If this is not a coaching issue, what is it?

Up 11? Cool. TD come in the game and break everything please. Gave up the lead? Good job, have a seat next to me.

Need two points to tie? Novak, get in the game. Ok guys, we have time for one play, we only need 2...here's the play NO ONE ****ING MOVE ON THE INBOUND, Novak you're the man, get behind the line.

Novak: you sure coach? I've had my warm ups on...literally the whole game, you know we only need two right?

MDA: mmmmm aaaaarrrghhhhh uhhhhhhh j-j-j-j-j-just get.....mmmmm.......you know.....ahhhh.......open and shoot.


Knicks lose.

knickzrulezH20 said:

Lack of depth in my opinion.

Guys we traded 4 starters to get Melo, and Fields has disappeared since the trade, so you can say we sorta lost 5 starters to get Melo.

Bill Walker, Landry Fields, Josh Harrelson, Toney Douglas, 50 year old Mike Bibby, Steve Novak, Jeremy Lin, Jarred Giraffries, Shump (to erratic)

Those are are "key" role players to surround our 3 best players. Come on guys, thats a total joke. If you ask non-NY Knicks fans who those players are, they'd draw a blank.

We are devoid of talent beyond our big three. Hopefully B-Diddy plays like he did in Cleveland but who knows with his age and back. And even then he's only one piece.

Do you know how good our team would be had Melo just freaking signed in the offseason. Stupid stupid Dolan.

Click to expand...

Bingo we have a winner!!!! MD does deserve some blame but not all of it.The day they traded for Melo was the day they destroyed what could have been a very good team for MD.Thanks Dolan for nothing!!!!:barf:

We traded 4 starters...one of which being Mozgov....we upgraded him to TC, so now we're down to 3. Felton, Wilson, and Gallo...a PG and 2 small forwards. The key piece we got back was a small forward. So had we "waited" for Melo, we would have had 4 small forwards on the roster Melo, Gallo, Wilson, and Fields. How do you play 4 small forwards in a short D'Antoni rotation? How do you play 4 small forwards at all?

We already have an SF playing out of position at the 2, but had we retained Gallo and Wilson, it would be Gallo at the 2..with Wilson and Fields coming off the bench. Half of D'Antoni's 8 man rotation would have been 3s.

So we traded 2 small forwards, a Pg, and a center, and got back a top-3 small forward, and by way of Billups' contract, a top-3 center.

What's bad about that trade?

Yea, we don't have a traditional PG, but neither does Philly....but Jrue Holiday is asked to do what he can and they base the offense on everyone's strengths. The Knicks have 3 dominant front court players, and play outside in....yea....keeping Gall and Wilson from a 28-26 team would have solved all of the issues....a 4 way log jam at one position. Smart.

Jeff Van Gundy told us everything tonight.

All we needed to do is open our ears and we'd know by now what it is.

I opened my ears....but I actually knew it before.

I'm not very smart (despite having a Masters degree), but I think it's not that hard to realize our major problems and it doesn't really take Jeff Van Gundy to open my eyes........

seems like 99% of Knicks fans don't listen to the commentary, cause they're still SOLELY blaming coach D'Antoni......

I really don't know what to make of this fan base.....maybe we get what we deserve???

Sprewell-Houston said:

Jeff Van Gundy told us everything tonight.

All we needed to do is open our ears and we'd know by now what it is.

I opened my ears....but I actually knew it before.

I'm not very smart (despite having a Masters degree), but I think it's not that hard to realize our major problems and it doesn't really take Jeff Van Gundy to open my eyes........

seems like 99% of Knicks fans don't listen to the commentary, cause they're still SOLELY blaming coach D'Antoni......

I really don't know what to make of this fan base.....maybe we get what we deserve???

Click to expand...

I watched the game on MSG, didn't hear JVG.

Obviously the Knicks don't have the depth of a Philly or OKC. But that doesn't explain why Fields and Shump are accepting perimeter jumpshots when that's exactly what the defense is willing to give up.

The Celtics beat us with ball movement from the inside out, the Knicks kept swinging the ball around the perimeter and allowing themselves to either be closed on, or take shots outside of their comfort zone.

Tripucka talked about it on the post game show on MSG, you have guys taking shots outside of their comfort zone, and guys not being utilized all game so that way when they're forced to take a shot late, it's not foreign to them.

If I didn't see Lin come in the game in the first half, and penetrate, make passes, hustle, and play half way decent....then watch TD come in the second half and do the exact opposite while the Celtics go on a 14-5 run, maybe I'd give the depth excuse more credence.

I'm all about watching the games and looking at the intricacies throughout the game, not listening to a talking head (although sometimes they're right) on tv.

Your eyes and brain tell you that Lin wasn't hurting the Knicks in the first half. Your eyes and brain tell you that Toney Douglas was hurting the Knicks' offense in the second half. Your eyes and brain tell you that MDA left him out there for some reason, and the Knicks' 12 point lead was lost.

That has nothing to do with depth. Lin was serviceable early on, why go to TD later?

When we're down by 2 with virtually no time on the clock, why not bring in Novak to be a decoy and draw up some sort of play toward the rim? You had bodies running away from the ball and rim, and Novak got to the corner, sealed his man, and caught the ball, with Melo....curling around to a spot behind the 3PT line. Once again, we're down by 2, a 3 is not needed.

I understand playing to win, but do it in a sensible fashion, otherwise play to tie.

From a coaching stand point, there was no reason to allow Melo to keep Isoing and get double teamed in the second half.

Put him in the PnR so he HAS TO BE DECISIVE AND DO SOMETHING, to get the ball movement we had in the first half. You have to put guys in position for success, or to recapture past success.

But you have to see it and act on it. Have a reason for everything you do in the game.

This doesn't make me confident that he does that:



If you're saying that he needs starter quality on his bench, and he can't manage the parts that he does have to compliment his dominant frontline, then I'm telling you we don't have a coach.

I can not stress enough how dumb it was to bench Lin, who was playing well, for TD and then to leave Douglas in when he was having a poor performance.

What makes anyone confident that MDA would manage a good bench well? He's already not playing another young 7 footer in Jordan. In the past 2 years we've had Anthony Randolph, Timofey Mozgov, Jerome Jordan, and Tyson Chandler.

Three of those guys got less minutes than Jared Jeffries, two have moved onto other teams and are contributing, and the only one playing is a 10 year vet with a ring.

Bench depth isn't the sole problem, bench usage is a bigger issue.

Check out the 2nd reason on my list of MDA's faults.

nuckles2k2 said:

Baron Davis won't bring accountability from Melo all the way to Jordan, Davis won't be the reason why MDA better utilizes his timeouts (17-7 run on christmas before he stops the clock), Davis won't fix MDA's rotations for him.

Baron Davis might distribute the ball better than it's being distributed now.....there's a whole host of things to get thru before you get to his need of a PG.

1)Philosophical indifference
2)Inability or unwillingness to adjust to roster
3)Poor in-game manager
4)Seemingly horrible communicator based on his post-game interviews, and lack of response by players on court.
5)Definitely a poor motivator
6)Entire "system" is based on having a really, really, really, good, preferably an established veteran, PG. Can't adjust to a combo guard to make team run at high efficiency. So if he doesn't have his "pieces" he's not much of a coach.
7)Seemingly spends more time politicking with refs, than actually coaching.

I have 5 issues on my list before we get to the PG issue.

I think this is what Red is trying to get across to folks. This goes far beyond the box score, and how it was affected by our lack of a PG.

Click to expand...

Sprewell-Houston said:

I really don't know what to make of this fan base.....maybe we get what we deserve???

Click to expand...

Yep. The people demanding we trade for Melo at all cost really have no right to complain. This is what they asked for. Some of us could see this train wreck coming well before the trade even went down.

Again how can we blame Melo....

We are the only NBA team without a PG. And better yet we have a rookie SG playing PG........

YES Lin should play over Douglas but lets not kid ourselves once Lin gets playing times I am sure teams around the NBA will know how to defend his strengths and exploit his weaknesses...


We can all bitch and moan but without a PG a team of Kids or an NBA team cannot fuction....

I'm probably one of Melo's strongest critics. I never really liked him as a player and we obviously gave up way to much for him. That being said, you can't really blame him for doing what he does best and what he's been coached to do since high school, which is shoot, shoot, and when in doubt, keep shooting. Also to his credit, after losing so many games he asked if he was the problem. That show's he has character.