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NYKniCksFan87
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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/jack_mccallum/12/01/knicks/index.html
Though Larry Brown at last seems to have at last bitten off more than he can chew with these New York Knicks, history shows that the Peripatetic Prince always gets his teams to the playoffs by his second season. Therefore, I would not presume to tell Larry Brown how to do his job.
Then again, being a sports writer, actually I would.
New York, see, is a tough town, and even the great ones need some help from time to time. For this week's five-pack, then, I offer, with all due modesty, a blueprint for Brown to get the seemingly lottery-bound Knicks to the postseason ... this year.
This year? Well, I have to say this year. Because by next year Brown will have done it himself, right?
So, here we go:
1. As exasperating as it might be at times, utilize the three-guard Stephon Marbury-Jamal Crawford-Nate Robinson system that worked well in the second half of a 105-102 overtime victory over the Philadelphia 76ers last Saturday at the Garden. Not exclusively, of course. But often.
By now, everyone who follows the NBA is aware of Brown's belief (borne out by facts) that he does not have a true point guard. Marbury has always been more 2 than 1, and despite Crawford's wispy build (190 pounds on a 6-foot-5 frame), the same is true for him. The Knicks weren't exactly sure what kind of guard they were getting when they made a draft-day deal with Phoenix to get Robinson. General manager Isiah Thomas was most interested in Robinson's buoyant athleticism, and, from that perspective, Robinson is the real deal. The 5-7 1/2 guard (that's his real height) made a flat-footed jam from the baseline in the Sixers' game. But he is not a distributor and seems lost, so far, when the game crawls to a halfcourt pace.
Granted, then, throwing those three guys out there with only one ball seems like an absolutely hair-brained scheme, but it might be nutty enough to work. Using the three of them would help stifle the debate about who's a point guard and who's a shooting guard -- they would all be responsible for a little bit of both. Maybe they'd even try to outshine each other in the keep-your-composure department. One of the loudest roars in the Garden during Saturday's game occurred when Crawford came steaming downcourt in a potential heave-one-up situation and actually held up his hand and backed out to slow up the offense.
2. Open it up on offense and defense from time to time.
Throw in a fullcourt press, see if you can turn Trevor Ariza into a Garden-pleasing kamikaze defender. Don't go ballistic if the point guards kick it away in transition once in a while. Get Quentin Richardson to hurl up some 3-point shots. (How is Q going to help them otherwise?) The adrenaline jolt that the Knicks will get from the entertaining Robinson -- his size earns him comparisons to the 5-3 Muggsy Bogues, but his talents are comparable to the 5-7 super-leaper Spud Webb -- will pay dividends, even as the turnovers give Brown agita.
The Knicks have to find a way to re-define themselves as a scrappy, blue-collar team. Granted, this is hard to do when your payroll matches the GNP of most Central American countries. But to this point the talent hasn't integrated itself nearly well enough to win any other way besides ugly. But the Garden fans will love that type of team.
3. Though forward Channing Frye is only a rookie, let him know (quietly!) that he is the future of the franchise, for he is preternaturally mature and skilled.
On a couple of occasions this year, when things have gone sour in the backcourt, Frye has kept the Knicks in games. He has finesse, smarts and guts. Dispatch a shooting coach to shadow him in the offseason and improve his shooting range out to 20 feet. Show him tapes of Karl Malone and remind him that what set The Mailman apart from other inside guys was his shooting touch.
Though most of the Sturm and Drang surrounding the Knicks inevitably centers around Brown and his putative point guards, Brown is also the coach of his inside players and a pretty good one at that. I asked him about his big-man-tutelage skills last week and Brown said, "I can handle that part of the game. Coach Smith (he means his mentor Dean Smith, of course) never played underneath and he was a great big-man coach. Plus, I have [Knicks assistants] Herb Williams and Mark Aguirre to help." Brown is also proud of the work he's done in developing interior players on other teams, such as David Robinson, Buck Williams, Nazr Mohammed and Samuel Dalembert.
4. Staying with the big-man theme, Brown must find a way to endure the defenseless Eddy Curry at center.
I don't know if Curry will ever live up to the nickname of "Baby Shaq" he earned when the Chicago Bulls made him the fourth pick of the 2001 draft. I do know that he is enormously skilled and, on this team, a necessary go-to option when the shot clock winds down. Plus, he is a rarity -- a true back-to-the-basket center.
On the other hand, Curry is not Brown's type of guy. That is obvious. Curry doesn't seem to like coaching and he doesn't seem to like defense. But Thomas worked long and hard to get him to New York (Curry has a mysterious heart ailment that frightened the Bulls) and he's not going anywhere soon. So Brown should refrain from lambasting him in the papers every day.
What does playing Curry big minutes mean to another center, Jerome James, another Thomas trade acquisition? Well, that's a problem, and I'm glad it's not mine. But I'd try to get the underachieving but talented Curry going, rather than the underachieving, undertalented James.
5. Cement the veteran leadership, but don't turn the team over to the graybeards.
Brown has at his disposal two of the all-time best team-first guys in the NBA in Malik Rose and Antonio Davis. I never felt that way about Penny Hardaway, a me-first guy early in his career (then again, he had talent that Davis and Rose could only dream about), but I guess he now qualifies as an elder statesmen, too. Brown desperately needs them to get the young players to start drinking the Kool-Aid.
But -- and this is tricky -- Brown has to monitor their minutes. When he becomes displeased with young players, Brown's history is to go with his vets, the tried-and-true warriors. But at this stage of their careers, the warriors don't have a lot left, especially Davis, who has hung on the last couple of years only because of his estimable locker-room presence. (This may all be moot, of course, if some of the warriors are moved; Hardaway is a prime candidate because some team may want to take on his expiring contract.)
''We don't have the luxury to take anybody lightly,'' New York's Quentin Richardson said. ''We're not that good.''
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12/3/2005 2:24 PM