This article is what I think a log of us knick fans have been scratching our heads over...it's not a suprise we are winning, it was a suprise that we sucked so bad.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/story/382424p-324670c.html

BY FRANK ISOLA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

The great unsolved mystery at Madison Square Garden isn't how the Knicks have won five straight games. It's why they somehow lost 21 of their first 28.

"It's not that we're shocked because we're winning," Maurice Taylor said. "It's a shock that we got in a hole like we did. We knew we had talent in this locker room and we knew what type of coach we had. It's just about everyone putting their egos aside and that's what we're doing."

The Knicks are the NBA's only unbeaten team in 2006 and with the way they're playing you could swear that they might never lose again. Or at the very least, Larry Brown's team will go down fighting, something you wouldn't have dared say in November and December.

The record was 7-21 on New Year's Day and the Knicks were the basketball version of a big-budget Hollywood flop. But after victories over Phoenix, Washington, Seattle, Cleveland and Dallas, the Knicks finally resemble a confident team that should reach the playoffs in the watered-down Eastern Conference.

In fact, during Wednesday's 117-115 overtime win against Dallas, the Garden had a postseason buzz to it. Brown acknowledged it. Anyone in the vicinity who remembers the 1990s, when celebrities and meaningful basketball were the norm at the Garden, could feel it as well.

"When you have Bill O'Reilly and Jadakiss in the same building," says Adam Silver, the president of NBA Entertainment, "you know it's good."

The product clearly is better. Brown has settled on a rotation and the players now understand their roles. Two weeks ago, following a loss to Milwaukee, Brown admitted that his team didn't know how to finish or win games. Since then, they have beaten the Suns, Sonics and Mavs despite trailing in the final minute of regulation. Against LeBron James and Cleveland, the Knicks overcame an 11-point third-quarter deficit.

"I remember early in the year teams would make a run at us and right away you could tell by our body language that inevitably we thought we were going to lose," Brown said following yesterday's practice in Greenburgh. "I think there has been a big change there and I think a lot of it is you see Stephon (Marbury), he doesn't look like he's losing any confidence. They feel like we'll find a way to win."

Marbury has regained his All-Star form during the streak, leading Brown to say, "He's playing like a point guard, a high-level point guard." Of course, Brown admitted that he still would prefer to play Marbury more minutes off the ball because he is a scoring threat.

But it's no coincidence that the Knicks win when Marbury elevates his game. He committed just one turnover apiece against Washington, Seattle and Cleveland and is attacking the basket more. Even his mistakes have been covered up. On Wednesday, Marbury committed consecutive turnovers that led to Dallas getting the tying and go-ahead baskets late in regulation. But he atoned for the miscues by drawing a foul with 27.8 seconds remaining and making both free throws to set up the extra session.

Yesterday, Marbury said that Brown has a better understanding that he's not a "typical point guard." You can also argue that Marbury and his teammates have a better understanding of their coach.

"I guess," Marbury said, "things had to get worse before they got better."

Sorry if these have been posted, I found I sometimes forget to go to the home page and follow the article links and come here...I'm sure someone will have a problem with it though. Rough board.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/sports/basketball/13knicks.html



January 13, 2006
Basketball
In Marbury, Brown Just May Have Found His Facilitator
By HOWARD BECK
GREENBURGH, N.Y., Dec. 12 - Larry Brown handed Stephon Marbury his highest compliment Thursday. "He's playing," Brown said, "like a point guard."

It was a simple statement, but it carried the rhetorical weight of a Congressional proclamation. Marbury is a point guard by trade, but a shooting guard by habit. Brown, the Knicks' coach, is a purist who believes point guards exist to pass the ball and to make their teammates better.

For two weeks, Marbury has been a splendid combination of everything - passer, scorer, leader - and his sudden evolution has fueled the Knicks' longest winning streak in two years: five games and counting.

"We have a lot of guys that are playing at a very high level, and it really starts with Stephon," Brown said. "He's been great."

Two weeks ago, Brown was criticizing Marbury for being too passive. Two months ago, Marbury was pleading to play shooting guard rather than to adapt to Brown's rigid point-guard rubric. And Brown was lobbying for a new point guard to make that switch possible.

Over the past six games, starting with a loss at Milwaukee, Marbury has averaged 9.8 assists and 24 points a game. He had a string of four games with at least 10 assists.

Even by Brown's standards, Marbury has been a superb facilitator. He has done it without compromising his best talent: scoring. It appears that Brown, the Hall of Fame coach, and Marbury, the star-crossed playmaker, are forging a meaningful understanding for the first time.

"I'm learning about him," Brown said. "I'd rather raise the bar for my players than lower it. I'm learning what he can do. And I think the sky is the limit for him, because he does want to do what's right."

Said Marbury: "I think Coach understands that I'm not the typical point guard. I'm not the point guard that goes out and plays to get 20 assists. If that happens, it happens."

When Brown arrived last fall and told Marbury to focus on passing - giving up the ball much earlier and much more often - Marbury found it awkward. After a 4-point, 10-assist performance in a loss to the Lakers in November, Marbury groused, "If we lose, of course I'm not going to be happy playing like that."

It seems that Brown and Marbury have found a middle ground. The key, according to scouts, is that Marbury is more aggressively looking to score, then finding open teammates as defenses react to him.

It is not a complicated formula, but it took some time for Brown and Marbury to meld their styles. Brown recently noted that while players had to adjust to his approach, he had to figure out 15 new personalities.

"I respect that, because it's true," said Marbury, who met with Brown a few days after their last disagreement. "For him, he probably couldn't get around to everybody. Which is all right, because I guess things had to get worse before it got better."

How long their accord and the Knicks' success can last is unknown. The relationship has been so scrutinized that Marbury refuses to discuss their past disputes. When asked if he no longer felt the need to switch to shooting guard, Marbury cut off the question, saying, "I have no comment on that." He gave three more "no comments" on the subject.

Brown, who has used Jamal Crawford more extensively at point guard, said he still wanted to use Marbury off the ball occasionally to exploit his scoring abilities. Brown said Marbury appeared "much more relaxed" and "looks like he's having fun."

The results have been eye-opening. The winning streak includes victories against three of the top teams in the league - Phoenix, Cleveland and Dallas - and four of the five victories have come against teams that made the playoffs last spring.

A steady lineup, a tighter rotation and the return of Eddy Curry have helped. But Marbury is making it all work.

"He's playing at a high level, like a point guard," Brown said. "And I'm just really encouraged by what he's done. But again, I think he needs to be in a position to take a lot of shots, because he's such a threat and he's playing so unselfishly that he'll get other people shots as well."

REBOUNDS

Maurice Taylor's brief physical contact with a referee Wednesday did not merit any punishment, N.B.A. officials said Thursday. The incident occurred when the referee Tony Brown stepped between Taylor and Dallas guard Jerry Stackhouse, who were jawing at each other. After the game, the Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban, angrily asserted that Taylor should have been given a technical foul for pushing Brown. After reviewing the play, league officials concluded otherwise. "There was no improper contact between Maurice Taylor and the game official," said Tim Frank, a league spokesman. ... Larry Brown's next victory will be his 1,000th as an N.B.A. coach. Only three others have won at least as many games: Lenny Wilkens (1,332), Don Nelson (1,190) and Pat Riley (1,120). "One of my coaches came up to me the other night and said how many I had," Brown said. "I started looking in December. You start thinking back, I'd be thrilled if we just won one game."