Posted by Cookdcokehop:

The Knicks are going to find some way to lose this game.

Posted by EnySpree:

Posted by Cookdcokehop:

The Knicks are going to find some way to lose this game.

The Knicks lost an annoying one last night. In the past the players usually come out flat and disinerested and in turn get blown out no matter who is in front of them.

Reality is the Knicks match-up too close to Miami. Their record is 8-31? Yeah but the same guys that won it all are still on the team....minus Walker, add Ricky.

Let Down Alert.....being 12-27 is it even a let down?

Posted by iyamwutiam:

I am not an Isiah supporter per se- but I am a pragmatist. When you bring in a player like Randolph- it does take a year - to get that player to 'mesh' with the team per se.

I think we are seeing this year -as the year when Isiah will finally get to have the team buy into his philosophy. Last year -basically he was under the gun to produce some tangible proof that his strategic plan is not just viable but justified. In that year- Curry had a monster year, Crawford had some pretty good games, Nate and Lee showed progress- and Balkman proved he was worth the gamble in terms of being picked in the first round and providing an intriguing mix of athleticism, defense and energy.

It is definitely not an easy task - as any center who is 24/25 does not want to give up being a number one option, any PF who averages a double double does not want to 'share' minutes as Center/PF with Lee and Curry. A shooter like Crawford- does not want to not have 50 point games -so he can become a better distributor and more importantly actually work on the weakest point of his game - taking it to the hole and working the 5-10 foot jumpshot - instead of a oohah 3 pointer. It is hard for a guy like Nate who has EXTREME athleticism for a 5'9" guard to not take it to the hole and learn to shoot from the perimeter. It is much harder to get a superstar like Marbury buy into less minutes, more defense, and play a Chauncey Billups type role instead of a Nash type role. It is hard to tell guys like Jeffries/James/Balkman - that despite all ths 'hype' about defense - that players like Ben Wallace, Rodman etc are no longer the archtype- because the athleticism of people like Gerald Wallace, Le Bron James, Kobe Bryant, Amare, Matrix,Dwight Howard, KG and of course Joe Johnson makes them indefensible- and so if you can't at least score 10 points a game as well as get your rebounds/blocks/steals etc - you don't have a long term future in the NBA.

You don't have to be a team of superstar per se to win the championship, and if you don't have trade fodder like a Patrick Ewing, Joe Johnson, Amare, etc then you have to do the next best thing - get a roster of guys who 1-10 can all shoot , hustle and know their roles. This is not going to happen in less than a year and I do believe that Randolph is the missing piece- especially if he works on his inside game.

I am sure - we lost the game - because the Knicks started to 'believe' that their run on making the outside shot - made them shooters-especially after three wins in a row against decent teams. But -really- as we saw from the Nets, Detroit and especially the wizrds- the lack of a dominant inside player- forces the opposing team to foul and collapse to the dominant post players.
In my view- the knicks (players) forgot - why they shot so well - mainly because they had wide open looks due to the fact that the other teams were afraid of the post presence or damage of the Knicks.

If the Knicks come out and score 5-10 baskets in the posts in the first quarter of every game - the knicks are going to win- since that will leave some decent (not great) shooters wide open - and allow them to 'hit' the shot. This is the philosophy. Throw it in the post, punish them with fouls and or inside scores early- force the team to collpase to the post - and decent shooters if they hit at 45% will win you the game. No one player is dominant- and no one player can take over- it is a synergy -that is dependent first and foremost on post play- this has been the formula from Shaq/T Duncan championships.

This doesn't mean that there isn't aLe Bron , MJ formula which is equally effective - but those players are even rarer than Shaq- notice Amare/KG/ Dwight Howard .