First of all I am going to say this.. I felt this was a game we could win, going against the wizzards, a team full of bad shot shooters, arenas whose game I hate, jamison who is a one dimensional player, and Haywood and Thomas are a joke at center. I will say that caron Butler is the most complete player on that team. I like his game. Nevertheless we outhustled the wizzards and outplayed them.

Keys:

Marbury: without looking at his numbers, you would think he had 25 points 10 assists, but it was more like 16/4/3( I don't think those are exact, but you get the point) and no turnovers, he was under control, he defended, he distributed and you could see at the end of the game on the bench, he was pumping his fist, I like that....

Knicks bigs: curry and frye were good actually, frye on the boards early and with the blocks, he and curry contested a lot of shots, made it tough on the wizzards and they were pretty efficient on offense, but mostly I was impressed with frye on the boards and his defense. curry passed out the post much better.

Q: he did a great job on Butler, who is a good player, he made him take tough shots, and made him defend on the other end. his 3 point shooting was superb and his overall game was a calming influence...

Bench mob:

Nate was great again, I love how tough this guy is, craw was bad for a stretch, but he got better, was active and took the ball into the lane, not one of his better games, but he was on the floor when we blew open the game, so he was not that bad.

Balkman and Lee!!!! when your two forwards off the bench go for a collective effort of 28 points and 22 boards and two or three blocks, you are going to win a lot of games. They were good, fast, too fast for the wizzards and too active. they just looked like the two best athletes on the floor. They were the game changers, them and nate, and david lee's passing is underrated, but he made two nice passes, one to balk the other to curry.

Someone mentioned that when the knicks bench enters the game, they either decrease the lead or hold their ground, in other words if the starters get off to a good start, the bench will either increase the lead or keep the lead, that is something to note. We have the top scorer off the bench in the league in nate, and lee has to be one of the top rebounders off the bench in the league if not the top. Those are two bench players putting up starters numbers... That makes for a hell of a bench...

that leads to the other key: The starters getting a lead for our bench to come in and really be a factor.

Overall, I like our defense, we made the wizzards take tougher shots, we had good ball movement earlier and that carried on to the bench, we got lose balls and we shared the ball... I like what I saw, when jeffries gets back, I really would love to see our defense...

3-6

Go knicks!!!!

are we 3-6? **** lol i thought it was 3-5.. dah well

THAT IS THE WAY THIS TEAM SHOULD PLAY EVERYNIGHT! We may not always win, but if they all play like that this team will win their fair share of games. For a change we actually made the perimeter players work for their points and that made a difference. Hands were up and guys were working moving their feet. Channing and Curry both gave a good effort on D.

What can you say about the superb job both Lee and Balkman did? These are two of Isiah's best picks in terms of team players. Overall I think they can be a very dynamic tandem and when we get Jared back and he can be added to that group, we'll have a really good energy and hustle team with solid D.

I felt like Steph set the tone with his early aggressiveness. He made sure that we had a good attacking posture with the starters. Everyone basically DID THEIR JOB tonight. Hopefully we're starting to see this team slowly build their confidence and JELL as a group. With each game this team has slowly made some kind of progress even if they still slip in some areas the overall trend has been that they're getting better. Now they have to keep this going.

This team can be decent if Frye and Curry can be consistent contributors.

Posted by Ira:

I have to admit that I'm pleasantly surprised - make that pleasantly shocked. Great team effort and great defensive effort. They set the bar by showing themselves what they can do by playing great d. I hope we get to see more of the same.

I feel exactly the same way Ira. Exactly the same. It's just nice to watch a bunch of guys play hard(the bench) again.

Posted by franco12:

how about Balkman being the leading scorer for our team?

Hes a player, a real NBA player, and a freaking game chnger. If his 3 becomes consistant, hes gonna be an absolute monster.

Posted by Killa4luv:

Posted by franco12:

how about Balkman being the leading scorer for our team?

Hes a player, a real NBA player, and a freaking game chnger. If his 3 becomes consistant, hes gonna be an absolute monster.

Don't stop at the 3pt line. If this dude can just develop. Maybe throughout this year, then over the summer and into next year and get a plain jumpshot. I'm talking like drive stop and shoot the mid-range? Then this mofo is gonna be an all-star. His handle is above average so is his athletic ability. The sky is the limit. I hope the guys around him are building him up that way. Balkman really has it in him to be a dope, dope player.

It's going to be a problem when Jeffries comes back. He's a good player, but the guys whose minutes he'll take are Q and Balkman. Q is better than Jeffries and Balkman has the potential to be better when he gets the experience.

Balkman and Lee are some good unselfish players. Curry sux

Posted by fishmike:

one thing, Curry was NOT good. Frye was good as center when Curry was out and Lee was fabulous (as usual). Frye was getting toasted by Jamison as he does by most PFs on a nightly basis. He was much better when he got to move to center.

Curry was simply bad. Killa's friend Ron and I were commenting on the amount of times the ball hits the rim and Curry doesn't so much as jump or raise a hand. Also Curry scored 3 straight baskets late in the game when the lead had already ballooned. Take those away and he's 2-7 with 7 points.

Curry's had maybe two games where he looked decent.

Not a good trend at all.

I'd love for Lee to start and Curry to the bench.