One of the many things that makes LB crazy is broken plays, he’s spoken of it in the media many times. There are few teams in this league that are good at running plays and basically staying in that format (Pistons, Jazz, Spurs, Pacers, Rockets and T-Wolves) and of those teams only the Pistons and Spurs are great at it. When a player from any team gets 30 or more points in a contest, do you think that they do it totally within the format of play calling? Maybe Duncan and Shaq, that’s about it. Most if not all scorers do some of it within the context of play selection but they do most of it on purposely broken plays. You think great running backs are great because they run the ball where they are told? The top 20 scoring leaders in the NBA have the green light to do their thing (Kobe and Iverson maybe a little too much!!). I point this out as what is basically wrong with the Knicks. They are afraid to just play freely and instinctly because if they screw up they know LB will bench them or cut their time so they do pretty much what LB tells them to, they go down, set up and execute plays. No flash, no individuality and total predictability. Remember Marbs saying “I’m doing what coach tells me to do just a few weeks ago? He was being truthful in that statement. The only time they have a little freedom is on a fast break here and there. We had a pretty good backcourt last year, (some of you don’t think so) all that was needed this season was more upfront scoring and rebounding and we got it, we have the top offensive rebounding team in the league. Now if Larry would just let these guys play and get used to each other I believe that things would work themselves out. I, like a lot of you thought that this team could make the playoffs in this weak conference, I even had them at 41 to 44 wins. Sure the team has responsibility to play their best and that falls sqaurely on their shoulders. We have talented players and if LB had let these guys play instead of making them AFRAID to play, the Knicks would have a better record and we’d see more inspired play. Individual players are not the problem, it’s how they are being used!!


[Edited by - Travla on 02-01-2006 13:21]

Good point, but Plays have many options to it. When Craw plays in the system he gets easier looks and pass opportunities. When he is outside, he is chucking and outlets close down.

Same for marbs, and he was doing a great job of it!

Nate when in the system makes nice passes. When eddie gets the ball in motion he is unstoppable. when he just gets the ball standing still, he is vulnerable. But if he can kick the ball out, we get easy looks!

The system works, and when not, we get blown!

We should emulate the better teams and I can almost agree that it does not pay to do other wise. Perhaps we win a few more games, but we are not going anywhere.

I think we should stick to the higher ideal as a goal. Its pretty ball to watch when it clicks. But its ugly when not!

Write off the year. We done for now.