martin wrote:

Bizzy211 wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

Bizzy211 wrote:Just an observation:

I believe MDA needs to cut the 3 point shooting. Our team shot 31 3-pointers and only 25 freethrows. We have guys who shot 4 to 8 3's and did not attempt 1 freethrow. Rebounding is another, but you are going to have those nights where you just can't seem to rebound. Too early to tell IMO about the lack of rebounding. I do believe we should cut down on the 3's about 15 attempts less and try to convert those to more freethrow attempts. Some of our stat-lines are just horrible. But it is pre-season.. RIGHT!!

He has culpability as well. I think he can make it a faster team but please for Gods sakes stop with the annoying 30 3s per game.

I usually don't post.. Even though I'm on this site everyday.. so I'm not sure what u are implying with the "stop". Any further explanation of why I mentioned 30 3s would be childish and argumentative when I was just stating my opinionated observation. LOL.

haha, I think BRIGGS was agreeing with you. He was telling Gallo to stop shooting 30 3s per game.

I don't care Anybody Can Get It!!! Just Joking. I apologize.

scoshin wrote:Gallo - needs to stop settling for 3's. Even on a good night, he's attempting like 8-9 a game, which is ridiculous. He's not going to be an elite scorer in this league by camping at the 3-pt line.

Amare - he forced things a bit, but I'm not that disappointed. Minnesota packed the paint and took away Amare's usual game. I was disappointed that he didn't go back to his elbow jumper that he hit twice in the 1st quarter.

Chandler - another solid game

Randolph - had flashes of brilliance and flashes of stupidity. Shot selection is going to be his biggest issue going forward, but love his defensive effort.

Most impressive - Rautins, followed by Douglas. I'm actually beginning to be intrigued by what Rautins can do as a backup point cause he seems to be our ONLY ballhandler who keeps his head up when he drives. Douglas' defensive energy is what we love about him. He played as if this was a playoff game.

Biggest disappointments - Felton, followed by Mason. We hardly saw any pick'n'roll play, and Felton's handle seems like it's always about to go out of control. He also seemed to shy away from the ball and defer to others to create. Not exactly what we'd want from our floor general.

Mason just flat out sucked. He's our 3-pt specialist, role player off the bench, and he comes in and airballs a three...I'd rather see Fields, Walker, and Rautins get his playing time.

Overall though, our biggest issue coming out of this game is rebounding. If we can't rebound, we can't even run. No one's boxing out, and too many players are gunning for the break before securing the rebound. 62-35 differential is absolutely pathetic, and you can't just say "well, it's preseason," cause both teams played with a lot of intensity.

I had a lot of the same opinion as this.

Gallo just looked dead. If he doesn't want to get traded for Melo, dude has got to step up. Not sure if I care about the homecoming or a long week of travel. Bad shots, air balls and constantly settling aint gonna cut it. He was a non-factor this game.

And I don't know why Amare keeps getting the ball at the top of the extended FT area with everyone just watching and not moving after he gets ball. Amare just goes one-on-one after that, not good (although he can certainly score that way). Couldn't tell if team was trying to run certain sets or what, but Felton seems to pass the ball early in the clock and not touch it again. I wanna see Felton and Amare run the pick and roll to death; set and re-set if it's not working and the other guys gotta continually cut and move to space.

I liked the energy Randolph, Moz and Douglas bring off the bench.

Couldn't tell if Moz was setting bad picks or if the guys with the ball where pick were being set moved before Moz was in place, some of both perhaps.

Turiaf looked overwhelmed as a starter.

Rautins and Fields looked good, like they knew what they were doing. I dont like the way Billy Walker plays; gives up on defense and tries to make something happen on offense when nothing is there and he should move the ball.

Chandler looked OK individually but all his stuff is 1-on-1, which I didn't care for.

Knicks seemed to have zero continuity on offense; defense was scrappy but not tight (which is about 100% better than last year).

Not happy so far with Felton/Amar'e PnR. Thought for sure that would be major Staple of offense. It could be that Mike is intentionally working on other plays cuz it wouldn't make sense otherwise to not go with PnR after everyone and their momma knows that's the #1 aspect of this offense in halfcourt.

Really liked Rautins/Fields. TD's D was great and he's gonna be good along with AR etc. off the bench. This teams D is actually ahead of the O. It's not consistent yet, but give them time to really develop more defensive chemistry and this is gonna be a nice pressure team. Still a lot of missed assignments and such.

On O this team still plays like strangers at times. The PG's MUST take charge of the team cuz without that the plays fall apart. Thank goodness there are more games to prepare before the season starts.

tkf wrote:And I forgot to add I was happy with the way rautins and fields played...

Funny but you can see what Donnie saw in those guys in this game. People need to really relax when it comes to Donnie's eye for talent. He had more focus this year and I think they knew what they wanted in terms of role players and got exactly that. You can see that they both understand how to play the game and are mature. I actually think our bench is gonna be a strength.

nixluva wrote:Not happy so far with Felton/Amar'e PnR. Thought for sure that would be major Staple of offense. It could be that Mike is intentionally working on other plays cuz it wouldn't make sense otherwise to not go with PnR after everyone and their momma knows that's the #1 aspect of this offense in halfcourt.

Yeah, we hardly saw any PnR these past two games.

Makes me wonder if D'Antoni actually gave these guys an ultimatum not to rely on PnR in the preseason, just to see what else others can do off the dribble, or in the post. The only ones who seem to be running PnR are Douglas and Randolph/Mozgov in the second unit (which Douglas seems to have gotten better at).

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

tkf wrote:And I forgot to add I was happy with the way rautins and fields played...

Funny but you can see what Donnie saw in those guys in this game. People need to really relax when it comes to Donnie's eye for talent. He had more focus this year and I think they knew what they wanted in terms of role players and got exactly that. You can see that they both understand how to play the game and are mature. I actually think our bench is gonna be a strength.

Donnie saw 62-35--that was no mirage and that is going to happen again.

Well part of that is just not hitting shots or running the offense properly. We have guys out of position to rebound cuz the sets are awful right now. There's a natural flow to how this team is gonna have to play. There's no quick fix for our rebounding problem. This isn't a strong rebounding team as constructed. On a normal roster, the PF and C are really strong rebounders. Amar'e and Turiaf are only OK. We aren't going to find a great rebounder to fill in at this point and I can tell you that bringing in Tiny Gallon or whoever else we get off the scrap heap aint gonna do it either.

No team is perfect and this team has some issues still, but that is part of the process. At least we have some inside presence on D and some really good perimeter defenders now. This team looks like it's gonna be able to get after it once they get their defensive chemistry going. Be happy for the things this team will do well and don't expect perfection. It's hard to do that in this league. We've got a good bench and a lot of long and athletic guys. If they all commit to boxing out and pursuing rebounds they should be able to keep the disparity to a reasonable level.

Also this is what Pre Season is for. This game gives Mike ammunition to go after guys about not rebounding. We'll see how they respond. Just lets not panic after game 2 of pre season.

It's not just rebounding though. No one on our team boxes out. There was one play where Chandler was just standing around under the basket, and then Beasley just comes in and gets the putback. I can understand if we were playing zone, cause it's slightly harder to find your man to box out, but we were playing man-to-man D for a majority of the game. Players should be putting a body on their forwards, and guards should be looking out for the long rebounds.

Anyway, I'm more impressed with Landry Fields and Timofey Mozgov. I'd call Denver tonight and offer Gallo and Randolph for Carmelo Anthony and hope they are dumb enough to take it. Melo only needs a 10-12 mpg backup and Fields can play the role. And Mozgov is experience away from being our legit starting Center. He just needs to learn how to play without fouling so much. Mozgov is that Center of the future next to STAT. Randolph isn't. Maybe Randolph can become a decent 6th Man. That still isn't as valuable as having a Star like Melo.

martin wrote:and what the heck is Amare doing thinking he can lead a break every time he rebounds the ball and has an inch of open space down the court? Give up the ball and make a beeline for the basket to get it back.

martin--Im becoming more and more concerned that there is just a lack of discipline coming from the coaching staff. New players shape sht. Gallo still popping 10 3's at will--now Randolph is popping them and not rebounding--amare is holding handling the ball too much and the whole thing looks dreadful--from rebounding uggh i can say no more.

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

martin wrote:and what the heck is Amare doing thinking he can lead a break every time he rebounds the ball and has an inch of open space down the court? Give up the ball and make a beeline for the basket to get it back.

martin--Im becoming more and more concerned that there is just a lack of discipline coming from the coaching staff. New players shape sht. Gallo still popping 10 3's at will--now Randolph is popping them and not rebounding--amare is holding handling the ball too much and the whole thing looks dreadful--from rebounding uggh i can say no more.

Don't even go at the coaches when you see that, cuz you know darn well that they aren't teaching these guys to do such stupid things. How is it that a staff that has so much BB experience could possibly be guilty of such a thing. NO, I put this on the players, cuz they're the ones trying to learn the game, not the coaching staff.

Perhaps we should be a bit more patient with this team. They have a lot to pull together and clearly haven't gotten the full grasp of things nor chemistry with each other yet. If they look this bad 10 games into the season then i'd be worried, but with Pre Season it's not wise to get too up or down. Teams are working on things that we have no knowledge of. We'll see how they do next game.

well they are doing it my friend--when have they stopped since MDA arrived? they think the main thing is jacking up shots from any angle if a guy takes bad shots i dont care who he is--sit him down after the bad shot--we had two 6-10 guys take 11 three's--what does that do--it takes them out of offensive rebounding position. I don't mind some offensive freedom but this is just undisciplined. I never saw amare stoudemire fumble the ball dribbling it in his whole career more than the first two pore season games--what is up with that?

BRIGGS wrote:well they are doing it my friend--when have they stopped since MDA arrived?

this is a bit of a flawed line of reasoning, man. it could be a whole list of possible factors that have led to the mistakes on the court.