Knicks-Nuggets Post Game (Free Candy Strikes)

[Clyde_Style]

If we kept Mozgov, we could have paid up for a real PG instead of signing Tyson. I like Tyson, but this is now looking ridiculous.

Exactly. Chandler is a solid player, and a great guy to have on your team. But Mozgov is much cheaper, wouldn't involve having to waste the amnesty, a better fit for the D'Antoni offense (for as long as that matters), etc.

When Denver started insisting on Mozgov being in the deal, they knew that they had a sucker on the line, and were attempt to fleece him for everything in his pockets.

What Dolan didn't realize going into negotiations was Denver's representative at the table was The Count from Sesame Street. He mesmerized Dolan by saying .......

Vwon Player, Too Player, Tree Player, Four Player , Ah Ah Ah Ah

[NBA Fan 1234]

and why are they one of the best team in the league and we are one of the worst?

There's no doubt they're playing better.. They have the "full" team.. But even with that, we played them to 2ot and easily could have won.. With both our stars playing like ****, and w out our Pg.. Without Baron playing that's how we have to see it, playing w out our Pg.

Considering how close things were, there's no reason to think adding Baron onto our team, finally giving us a pg and making us a "whole" team, at least in the stating 5, wouldn't make things go even better next time..

You'd think Denver would come in here and blow us out if you'd have said we'd have no pg Melo would be **** for most of the game, and amare nonexistent.

denver missing affalo. birdman. chandler. three big players for them. they had al harrington trying to make melo look like a good shot taker with his airballs and turnovers.

can we stop pretending we got jobbed by refs and faced a 100 percent healthy and full nuggets team.

it doesnt change the truth that this team is awful.

Don't forget that Nene isn't 100% healthy either...Afflalo not playing was a HUGE loss for them...like, really huge.

This team needs help...and while I believe Baron will help tremendously, we still lack depth --> which is what every top team in the NBA has right now (or LeBron).

[TKF]

Shoulda coulda woulda if this that and the other..

We forced double OT against "one of the best teams in the league" where there "best player" had a career night... Our best player couldnt throw the ball in the ocean for most of the game, and our second best player didn't take a single shot after half.... All without a PG, that well be getting soon.

Sorry, not impressed.

and why are they one of the best team in the league and we are one of the worst?

There's no doubt they're playing better.. They have the "full" team.. But even with that, we played them to 2ot and easily could have won.. With both our stars playing like ****, and w out our Pg.. Without Baron playing that's how we have to see it, playing w out our Pg.

Considering how close things were, there's no reason to think adding Baron onto our team, finally giving us a pg and making us a "whole" team, at least in the stating 5, wouldn't make things go even better next time..

You'd think Denver would come in here and blow us out if you'd have said we'd have no pg Melo would be **** for most of the game, and amare nonexistent.

denver didn't have aflalo, fernandez and for the record andre miller wants to be traded.. so they are dealing with problems as welll. no excuses.. but you see how bad this has become? it is now a moral victory to just hang close with a team that traded it's best player to us and we gave them so called " average players" in return... see how that sounds? we now have moral victories from hanging close in a game with the nuggets...

[Clyde_Style]

besides wilson chandler, we have upgraded every other player in that trade and in no time at all.

How is that working out for us?

it's too early to say. it's easy to crow now but it's meaningless. wait till the playoffs to say something.

Take your hand off your head so you can see this news flash:

KNICKS FALLING OUT OF PLAYOFF ELIGIBILITY RAPIDLY

I know it is hard to accept because you're in denial, but Melo is not a great player and we messed up. You'll be alright. We all will. It's just showbiz.

[TKF]

One last thing: I don't hate Gallo and he clearly got a big revenge FU to the Knicks last night, along with Mozgov.

I'm not going to take that away from them, but I'm also not going to abandon what my senses are clearly reading and Gallo is a sub-par athlete. He has poor lift, an average first step, poor body control, and little explosion. Across the board his athleticism is not there.

the same things can be said about a lot of the NBA great players.. and with all of that going against him, he torched carmelo and the knicks... so either the knicks stink, melo is a horrible defender, or KG, you are just flat our wrong... which one is it?

[K_ick_God]

Take your hand off your head so you can see this news flash:

KNICKS FALLING OUT OF PLAYOFF ELIGIBILITY RAPIDLY

I know it is hard to accept because you're in denial, but Melo is not a great player and we messed up. You'll be alright. We all will. It's just showbiz.

Watch it with calling someone in denial. We don't need that.

And it is too early to judge this roster. Without a PG especially.

[towelie]

I know Melo is the current whipping boy because of his shooting, but a large part of that is because he is constantly called upon to bail us out with only 7-8 seconds left on the shot clock. The previous 8-10 seconds we do absolutely nothing with the ball but swing it around the perimeter. This is our so-called "ball movement."

IMO, I blame the losses for the following reasons:

50% for lack of a PG. D'Antoni's still a godawful coach, but it's tough for any coach to deal with a roster with ZERO guards who can setup easy shots for the rest of our players. I believe Melo is leading the team with assists at only 4.2. Not a single Knick player has broke 10+ assists this season. These are just sad numbers.

30% on the coach.
- 10% for not adapting to an offensive strategy that involves more screens, curl plays, and off-the-ball movement -- this would at least alleviate our lack of a PG. If we don't have a point who can create open shots, players should be MOVING and setting screens to get themselves open. This is basic basketball, and we're all familiar with it even on the playground.
- 10% for sticking with a (Please Use More Appropriate Word) defensive switching scheme that has Amar'e/Chandler guarding a perimeter player on nearly EVERY possession.
- Another 10% for every other coaching fault -- 1) not being able to quickly adapt to a zone or some other adjustment by the opposing coach; 2) not being able to draw plays out of a timeout the same way even a hack like George Karl can set one up to give Harrington an open 3 shot with 1.5 seconds left or Corey Brewer an alley-oop with .3 seconds left; 3) limiting our rotation to 8-9 players again despite the shortened season and despite those 8-9 players never getting it done; 4) never holding Amar'e accountable for his lack of effort on defense or Melo for his chucking ways.

10% on Amar'e for his lack of effort on defense and his newfound broken jumper.

The last 10% on the rest of the roster for bricking 3-pt shots and shooting well below their career averages, forcing us to rely on Melo iso over and over.

[NBA Fan 1234]

One last thing: I don't hate Gallo and he clearly got a big revenge FU to the Knicks last night, along with Mozgov.

I'm not going to take that away from them, but I'm also not going to abandon what my senses are clearly reading and Gallo is a sub-par athlete. He has poor lift, an average first step, poor body control, and little explosion. Across the board his athleticism is not there.

the same things can be said about a lot of the NBA great players.. and with all of that going against him, he torched carmelo and the knicks... so either the knicks stink, melo is a horrible defender, or KG, you are just flat our wrong... which one is it?

A mix of all of them. Gallo has an incredibly high BBIQ --> that's how he is able to get by his athletic shortcomings. VERY smart player on offense and defense.

I miss my favorite player...watched every game since he left (thank you league pass).

[TKF]

No bingo. When you upgrade, you upgrade. I know everybody is emboldened by last night but one win (best game of Gallo's career and one of Moz's best games) does not change logic.

Chemistry IS important but chemistry for us is about coaching, PG play, and the fact that Amar'e is lost. If Amar'e can only play C and with an elite PG to thrive, are we supposed to not upgrade C and SF so that we can build around Amar'e and be a so-so team forever? You can't complement Amar'e and make him the featured guy and expect to win a title, not even if we could get CP3 at point.

If Amar'e is turning into a ghost, then send him packing. But you don't pass on Melo.

And for others to mention Pierce and Gallo together is ridic.

Yes bingo!! all upgrades are not good if they do not upgrade the team.... if you upgrade one position at the cost of flexibility, chemistry and other positions on your team, then you don't upgrade..... unless that player has a knack for elevating those around him.. lebron is one of the few that come to mind.... and even then you approach such trades with caution..

and really, I know it just burns your soul to give gallo credit , but he was pierce like last night, I am sorry, he deserves all the praise in the world.. He demolished the knicks and did so with class.. no poppin collars, dancing, and smack talking.. he took care of business, waved to the fans and got on the team plane.. no excuses, no TV reality shows, no "coming home videos".. Just all ball....!!! all ball!!!!!!!

[NBA Fan 1234]

Take your hand off your head so you can see this news flash:

KNICKS FALLING OUT OF PLAYOFF ELIGIBILITY RAPIDLY

I know it is hard to accept because you're in denial, but Melo is not a great player and we messed up. You'll be alright. We all will. It's just showbiz.

16 games into the season and we're "falling out of playoff eligibility rapidly?" C'mon Clyde, you're better than that. This team is a playoff team. A high seeded one? No...but a playoff team nonetheless.

[ReyOpz]

Correction: Gallo was efficient this game. Melo was not this game.

Career numbers shows that Anthony is more efficient than Gallinari. Gallinari is not an efficient player.

Gallinari's scoring efficiency this year, blows Melo's out of the water. In fact, Gallinari was a more efficient scorer in all of his seasons, than Anthony, in his best, so you have no idea what you're talking about. Gallinari is not an efficient player? He's probably the most efficient perimeter second option in the league, with almost a career 60%TS, he's a very efficient player, and that's a fact.

Due to these questionable foul calls which may or may not last forever. He's shot low FG% (this is the first year he's got a good FG%) and he's been quite disappointing from 3 (still bad this year). I know everybody is in love with TS% and EFG% but it doesn't tell the whole story because great players make shots, hit wide open 3's and usually don't make their careers at the FT line until they've done the previous two things I just mentioned.

That may not last forever and then the rest of the whole franchise starts breaking down.

But I will concede that so far Gallo has been able to put the cart before the horse: He is living at the line but almost nothing else about his game has really improved ... well, that's not true -- his rebounding seems better and he's probably benefited from a) Karl's superior coaching/structure and b) not being counted on as much because Denver is deep.

But really -- these numbers don't mean anything to me because whether you like or love Gallo, nobody can really tell me that any of these things are false:

1) He has no post-up game.
2) He is unathletic.
3) He is a decent playmaker but not nearly as good as advertised when he came over.
4) His ability to hit the 3 has been below par.
5) He looks out of control and/or awkward going to the hole and blows a lot of layups -- more than his fair share.

His stats right now are living on questionable (bogus?) foul calls that send him to the line. That's all this "efficiency" we talk about -- it boils down to Gallo going to the FT line on plays that he can't finish in real life.

Pure comedy.

[TKF]

One last thing: I don't hate Gallo and he clearly got a big revenge FU to the Knicks last night, along with Mozgov.

I'm not going to take that away from them, but I'm also not going to abandon what my senses are clearly reading and Gallo is a sub-par athlete. He has poor lift, an average first step, poor body control, and little explosion. Across the board his athleticism is not there.

the same things can be said about a lot of the NBA great players.. and with all of that going against him, he torched carmelo and the knicks... so either the knicks stink, melo is a horrible defender, or KG, you are just flat our wrong... which one is it?

A mix of all of them. Gallo has an incredibly high BBIQ --> that's how he is able to get by his athletic shortcomings. VERY smart player on offense and defense.

I miss my favorite player...watched every game since he left (thank you league pass).

I have had league pass since the 90's.. LOL and now thank god I can get to watch my other favorite players around the league.. guys like nash, chris paul and of course gallo....

[Red Vines]

I know Melo is the current whipping boy because of his shooting, but a large part of that is because he is constantly called upon to bail us out with only 7-8 seconds left on the shot clock. The previous 8-10 seconds we do absolutely nothing with the ball but swing it around the perimeter. This is our so-called "ball movement."

Exactly. Nobody besides Melo on this team can create their own shot. Nobody else has any go-to move or shot. Put the ball in the hands of Fields or TD or Shump and you will be lucky if you get a 3 point chuck instead of a shot clock violation or a blocked shot.

[TKF]

Take your hand off your head so you can see this news flash:

KNICKS FALLING OUT OF PLAYOFF ELIGIBILITY RAPIDLY

I know it is hard to accept because you're in denial, but Melo is not a great player and we messed up. You'll be alright. We all will. It's just showbiz.

16 games into the season and we're "falling out of playoff eligibility rapidly?" C'mon Clyde, you're better than that. This team is a playoff team. A high seeded one? No...but a playoff team nonetheless.

paco.. honestly, I don't think we can say that until proven otherwise... can you tell me what in the past do we have to go on to prove that this team.. this current team is a playoff team?

[Clyde_Style]

Take your hand off your head so you can see this news flash:

KNICKS FALLING OUT OF PLAYOFF ELIGIBILITY RAPIDLY

I know it is hard to accept because you're in denial, but Melo is not a great player and we messed up. You'll be alright. We all will. It's just showbiz.

16 games into the season and we're "falling out of playoff eligibility rapidly?" C'mon Clyde, you're better than that. This team is a playoff team. A high seeded one? No...but a playoff team nonetheless.

Done any math lately my friend?

We could lose the next five games to close out January easily. That would be 6-15 or about a .300 winning percentage.

That means we'd have to play over .600 ball the rest of the way to sniff .500.

I'm not better than math.

[TKF]

I know Melo is the current whipping boy because of his shooting, but a large part of that is because he is constantly called upon to bail us out with only 7-8 seconds left on the shot clock. The previous 8-10 seconds we do absolutely nothing with the ball but swing it around the perimeter. This is our so-called "ball movement."

Exactly. Nobody besides Melo on this team can create their own shot. Nobody else has any go-to move or shot. Put the ball in the hands of Fields or TD or Shump and you will be lucky if you get a 3 point chuck instead of a shot clock violation or a blocked shot.

which is why some of us are upset.. last year we had about 3 guys who could create shots and create for others.. but we were told that we must get rid of them to get just one guy who could do it..... see how this works red vines?

[Clyde_Style]

Take your hand off your head so you can see this news flash:

KNICKS FALLING OUT OF PLAYOFF ELIGIBILITY RAPIDLY

I know it is hard to accept because you're in denial, but Melo is not a great player and we messed up. You'll be alright. We all will. It's just showbiz.

Watch it with calling someone in denial. We don't need that.

And it is too early to judge this roster. Without a PG especially.

Huh? I hope you're not reprimanding for a common figure of speech as if I just slandered someone or insulted them or was vulgar because I wasn't. What on earth are you talking about?

We're judging. Its too early for you, not others.

[hatnlvr]

For those that believed this would be the game where things turned around for this team...well, see, it takes time and gradual improvement before such a drastic change happens. I'm happy to say we saw some of that improvement last night, so that's a really good, positive sign to take away from the game. We saw good ball movement for some of the game and that sense of urgency that's been missing most of the season. It's nice to see the players starting to hold themselves accountable for the team's woes, but I think it needs to get to a point where the coaching staff starts holding these players accountable for the constant mistakes and deviation from the "system" continue doing. Because players holding themselves accountable for a loss is all really nice, but it's likely they go out the next night and keep making the same mistakes.

But I was encouraged from some of the things I saw last night. I'm getting less and less worried about Stoudemire. He hasn't diminished physically, he's just in desperate need of a guard who can get him into the flow of the offense, get him easy buckets which then ignites the rest of his game. I'm confident Davis can do this once he gets back, so we should be good there.

Sucks that Harrelson got hurt. He's probably our best man to man defender, he just has such great awareness on the defensive end, hurts losing him. We desperately need to add depth to this roster now. We virtually have no quality bigs to bring off the bench. Compound that with no playmaker until Davis comes back and we're in for a world of hurt as far as depth goes.

As for Gallo - he's everything we knew he was and could become, no surprise there and no surprise this Knicks team gives up another career night to an opponent. Getting ridiculous now.

Something isn't quite right with the team right now and how they are using and playing with STAT. I'm not sure what's going on but to see how STAT continually comes out to set picks and rolls to the basket, only to have his teammates completely ignore him 95% of the time is really baffling. The only player that I have seen really look for STAT in the p-n-r situations is Bibby. So its either that our Offensive players are so stupid that they have completely no clue how to run a p-n-r, or they are intentionally not going to STAT in those situations (half of which he is wide open or has an open lane to the basket).

[Red Vines]

I know Melo is the current whipping boy because of his shooting, but a large part of that is because he is constantly called upon to bail us out with only 7-8 seconds left on the shot clock. The previous 8-10 seconds we do absolutely nothing with the ball but swing it around the perimeter. This is our so-called "ball movement."

Exactly. Nobody besides Melo on this team can create their own shot. Nobody else has any go-to move or shot. Put the ball in the hands of Fields or TD or Shump and you will be lucky if you get a 3 point chuck instead of a shot clock violation or a blocked shot.

which is why some of us are upset.. last year we had about 3 guys who could create shots and create for others.. but we were told that we must get rid of them to get just one guy who could do it..... see how this works red vines?

But that can be fixed. Baron can create his own shot, we'll get role players who can score. Basically management overrated our role players this year. We just started constructing the team, it will come together.

[NBA Fan 1234]

Take your hand off your head so you can see this news flash:

KNICKS FALLING OUT OF PLAYOFF ELIGIBILITY RAPIDLY

I know it is hard to accept because you're in denial, but Melo is not a great player and we messed up. You'll be alright. We all will. It's just showbiz.

16 games into the season and we're "falling out of playoff eligibility rapidly?" C'mon Clyde, you're better than that. This team is a playoff team. A high seeded one? No...but a playoff team nonetheless.

paco.. honestly, I don't think we can say that until proven otherwise... can you tell me what in the past do we have to go on to prove that this team.. this current team is a playoff team?

Melo has never missed the playoffs IIRC. I know it's not entirely related (different teams, coaches, etc), but it's still good to know that. I really believe that Baron will make this team a lot better (see avatar --> that's Baron Davis lol).

Also...Amar'e and Melo won't play like sh*t all season long. They'll start hitting their shots eventually. I also don't see Cleveland staying in the hunt and I think ATL will fall off as the season progresses (although maybe not entirely out of the playoffs).