Woodson still loves the small ball. Pirgioni, Felton & Shump all starting. When Tyson comes back, I'd start Martin over Pirg. It's safe to say that Shump is close to 100% finally. His defense was really good last night, even when he was on Paul Pierce. I want him in the starting lineup, to guard the elite PGs and SGs out there. Ideally, I think the starting lineup should be Felton, Shump, Melo, Chandler & Martin. JR is a good 6th man, and we still have Jason Kidd and Pirg coming off the bench along with the other bigs (Camby / Thomas) and then White or Copeland as the 10th if necessary man, although Woodson usually sticks with 8 or 9 man rotation, depending . No Amar'e hurts, but it's funny because we still seem to play better when he's not on the floor. The team is looking more like the season opening team that was all about tough physical D, low turnovers, feeding off Melo and nailing most open 3 pointers. It seems like we're back to that level without Stats, as much as I hate to say that. The D is noticeably different, even without Chandler. Tonight will be a tough one, but without Rudy Gay, who's been a Knick killer the last year and change, we have a good chance to pull it off.
Let's hold off on benching Prigs: John Schuhmann @johnschuhmann 4h NYK is a +256 (& much better offensively) in 1,342 minutes w/ 2 of their 3 PGs on the floor. They're a -21 in 1,972 other minutes. Maybe it's just a coincidence but our best ball has been with Felton/Kidd starting and Felton/Prig starting. We went through turbulent times when Kidd and Prig and Felton were all alone by themselves. So let's hold off on benching Prigs. Chandler at the 5, Melo at 4. Roll that way with KMART locking down the bench rotations with Camby sporadically as not to give him big minutes.
Grizz try to hide ZBO on Shump sinc they went 2 bigs and we went KMART. Shump burning ZBO easily, 5-5 right now. That;s how you beat someone going big there
Not a huge basketball fan but I am getting attached to this Knicks team more and more. What happened in Memphis that Knicks players want this game so badly?
We were 6-0 and on fire. We went to Memphis and they just beat us down phyiscally and basketball wise. Just beat us good, Knicks lost their temper, got technical fouls, started arguing with the refs, started whining a lot. Woodson doesn't like when they whine, bet he reminded them of the beatdown and one of Woodson's mantras is "protect homecourt" which the Knicks are doing now. This looks like how they played in November when they went 18-5. THe ball movement, the open shots, and the dribble drive opening up the open shots. they aren't going to fall every night (like last night in Boston) but they are driving a lot which helps when shots don't fall
Knicks letting the refs get to them. Were up 30 at one point. Then Memphis took 10 free throws in the first 5 minutes of the 3rd. Camby got called for a very questionable call. It should have been a normal foul. He jumped up and landed with his arm on Gasol's shoulder. THey called a flagrant 1, very strange. In the 90s that wouldn't have been a regular foul. Camby then got tossed after Gasol shoved him to the ground. They called a foul on Camby, Camby got T'ed up twice and tossed. Knicks need to cool down.
Lead is only 16 after 3. We were up 30. If we don't do anything stupid like get into the penalty with 8 minutes left in the quarter, we should hold on
Great game. Amazing how the knicks reputation that if you play them very physical they tend to lose their cool all started down in Memphis after the 6-0 start and here we are again...Camby being t'ed up twice with no Chandler? What the hell was he thinking? Hey...I take the losing the lead with a grain of salt because you are not going to roll by everyone. They held on. Great job. Tough part of the schedule is starting to look like a run will continue. Friday night Charlotte and then home to Boston Sunday. Boston will be pissed and want this one but with what? No Garnett...they will be lucky to hold on to the 7th spot. And Smith? The young man is either teasing us...or about to hit the next level of great talent and now smarter player. His conversion of going to the rim has made him a deadly threat. He can go to the hoop..pull up...or hit the three with the respect he commands of going by people. Where does he go from here and are we seeing a guy loaded with talent finally putting all the pieces of the puzzle together..because he makes this team very very hard to beat.
But you notice that if Smith actually focuses on driving to the basket instead of chucking shots he'd be averaging 20+ a game easy He gets rebounds in bulk too
^^ USually the difference between a JR Smith bad and good game was his shot falling. That's it. He would take all the same shots and if they fell, good JR showed up, if they didn't bad JR showed up. He was unique that way. Now we have another level of good JR, the one that drives to the hoop at reckless abandon and helps shoulder the scoring load. Woodson also smart is spelling Felton so he doesn't have the bulk of the play running duties. He takes over here and there, but he's letting Felton play off the ball and attack the D while it's shifting or mismatched. Melo shot started heating up at the end of the 4th quarter so that's a good sign moving forward. Bobcats and Celtics are the next 2 I think
