Knickstape1214 wrote: He's been missing layups at the rim for years. Not expecting hat to change. What still bothers me is his bad shot IQ - he simply takes way too many shots and a bunch of them are bad shots.
Yes, the offense is a **** show...but there's a reason why it looks better with Jennings. Rose has been, and always will be, a shoot first guard with bad vision and a horrendous shot IQ. He simply has not adopted since injuries derailed his career.
Move Rose to the bench and let him be selfish with the bench unit because they need a scoring punch (even if it is one with **** efficiency) and move Jennings to the SL because he's looking to pass more and has good chemistry with KP.
Rose's bad shot selection has been exactly the same as Melo's bad shot selection (contested mid range jumpers), and KP only getting looks from mid range to 3 too though. We don't get many good looks. When we have got out and ran we looked a lot better across the board, and I hate to say it, but I think Melo is really holding the whole team back in that respect. Noah gets out way ahead of him and yells back to him to speed it up.
They've both been bad, but I think Rose's has a larger effect on the game because he's supposed to be setting guys up. Melo, I think, has actually gotten some solid looks so far - he's just missing everything. The isolations has to stop for sure, though.
King of Canada wrote: Rose's bad shot selection has been exactly the same as Melo's bad shot selection (contested mid range jumpers), and KP only getting looks from mid range to 3 too though. We don't get many good looks. When we have got out and ran we looked a lot better across the board, and I hate to say it, but I think Melo is really holding the whole team back in that respect. Noah gets out way ahead of him and yells back to him to speed it up.
They've both been bad, but I think Rose's has a larger effect on the game because he's supposed to be setting guys up. Melo, I think, has actually gotten some solid looks so far - he's just missing everything. The isolations has to stop for sure, though.
#prayforchrispaul
If we go win now, yeah. If not...#prayforMarkelle.
BBALLER4FR wrote: Why is this so hard to understand? When you with an offense THERE'S NO WAY you're going to overcompensate and on the defensive end. This offense has been killing flow since Phil arrived. What makes anyone think a team of scorers who are handcuffed by an antiquated offense are going to be able to tighten the screws on defense? Right now, we we expend tons of energy on on and offense that's become easy to defend. Then since the opposition has expended so little energy on guarding a predictable offense we're gassed and they've got reserves. Nevermind our coach playing plodding bench players over sparkplugs or putting our best shotblocker on the perimeter to guard the entire arc!! There's no way Jeff, Phil or Rambis ever considers defense cause all they are focused on is this motherf***king geometry!!!
so youre telling me kristaps forgets to close out on one of the better 3pt shooting big men in the league, REPEATEDLY, because he is thinking too much about/trying too hard on offense?
lmao
No, I'm telling you Kristaps, our best shotblocker last year, should never be tasked with guarding a perimeter that features Anderson and Harden running screens around the arc. You wonder why his offense sucks? It's because the coach has put him in an impossible position defensively. He's gassed. Who do you think is expending more energy out there - Harden, Anderson and Gordon playing do-si-do on the perimeter of KP trying to figure out when to switch and when to fight through to guard this trio of bombers? ANd once you've figured out who expended the most energy think about the other end. Who do you think will be more effecting - KP or the team running the offense we showed in the preseason?
What magic did they perform last year then, other than to concede the 3, which caused them to lose a ton of games?
KP seemed near the rim along with Lopez, so who was guarding the 4's taking a million 3's?
Because the stretch 4 wasn't invented this season.
Serious open question. How did the Knicks scheme this leading up to their .500 record?
Am sure the board was full of mayhem last night but anyone who was honest about this team knew we were about to get blasted by Houston. We may not even be a bad team but we are horrible against teams that play fast and gun for threes (see Cleveland and Houston). We immediately put ourselves at a disadvantage by playing two bigs but, frankly, our team defensive intelligence is so low that, while I am sure the margin of loss would be smaller if we played only 1 big at a time, I just don't see us winning these games without a significant improvement in defensive awareness. Against Houston, you have one guy that can credibly drive the ball and possibly .5 with Eric Gordon but I didn't see any real hard closeouts against their shooters and just laziness in guarding guys who were maybe half a foot behind the three point line (they can hit those!).
We will be better against most teams and, of our losses, Detroit was winnable, while Cleveland and Houston will always outclass us. I suspect we will play much better against the rest of the East morass but, philosophically, with the league moving more toward what Cleveland, GSW, and Houston are doing (see Boston) what are we but an permanently flawed roster? Against these types of teams, I think Hornacek needs to move fast to adjust, understanding that we cannot play two bigs against these types of teams.
Not going to target any one player; we were dead from jump last night.
MP4LIFE wrote:KP should bulk up more and play center. At the end of the day he will be his most dominant at that position on both ends of the floor.
Consider he has about 2 posts moves, maybe not.
Since when does your center need to post up for more than 3-4 possessions in a game? We just played two teams that has center that cant shoot outside of 1 feet from the hoop. He doesn't have their strength, but he has other skills that far outclasses those two.
god shammgod wrote:i've seen enough the knicks will not make the playoffs kp will not be a future superstar come at me bros
Don't think it's fair to say he's not a future superstar based off of 4 games. He's playing like chit but the skills are there and he's playing a little bit out of position and he needs to have a little less respect for Melo and Rose on the court.
he played the 4 last year too. it wasn't a problem. his energy level hasn't been the same since the first half of the season last year. this is just a continuation. this whole idea that somehow melo and rose is to blame is false. they put him out with the bench yesterday in the 2nd and he was exactly the same. the coach is already kind of disgusted with him. i'll still root for him but my instinct tells me it aint happening.
god shammgod wrote:i've seen enough the knicks will not make the playoffs kp will not be a future superstar come at me bros
Don't think it's fair to say he's not a future superstar based off of 4 games. He's playing like chit but the skills are there and he's playing a little bit out of position and he needs to have a little less respect for Melo and Rose on the court.
he played the 4 last year too. it wasn't a problem. his energy level hasn't been the same since the first half of the season last year. this is just a continuation. this whole idea that somehow melo and rose is to blame is false. they put him out with the bench yesterday in the 2nd and he was exactly the same. the coach is already kind of disgusted with him. i'll still root for him but my instinct tells me it aint happening.
BodyCount wrote:You know I loved how Bulls looked running triangle, and their 72-10 season was the best basketball I watched in my entire life.
But this team will never get anywhere close to playing or resembling to anything compared to it. We've got Rose who's a pick and roll guy and sucks at three point shooting, Noah that can't do anything in post or paint, Our SG is nowhere near as athetic as either Jordan or Kobe and our SF is a ball hog, that can't move without the ball.Actually they're all quite bad at moving without the ball and too slow. And overall they're not great shooters either,, so even when the offense does get them some open looks, they aren't consistent enough to hit them and take big enough advantage of it for it to work into their favour.
Watching them doing all the off ball movement just gives me the impression they waste all their energy on it and they have no energy left after it for the shot.
While all of this may be true, none of these things are why the Knicks are losing.
If the 72-win Bulls team executed on offense just as well as they did before, but played defense like the Knicks are doing now, they would likely be a sub .500 team.
This defense has been inexcusable. They've gotten blown out to the Pistons without Reggie Jackson, they've gotten demolished/embarrassed by the Rockets twice already, barely beat the Grizzlies, who sat Conley most of the first half, didn't play Tony Allen, and started a bunch of no name players. NY needs to rely on offensive outbursts from Rose, Anthony, Porzingis, and/or Lee just to keep the score close enough to be in striking distance at the end of the game. That is NOT good.
Rose (who does need to think 'kick-out' more on his drive attempts), Anthony (who needs to stop isolating/posting less and spot up behind the arc and play defense more), and Kristap "Get me a 5 hour energy ASAP" Porzingis are difference makers offensively, but only if your team can play some semblance of standard NBA-level team defense and rebounding. The ball movement and playing off of each will come in time. The defense and rebounding on the other hand, is effort and technique. Rose & Noah has played under Thibdeau for years, they should know how to defend a pick & roll and how to operate in a functioning team defense.
Spoiler:
Phil Jackson passing on Thibdeau is another swing and miss as team president. It was unfathomable to me to see Jackson not even consider Thibdeau, when the last time the Knicks were really successful, Thibdeau was in charge of their defense. Jackson prioritize the triangle over everything, even over hiring a defensive genius. Porzingis is Jackson's only saving grace, and KP has been looking more like a long-term project (so far) this season than he did his rookie season. (I expected it, Almost every Knicks rookies takes drastic steps back in their second seasons.) Porzingis is a good player, but is the weakest player in NBA history. A PG could bump into him on a rebound attempt and he folds like a cheap lawn chair the second there is contact. He was weak last season, but seems to have gotten weaker. It could be a early-season condition thing, but to go along with his extreme lack of strength, his energy level has been VERY low. I've never seen a defense dynamo with low or inconsistent energy. His 3-point shooting and rebounding has been "meh" too. He has added a crossover though. Maybe next off-season he will develop a counter to the crossover.
I just want to see good basketball. Other than Linsanity and Woodson's 54-win season, I've seen everything but "good basketball" watching the Knicks since (at least since the 90s). Even in the 54-win season I knew this team wasn't going to be a threat in the playoffs because Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith were their two best scoring options. When a team needs to depend of J.R. Smith to be their second scorer, that is DESTINED to fail. This is why he can't get a deal with a team that doesn't have 3-4 clearly better offensive options.
At worst, I thought I would see an explosive offensive team (while everyone is healthy) and solid defense, but I had no idea I would see worse defense than with Amar'e, Bargnani, or Calderon. Bargnani looked better on defense than Noah or Porzingis this season. Now, Carmelo is entering that Amar'e stage of his career: Still good enough to be effective on offense, but a net-negative defensive player. Just the luck of a Knicks fan.
Hopefully, they can improve or this is going to be a VERY long season. Maybe longer than 17-win season, because at least they played solid defense, played decent early in the season, and Lance Thomas could actually still shoot.
Noah could have had a nice alley oop from Lee of the PnR in the first quarter but he couldn't jump high enough to get it. He couldn't jump at all. That's not a good look...
As long as the defense doesn't get their act together, this team's ceiling is mid-lottery. There's a ton of indecisiveness on that end right now and it absolutely kills. KP is the best example of it truly, he's too far from his man but also just far enough from the lane that he can't slow down a driving player or be a true rim protector. He's caught in the middle and it takes away all impact, so Harden has his lanes and Ryan Anderson has his looks. This applies to most everyone though, Justin Holiday being the only obvious exception. The squad needs to make a decision, either you want to force the ball handler to pass or you want to force him to take a contested shot inside but they're leaving all options on the table. They made it easy for everybody all night, literally everybody.
Rose: 16 points on 18 attempts is brutal and to exacerbate that, 0 FTA's. He started strong on drives but really fell off and settled for a lot of midrange jumpers as it progressed which made me wonder about fatigue being a factor. He and Melo both have to pick their spots and last night he chose his own number far too often. The offense runs better through Noah and the one time Melo decided to be a passer, it ran better through him too. Like I said then, if Noah and Melo are focused on creating than Rose becomes a great weapon but with Melo's focus on scoring you end up with a predictable offense that has no rhythm to it.
Lee: Offensively, how much more could you ask for? Defensively, he was probably the best indicator of how confused our pick and roll defense had become. He tried to go over the screens early and picked up fouls; he started going under which left large passing lanes that Harden ate up; then he tried switching a few times and got caught behind the rolling big...he couldn't figure anything out and the communication between he and the big men wasn't strong enough to resolve this.
Melo: 21 and 7 on 15 attempts and over 50% from the field. That's not a bad line of scoring, but he only had 1 assist and 5 TO's; same issue as Rose here. He called his number every time, which made a bit more sense in that he was legitimately scoring well, but it became predictable and that meant dribbling into double and triple teams for UGLY turnovers. Defensively, he actually made some alright weak side plays (put Sam Dekker on head with a clean block that got called a foul) and his man was the least effective offensive piece. He and Rose need to both realize that they HAVE to get others involved and he's shown himself to have that sort of awareness just last season (even in Memphis). You pray that film sessions and time will help; but it's impossible to predict a mentality shift from players.
KP: He can't defend stretch fours because he's so focused on the ball handler. He had some moments at the rim, but he consistently let a top 3 point shooting PF have massive space to knock down threes. On offense he was as passive as can be; not even aggressive in getting position or making cuts. This was literally the worst game of his young career. He's too talented not to figure things out, but the second quarter was especially scary. He was in there with a struggling second unit and didn't do a thing to assert himself and demand the ball.
Noah: D'antoni neutered this dude with small ball line-ups that went so tiny we had Melo at Center for a while. He still managed to lead the team in assists, he's still the guy to run the ball through because he does a better job of picking spots for Melo and Rose than they do for themselves. If you want to see the other end of the confusion on PnR defense, he's a good one to check for as he tried a similar array of approaches to Courtney Lee with zero success.
KOQ: Actually looked like a good bench player in his short time out there but like with Noah, the small ball run and gun approach from D'antoni kept him off the floor.
Holiday: The most assertive player after Rose, Melo and Lee wasn't KP, Noah, Jennings or anyone but this guy. He was forcing things at times, but I wasn't mad because the second unit was completely passive. He almost sparked a run at one point but after that he was ice cold. I appreciated his defensive effort above everyone else at least.
Ndour: I figured out what makes me appreciate Ndour so much, it's how hard he cuts off the ball. He sprints through every play with authority so that even as limited as he is, he gets involved in things and is in the right place at the right time for situations (unfortunately his limitations mean that doesn't work out every time but still). With Lance playing such bad offense, Ndour is closer to the "why not try him" spot for me.
Lance: Looked okay out there compared to other times but hurt himself and took a backseat from there.
Jennings: Jennings needs to play with the starters more. He's got better awareness than Rose and more creative passing to boot. Off the bench he wreaked havoc on offense. Unfortunately though, his defense was arguably the worst of all. Still, his feel for the game has had me saying Rose should come off the bench until he learns the offense since game one and I still think that's the right approach. The second unit needs an assertive scorer and though Jennings is capable, flipping the two (Rose/BJ) would put both in better situations for their skill sets at least in the early interim.
Sasha: I wasn't sure why he was out there when he got early reps, but you know what? At least it was a chance for Ron Baker to flat out outplay this cat.
Baker: Shot poorly but my God was the kid involved in a lot of things. From tipping the ball out for offensive boards to making smart passes and off ball movements, he just did a lot of the glue stuff that this unit misses from time to time. He even got matched up with Harden a few times which is good experience if nothing else.
Hornacek: He does the creeper grin of a dude who is trying to bottle up his rage and will explode at some point in ugly fashion; but on the bright side it's at moments when I'm letting the rage out by screaming at a t.v screen so who's the real lunatic here? I'm hoping the fact that he clearly recognizes the crap decisions with that maniacal look means that he's gonna unleash in film sessions. He let D'antoni be the lead in their rotation decisions all night, but actually the smallest line-up wound up giving the Knicks a short lived run until James Harden decided to stop messing around and shoot again (yes James Harden on a back to back was able to take a break from shooting for almost an entire quarter and only started up when there was a semblance of a comeback in the air to choke the life out of the arena and players). His post game interviews have that feeling of a dude who is trying hard to stay patient but on the verge of breaking down and throwing flames at everyone. Seriously, there was a weird Dexter thing going on last night. You can tell he's knowledgeable but until it shows in defensive improvement and decision making shifts; his psychopath "do you know I got these scars deep inside my soul" grin is the equivalent of D-Fish's aimless "I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to do something, let's put in five new guys at once" stare off into space.
WesleyExChiFan wrote:Noah could have had a nice alley oop from Lee of the PnR in the first quarter but he couldn't jump high enough to get it. He couldn't jump at all. That's not a good look...
it was a little behind him and mistimed, to be fair.
obviously, more athletic players compensate for that. but noah isn't a "throw it anywhere in the vicinity" player.
MP4LIFE wrote:KP should bulk up more and play center. At the end of the day he will be his most dominant at that position on both ends of the floor.
Consider he has about 2 posts moves, maybe not.
Since when does your center need to post up for more than 3-4 possessions in a game? We just played two teams that has center that cant shoot outside of 1 feet from the hoop. He doesn't have their strength, but he has other skills that far outclasses those two.
Name me a great center who played primarily outside the whole game. I'll wait. Not good center. Not very good center. Great center.
KG? Not a center, had a post game, dominant inside where KP isn't. Brad Miller? Not great Sabonis? Great outside shooter AND great inside player AND great passer. KP doesn't compare in 2 of 3 categories here Laimbeer? Possibly. Also, very good, but not great. Sikma? Possibly. Not great. LaFrentz? Not great Sam Perkins? Not great
I guess if we got a "good" player with the number 4 pick, then yeah, let KP be a jump shooting center.
Knickstape1214 wrote:Are more people coming around to me being right about Rose...?
I never thought Rose would be great but come on, the offense is a sh*t show.
Rose is adept at getting to the rim. Yes he's blown some layups. But if we were running what Hornacek ran in Phoenix, he'd have room to operate.
Not sure what the offense is though. I guess The Polygon. Four unequal sides and one player who's not an offensive threat.
He's been missing layups at the rim for years. Not expecting hat to change. What still bothers me is his bad shot IQ - he simply takes way too many shots and a bunch of them are bad shots.
Yes, the offense is a **** show...but there's a reason why it looks better with Jennings. Rose has been, and always will be, a shoot first guard with bad vision and a horrendous shot IQ. He simply has not adopted since injuries derailed his career.
Move Rose to the bench and let him be selfish with the bench unit because they need a scoring punch (even if it is one with **** efficiency) and move Jennings to the SL because he's looking to pass more and has good chemistry with KP.
I get he's a shoot first PG. This isn't a mystery to most fans and shouldn't be the the Knicks staff, from president on down. They need to utilize his strengths.
Then again, considering Grandad Melo and KP can't create anything for themselves, maybe a passing PG would have been nice.
Oh well, another "Land of Misfit Toys" Knicks squad.
I just dont get how anyone can be a Melo fan. He's done nothing and has accomplished nothing in his time here. Not totally his fault since management sucks but Melo will be remembered as another Marbury aka a loser here.
Coaching staff and FO need to wake up in 2016 where star big men can start a fast break and finish it. Porzingis is a C, he should start playing C and start playing like one, full time. Put him off the bench if you have to, Noah will break down before new years anyway. Nobody wants a 7'3 Ryan Anderson.
echelonNYK wrote:The Knicks should've went and got Thibodeau. I said this plenty of times during the coach search.
Should have gotten Thibodeau. Should have had Anthony involved in trying to convince someone like Wade to sign with NY. Should have realized that Porzingis' future is a C and Carmelo at PF and focused on getting an athletic do all wing that can defend the perimeter instead of a big money C. Should have realized that this team doesn't have guys that can create for themselves and gone for a PG that can actually create for others. Should have figured out what style of ball to play and gotten players that actually fit that style instead of expecting the players to change their style to fit the system. Should have realized the bench is ass and gotten better players. But hey, let's give them more time to gel. Like we haven't seen that time doesn't solve most things in Knick land (see last 15 years).
If we go win now, yeah. If not...#prayforMarkelle. 
