Post#287 » by steady » Sat Oct 28, 2017 5:26 pm
I predicted they'd lose. I'm not upset about it. But I hope they learn some lessons from loss.
Because I didn't watch game in real time I went back to try to figure out what happened - the main factor is what I think KA and DeMarre spoke about after the game. An effort discrepancy. Knicks had 21 more rebounds than us, had 18 offensive boards. Nets made many TOS on top of that. As a result Knicks took 24 more shots than Nets. 24. Game over.
But when a team is playing disjointed basketball, effort tends to drop too, and that also happened last night.
KA is still experimenting and learning lineups. When I looked back at play by play, he had some odd lineups - it's true - but he pulled them pretty quickly and they did not do that much damage
For example the one that Jeff1234 complained about - and I chimed in on - Caris/Crabbe/Harris/Booker/Moz -- werent great , but they only played for 2 1/2 minutes and we only suffered a four point loss in our lead (from 5 to 1) because of it. KA pulled them quickly.
The bench (except for above line up) was good and consistently pushed out a Nets lead or saw only a minor loss. That's how Spencer ended up with plus minus of -1 for the night.
It was mainly the starters that the Knicks scored on
The starters were not terrible in first quarter. When they were subbed out around 5:55 mark, they handed the bench a 13-12 lead. But this is far less scoring than we are used to seeing from them. And the trend when they returned with 4:33 left in second quarter was more alarming. The score was 40-42 (Knicks lead) then Nets only scored two points from 4:33 to half time. Luckily Knicks weren't great either so Nets went into half only trailing by five 42-47, but KA should have seen something was off.
But he didn't make any adjustments to starting lineup to start the third quarter. I do think part of his thinking is that he doesn't want guys looking over their shoulder. He's encouraging them to play free, and if he pulls them whenever something goes wrong , that won't send a good message.
But in game adjustments are also needed sometimes
Spencer was a bright spot in their play last night
still Spencer was the last bench player put into the game in the third quarter and he did not have any playing time with DLo last night at all, even though Caris was not playing that well. Crabbe and Harris were also not subbed in for Caris and Acy until 5:26
Acy subbed in for Moz at 9:08. Booker subbed in for RHJ at 7:39.
Spencer did not see any time in third quarter until 5:02 left in quarter. And at that point, Knicks already had a 20 point lead.
Kenny must have had his reasons last night. I'm not saying he was idiotic.
And I'm not saying that Spencer is better than Caris (or Crabbe). I don't think he is. But he brings a skill set that may complement DLos skill set better, and it would good to see them play together at least sometimes, especially when the starting line up is struggling.
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