legoli wrote:Don't mean to be too pessimistic but I thought this was a terrible game to watch. Our offense looks real bad and our defense not better than average IMO. Although I won't be giving up and cheering for them no matter what I found this game hardly encouraging.
The only good thing is that Hughes is playing his way out of the rotation.
Hard to compare considering that Maccabi is really not an NBA caliber team. Offensively early on, like in the Nets game, they were completely out of whack. Still jacking up too much rushed long range shots. But as the game went on their offense was actually flowing quite nicely. And it happened to be when they stopped rushing 3's and instead RAN, RAN and RAN some more. Basically what I said that they have to do in order for them to be able to win games (they just don't have the pure shooters to make it a "chuck 30 3's a game and hope for the best" roster).
Nate Robinson was once again the catalyst IMHO of their offense when it started to make it's push. Tel Aviv had no answer for him and it does look like Robinson, while still chatty and a complaining about no calls too much, is more and more learning how to reign in some of that energy so it's not just a Nate against the other team sort of thing.
Defensively the Knicks were extremely aggressive and sharp. I believe they had around 13 steals this game and they crashed the boards and did extremely well boxing out and being aware of where their man was (with only a few open baskets allowed).
Again...hard to tell because of the level of the competition, but if they don't get intimidated when they play real NBA teams and can continue to play this style of ball they should do well. Maybe not .500 ball or the playoffs but definitely better than in years past.
One step at a time.
