PG: FJU Needs To Be Shut Down

[Reign23]

wow. I thought I was depressed/pissed by the loss, but some of you go nuts.

first of all: the season is not over yet. we have a makeable schedule coming up and have to win at least 3 of the next 4 til the Allstar break. then we would have a 26:29 record, KP and melo can rest a little bit and we have all the chances to make the playoffs.

A couple of thoughts:

- I'm still a 100% against trading melo. (and even if it comes to this, we're not trading him for a bunch of mid prospects and late first rounders. come on. something like those bulls trades is not going to happen.) He is so important for staying competitiv and the developement of KP.

- I know some of you defend grant, and maybe we have to be a little patient, but HOLY CRAP is he bad... at the begin of season I thought he could be our starter at some point and now he is outplayed by SASHA freaking VUJACIC.

- Is it too early to make a salary dump trade for Kyle O'Quinn? he makes "just" 4 million next year, but he's the 4th center in the rotation behind rolo,kp and even seraphin. so whats the point of holding onto him? 1-2 second rounders and additional cap space could be more valuable.

-Fisher doesn't have a very good roster, agree. but he is still one of the worst coaches in the league after 1 1/2 years. that grant, vujacic, thomas, williams and seraphin lineup with melo/kp/aa on the bench is just....inexcusable.

-I still like galloway but he is clearly not your starting PG unless you have a SG who can make plays and penetrate like harden or derozan. he can be a combo guard off the bench or even a starting d-and-3 SG if you have a good PG.

but I still think we can make the playoffs... a few things have to go right (health, trade for a PG). LETS GO KNICKERBOCKERS. game in detroit is clearly game of the year and have to win this. what do you all think?

[j4remi]

Short Version: AA was 7-16 and wildly inefficient after a hot first quarter. That was our most productive scorer. Melo was 4-16 and KP was 4-11. There's no PG that fixes that on the roster. Our PG need comes down to better defensive play and more of an attacking mindset...Jose doesn't give that, won't give that, and I don't believe he'd do anything but dribble the ball longer and give up even more points to Isaiah Thomas. This loss was on the Knicks top three men struggling and the trickle down effect that has on everybody else. That and our big men being unable to contain stretch bigs like Olynyk. This team is top heavy and when the top contributors aren't pulling their weight...everyone else struggles.

Melo: It's pretty obvious that he rushed back because of how bad we looked imo. Dude isn't jumping for rebounds, he's letting the ball fall to him but he's positioning himself so well his rebounding is still effective. He's not exploding as well off the dribble either, which means defenders on his hip instead of behind him when he slashes past tight D. He's not shooting well whether the looks are good or bad. He's even missing FT's at a higher rate. The team is built to thrive off of him, expect us to look pretty lacking until his legs are better. This was another game where he got one on one match-ups frequently and couldn't take advantage fully. That wouldn't happen before the ankle situation and then the Philly debacle. 16 points and 14 boards plus 4 assists...and dude's not even 100%. He wasn't great by any means though, and I'd rather he rest than prolong the no air time situation. The late chases to Crowder in the third who knocked down some jumpers...eerily reminiscent of last season.

AA: Great first quarter might help you forget that this guy wasn't very good for three quarters...I call that the Lance Thomas impact. He was the reason we looked competent in the first quarter and once he tailed off playwise, without Melo able to play his best and with KP in a slump...our team had nobody to throw the defense off balance. 18, 3 assists, 2 boards...made a couple of promising assists and got his shot going much better than recently...but it's still not good enough when dude explodes for a quarter and than vanishes.

RoLo: He was our best player last night. Beasted on the boards for three quarters, scored efficiently and his TO's were more a result of poor floor spacing when he received the ball. He did seem to run out of gas but when you go from 25 mins max a night for a week or two to 37 minutes against a gang of stretch bigs that make you chase...why expect different? 17, 13 and 2 with 3 blocks...the guy was our bright spot.

Galloway: Outside of RoLo, he was the only guy with a positive +/-. He didn't shoot well and showed a lack of confidence in his jumper; seemed like he was too busy trying to give looks to Melo, KP and AA rather than just playing the game which led to some poor decisions. Still, he was overall doing some nice things. His board work was impressive as hell, including straight stealing the ball out of Amir Johnson's hands when Amir had the better positioning. He was pushing the pace a bit but not off dribble, he'd receive the ball and send it sailing up toward a ball handler higher up the floor (mostly Melo). Too often though we settled for clear outs and Isolations, which meant he could float. I was pretty impressed by his defense on Thomas too, he made Thomas work for the baskets.

KP: 10 and 5 on 4-11...He seemed like he wanted to be aggressive off face ups, which was a good idea but he was off balance and looked sluggish on both ends to the point that I'm worried the upper respiratory infection is less a problem than the foot sprain since he hasn't played well since that thing. He had a harder time getting a put back over Crowder than he's had on PFs and C's. Defensively, he's giving more space while still giving up drives to the basket. Dude is either hitting the wall or his movement is being effected...neither is good news for us, but the all star break is coming so he can get some rest soon.

D-Will: 6 points and 2 boards in 11 mins. Seems like he got punished for struggling with terrible second unit rotations more than anything because it's not like anybody played quality D that would get this guy benched. He didn't get much minutes with the starters and that's when he's been most effective. He gave that role up to Lance again for the most part. He's gotta stick to the baseline three and just use space to dribble-drive around the rest of the arc.

Sasha: Played well...and when he's our best bench player we're gonna lose. 13 points and 3 boards. He seemed like he was having a good shooting night and yet he still managed to shoot below 50% from the field lol. Dude's defense is never good. He still takes bad shots, but he made a couple last night at least. If we need energy, I'd rather watch Thanasis struggle than hope Sasha gets lucky shooting long 3 pointers and off the dribble contested jumpers while only being effective in the passing lanes on defense.

Lance: 25 mins out there, 6 points and 2 boards...I didn't think he stood out for poor play or good play on either end. This wasn't a shining example of his defense making up for lack of production elsewhere but he didn't force all that much outside of a really strange dribble drive attempt for an ugly TO. That he was 2-4 instead of something inefficient is the only thing to hang a hat on for this performance. Big minutes, not much help.

Seraphin: 4 minutes from this guy made the entire second unit look a mess. He seemed completely disinterested in a system, just wanted to set screens then establish post position and work from a generic baseline post up. We looked utterly ridiculous with him out there. It made me appreciate KOQ some more...honestly why'd KOQ get benched? I thought his play, while not great, was showing signs of improvement. 2 points, 1 TO...the team lost by 10 points while he was out there for 4 total minutes...unbelievable.

Grant: His 7 minutes were mostly a struggle. He got out there at one point during the awkward Seraphin "I'm going rogue...wildcard bi**ches" phase of the game and then he was out there with a really odd crew where no one could create their own looks but the only semi-good shooter on the floor was Lance. At one point this dude had a "screw it" moment and actually just took his man off the dribble to attempt a long jumper...you know that's a desperation decision because this guy has had no confidence in his jumper all season. Anyway, even though he was set up to fail, that -17 looks horrendous and he looked terrible out there...I'd like to see him in actual reasonable line-ups but at this point if he gets benched it'll be hard to fight that decision.

Fish: How about the Sasha, AA, Melo, Lance RoLo line-up of ineptitude late in the game? That was a serious attempt to make something happen...2 SG's, 2 SF's and one C...nice. Seraphin got in after not playing even garbage time recently while KOQ and Lou who've gotten some time lately both saw the bench. The C's had multiple long runs shutting down the offense and making it look bad where Fish was content to wait it out instead of calling a TO and resetting. His rotations scream "patchwork" whether you want to blame Phil for that or Fish. I have no faith in this dude helping us get wins or putting the players in the best position to get a win. He's either not getting in the way while players do the heavy lifting or he's making such perplexing rotation decisions that I mentally checkout for chunks of quarters until the line-up on the floor has even a chance to be effective. SMFH

Random: The C's are proof that establishing a well known identity around the league gets you better treatment from officials. They complained about foul calls a lot, but they still were able to establish their physical brand and get away with plenty of contact especially on Melo. We could really use an identity that we stick to. I'm not sure if this is just me and I hate to seem insensitive...but I could really do without those driver awareness ads in the middle of a basketball game; they're way to real and dark when an NBA spectacle is all about escapism. We finally cut back on the horrendous anti-cigarette ads, now you want to remind me that drag racing can lead to children being hit by cars? Wtf is that? "She wasn't racing, he was!" I'd love to see the slogans and campaigns that the writers turned down and I'd really love to witness the focus groups they tested this ish on.

[thebuzzardman]

Let me start off by saying witnessing Derek Fisher live is a whole other level of embarrassment. Its one thing to watch him on TV when you can barely see the bench, but it's a whole other phenomenon when you have to suffer the agony of his laziness at MSG. This is the 6th year in a row I've had season tickets (back when posters on this board were called Abe & Paco), and seeing him refuse to get off the bench is sickening. This isn't Pop. This isn't Carlisle. This isn't even Spo. This is a 2nd year coach coming off the worst year in the history of our franchise and game in and game out his legs stay glued to the bench. He routinely gets up at the oddest times (after a Knick player shoots his first free throw) or when he's calling Sasha's name (go figure). It's bad enough to deal with a coach whose horrendous at play calling, and even worse to see one who truly thinks we have a 10-11 man rotation. But seeing Brad Stevens pacing up and down the court, calling out plays, pointing out screens, and actually trying to be strategic had me so disappointed in what we have to deal with in Fisher. This isn't the growing pains anymore. We're not figuring things out. We simply have a coach who isn't yet ready. I know our issues are heavily predicated in our lack of guards and overall play making ability. But when you have a coach like Fisher, who refuses to have the pulse of his team it's down right sad. From where I was sitting I saw a guy whose collecting his fat pay check wearing a sharp brown suit. Dont get this twisted. Fisher is nothing more then a made guy without an actual brain. Worst part is hell most likely never been on the hot seat as he actually should be.

This stuff is actually visible from TV, but I can imagine it's magnified while seeing it live. Fisher is really the worst coach I have ever seen, and it's not even close.

Sark, what blows my mind even more is that it 100% feels as though Fisher is attempting to take a page out of Phils book. Anyone who saw Phil is his Laker days know 2 things about him as it relates to the sideline. #1) He rarely, if ever got up off his huge throne on the bench and #2) he was KNOWN for letting his bench get extra minutes together to try and fight back in games. And the truth is his bench would literally claw its way back on numerous because he had so much trust in them. Fisher is attempting to do the same thing but he's getting backward results. He continues to trot out bench rotations that make no sense. A pair of forward who don't usually compliment each other. Lineups with no clear indication of how the team is going to score. And I'll say it again but having been to nearly 12 home games this year (and witnessing it all last season with Derek) it's the same song and dance. But this isn't Phil on the sidelines coaching. This is Fisher. A guy whose best attributes might be getting Melo to play more unselfish, and believing in Lance. But other then that, I'm afraid the true X's and O's will just never be a part of his DNA as a coach.

I think this is a part of Fisher's arrogance. He really believes he's that smart and clever. And I'm not saying he's not smart, just that he's got a little too much hubris for little too less smarts, if you get my meaning. He's trying to be Phil, but he's NOT Phil, so he gets part of what made Phil great, but not all of it. And he's too arrogant to realize that Laker Phil had Bulls Phil cache, while the only cache that Fisher has, at best, is "great motivational speeches as a player" and Phil picked him to coach. And that's it.

I've seen this script before. Decent basketball guy and good human being and good motivation guy gets team to buy in and try hard for a while, only to have the team stop putting forth effort because that same guy is basically a knucklehead as a coach and takes the wind out the players sails, collectively (unless, in this case, your name is Sasha, Lance or Jose).

This is Woodson redux. Fisher will be gone before next season ends. He's over his head as a head coach. Maybe as any sort of coach. At least Woodson is a good defensive assistant.

Notice for the last 10 games there has been a lot of posts regarding less than 100% effort? That is because they are tuning Fisher out. Yes, they are professionals, should try hard, blah blah blah. But they are human beings and eventually guys like KOQ, or DWill or Grant, even though, yes they have made mistakes, will eventually bag it when they realize their leash is tremendously short while others guys have a much longer leash (Jose, Lance, Sasha). And the better players like Melo, KP, Lopez, Aflalo, will just start playing less hard not because they are bad guys, but because their motivation is sapped by a substandard coach.

Just watch. Knicks aren't turning jack sh*t around. There isn't going to be any "4 game win streak" and they are back in it. They are going to skid all the way to the end of the season, probably win, hmmh, 31 or 32 games.

[HerSports85]

"We don't run plays" when asked should we get KP more involved down he stretch.

"No I won't be disappointed if we don't make the playoffs"

"You're talking about the good things but no one talks about the bad things he does" when asked about KP after he played a great game.


Oh we have a great coach folks

no way are these actual quotes

[GONYK]

I understand your position but I don't agree. Boston is 4-8 and will play in the playoffs in a flat conference with a vulnerable top seed.

They aren't a championship team no matter how you slice it and they definitely aren't in the right market.

While I agree boston doesn't make much sense because its not a team on the verge of a championship. They would probably be looking for a young star to go along with there roster which is why the 3 team trade makes some sense.

The two questions I would ask you are we a "championship" level team over the next 2 or 3 years? Because if thats a not the case you have to at least start consider listening.

There are always teams desperate to compete that think they are one piece away. That alone makes the knicks is a position of power.

I wasn't talking about the 3-team deal.

I was addressing KG's premise that Melo would 90% accept a trade to Boston.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[mpharris36]

gotcha, well Melo ain't going to boston I do agree there.

[JXL]

TL;DR but here's a short version.

There's no fix this season. This is still a rebuilding process that's going great, when a franchise has the worst season in their history, going from that to a fringe playoff team is a good start. We have no modern PG, but that doesn't mean one's not going to be here, wait until the offseason. This team doesn't need the quick fix just to get embarrassed in the 1st round. Let this process continue.

[delvec19]

Did Liga ACB really only have 34 game seasons? Yeah definitely makes sense why KP looks tired as hell.

[Sark]

Boston would never trade their picks for Melo. They're a young up and coming team. They have no use for a 31 year old player.

[delvec19]

Boston would never trade their picks for Melo. They're a young up and coming team. They have no use for a 31 year old player.

Dolan would never trade to him to Boston anyway.

[ciregno]

Wow, Fisher really said "we don't run plays."

I'm officially on the Fire Fisher bandwagon.

[F N 11]

"We don't run plays" when asked should we get KP more involved down he stretch.

"No I won't be disappointed if we don't make the playoffs"

"You're talking about the good things but no one talks about the bad things he does" when asked about KP after he played a great game.


Oh we have a great coach folks

no way are these actual quotes

Not word for word but this was pretty much said.

[NYKAL]

Fuq Fisher. Waited too long to bring in KP

did anyone notice how long Fish played his starters (especially in the 2nd half.) His substitution patterns have lost all sense or semblance a pattern "Again"

[moocow007]

Just sign Wroten already. He can't possibly be any worse than most of the Knicks guards. See what the **** can do.

[moocow007]

There was a sequence where Afflalo was turning the ball over like it was burning his hands. Reminded me of the scene from Benchwarmers with Reggie Jackson and the hot potato. I've never seen that type of silly sloppiness ever and I've been watching basketball since before a good many of you were even a twinkle in your moms eye.

[F N 11]

We've been hoodwinked. After we beat the hawks back to back we were lead to believe that we turned the corner. Shortened rotations and fisher actually running plays.

HOODWINKED!!!!

He went back to the same old Fisher. Even becoming worse. Sasha plays well and he brings back in Grant. He use to force play Sasha. Now he plays well and you wont let him finish the game. IDIOT

[thebuzzardman]

Screw Fisher, but Jackson needs to be held accountable too. He hit the KP draft pick out of the park, but Grant has been terrible, though it only cost THJr, so there's that.

But he really went C/PF crazy in FA, and while he did pick up Aflalo as SG, didn't do enough to address the guard position, especially a penetrating player.

I mean, I know the Knicks needed a talent upgrade, and all in all the picks ups were "ok", while bringing in mostly the right sort of guys attitude wise and bonus points for no long commitment, but I have to question the signing combination of DWill, KOQ and Seraphin after signing Lopez.

I mean, competition is good, but Lopez is a C who is going to command 28 minutes a game, at least. KOQ is a C/PF. Seraphin is a C. DWill is being used mainly as a stretch 4, which is his best position.

There is at least one too many players there, if not 2. I mean, if you commit 4 years 4 million to KOQ, then why sign Seraphin? If you sign DWill with a mind to him playing PF, or playing SF while Melo plays some PF, then maybe even KOQ is redundant.

Basically, DWill+Seraphin = shouldn't have signed KOQ, or KOQ and DWill = Seraphin a bad signing.

I don't know. Phil may not be a great GM, but he does have a good basketball mind, so maybe he added frontcourt depth to increase his ability to make a trade at some point and maybe he sees KOQ as a bit of a project.

But as many said even before preseason, Phil messed up in the guard department.

[delvec19]

We are really throwing Grant out the window after only half of a rookie season? Jesus.

[thebuzzardman]

We are really throwing Grant out the window after only half of a rookie season? Jesus.

He just needs more time, just like Frank Williams, Mardy Collins and Toney Douglas did.

[god shammgod]

i could keep repeating every point i've ever made about phil and fish but why bother. i don't even care about this year, i'm worried about next year. there's only 2 things that are gonna fix all this.

1 - some top free agent joins us this summer.
2 - they get rid of everyone in charge and get a new coach/gm to come fix all of this

i'm actually expecting this though
3 - suck again