of the time either. Should the Lakers have fired Phil Jackson when they slumped in the beginning of the year? How about Miami, they should have gotten rid of their coach twice this year by all accounts. Doc is a genious coach in Boston but fired in Orlando.

Yay for mob mentality.

Knicks are an unbalanced team with severe deficiencies. They lack rebounders at the C/PF. They lack a starting C. Chauncy is obviously still hurt. They get just about zero effort from their 2 stars on defense. They start a rookie. Can Shawne Williams be considered a rookie? Their 2 best so-called defenders and bigs are also the most inept offensive players. TD is getting healthy and actually performed over the past 2 weeks.

What's yours your expectation? Obviously there is gobs or room for better effort. Win all games? two-thirds of them? Half? just about more than half? what is it?

to me i didn't expect HUGE things from this team after this trade because with all the moving parts, it's kinda hard to gel and come together in the middle of the season while you are trying to win games. the billups injury didn't help either because it messed up the rotations twice. this team is going to lose bad games like they are to the pacers for the rest of this year. next year is going to be the true test after a full offseason and training camp. i hate to compare to the heat, but they seriously struggled this year in the beginning too (everyone knows this) even WITH a full training camp. it's not going to happen overnight.

also it's easy to say guys need to start playing defense, but asking guys like amar'e and melo to play defense when they never have before is kinda difficult.

The team went 4-2 without Billups...his injury is being way overblown. Our offense actually hasn't looked too bad remember all statistics show as a team the addition of Melo has helped. We're losing because we don't play enough defense. Place the blame where you may but it doesn't have much to do at all with new players. Shawne Williams made comments after the game about PRIDE and CARING about playing defense. A new season and camp may help to an extent but honestly it all will start once the culture changes collectively either with this group of players or the next group. Here's the kick it can start now we don't need a new camp to discover you have to play both sides of the ball to win consistently. Also getting paid $18mil and $18mil and $13mil and $6mil says it ain't about camp and familiarity.

All this talk about MDA needing camp is garbage. The Pacers change coaches, and Frank Vogel seems to be doing better than ok without any camp. Sure, he might be running the same systems, but clearly, he has had an impact.

Well it's two different teams and schemes..Pacers/Knicks philosophy. Keep in mind the Pacers lost 6gms in a row before playing us. I'm not going to endorse Vogel.

Let's look at the mentality of our fans and the two teams we had this year....

Fans who were for the trade didn't want to wait on Gallo/Chandler......youth or whoever else(Moz if given the chance) to see what they could do in the playoffs to prove if they were long term solutions going forward. Keep in mind Chandler and Gallo being 22/23 respectively could only get better not regress...how much is debatable

yet

These same fans want to wait and see what these VETERAN BATTLE TESTED TOP 20 players, TOP 15 Point guard and supposed ELITE coach can do with a full camp and season under their belt next year

Hmmmmmmmmmm

TymeLessKnicks wrote:

Juice wrote:

franco12 wrote:

Juice wrote:

nyk4ever wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

nyk4ever wrote:i would love to see the reaction from you guys when d'antoni benches amar'e and melo for not playing defense. yeah that'll send the message.

Would love it but unfortunately that would definitely get him fired. Fans paying exorbitant amounts of dough dont wanna see their "stars" on the bench. I myself would give him a standing ovation. At least I would see that he cares.

to what end? do you think the Knicks have bench guys that can carry the team for stretches?

I don't think the bench can really carry them but the message is the most important.

The bench actually played really well in our 6 wins.

hey, a message would be nice. But then you are forfeiting the game for the most part, and MDA would also probably signaling the end of his time with the team too.

That is exactly what I was saying. It would be great but it can't happen. He would be signing his death certificate.

yeah, that's kind of boring and played. This fire the coach thing doesn't seem too well thought out. It's like Isiah GM mentality.

Knicks aren't doing well, certainly, but it's not obvious that they should be winning all of the time either. Should the Lakers have fired Phil Jackson when they slumped in the beginning of the year? How about Miami, they should have gotten rid of their coach twice this year by all accounts. Doc is a genious coach in Boston but fired in Orlando.

Yay for mob mentality.

Knicks are an unbalanced team with severe deficiencies. They lack rebounders at the C/PF. They lack a starting C. Chauncy is obviously still hurt. They get just about zero effort from their 2 stars on defense. They start a rookie. Can Shawne Williams be considered a rookie? Their 2 best so-called defenders and bigs are also the most inept offensive players. TD is getting healthy and actually performed over the past 2 weeks.

What's yours your expectation? Obviously there is gobs or room for better effort. Win all games? two-thirds of them? Half? just about more than half? what is it?

to me i didn't expect HUGE things from this team after this trade because with all the moving parts, it's kinda hard to gel and come together in the middle of the season while you are trying to win games. the billups injury didn't help either because it messed up the rotations twice. this team is going to lose bad games like they are to the pacers for the rest of this year. next year is going to be the true test after a full offseason and training camp. i hate to compare to the heat, but they seriously struggled this year in the beginning too (everyone knows this) even WITH a full training camp. it's not going to happen overnight.

also it's easy to say guys need to start playing defense, but asking guys like amar'e and melo to play defense when they never have before is kinda difficult.

The team went 4-2 without Billups...his injury is being way overblown. Our offense actually hasn't looked too bad remember all statistics show as a team the addition of Melo has helped. We're losing because we don't play enough defense. Place the blame where you may but it doesn't have much to do at all with new players. Shawne Williams made comments after the game about PRIDE and CARING about playing defense. A new season and camp may help to an extent but honestly it all will start once the culture changes collectively either with this group of players or the next group. Here's the kick it can start now we don't need a new camp to discover you have to play both sides of the ball to win consistently. Also getting paid $18mil and $18mil and $13mil and $6mil says it ain't about camp and familiarity.

All this talk about MDA needing camp is garbage. The Pacers change coaches, and Frank Vogel seems to be doing better than ok without any camp. Sure, he might be running the same systems, but clearly, he has had an impact.

Well it's two different teams and schemes..Pacers/Knicks philosophy. Keep in mind the Pacers lost 6gms in a row before playing us. I'm not going to endorse Vogel.

Let's look at the mentality of our fans and the two teams we had this year....

Fans who were for the trade didn't want to wait on Gallo/Chandler......youth or whoever else(Moz if given the chance) to see what they could do in the playoffs to prove if they were long term solutions going forward. Keep in mind Chandler and Gallo being 22/23 respectively could only get better not regress...how much is debatable

yet

These same fans want to wait and see what these VETERAN BATTLE TESTED TOP 20 players, TOP 15 Point guard and supposed ELITE coach can do with a full camp and season under their belt next year

Hmmmmmmmmmm

im about 50/50 on this team snapping out of this poor play in time to avoid playoff embarrassment.

expectations increased with the trade. that was the purpose right?

i am not for waiting until camp next season for guys to put a hand up, step and slide, close out and grab a rebound.

Superstars don't need camp. That's what makes them 'Super Stars'.

How come we have the two best players on the floor, yet every night, when we're getting killed, its the other team exploiting mismatches, not us?

Hibbert down low, we rotate, they make the pass and the play.

Amare outside, drives and is pathetic in being tossed aside and his shot stuffed back into his face.

Mr Clutch with turn overs left and right?

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

martin wrote:

mreinman wrote:

nyk4ever wrote:i would love to see the reaction from you guys when d'antoni benches amar'e and melo for not playing defense. yeah that'll send the message.

Would love it but unfortunately that would definitely get him fired. Fans paying exorbitant amounts of dough dont wanna see their "stars" on the bench. I myself would give him a standing ovation. At least I would see that he cares.

to what end? do you think the Knicks have bench guys that can carry the team for stretches?

I don't think the bench can really carry them but the message is the most important.

The bench actually played really well in our 6 wins.

hey, a message would be nice. But then you are forfeiting the game for the most part, and MDA would also probably signaling the end of his time with the team too.

That is exactly what I was saying. It would be great but it can't happen. He would be signing his death certificate.

yeah, that's kind of boring and played. This fire the coach thing doesn't seem too well thought out. It's like Isiah GM mentality.

Knicks aren't doing well, certainly, but it's not obvious that they should be winning all of the time either. Should the Lakers have fired Phil Jackson when they slumped in the beginning of the year? How about Miami, they should have gotten rid of their coach twice this year by all accounts. Doc is a genious coach in Boston but fired in Orlando.

Yay for mob mentality.

Knicks are an unbalanced team with severe deficiencies. They lack rebounders at the C/PF. They lack a starting C. Chauncy is obviously still hurt. They get just about zero effort from their 2 stars on defense. They start a rookie. Can Shawne Williams be considered a rookie? Their 2 best so-called defenders and bigs are also the most inept offensive players. TD is getting healthy and actually performed over the past 2 weeks.

What's yours your expectation? Obviously there is gobs or room for better effort. Win all games? two-thirds of them? Half? just about more than half? what is it?

nykshaknbake wrote:Phil Jaxson is a HOF coach. It's not like we are changing coaches every season. We've seen enough of this one to know he isn't doing well. 3 years! The expectations are that we would rotate out towards shooters. The xpectations are that we call appropriate time outs and make in game adjustments. Last night we could't even make an adjustment despite having a day to think about it. None of this has hapened in any of the iterations of this team. It's not the reflex reaction that some are making it out to be, but a conclusion after observation for a very long time.

I am not sure if you missed it or not, but the Knicks made a big trade about 3 weeks ago. Have had like 2 practices since and their starting PG has been injured for about the last 2 weeks. They traded away 3 significant rotation players and their 1 big body in Moz who had started to play C for 20 minutes a game.

Remember that Miami team with their 3 super signings? 2 of their guys were all-world players. 3rd guy is a ***** but doesnt play that badly. Took them 2 months to get their barrings and that was after a full training camp together, albeit with 1 of their main cogs, who has been in the same system for 5 years, on the sideline. That Miami team hovered at just above .500 through the month of November before they took off.

Now, the Knicks just up-ended their roster. Do you really expect them to come out on the same page lickity-split? Or do you think there will be an adjustment time? Sure, the same coach has been there.

What in game adjustment would YOU have suggested MDA made against Indiana? Go for it, I would like to hear it.

You can be a great defender but if your team doesn't have a strategy, you won't be able to help stopping anybody.

mreinman wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:Even great defenders would look horrible under D'Antoni here in New York. If you have seen the last few games, you would notice that the defensive strategy has practically been non-existent. You have people rotating when they don't have to and leaving the man with the ball wide open. You have players not reading a play well and not moving to help or double when they have to. You have no communication on defense.

You can be a great defender but if your team doesn't have a strategy, you won't be able to help stopping anybody.

And the blind mice (e.g. Fishmike, Martin) will tell you that it has nothing to do with the coach. Its all about the players not doing their jobs.

COMICAL

As a blind mouse myself, many of us are not saying it has nothing to do with . But it also has to do with the players not doing their jobs -- though exactly what amount is what I think we are debating -- and firing the coach isn't a panacea to this fundamental problem.

First of all this thread was not created to call you out and show how much more vast my knowledge is of basketball/the Knicks are than you. I figure if you bother posting/responding to a post game Pacers thread, you and I both spend entirely too much time thinking and talking about the NBA/Knicks than we should.
I'm simply posting this in a seperate thread because we were originally talking about this in the game thread and I'm not sure how often people check that the day after the game.
Anyways here's our exchange:

Knicksfan wrote:

GodSaveTheKnicks wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:
D'Antoni has to go. Its a given now. And if that means Walsh leaves with him, I'll be sad but I won't care.
Any other coach would have this team playing AVERAGE defense, which would've won us the last two games and many more. D'Antoni amazingly has them playing ZIP!

Really? MDA leaves and Melo and Amare becomes beasts on D too?

Does MDA leaving find us a guy to guard Roy Hibbert and stop Hansborough from looking like Kevin F-in Mchale out there?

I really do hope it's that easy. Fire MDA and we go from 25th in FG % allowed to what?

Let's assume you're right..MDA tells the players "Hey the plan is we're going to outscore the other team and not play D"
Does that mean all the vets and our "superstars" just all fall in line and say okay..let's not play D?

I'm not saying MDA is blame free in the lack of defense but just find it's a bit odd to think that the players..the guys actually on the court don't have as much or MORE blame that should be falling on their shoulders.

First of all, don't put words in my mouth I haven't said. Nobody said our superstars become defensive stoppers with D'Antoni gone. But if you can't see that the main problem with this the Knicks is the lack of team defense, the lack of organization and adjustments in defense during the game, then you have no idea what is really going on here.
This isn't about turning our players into stoppers, but about playing a whole game with an actual defensive strategy and adjusting it during the game. This is something any coach with knowledge and regard for defense will be able to do.
Did you see the post-game interview from D'Antoni? His best defensive strategy is hoping the other team misses. This guy has no clue what to do on defense and you can see it in the way he responds to questions related to defense.

The Phoenix Suns played average defense under MDA if you look up the #s. I won't put words in your mouth. Let me use the words you did.

"Any other coach would have this team playing AVERAGE defense, which would've won us the last two games and many more. D'Antoni amazingly has them playing ZIP!."

I don't understand what you mean by "D'Antoni amazingly has them playing ZIP!" I am hoping that you were just as disgusted as I was after that 2nd Pacers loss in a row and just got carried away with the extremity of that statement. I saw the board in the locker room before the 1st pacers game. It had players on the Pacers listed next to %ages they shot from certain areas of the floor. Your statement literally makes it seem like the Knicks focus 100% of their practice time and film sessions to offense and completely ignore the other side of the ball.

I am assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) that you did not actually mean to imply that. Maybe you meant something like..MDA probably spends 70% of his time on offense and 30% on defense and he needs to spend way more time on defense in practice? I don't know how we could really verify how much time is spent on defense by the way unless we know an insider on the team who was speaking off the record.

I will sometimes spend an entire defensive possession just following Amare or Melo and sometimes am just really discouraged by what I see. I've never played organized basketball and am pretty limited athletically..and uhh..skillwise when playing ball myself but I know to try to force guys to their left unless they have a good handle.

Tyler Hansborough can not go left. Yet time after time we allowed him to go right. There was one specific moment I remember where he was on the left baseline and ball faked left and Amare bit. Hansborough went right and got a bucket. Is that on Amare or the coaching staff?

What's the solution? Would a coach like Scott Skiles bench Amare or Melo for either being bad defenders or not remembering something like 'FORCE HIM LEFT!'. If he doesn't then there are negative consequences. If he does it sets off a shtstorm.
If 40% (2 out of 5) of your starting lineup has a reputation for being poor/indifferent defenders, how much does a coaching change really solve? Regardless of who is coaching this team if the entire team starting with the stars who should be the ones that are giving it their all on defense AND holding their teammates accountable doesn't step up how much they study defense and give effort, does it matter?

nyk4ever wrote:i would love to see the reaction from you guys when d'antoni benches amar'e and melo for not playing defense. yeah that'll send the message.

i would like to see some in game adjustments on defense that actually make sense... how many times during the season have we seen MDA go with a small lineup & stick with it during games we were getting killed on the boards & getting dominated in the paint from other team's frontcourt players? i don't think MDA has ever gotten on JJ's case for any missed defensive assignments, i can understand not yelling at your star players u don't want to alienate your top guys that's the quickest way to lose a team, but when role players are not doing their job it's time u sit them & play other guys who wanna get into the action... last night i saw Hibbert grabbing offensive rebound after offensive rebound because no one was boxing him out, why wasn't Shelden Williams or Ronnie Turiaf put into the game to box him out? are these very difficult decisions to make for an esteemed coach & student of the game of basketball that MDA is known to be? seems like pretty basic stuff to me.

martin wrote:

nykshaknbake wrote:Barkley actually has a decent article(I know I can't stand him either) where he was asying it seems like MDA is hell bent on proving his system works. We need a coach who will develop our players and put a winning strategy on board. Not one who will waste the prime of our stars trying to show the world he is right when everyone but him sees its not working.

Barkley also thought NJ was worth a crap at the beginning of the year. he's a funny dude but not completely basketball smart; says some smart things, says some dumb things.

BTW, Knicks haven't run SSOL in a while, so I guess MDA stopped trying to prove his system a long time ago.

This is so true and proves that many are not watching just happy of seeing two stars $$$$. To bad wasn't originally defensive minded like pops with spurs who are a running offensive team now btw.