Woody may change starting lineup...

[dantian]

I'm concerned with 2 things:

1. He cites defense as the problem, but contemplates inserting Copeland into the SL

2. He thinks Melo and Ray are enough for a productive offense.

Agree. His reasoning and expectation are totally paradoxical and illogical.
Doesn't he know there is something called team moral and confidence? What kind of strategy is it to believe, Melo+Ray be enough offense if the defense were there (with Kidd and Shump)? That's moronic expectation or philosophy. Modern day defense can stop you even everyone is a good on both O and D, how much easier it'd be to stop you if you have 3/5 filled with off. liabilities? Geez!

[dantian]

Plugging in Amare in the line up wont help. Its not about trades and line up changes. Its playing the right way.
How many give-n-go plays have we seen all year.
How many times has Melo made a move with STAT reacting to be there for support. Very few.
We stopped running plays. We dont run plays anymore. We've reduced our offense to PNR with three point options and Melo ball.
Melo doesnt give up the ball to Felton anymore, STAT never looks for Tyson as an outlet or vice versa.
Lebron and Wade always look for each other. Never our guys. We dont play like a team on offense. We dont run plays.

Sadly, they are capable of doing exactly what you're saying. This is a character issue, not a matter of talent. As long as Melo pouts and melts down, there isn't much chance of them playing as a unit. We started out great to a large degree because Melo came into the season ready to move the ball and he did. He played D. It is purely mindset leading to execution.
The rest of the team won't matter as long as he regresses to his old ways. He needs to suck it up and recognize he had it right coming into this year and play like that. In that respect, Woodson is not wrong to be nostalgic for the way we played earlier, because that is what we need to do basically. The ball is in Melo's court more than anyone else by far.

True. Give me Pop or Sloan as coach, this mess is not happening. Amare is among the stars most receptive to coach's instruction and willing to oblige as long as he be capable. See his defense and low post game improvement. It's coach's responsibility to discipline his players to stick to game plans, provided he had any. Judging from his own words, however, his only plan might be 'everybody play D, let Melo and Felton worry about scoring". Sad!

[Clyde_Style]

Plugging in Amare in the line up wont help. Its not about trades and line up changes. Its playing the right way.
How many give-n-go plays have we seen all year.
How many times has Melo made a move with STAT reacting to be there for support. Very few.
We stopped running plays. We dont run plays anymore. We've reduced our offense to PNR with three point options and Melo ball.
Melo doesnt give up the ball to Felton anymore, STAT never looks for Tyson as an outlet or vice versa.
Lebron and Wade always look for each other. Never our guys. We dont play like a team on offense. We dont run plays.

Sadly, they are capable of doing exactly what you're saying. This is a character issue, not a matter of talent. As long as Melo pouts and melts down, there isn't much chance of them playing as a unit. We started out great to a large degree because Melo came into the season ready to move the ball and he did. He played D. It is purely mindset leading to execution.
The rest of the team won't matter as long as he regresses to his old ways. He needs to suck it up and recognize he had it right coming into this year and play like that. In that respect, Woodson is not wrong to be nostalgic for the way we played earlier, because that is what we need to do basically. The ball is in Melo's court more than anyone else by far.

True. Give me Pop or Sloan as coach, this mess is not happening. Amare is among the stars most receptive to coach's instruction and willing to oblige as long as he be capable. See his defense and low post game improvement. It's coach's responsibility to discipline his players to stick to game plans, provided he had any. Judging from his own words, however, his only plan might be 'everybody play D, let Melo and Felton worry about scoring". Sad!

Its that durnd counterbility thing.

Pop sits his HOFers down when they lapse on their assignments. He doesn't play favorites. But Woody got too comfortable with the guys. He seems to believe the way to a better JR Smith is by cooing to him like Barry White about how good you are baby, oh yeah, you're the sixth man stud, I want you inside me stuff. It don't work. After the initial, buzz the drug addicts tolerance kicks in and laziness is a drug just like any other. How do you kick? Cold Turkey, aka crack the whip Woodson. No more of the Daddy Loves You bullcrap.

[HarthorneWingo]

Hey, look who's back in town. ^^^^ Good to you see you Clyde.

[HEZI]

You guys complaining about Woodson and comparing him to Popovich is like when I complain about Melo and compare him to LeBron. Pop is THE best in the business, you can't just find a coach like him. There really is nobody even close to him available besides MAYBE Phil Jax. Good coaches are hard to find.

[Mr_Perfect]

You guys complaining about Woodson and comparing him to Popovich is like when I complain about Melo and compare him to LeBron. Pop is THE best in the business, you can't just find a coach like him. There really is nobody even close to him available besides MAYBE Phil Jax. Good coaches are hard to find.

Good coaches aren't too hard to find. GREAT coaches are hard to find. Woodson is neither.

[HEZI]

You guys complaining about Woodson and comparing him to Popovich is like when I complain about Melo and compare him to LeBron. Pop is THE best in the business, you can't just find a coach like him. There really is nobody even close to him available besides MAYBE Phil Jax. Good coaches are hard to find.

Good coaches aren't too hard to find. GREAT coaches are hard to find. Woodson is neither.

He is a good coach cmon now. Look at his overall win % . He's not a great coach, true, but he is a good one.

[Mr_Perfect]

You guys complaining about Woodson and comparing him to Popovich is like when I complain about Melo and compare him to LeBron. Pop is THE best in the business, you can't just find a coach like him. There really is nobody even close to him available besides MAYBE Phil Jax. Good coaches are hard to find.

Good coaches aren't too hard to find. GREAT coaches are hard to find. Woodson is neither.

He is a good coach cmon now. Look at his overall win % . He's not a great coach, true, but he is a good one.

He is a below average coach. He might have a good regular season winning percentage but his real coaching shows up in the playoffs and it's mediocre at best, awful at worst. Hawks fans will back up the claims and they have.

If Mike Woodson were to suddenly find himself available on the coaching market I guarantee he would never be a head coach again. Assistant, sure. Head coach, no. He's just not that good. I would rather give unknown assistants like Mike Malone or a viable assistant like Brian Shaw a shot than stick with what we know is a mediocre at best coach in Woodson.

[TheGarden]

He is a below average coach. He might have a good regular season winning percentage but his real coaching shows up in the playoffs and it's mediocre at best, awful at worst. Hawks fans will back up the claims and they have.

If Mike Woodson were to suddenly find himself available on the coaching market I guarantee he would never be a head coach again. Assistant, sure. Head coach, no. He's just not that good. I would rather give unknown assistants like Mike Malone or a viable assistant like Brian Shaw a shot than stick with what we know is a mediocre at best coach in Woodson.

Woodson is fine stop over reacting

our team is in a funk right now and I wanna see what he does to help us get out of that, if it were simple it would happen

come April/May I wanna see how this team plays and is prepared for games

[HEZI]

He is a below average coach. He might have a good regular season winning percentage but his real coaching shows up in the playoffs and it's mediocre at best, awful at worst. Hawks fans will back up the claims and they have.

If Mike Woodson were to suddenly find himself available on the coaching market I guarantee he would never be a head coach again. Assistant, sure. Head coach, no. He's just not that good. I would rather give unknown assistants like Mike Malone or a viable assistant like Brian Shaw a shot than stick with what we know is a mediocre at best coach in Woodson.

So basically you expect greatness out of him so you label him below average because he's not great. You don't just win in the regular season like he does if your below average.

Then you say he's an assistant coach but then want him to be replaced by assistant coaches. Brilliant

[Clyde_Style]

Woodson is still the best coach we've had in years. No, he's not Pops, but he ain't D'Antoni either. Accountability starts with the coach who lays down the law, but if your leaders on the floor can't stand the heat or fail to show up to play every night even Pops can't change that completely. Duncan never needed to be told to be a professional. Melo has made strides only to regress at times. Woodson can be instrumental in this team regaining its composure. Let's hope it happens.

Being outcoached could be turning into an issue with all of the mismatches we're giving up to opponents, but right now it takes second place to the team showing heart, guts, effort, commitment. Without that, Woodson could be right about everything and still fail. I put this mostly on the players first and the coach second. The blame coincides on both if coach doesn't crack the whip now and bench lazy bones.

[Nykfanforever]

Woodson is an idiot and his stupid decisions and rotations will cost us playoffs success!

[Leaguepass]

This decision makes it very interesting tonight. IMO there is only one solution to this problem. Start Stat. Now we all know it won't fix all our problems but we have invested 60mill. into our frontline. At this point we need to rol the dice with them period. If it works great, if not then at least we know we gave it our best shot. With Martin in the mix and KT getting some burn we have two bigs off the bench. We need to play a tough,physical rotation:

Felton
Shumpert
Melo
Stat
Tyson

Kidd,Prigs,Smith,Martin,Thomas off the bench

I sear I'll lose a lot of confidence in Woodson if he goes to those **** line-ups with White/Copeland in there. That **** has been proven to not work.

[bigfnjoe96]

Guys we have no big men on the bench right now. STAT is that player right now. If we insert him into the starting lineup & he or tyson get into foul trouble, were up **** creek.

STAT will be in the starting lineup, my guess is Woody's waiting for his BIG's to get healthy

[Leaguepass]

Guys we have no big men on the bench right now. STAT is that player right now. If we insert him into the starting lineup & he or tyson get into foul trouble, were up **** creek.

STAT will be in the starting lineup, my guess is Woody's waiting for his BIG's to get healthy

Well we have Thomas and Martin now. I know they aren't exactly 6th man of the year type of material at this stage BUT they are ok for 15minutes a night most likely. It seems like Camby is close to a return as well.....Stat should be in the line-up now IMO.

[Fat Kat]

Guys we have no big men on the bench right now. STAT is that player right now. If we insert him into the starting lineup & he or tyson get into foul trouble, were up **** creek.

STAT will be in the starting lineup, my guess is Woody's waiting for his BIG's to get healthy

We have KT and if there's foul trouble, go small off of the bench. Do not start off that way.

[Knicksfan20]

Guys we have no big men on the bench right now. STAT is that player right now. If we insert him into the starting lineup & he or tyson get into foul trouble, were up **** creek.

STAT will be in the starting lineup, my guess is Woody's waiting for his BIG's to get healthy

We have KT and if there's foul trouble, go small off of the bench. Do not start off that way.

This.

[moocow007]

Yes. The small, slow, poor shooting starting lineup is killing them.

[Deeeez Knicks]

At some point you just have to blame the players/roster.

[KNIXFAN_83]

The bitching on the forum is pathetic. We have the second best record in the east after 10 plus years of subpar play and people are calling Woodson an idiot after while having an injury riddled squad. Some of yall need to really stfu. Look we are playing bad right now but it will turn. Then the same people will say we are going to beat the heat. The Knicks will be fine. All teams go through this.