Totally agree in that the post is to a certain extent, senseless. But, he does have 1 valid point - which I am not sure if he even attempted to make. The problem with JR Smith is: He is very erratic. I believe Woodson has an agreement with him, play defense - shoot as much as you want. I cannot come up with any explanation as to why JR shoots the ball 20 times a game. His lines are horrible. But, the key to JR in this system is that he is now playing defense. Strong defense. Another important aspect of JR game is his ability to rebound. Would I like him to take fewer shots? Of course. This is completely on Woodson and Carmelo. You think Kobe or LeBron would let a 6th man come in and shoot the ball 20 times a game? No. In fact, there are times in which JR completely takes everyone out of the offense. More often than not you will see him dribble the ball around in 1 spot and then chuck. Times in which Melo doesn't even touch the ball. That is the ridiculous part. Woodson has openly said he thinks JR could put up a 20, 5, 5 line as a guy coming off the bench. A mistake IMO. You cannot run an ISO game for 2 players when they are both on the court at the same time. Also, ISO game will NOT win rings. It will make a for a fun season and a great stat line at most. Now to the point of should Amare start? I don't see a problem with it. JR Smith comes in early as it is. If Woodson wanted to start Amare he could, it just means he will have to come out of the game relatively early too. Not a big deal IMO. Amare will eventually start anyway. I don't want to go too into the rotation because we already discussed this previously. Knicks have a deep team, and this problem is one many other teams would like to have. My issue is directed towards Woodson. This relates to what I said earlier. The ISO game. It does not win rings. I love Melo, guy is freaking unbelievable. Him coming to the Knicks was a dream come true. But he cannot on his own beat the Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, or any of the big teams in the West. He needs to get Amare involved offensively. When he plays Amare and Melo and goes ISO Melo, the entire team just stops moving. No one knows what to do. He has also made JR a priority over Amare on offense. Another problem. There were times when Amare had position and JR who has the green light, would just chuck the ball up. Unacceptable. Its also difficult a lot to ask Amare to play tough defense, run up and down the court when he is barely touching the ball on the offensive end.
JR averages 15.3 shots a game. He hasn't taken 20 or more shots since the IND games where Melo was suspended. He shot 7/15 yesterday, he's coming out of it I hope. Not sure why everyone acts like he shoots more than he does. And to your last point, that is completely ridiculous. Defense is part of the game. You play it to the best of your ability regardless of how many touches you get. We have Brewer and Thomas coming in for 2 minutes, not getting a single shot, but knowing to come in and play defense. Chandler had 1 shot all game. Shumpert had 5. Amare had 9. He has to play defense, no excuse because he doesn't touch the ball as much as Melo. The problem of the iso comes back to Melo/Amare/Chandler. There isn't much space to do much, and you can't go Melo/Amare because Amare can't anchor a defense. I would be interested in Melo/Amare/Sheed because Sheed could camp at the 3 point line offensively letting Melo/Amare in the paint. We snuck out a win but it wasn't a very good win. We saw the problems we saw last year with playing Melo/Amare/Chandler together, it turns into iso and it doesn't work well. Amare starting would just compound on our already slow starts. Amare works best in the pick and roll. Melo works best isolating him on one side. Isolating him on one side with Amare/Chandler on the court cuts down the cross court pass, and eliminates an extra shooter that could be open. When teams flood Melo's side with two bigs in the paint, it's one less rotation for the defense when passes out of it. Another big thing is Amare slips his screen everytime. Sometimes you have to stand there and set a good pick and wait for the jumper. If you slip everytime, it's a lot easier to guard the ball handler. Our great offense is Melo iso's except that he either has Chandler setting a pick allowing him to hit Novak/Smith in the opposite corner getting the straight assist. Or he kicks back out to Kidd who takes the shot. If Kidd doesn't like it, touch pass to Felton/Smith. If they don't like it they drive or kick to the corner or back to Kidd. It was all Melo Iso with the occasional Felton/Chandler pick and roll to get Melo open as a shooter. It was quick decision iso. He wouldn't dribble for hours or jab step for hours. It's turning back to slow decision iso with Amare out there. The lineup that easily played the most last night was Felton/Smith/Melo/Amare/Chandler for 16 minutes. THis line up scored 37 points and gave up 35 points. That's the lineup with the 3 to look at going forward.
I was on board with you until that. We are both Knicks fans. You watch every game as I do. You may be the ONLY person I know who will defend JR Smith shooting. Which is pretty ridiculous. Yes we are fans, but at least be realistic. The guy is shooting LESS than 40%. Lets just scroll through his numbers from the New Year. VS Blazers. 40 Mins, 10-22 vs Spurs. 27 Mins, 9-17 vs Magic. 31 Mins, 8-18 vs Celtics. 38 Mins. 7-18 vs Pacers. 40 mins. 10-29 vs Bulls. 38 Mins. 4-17 vs Hornets. 27 Mins. 3-11 vs Pistons. 38 Mins. 6-15 vs Nets. 37 Mins. 7-19 vs Boston. 34 Min. 3-16 vs Sixers. 27 Mins. 0-8 vs Hawks. 37 Mins. 7-15 You don't see a problem in that? Ok in a literal sense, he doesn't take exactly 20 shots. But I see a whole lot of close to 20's right there. The guy does shoot too much, and he shoots outside the offense. Now compare him to other players who will be in the 6th man discussion. Jamal Crawford, Ryan Anderson, Kevin Martin. ALL shoot less, all shoot better. To your second point. Are you really comparing Kurt Thomas and Ronnie Brewer to Amare? Amare ENTIRE GAME is predicated on what he does with the ball offensively. Brewer knows he is a defensive player and only there to play defense. So those are extremely bad examples. Why do you think Melo is playing so hard on defense? His touches are up. In Denver he only had 1 year comparable to this. Come on, lets not beat around the bush. This is New York, state it as it is.
The guy is in a slump. I would like if he took 2-3 less shots a game but's he not undermining the offense. He's making bad decisions that everyone on the offense has been doing except for maybe Kidd and Prigioni. I don't know how Woodson does it, but he has Smith and Melo committed to the game plan and rebounding and playing defense. If it means 4-6 stupid shots from them a game, I'll take it for the defense and rebounding. I'm not defending his shooting, but what do you really expect? He's in a slump and he will try to shoot out of it. Without Felton he was the only ball handler besides Melo who could drive into the paint or create his own shot. His shot attempts rose as he became a primary ball handler and we saw both Smith and Melo go into slumps when doing this. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think once we see more Felton/Kidd handling the ball, we'll see a more efficient and productive JR like we did in the first half of 2012. Yes I'm using Thomas and Brewer because that's what the team has been buying into. Brewer was started and now he's fine coming in to play two minutes a game for defensive purposes. Kurt Thomas had a few straight DNP, comes in and performs fine. Melo, steps out for the suspension, White/Copeland etc come up and play bigger minutes. It's what the team has been doing, the whole team has bought into it. If you think the only reason that Melo is playing defense is because his touches are up, that's crazy. It's because Woodson actually stresses it and holds them accountable. He'll rip Melo for doing something stupid just like he'll rip Brewer and Prigioni. Woodson, obviously we don't know how, has Smith and Melo playing defense and rebounding and caring. He has JR to stop going out late the night before games and stopping him from doing stupid stuff. He has Melo still crashing the boards and being in the defensive gameplan when his shots don't fall. I mean look at the BOS game for perfect example. Melo was ice cold except he warmed up in the 4th. JR Smith was ice cold. Our game winning bucket was Melo double teamed, passed out of it smartly and then JR hits the game winner. On the other end, great denial of the in bounds pass, Smith/Shump force a Pierce turnover to seal the deal. That's thel ittle things Melo didn't do under D'Antoni and Smith hasn't done under Karl. I believe Smith also played for D'Antoni for only a month or so? Amare needs to play defense too. His whole game is offense doesn't mean he doesn't have to play defense. It means he has to learn to play defense and not be a liability. He can't not play defense because he isn't getting touches. That's what Dwight was doing in LA. It's dumb. Basketball goes both ways and Amare is athletic enough to be an average defender. I agree with you, the problem with the offense is when it stagnates and it turns into Melo/Smith jumpers. To me this happens when we run Melo/Amare/Chandler on the floor. THe ball seems to stop. Woodson needs to fix this. The ball seems to move better when we have 2/3 or 1/3 on the floor. The problem is when the combo doesn't include Chandler, the defense drops dramatically as Amare can't anchor. THat should or can be fixed if Sheed can come back Regarding JR, I just don't see how everyone is surprised by this. He's been a streaky shooter his whole career and he's the best bad shot taker in the league. He jacks up a ton of shots and can catch on fire or be cold as ice. In his first 9 gmaes of the season he shot over .400 8 times under 1. The next 9, 1 over, 8 under. THe next 9, 7 over, 2 under. The next 9, 6 over, 3 under. In his last 6 (brigning us to ATL) he has shot under all 6 times. Look at that, constant streaky shooter. I don't see what's so unexcpected. He had a terrible stretch like this from Thanskgiving until middle of December. Nobody was yelling to trade him then. He is what he is and to be surprised/upset he shoots so much and is streaky is like being surprised the Knicks where Orange and Blue
Fingers crossed, Sheed too. If we can have a healthy roster and a division win in April, then the playoffs are gonna be crazy, might even get to the Finals then who knows. Can't wait, especially since i have 5 strips waiting for me :up:
If you take care of Chicago, we do have two 20 point wins against you. You guys were (are?) terrible at guarding the 3 and suck at rebounds. We are #1 in DRR and loveeeee shooting 3s. In fact if the regular season does carry over, we won't even need Melo to play in the games to beat you :breakdance:
Ohhhh playoffs will be crazy. I hope we avoid Chicago at all costs though. But I said this earlier in this thread, and it kind of holds up, we turn Rose into a high volume shooter and he doesn't play his best against us. I don't know if we could beat that defense over 7 games though.
I feel that the more we are exposed to their defense the better the chances of figuring it out, so a 7 games series gives the Knicks a better shot than a best of 5 or 3
I see what you're saying, Smith has been alright on the defensive end but he still commits some of the worst fouls I've seen. I just think he needs less minutes and he still sucks balls on offense. If Melo's constantly getting doubled there WILL be a man open, so there shouldn't be a need to swing it twice. Hit the open man and shoot the shot. Kurt hasn't seemed that bad on defense. Amare's been looking good. I want to see Shump, Amare, Melo, Chandler and Felton starting. Off the bench we can have Kidd, Smith, Pirg, Novak and Brewer (hopefully Camby or Sheed if they ever get healthy.) If Kidd was 100% it might work better, but he's old and we need to limit his minutes. I'd rather have a post up threat and a guy that gets a good amount of rebounds, blocks and points. Anthony and Stat open each other up and do good things for one another. It's like Braylon and Santonio but better. Plus Felton has chemistry with Stat. They HAVE been playing like a .500 team, which is why I said it. Mainly because their defense has vanished. The Felton injury was a big part of it as well. I just don't understand where the defense went. You're probably right, they just need some time to get settled back in with all the returning players from injury. It's just frustrating to see the same mistakes night in and night out. Poor 1st quarter performances. We seem to start every game slow as of late. Poor free throw shooting, especially in the clutch when it matters. Poor ball movement. Too much ISO. Poor fast breaks. Poor transition defense. Fast breaks happen just from missed shots and too much complaining to the refs. Get back on D! Poor defense of back door plays. Playing down to the competition. This is our team over the last month and a half. They need to improve most of these aspects if they plan to have a deep playoff run.
Amare and Melo still don't play off each other well. And the weak side shooter is just part of it. He kicks it to Kidd. While Kidd has an open shot it's not wide open and will be hotly contested. He swings to Felton. Felton has two choices with only one big, drive into the paint or shoot. He has a defender closing out on him. If he swings it one more time its WIDE OEPN shot. Those the good 3s. Good teams can get out of a double/flood really quickly, they can't recover all the way across the perimeter. It's a saying that gets mentioned a lot, but the ball moves faster than a defender can. The too much Iso I think is a problem with having Melo/Amare/Chandler out there. Once that's figured out, the iso will go down. We saw some great plays run late end of games when it was Felton,Kidd, Smith, Melo, Chandler earlier this year. I think we have to wait some to see Woodson figure out this combo. I think Amare off the bench is vital. Otherwise it can spark him for a long time with the bench and you have a post player/big man. With Chandler/Amare out there at the same time, huge risk of both of them picking up quick fouls. Amare is fouling at a very high rate right now and hasn't played over 30 minutes in a game yet. Especially with Camby/Sheed hurt, you can't run a lineup for a long time with Thomas as your remaining big man. He's solid defensively but he's obviously a step slow. And well when you get Amare back and Sheed and Camby go down the defense is going to slip. Felton is also an average defender at best. The worrisome part is we never put Shump on Jrue or Teague the last two games even though they were lighting up Felton. Amare needs to figure out the pick and roll defense quickly. He has shown flashes but often he just sticks to his man or gets lost in no man's land.
Good points. Felton & Stats do have good chemistry and have run the pick and roll very well. Chandler has been good as well, but with him it's either he dunks it, or gets fouled and goes 1 for 2 at the line. I'd rather see the majority of pick n rolls go through Stat because he's more of a threat in the paint at creating his own shot and teams won't just automatically foul him to exploit the weakness. If (and this is a HUGE if) Staudamire ends up stepping up his defensive game, I honestly wouldn't mind seeing Stat playing center to keep Melo at the 4, and bring Chandler off the bench. There's no doubt that they both play their best basketball at those respective positions. Stats was putting up 30 point games like it was nobody's business at center a couple years back with Felton. The problem with Chandler is he can't play clutch because teams will just foul him and getting to the line just isn't always worth it with him. He's a great communicator on D, however, but he seems to be losing his luster.
If Stat steps up his defensive game, he could close more and we could run for Melo/Stat lineups but Stat off the bench makes more sense. Then you have a defensive anchor for the bench unit, an offensive force at the 5 and Prig/Amare pick and roll with Smith,Shump, and Novak as the shooters? Sign me up. Everything makes more sense with Amare coming off the bench for throughout the game. But ending the game is a different story. I still don't think Chandler getting fouled is a problem. We rarely throw him the ball late. He is there because he is the best defender on the team, he can switch onto a PG on a scramble and still play solid defense, he opens up shooters as defenses collapse to respect the pick and roll, he sets the best screens on this team and he opens up shooters with his actual screens. And under two minutes, you can't foul someone without the ball. No team has even tried the Hack a Dwight strategy on us with Chandler. Amare will never be the same defender as Chandler, it just won't happen.
^Which is ranked around 114th in the league. That's bad. 70% from the line sounds good in theory, but it means that more than half the time he's going 1 for 2, which is why teams are more likely to foul him anytime he's near the basket. I'm not saying they hack a shaq him, but virtually every contested shot becomes a foul in the paint. It doesn't matter if it's late or early in the game, missed free throws add up. In a lot of those really close ones, a few made free throws will make all the difference in the game. There's a reason we don't go to him in the clutch. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy, but I feel Amar'e at the 5 and Melo at the 4 plays to their strengths and gives them the best chance to feed off of each other. It's fine for now, but if he keeps up his good play, we're going to want him starting and playing big time minutes. That's how he carried the team 2 years ago and had people chanting MVP.
That was my point. If the game was only offense you make sense. But it isn't and any perceived slight dip we take with Chandler on the floor offensively we more than make it up with Chandler defensively. Offensively Amare might put in more than Chandler, but he also is going to give up a lot more than Chandler. Also, we don't go to Chandler unless he's open on the roll. It makes sense because most recently ATL committed to stopping that roll to the bucket. 8 of Felton's 10 assists against ATL were for 3 pointers. This is because ATL packed the paint to collapse on Chandler rolling, deadly finisher at the rim. This left the shooters wide open without ever needing an extra pass. And with Amare on the floor, we would still go to Melo more often. Melo commands a double team, Amare doesn't. Melo can score from more places on the court than Amare and Melo is a better passer out of the post/doubled. Melo can drive to the bucket on top of that, something Amare can't do. (I think we all get really nervous once Amare starts trying to face up and dribble). I really don't understand how you don't see the value of Chandler right now. It boggles my mind. Unless hurt (the neck pain was worrisome) Chandler should be starting and ending games. Theoretically we would score like crazy with Melo and Amare and out there (although their styles don't suit each other) yet defensively, every team would just run a pick and roll with Felton/Amare and would get easy buckets or fouls all day long.
But the Knicks will definitely hold more confidence if we meet you in the playoffs based off the regular season. When you can coast like you guys do after a championship, regular season doesn't matter. When your like us, you need to be able to beat them in the regular season and get over that hump to mentally take care of the mi nthe playoffs
