Right now, it looks like we will be playing Miami. It will be difficult to catch up with Atlanta. I would like to face the Heat in the first round. Should be an interesting series.
Good game tonight. Good defense and we got some contributions from the second unit, which is awesome. That doesn't happen too often.
That game should wash the bad taste from the Cavs game outta everybody's mouth. That was a decent Hawks team the Knicks trashed last night. Best part is, two outta our "Big Three" either didn't play or had a bad game. That was STAT and Co. doing their thing last night. TD held it down at point, then the bench came in snapping. Haven't seen a shooting display like that in the 4th quarter for a while by our Knicks. Instead of Gallo sitting outside heaving up stones, Carter, Williams, Fields, even Roger Mason Jr. shot lights out down the stretch with Melo having an off shooting night. Now we are starting to see the longer bench everyone has been clamoring for because D'ant now has guys he trusts. We are also seeing better effort on the defensive side as well. "Playoff? You wanna talk about Playoffs...."
Everybody keeps talking about how poor offensively Melo was last night but the truth of the matter is he made plays for teammates and ran the offense. TD did a great job at the point as well with solid play on both sides, and the true hero of the game was anthony carter with a great spark every minute he played. This game should of been a moral builder, and when bigshot comes back the offense will run more smoothly. Shoutout to STAT for bein a true leader, when you show effort the team follows. STAT n MELO over WADE n JAMES anyday!!!
Last night I thought Anthony Carter was the main reason why everyone else's defensive intensity went up a notch in the 2nd half, & that was when the Knicks really started to make their run & take the Hawks out of it, but after the game MDA singled out & heaped effusive praise on Jared Jeffries for his defense on Al Horford in the PnR. I will never understand his unnatural affection for this man. OK, JJ's a decent defender but can we give credit where it's due? My feeling is MDA is trying a little too hard to justify his decision to push for the return of Jeffries to the roster at the cost of us losing Corey Brewer. Maybe I'm reading a little too much into his comments but to me Anthony Carter was the defensive star of last night's game. He set the tone in the 3rd quarter & the rest of the team's energy level shot up dramatically the rest of the way.
To be fair... The Knicks came out of the gates playing with defensive intensity. Anthony Carter simply added to the intensity that was already set; as it should be, for every player on the team. AC is important to us, but JJ is even more important. We lack the size already & Jeffries really goes bring energy, heart & toughness to our defense. Credit to AC though, the old man can still hustle & play.
I honestly did not see anything special out of JJ in the 1st half of the game. Al Horford had a horrible game & was absent on both ends of the floor, not just on offense. I personally don't think it was Jeffries' defense that took him out of the game as much as it was just Al not bringing any intensity on either end last night. He was probably out partying with Melo the night before because obviously neither one of those guys had their A games going.
Seriously though, the Hawks were very much in the game throughout the 1st half until AC came off the bench & started throwing his body around snatching the ball out of Jeff Teague's hands & igniting fastbreak baskets for the Knicks in the 3rd quarter. That was what won the game for the Knicks, the Hawks only scored 14 pts that quarter. After that I saw guys like Toney Douglas, Shawne Williams & even Roger Mason turning up their defensive energy 10 notches the rest of the way & everyone was hitting their 3's to ice the game, but AC was the catalyst, not Jeffries. Not a big deal who gets the credit but I mean when a guy comes off the bench & makes that kind of impact the least you can do is give the guy some props in your postgame instead of just a cursory reference. Instead MDA gave Jeffries the main credit for setting the tone defensively last night. Shameless nepotism if u ask me.
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