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djsunyc
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Brown Stops Juggling and Settles on a Lineup
By HOWARD BECK
GREENBURGH, N.Y., Dec. 13 - Larry Brown has tinkered and tweaked, pushed and prodded and given 16 players a chance to make the Knicks something better than substandard. The result has been six victories in 20 games, so Brown is preparing a new template.
Starting Wednesday night against the Orlando Magic, the lineup will be stable, the rotation shorter and the commitment almost entirely to youth. At least, that is what Brown declared Tuesday. He has changed his mind before.
A 20-point rout by the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday at Madison Square Garden has put the Knicks in soul-searching mode and prompted Brown, who has used 14 starting lineups, to rethink his methodology.
There will probably be a 15th lineup Wednesday, but this one should stick. The guards will be Stephon Marbury and Quentin Richardson, joining Channing Frye at power forward and Eddy Curry at center. Brown did not specify who will be his small forward, but he indicated it would probably be Trevor Ariza.
"I just think now I'm going to try to settle on a lineup a little bit more, settle on a rotation a little bit more and then hope by doing that, we see a little better continuity on both ends," Brown said.
Continuity has eluded the Knicks since opening night. Three of their off-season acquisitions - Curry, Richardson and Jerome James - have been injured and out of shape. Two veterans, Antonio Davis and Penny Hardaway, are breaking down. Brown used the openings to give playing time to the rookies Frye and Nate Robinson and to experiment with roles.
"I've got a better feel of who should play together after watching," Brown said.
He intends to cut the rotation to 9 or 10 players - four guards, two small forwards and three to four big men - nearly all of whom will be under age 30.
The biggest change will come at small forward, where it appears Brown is committing to his youngest options, Ariza and the newly signed Qyntel Woods.
"Right now, it'd be Trevor and Qyntel," Brown said. "Let the young kids play."
Matt Barnes opened the season at small forward but was injured. He was cut last week to make room for Woods. Brown has also used Richardson, Malik Rose and David Lee, none of whom are natural small forwards.
Brown sounded enthusiastic about Woods, a 24-year-old former first-round pick, who was unemployed until last week. Woods played six minutes in his debut Monday, scoring on a dunk and a 3-pointer.
"I don't think he's in real good shape, and I think he doesn't know exactly what we're trying to do, but I love his athleticism," said Brown, who later added, "But I don't think it's going to happen overnight for him.
Brown said that he loved Ariza's heart, but "it's hard, he's not ready, in my mind, to be a starter in this league, but he comes to practice every day, he's getting better every day."
Brown also concluded that Richardson should not be a full-time small forward, and that Robinson and Jamal Crawford are best coming off the bench.
But the overriding, if unstated message, was this: The Knicks are fully committed to their youth movement, even at the expense of short-term success. On Monday, they sent Hardaway and Davis to the inactive list and dropped Rose from the rotation. Two other veterans, Maurice Taylor and James, each played only seven minutes, while 20-year-old Jackie Butler played 10 minutes.
It would not be surprising if the Knicks' next move was to activate Lee, the only rookie who has yet to make an impact.
Everything would change, however, if the Knicks can make a deal for Ron Artest, Indiana's disgruntled star forward, but that appears unlikely. The Knicks have quietly made it known that they will not part with Frye, their best prospect, and they have yet to make the Pacers an offer.
After the rout by the Bucks, Brown was hard on nearly everyone. He criticized Robinson's defense on T. J. Ford and called out all of his point guards for poor decision-making. He ripped his entire team for being lackadaisical and soft. He wondered why no one seemed to grasp how to make an entry pass to the post. He bemoaned the inexperience of Curry, Frye and Robinson.
So with a quarter of the season gone, and the Knicks looking like a long shot for the playoffs, Brown is changing his role, too - a little less mad professor, a little more remedial basketball teacher.
"Today was like training camp," Brown said. "We are trying to teach them how to screen, how to block out, how to pass the game. We called it a passing game, but still, the first thing guys want to do is dribble the ball instead of hitting the first open man. We've got to drill it and drill it and drill it."
REBOUNDS
While the Indiana Pacers field trade offers for Ron Artest, the Knicks continue to monitor the situation from a distance. "I've heard from 15 or 16 teams, but the Knicks were not one of them," said Donnie Walsh, the Pacers' chief executive. "There were some offers that were interesting." ...Penny Hardaway was scheduled to have tests on his right knee, which has tendinitis, and his left quadriceps Tuesday. ...Orlando's Grant Hill will make his season debut Wednesday, six weeks after having surgery for a sports hernia. The Magic has gone 8-11 without Hill.
Liz Robbins contributed reporting for this article.
[Edited by - djsunyc on 12-13-2005 11:32 PM]
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12/14/2005 12:08 AM
