We stand at 14-14 with a tough 10 game schedule vs .500 teams

Great Knicks WIN lastnite vs Bulls !!!!!
Our record stands at 14-14
Home 7-7
Away 7-7

Our next scheduled 10 games will be against playoff teams with records above .500
How we make out on our next 10 games? Will evaluate our strategic hopes in making the playoffs, plus where we will be standing in wins at the end of the season, without trading Calderon (before deadline) to get a NBA starter PG.

1) Orlando
2) @ Cleveland
3) @ Atlanta
4) @ Boston
5) Detroit
6) @ Chicago
7) Atlanta
8) @ Atlanta
9) @ Miami
10) @ San Antonio

Realistically, I think 4-6 is what we should brace ourselves for. We have 7 road games, during the Holiday season... That's tough emotionally and physically.

Also, we are 7-7 on the road... and... We only have 3 wins against teams with a record above .500 (in TOR we got a gift from the official for not calling Melo out-of-bounds, in OKC we didn't have to face Durant, then we beat CHI at home sans Gasol after they played 4 OT the night before).

This team has consistently beaten teams they should be able to beat. Give them credit for that... There's also a feeling that Melo & Affalo are getting into mid-season type groove (perhaps the rust from Injury slowed their games this first 1/4 of the season)...

This squad seams to have chemistry, plays some defense, and is competing... These games are a perfect gauge to see where we are at and where we may head come April and May...

I think a positive 6-4 run will have management thinking about an impactful trade to help this team win this year....

But... Seriously... All of these teams are good... I suspect we will steal a game or two, we will get waxed in a few... Then the other 5 games will boil down to execution in the 4th.

If Quinn, Thomas, Galloway, Williams continue to give us production... And the CA-AA-KP trio banks 50+ points on a nightly basis... CHA-Ching.

mafra said:

Realistically, I think 4-6 is what we should brace ourselves for. We have 7 road games, during the Holiday season... That's tough emotionally and physically.

Also, we are 7-7 on the road... and... We only have 3 wins against teams with a record above .500 (in TOR we got a gift from the official for not calling Melo out-of-bounds, in OKC we didn't have to face Durant, then we beat CHI at home sans Gasol after they played 4 OT the night before).

This team has consistently beaten teams they should be able to beat. Give them credit for that... There's also a feeling that Melo & Affalo are getting into mid-season type groove (perhaps the rust from Injury slowed their games this first 1/4 of the season)...

This squad seams to have chemistry, plays some defense, and is competing... These games are a perfect gauge to see where we are at and where we may head come April and May...

I think a positive 6-4 run will have management thinking about an impactful trade to help this team win this year....

But... Seriously... All of these teams are good... I suspect we will steal a game or two, we will get waxed in a few... Then the other 5 games will boil down to execution in the 4th.

If Quinn, Thomas, Galloway, Williams continue to give us production... And the CA-AA-KP trio banks 50+ points on a nightly basis... CHA-Ching.

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Very timely thread Kiya and a great post Mafra. With the rotation seemingly set, the next 9 against conference rivals should be a good barometer of where we stand. The way things are shaping up, I don't think a sub .500 record is going to be good enough to get that 8th seed in the EC this year so .500 or above in the next 9 may tell you what our chances are to make the playoffs in a tougher EC this year.

The wild card for the Knicks is Porzingis, NBA teams are clamping down on him playing him more physical and pushing him out further from the basket. He needs to get untracked for the Knicks to make some noise the next 9 games. I do hope the Knicks can finally trade JC, he's not in the Knicks future. If we package JC and Seraphin maybe that's an attractive package to get an up tempo PG.

To me our wild-card players for a win every night are .. Lance, Gallo, Quinn, Grant, and KP.Zingis, giving us great 2-way performance.

I always hated the way the Knicks organization advertise their star player, as if the rest of the Knicks players doesn't exist.
All Knicks article every year around this time were all about Melo and his none producing teammates.
This year all our players are producing to give us a 14-14 record, but the Knicks organization has the sports media sticking to putting up a 100 hype articles about K.Porzingis, to Melo's 25 hype articles, and nothing good about our other Knicks players

They're winning with the role players like LT and Quinn along with Melo and AA in the latest winning streak.

kp6 needs to step up more than he has to better a .500 mark in the next 10 I would think. I've given up on Rolo being a factor.

Well... We lost a home game to ORL when game was 89-88 with 5 to play. To be honest... 1-9 is gonna be a reality soon. I think we might beat ATL once... Only bc we play them 3 times... Bound to win 1 of those 3, right?

But we won't beat CLE, MIa, SA... We won't win in CHI or BOS. It's possible we beat DET, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Terrible loss tonight.

Probably the worst schedule in the entire NBA. Did whoever put these 10 games into this order want the Knicks to make fools of themselves?

knicksin60 said:

Probably the worst schedule in the entire NBA. Did whoever put these 10 games into this order want the Knicks to make fools of themselves?

Click to expand...

You realize when the schedule was put together all teams were 0-0? The NBA doesn't reshuffle the schedule after every game!

If we are who you think we are then you're looking at this next stretch of games without too much worry but maybe just maybe....

knicksin60 said:

Probably the worst schedule in the entire NBA. Did whoever put these 10 games into this order want the Knicks to make fools of themselves?

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I always wondered how these schedules are put together because there has to be a system or logic behind them but ATL 3 times in the next 10, that's bizarre.

i also was puzzled about that thing, i thought there was a computer doing the job following some basic algorithms (such as the number of games a team must play against the other teams, the availability of the arena, etc) but it seems it's more than just that. in fact there's a guy who's been doing this job for the past 25 years (with some help from a software of course) and i found this nice piece at truehoop where they interviewed him
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/19219/how-to-build-the-nba-schedule

mafra said:

Well... We lost a home game to ORL when game was 89-88 with 5 to play. To be honest... 1-9 is gonna be a reality soon. I think we might beat ATL once... Only bc we play them 3 times... Bound to win 1 of those 3, right?

But we won't beat CLE, MIa, SA... We won't win in CHI or BOS. It's possible we beat DET, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Terrible loss tonight.

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We lost at Home!
We lost a home game to one of the 4 teams challenging us for the 7th n 8th seed playoff spot.
WTF .. do Fisher say to our players at practice and before the game, and do he speak about our upcomin schedule?
I'm starting to wonder if Fisher kept reminding the players before the Bulls game bout Bulls went 4 overtimes the night before???

We are 0-1 in a 10 game rough schedule that can give the FANS, players, coaches, and our GM, a huge boost of confidence in self n the Knicks organization finishing the 10 games 5-5 ..
Home-Court suppose to give us an advantage where we play to win down to the final second.
Last night when the score was 89-88 with 5 min in game .. at that moment, I knew we were gonna win this home game. Plus start this 10 strong team schedule off 1-0

Kiyaman said:

We lost at Home!
We lost a home game to one of the 4 teams challenging us for the 7th n 8th seed playoff spot.
WTF .. do Fisher say to our players at practice and before the game, and do he speak about our upcomin schedule?
I'm starting to wonder if Fisher kept reminding the players before the Bulls game bout Bulls went 4 overtimes the night before???

We are 0-1 in a 10 game rough schedule that can give the FANS, players, coaches, and our GM, a huge boost of confidence in self n the Knicks organization finishing the 10 games 5-5 ..
Home-Court suppose to give us an advantage where we play to win down to the final second.
Last night when the score was 89-88 with 5 min in game .. at that moment, I knew we were gonna win this home game. Plus start this 10 strong team schedule off 1-0

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Home court hasn't been much of an advantage this year, we're playing as well on the road. Going to take a great game to win vs. the Cavs but they were in it right to the end with Orlando and that's with AA, JC as no shows against Orlando. If kp6 had hit a couple of more shots we might have won that game. I hope Melo and Quinn can play tonight.

rady said:

i also was puzzled about that thing, i thought there was a computer doing the job following some basic algorithms (such as the number of games a team must play against the other teams, the availability of the arena, etc) but it seems it's more than just that. in fact there's a guy who's been doing this job for the past 25 years (with some help from a software of course) and i found this nice piece at truehoop where they interviewed him
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/19219/how-to-build-the-nba-schedule

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Nice drop Rady

Good read and everything makes sense. As the article mentioned everyone can complain all they want but every team is in the same predicament therefore no advantage or disadvantage heavily weighted for any given team. Play your schedule and win, it's just that simple.

The Atlanta games are a little odd in the short span of time but what if the schedule took out the 1 game against them, that isn't the home-in-home and substituted it with Golden State? Would that be better? Once again teams are 0-0 at season's begin, the NBA has no idea who will be good or bad or even playing good or bad at a particular time of scheduling. What if Atalanta had Sacramento's record would playing them 3 times in 10 days be acceptable?

The 3 Atlanta games will be a introduction of coach Fisher and leader Melo strategic moves in a series.
If we win 1 or 2 games out of the 3 games we prove we're a team to reckon with in a series.
If we lose all 3 games, the networks will keep looking down on us

tiger0330 said:

Home court hasn't been much of an advantage this year, we're playing as well on the road. Going to take a great game to win vs. the Cavs but they were in it right to the end with Orlando and that's with AA, JC as no shows against Orlando. If kp6 had hit a couple of more shots we might have won that game. I hope Melo and Quinn can play tonight.

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Conversely Orlando essentially had Oladipo and Payton as no shows. Cleveland is also more healthy now than when we played them earlier. Really it comes down to things like...

Not being 0-2 against Orlando
Not being 1-2 against Milwaukee
Not being 0-1 against Utah
Not being 0-1 against Sacramento

That's 6 losses right there against teams I'm sure most optimistic fans felt we were better than or clearly equal to when the scoreboard was 0-0. We're also down on season series against the Cleveland 0-2, Miami 0-2. So seems to me we should have taken care of business a little better when the schedule was more favorable.

Its not looking good on this 10 game schedule vs .500 teams ..
We started this 10 game schedule off as a .500 team 14-14
After 6 games our record stands at 15-20 .. WTF are we doing to win games?
I know what we are doing to lose games by putting sissy lineups on the court thas afraid to foul n play defense.
I could understand not playing defense in the first half of the game, but in the 2nd half of the game i expect tight defense n 3 fouls each from Rolo, KP, Quinn, Serafin, Melo, and D.Will .. our bigmen are SISSY scared to foul. At the end of a losing game i look at the stats and our bigmen has 1 to 3 fouls for the entire game .. sissy sissy sissees

1) Orlando .. LOSS
2) @ Cleveland .. LOSS
3) @ Atlanta .. LOSS
4) @ Boston .. LOSS
5) Detroit .. WIN
6) @ Chicago .. LOSS
7) Atlanta
8) @ Atlanta
9) @ Miami
10) @ San Antonio

Our next 4 games we have 1 home-game n 3 road games .. Yeah, it's not looking good for Knicks the first 2 weeks of the new year. All the experiment-coaching lineups Fisher were putting on the court throughout our first 30 games were all small lineups, and never a big-big man lineup vs opponents with tandem bigs or trio bigs lineup.
It was nice seeing somewhat of a big lineup from Fisher to closeout the win over Detroit Pistons ...
Calderon, Lance, D.Will, Melo, and Rolo

u have to give our Knicks their BIG PROPS our record are 18-19 on this tough 10 game schedule!
We are one win more than last season 17 win season .. GREAT!

We been having success from dropping down to the 9 man rotation per game, our players are playing well being more familiar with the players in the lineup. At the start of the season our 11 man rotation got chaotic when coach Fisher started the quick-substitution lineups with different players in lineups from the previous game. We are now on a 3 game winning streak on a tough schedule.

Beside decreasing the rotation to 9 players, i like the idea of us taking less than 20 shots from the 3-ball line. Our shooting less shots from the 3-ball line a game has increase our FG percentage to 47%, plus we started taking the ball inside the paint area more to average over 45 points from inside the paint in our last 3 games.
The 30 plus shots from the 3-ball line been killing us since 2008 coach Dantoni.

1) Orlando .. LOSS
2) @ Cleveland .. LOSS
3) @ Atlanta .. LOSS
4) @ Boston .. LOSS
5) Detroit .. WIN!
6) @ Chicago .. LOSS
7) Atlanta .. WIN!
8) @ Atlanta .. WIN!
9) @ Miami .. WIN!
10) @ San Antonio .. ???

Our 10th game on this rough-schedule are against the best changing-system 11-Man rotation in the NBA ..
The extra-tough coach Pop San Antonio Spurs team in San Antonio 21-0 home record .. Suicidal-mission!

tiger0330 said:

That SA game is going to be impossible. They killed the Jazz sitting LA and Parker and didn't skip a beat scoring over 120, that's like 3 games they scored 120 in past couple of weeks. Where do they find guys like Simmons and Anderson?

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This will be a must watch Knicks game to all interested in the triangle-offense setup n movement ..
Coach Pops Spurs run the triangle-offense perfectly by using double-screens n double-picks for the Spurs PG, and the moving without the ball players to catch n pass getting several touches on the ball before the shot. And when the Spurs are in transition mode the ball rarely touch the floor.
When Clyde mention we are dribbling to much its because u see our players standing-still far apart being defended well.

tiger0330 said:

They're winning with the role players like LT and Quinn along with Melo and AA in the latest winning streak.

kp6 needs to step up more than he has to better a .500 mark in the next 10 I would think. I've given up on Rolo being a factor.

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My apologies to Robin Lopez.

When Barkley said the Knicks were a playoff team" .. Shocking n Surprise surprise !!!

The way we been improving as a team has a staying around the .500 team margin.
Our next 10 games could keep us close to the playoff hunt ...

1- vs Milwaukee
2- vs Boston
3- @ Brooklyn
4- @ Memphis
5- vs Philadelphia
6- vs Utah
7- vs Clippers
8- @ Charlotte
9- vs OKC
10- @ Toronto

Kiyaman said:

When Barkley said the Knicks were a playoff team" .. Shocking n Surprise surprise !!!

The way we been improving as a team has a staying around the .500 team margin.
Our next 10 games could keep us close to the playoff hunt ...

1- vs Milwaukee
2- vs Boston
3- @ Brooklyn
4- @ Memphis
5- vs Philadelphia
6- vs Utah
7- vs Clippers
8- @ Charlotte
9- vs OKC
10- @ Toronto

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I hadn't looked at the schedule but when Mafra was talking about a break in the schedule I though it was easier than this. Some tough teams in the next 10 but easier than the last 10 for sure. Fish and the boys need to use the same formula they used in the last 3, 9-10 man rotatation, team ball and defense by the boys, multi-dimensional Melo, Rolo down low for 30+ minutes, DWill as the 6th man.