Mr. E wrote:Something I wanted to say early on, but being a voodoo sports fan I didn't want to jinx anything...
Earlier today someone asked Mike D'Antoni about the defense that Truck played on Amar'e in our last game. D'Antoni gave a pretty snotty response that Amare "only scored 22."
Yeah...that's not the point. I'm seeing what Chuck did in that game and tonight as what we've come to expect from Shane Battier over the years when he'd be tasked with guarding the other teams best guy. The LeBrons, the Melos...the Kobe's.
With the exception of THAT ONE TIME, Shane never outscored his defensive assignment; but he did his job. He took his guy out of their game. Forced them to take too many shots, play unnaturally.
That's what Truck has done twice now to Amar'e. For all of my "MIP" talk, I won't even pretend that Truck is on Amar'e's (sh*t....what is the proper use of apostrophes there???) level...but he did what he needed to do: he took Amar'e - a legitimate MVP candidate - out of his comfort zone. Yeah, he scored 23; but he needed a lot of shots to do it. STAT had to change his game, which showed that Truck did his job. It took the Knicks, as a team, out of their game. Truck did what he needed to do, and we got the win for it.
Fun game. I really like this Knicks team and I love that there is excitement back in Gotham for the first time in ages.
Great team win; but the game ball goes to the Truck!
I saw that Vid Mr. E and I found it to be kind of disrespectful. Chuck seems to get up for these big assignments.. There was also an exert in the Chron about the front court of the Rockets being excited to see Blake Griffin come in and play guess who was apathetic, Chuck. Chuck went out there, packed his lunch pail with crust-less Jam, jelly and Pb sandwiches and tang and went to work on Griffin too.