Game Thread: New York Knicks @ Atlanta Hawks 8:00pm 1/5/2016

mafra said:

30 points and 10 assists from our starting G duo (Calderon-Affalo)... Keep saying till I am blue in the face... When we get even average production from the back court... We can win most games.

I think Williams gave us another spark off the bench... PORZ really neutralized Milsap and Affalo... His height bothered then.

Jose was efforting his butt off... Missed a few open looks and got toasted down the stretch... But he made the game-winning bucket.

Melo was impactful on defense... Key steal late in game... He rebounded and led team in assists...

Would love a win in MiA... Gonna be tough.

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I have been screaming for more playing time for D WILL since the exhibition season. Now with the 9 man rotation he will get the time to produce as we saw with his 15 points tonight.....and a highlight dunk to go with much needed 3 at crunch time.

DrB said:

I have been screaming for more playing time for D WILL since the exhibition season. Now with the 9 man rotation he will get the time to produce as we saw with his 15 points tonight.....and a highlight dunk to go with much needed 3 at crunch time.

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I would run a 11 man rotation by giving 6 bench-players burn in the first half of the game tonight.
Fisher has to come-up with a strong strategy for all our B2B games, esp. our B2B road games.
With or without 7 foot Whiteside the Miami Heat is dangerous to beat on their home court.
We are 0-2 against Miami Heat this season .. its time for a Knicks win in Miami.

OK .. who are thrilled about Melo playing 40 minutes of good-defense the last two games beside me?
I actually fell out my recliner laughing when Melo rush to push Bazemore off of KP chest, it was such a surprise the officials didn't give Melo a technical too .. CTFU

DrB said:

I have been screaming for more playing time for D WILL since the exhibition season. Now with the 9 man rotation he will get the time to produce as we saw with his 15 points tonight.....and a highlight dunk to go with much needed 3 at crunch time.

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Fisher is an idiot if he doesn't play DWill every game in that second unit.

DrB said:

I have been screaming for more playing time for D WILL since the exhibition season. Now with the 9 man rotation he will get the time to produce as we saw with his 15 points tonight.....and a highlight dunk to go with much needed 3 at crunch time.

Click to expand...

It's obvious... Williams and Thomas are basically our 6th & 7th starters. They're both our "6th men" spark plugs who we need nightly to give us 20 combined points.

These two are arguably our best wing players...

Williams is showing that he is growing more as a player... Maturing... With that leeway he's been afforded. He needed to work thru it... Not the type to learn by spending a vacation in a dog house.

Giving some wiggle room and playing time... Lo and behold... He is playing better defense and rebounding.

Plus... Our best unit is Williams, Thomas, Melo, PORZ and Calderon. It just works really well.

Something good came from the JR-Shump trade... LT! And... Williams just might be a relative bargain if he continues to gives us points and athleticism off the bench.

Williams is 9th in minutes for NYK but he is second on the team in FT attempts (if not first)...