Everything you said is cool, but I don't need Landry Fields thinking he's at Stanford, and he can go off against NBA players. You don't want him taking more than 7-9 shots a game. Steve Novak is a good player, in his own right, that's the issue tho...he's a pigeonholed, role player, he thrives off of other teammates' interior success, and game planning. If help doesn't have to come from his man, he's taken out of the game plan. Baron Davis is an older PG with injury woes, so when the team needs the ball pushed into the middle of the defense, he's just walking it up at a snail's pace.
This is what Melo has had to work with the past two games.
We need Shump to stick to the opposing team's best player/ball handler, so with his harassing style of play, it allows everyone else to stay at home on their man. I counted a couple of times, last night, where Fields was on LeBron, and Melo was sagging off of his man to give help. The ball was kicked to Melo's assignment, who then got his shot off (Chalmers a few times), same with JR and his man.
I'm not saying the Knicks are in a position to win the series with Shump playing, but they most certainly have no shot without him. You don't want Fields guarding LBJ or Wade, 1-on-1...as a matter of fact, you can't have that. But you also can't help off of Chalmers, Miller, Battier, or Jones.
See...when I start seeing (and hearing) people say things like "they have potentials to be discovered. They're NBA players. They need to believe. Theoretically, you need 6 guys to defend Miami's big three" I start getting royally pissed off. I don't mean to attack anyone, I don't wanna be
THAT GUY, but none of that means anything.
Every single player on the Knicks can believe with their heart of hearts that they can accomplish anything in the world...and if Baron Davis walks the basketball up the court, while Miami gets set 1 thru 5, on the defensive end...we're playing into their hands.
If Baron walks it up, eats up 6-7 seconds doing so; keeps his dribble while looking around, Miami is denying Melo all the way out past the 3 point line, he finally gets the ball with about 13 seconds left on the clock, he's now standing at the free throw line extended (way out on the wing), he looks up, and he sees Novak blanketed, Tyson fronted, Baron on the other god damn side of the court -- opposite free throw line extended, and JR desperately trying to get away from Wade or Chalmers....what does Melo do? Is it selfish for him to try to get his own shot there? Where does he apply his truly unselfish mind, and go with the ball?
And in scenarios where Melo is being fronted about 18 feet from the cup, why does Baron....after he expends the 6-7 seconds walking it up...why does he take another 2-3 seconds trying to make the perfect lob pass to Melo behind the man fronting him? Now once again, Melo finally gets the ball, 13-14 seconds on the shot clock, he's either blitzed with another defender, sent baseline so the help can meet him at the rim, or he faces up, and sees what I described in the previous paragraph.
What is he to do?
To avoid those situations, the team needs to get into it's offense quicker. I don't want to blame Baron, because he's trying. But if he's not gonna push in transition, then he needs to attack in the half court set a bit more....I counted Baron getting to the rim twice in the game yesterday. Once for a floater, and the other where he shook Miller. Conversely, Lin lived in the paint.
These are the kind of things you need to look at, but people don't...then they approach me with "Oh man, Melo is so selfish dawg", and all I can think is:
Alright.....rant over.....
In case I hurt some feelings or whatever, it's nothing personal. I have people that I see everyday that says wild ****, so when I come on here and see some of the stuff said. I activate beast mode.