I hope that Prigioni starts and plays major minutes, because Prigioni & Shumpert are by far the Knicks best perimeter defenders. Shumpert has to guard George and Felton is completely incapable of defending at the PG position. Kidd is also not capable of effectively defending at the point, especially for significant minutes. Neither one of those players can defend the pick-and-roll nor can they pressure the ball like Pablo can. The Knicks defense has only looked decent when Prigioni & Shumpert are on the court, and Kidd hasn't had consistently good defensive games since early in the season. Both Kidd & Felton are better suited to defend at the SG position.
KnicksFan7 wrote:My guess is NY wins tomorrow and loses in Indy on Saturday.
Caveat to the Pacers. They must close it out on Saturday. If Knicks push to 7 I think they win the series.
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I doubt the Knicks will be able to win 3 straight, especially with a potential game 6 in Indiana. I doubt they could win 2 out of the next 3 games even if they were all at MSG. This more of an indictment of the players on this current Knicks roster than it is the fact that they are playing some great team in the Pacers.
They are just not playing the defense, rebounding, shooting the ball well enough to beat the Pacers. Hibbert and George will both have to miss the remainder of the series for NY to have a chance, and they would probably need both Anthony & Smith to shoot over 45% in each game. Chandler will also need to grab defensive board and keep the Pacers off the offensive glass. I have a better shot at winning the Powerball and Mega Millions lottery back-to-back than those things happening for NY.
Indiana will play loose and freely tomorrow. IMO they have a much better chance at closing it out tomorrow than they do in game 6. Mentally, they can play pressure free. But come game 6, the psychological aspect of having to close out the series or risk going back on the road in a game 7 possibly blowing a 3-1 series lead. That's quite a load to handle mentally. Thursday night is their best bet to end the series.
Pressure is not going to affect the Pacers' ability to rebound or defend. Pressure more affects offense, and their offense hasn't been too impressive. NY's needless doubling will give them a TON of open 3-point looks and no matter how much pressure they'll feel playing against a team that they beat 2 times in a row at home, getting open looks like that will overcome any potential offensive struggles from pressure.
It's hard being a Knicks fan...
