I also remember an episode of Seinfeld (The eighty-fourth episode, entitled "The Fire") when Jerry was booed, it hurt his performance. Also, when Jerry took revenge on Toby by heckling her at her office, she ran from the room crying. So, I think it has been empirically established that booing is counterproductive.

What is needed is more positive reinforcement, and unconditional support. When players do poorly, we should say "That's okay, you did your best." and offer them more money as an inducement to perform better. (I've long been concerned that our players are feeling unmotivated by their paltry salaries.)

Mike D'Antoni is surely not as much a Joy-thief as Larry Brown, but he can be mean sometimes, and I've actually seen him yell at guys. He totally de-motivated Marbury, and almost destroyed the confidence of guys like Jordan Hill. What is needed is a kinder, gentler coach who can understand these guys, help and support them with their problems, and motivate them to be the very best they can be.

After all, I think we can all agree - they are good enough, they are smart enough, and - doggone it- people like them (or at least should pretend they do).

fishmike wrote:

islesfan wrote:What covers up MDA's many deficiencies?

when you can illustrate that his deficiencies are why we are losing games lets discuss it then.

Whats the knock on MDA? Defense? Too short a rotation? Doesnt play bigs? Too many 3's? Which one of those lost us this playoff series?

All of it.

Vmart wrote:

fishmike wrote:

islesfan wrote:What covers up MDA's many deficiencies?

when you can illustrate that his deficiencies are why we are losing games lets discuss it then.

Whats the knock on MDA? Defense? Too short a rotation? Doesnt play bigs? Too many 3's? Which one of those lost us this playoff series?

All of it.

Melo and Stat did their jobs so it must be others who faulter.

Seems like the knee jerk response is consistant.

Get a star and wish for the moon!

Briggy got it right along with others that OK city is doing it the right way.

Knick fans are primarily Starphuchers.

Gotta be someones fault!

Dolan loves starphuchers. They celebrate bravado but not the game.

fishmike wrote:

islesfan wrote:What covers up MDA's many deficiencies?

when you can illustrate that his deficiencies are why we are losing games lets discuss it then.

Whats the knock on MDA? Defense? Too short a rotation? Doesnt play bigs? Too many 3's? Which one of those lost us this playoff series?

I'll take this one and run with it. A bunch of things lost us the series. First game was the refs. Second game was MDA leaving JJ in to make a game winning play. Third game was when the wheels came off in the 3rd quarter and MDA waited until we got blown out before calling a timeout. Forth game, I did not watch because I knew we were gonna lose. Now, if I may, i'd like to take a dump on MDA. He gets no respect from the refs, his plays off of timeouts are atrocious, he does not have a single curl play in his playbook, his late game control is garbage(no clue as to what the other team might do, i mean alley hoop to KG is something that should be defended at the end of the game, telling his guys that C's MIGHT inbound the ball into the backcourt are only 2 examples, but they are defensive lapses so i guess he gets a get out of jail free card there), oh oh, one more thing before I forget where was the pick-and-roll ? We probably should have seen more of it and the fact that noone on the damn team could run the most basic play in BBall is on the coach. Oh, and he never complained to the league about the refs even tho they raped us every other game in the regular season and that translated to the playoffs as well. There is more and this is just the recent stuff from this series, which still hurts.

ramtour420 wrote:Injuries, shminjuries. When you are in a position to win but you fail to win you cannot blame it on the players that didn't play that game.

Can we blame it on Boston having too many HOFs and all-stars in their starting lineup and depth on their bench? Gotta know my options.

ramtour420 wrote:Injuries, shminjuries. When you are in a position to win but you fail to win you cannot blame it on the players that didn't play that game.

We lost because they're better. We got swept because we were injured and the guys who were forced into bigger roles than they normally play did not step up.

That's the most disappointing part for me. I really thought Fields would break out at some point. He sucked. As did TD. We needed more from them to make it respectable; we needed to be fully healthy and really lucky to win.

As far as MDA is concerned, his in game coaching leaves alot to be desired. This is accumulative, of course, not just this past playoff series.

Players are definitely held accountable by most here (see what you wrote about Melo, which is echoed by other here), Amare has been bashed for lack of rebounding and defense, Billups chucks too much, Fields digression....its all been covered here. But the coach has to take his share of the blame aswell.