Enough Dantoni Bashing? Wel... Is it the Melo???

YungMelo15

Benchwarmer
I've been seeing alot of Carmelo bashing the whole season. One being his "lack" of defense.

Melo is my favorite player but I feel he has room to grow as a player if he wants to win.

As we all know, Melo is "Arguably" the best offesive player in the game.

I've watched him since highschool, and the game has always come easy to him.

I do beleive Melo is an... good defender, but it could/should be premier.

The thing that kills me about him is that he wll take on any challenge, but only when he feels it necessary to. He seems to let his game speak, which is cool, but in a situation like he is in now, where his coach is offensive minded, I think he should take control.

Motivation builds confidence, and confidence can take you a long way. There are players who can will their team to wins by taking charge. Let the team KNOW what to do, were to go, give advice, curse out (depending on the player, some dude are mad senstive) cheer on, coach etc...

The world knows the knicks can score at ease, even if the coach doesnt preach it, players CAN MAKE each other dig in on defense, rebound, show intensity, give all their heart on both ends of the court.

I personally give up on bashing Dantoni (until the playoffs atleast lol) and want to see either Melo or STAT or chauncey, the VETERANS of the team, take charge and actually will the team win. Like the Miami win!

Flashes of brilliance arent good enough. Like his D on kobe when dver was in the west finals, or the block he had his second to last game in denver to seal the game or even every time he plays lebron. Team USA said he was a leader, do it for the home team!!!

I personally think we will shock whoever we play first round of the playoffs, I just hope we get a true C this offseason.
 
Great post. I agree, Melo has the defensive ability to take his defense to the next level but he just needs the heart & pride to do so. George Karl could never get Melo to play defense on a consistant level, no coach can; it's all about the heart of the player.

I also agree, I feel the Knicks will get hot come playoff times. It's only been 12 games. What were the Heat's record after 12 games? MIA has an entire offseason of training camp, 30+ preseason games & an entire preseason before tying to gel. Also, what were the Knicks record after our 1st 12 games of the season? That was also with a full offseason.

We've only been a team for 12 games with 1 or 2 practices at the most; with 5 starters who weren't here last year. I'm sure MDA & the players already have a "great feel for one another". The players have been the one's who have played 'down to the level of their opponents' but that doesn't change the fact that we're 5-2 against winning teams since the trade.

This is not the 'finished product'...
 

elcol

Rotation player
for the whole team this is an issue, mike cannot teach simple effort on the defensive end. at times stat and melo along with others will simply give up the lane or not hustle because they're above it. when melos up against guys like LBJ ETC hes on his game..but when hes against batum he isn't really going to try on the defensive end until late game situations. every single player in basketball has potential to be a good defender, its just melo/stat/rest of knicks usually won't commit hard enough. melo will often drop off his man while stat will let his matchup gain easy post positions, under the basket.... how can you blame dantoni, who definitely has his problems on defence, to teach hustle, commitment, scrambling for loose balls, jumping as high as possible when shot contesting, and focusing on double teams/picks/screens

its all up to the players.....
 
Exactly correct.

MDA is the head coach for the X's & O's aspect's of the game as well as motivation. You think Phil Jackson had to "teach" MJ & Bryant how to play defense? These players come into the NBA... Knowing how to play defense man to man or zone defense. They've been playing defense since the ages of 5-8. You think JVG "taught" Ewing how to play defense? Wrong. Ewing was a defensive beast since his days with GTH.

I guess it's safe to say MDA "taught" Fields, Douglas & Amare how to play defense. Wrong. I'm a huge FSU fan. Loved watching TD D-Up for the Noles.

It's up to assistant like Ewing to "teach" Yao & Howard. Head coaches have no idea how to guard an NBA pro in todays game. They can only run X's & O's but it's up to the PLAYERS to execute.
 

YungMelo15

Benchwarmer
Exactly correct.

MDA is the head coach for the X's & O's aspect's of the game as well as motivation. You think Phil Jackson had to "teach" MJ & Bryant how to play defense? These players come into the NBA... Knowing how to play defense man to man or zone defense. They've been playing defense since the ages of 5-8. You think JVG "taught" Ewing how to play defense? Wrong. Ewing was a defensive beast since his days with GTH.

I guess it's safe to say MDA "taught" Fields, Douglas & Amare how to play defense. Wrong. I'm a huge FSU fan. Loved watching TD D-Up for the Noles.

It's up to assistant like Ewing to "teach" Yao & Howard. Head coaches have no idea how to guard an NBA pro in todays game. They can only run X's & O's but it's up to the PLAYERS to execute.

What you're saying is true, but at he same time its the coaching staff as a unit. The head coach is just the leader so he gets the punishment.

The way I see it, if the coaching staff cant mae it work, the players who are proven in the league, shuld take matters into their own hands sometimes.

Maybe they should get a team meeting in order to talk about wat needs to be worked on i order for a better outcome in games.
 

petescud

Starter
PLease, someone change something...playoffs are right around the corner. I don't want a first round elimination if possible
 

iJoe

Rotation player
Melo has shown he can play great defense...... the catch being when he wants to. Unfortunately, his great defense is only awakened when he's playing a high profile TV matchup.

Now some may not see that as a problem as they would argue that at least he plays defense when he may need it the most in the playoffs. The reason I'm concerned is that he can play great in at most 3 games of a playoff series, but he doesn't have the mentality (as proven in the Nugs playoff runs) to keep it up.

Defense is a mindset and you have to work your ass off to keep at it. You can't just expect to turn it on and leave it on for an extended playoff run.

The reason we play matador defense half the time is that our players don't know how to play hard defense without fouling. Thats why they avoid the contact and just let their man sweep through. Would certainly help if the refs were more consistent with their calls.
 

MusketeerX

Rotation player
Melo has shown he can play great defense...... the catch being when he wants to. Unfortunately, his great defense is only awakened when he's playing a high profile TV matchup.

Now some may not see that as a problem as they would argue that at least he plays defense when he may need it the most in the playoffs. The reason I'm concerned is that he can play great in at most 3 games of a playoff series, but he doesn't have the mentality (as proven in the Nugs playoff runs) to keep it up.

Defense is a mindset and you have to work your ass off to keep at it. You can't just expect to turn it on and leave it on for an extended playoff run.

The reason we play matador defense half the time is that our players don't know how to play hard defense without fouling. Thats why they avoid the contact and just let their man sweep through. Would certainly help if the refs were more consistent with their calls.

Good post. Something needs to change. Defense is a discipline and it takes a disciplined mind to be effective at it. The players need to be disciplined and the coach needs to make sure they remained disciplined.

D'Antoni had a full practice on defense yesterday. Hopefully that will show against Memphis. What I think is funny, is that when our team does start to play consistent defense, they will learn that it will help lead to easy offense. It will be a continuous positive reinforcement. Someone just needs to get them there and help them remain there for a consistent time.
 
Ok; So I should have known better than to take this sorry ass YungMelo15 creep seriously... He's no fan of the Knicks, he's a NJ Nets fan who came to this site to troll & cause problems for people.

These two post's were posted on TGG.Com last night. Just a heads up warning so posters of this site put him on ignore mode until Rady takes care of things.

ace_o_spades said:
yeah your're YungMelo right?

hahaa yeah man, Im going back and forth with being serious and arguing with him in there but he's just getting baited and baited over and over into posting retard ass responses.

Some waste of life this little kid has. YungMelo15 is actually JohnnyThaJet, the same pathetic person who posted under the user name of "JohnBoy" about two weeks ago. One perma ban @ a time & it won't be long before he runs out of places to spam from.
 

YungMelo15

Benchwarmer
Man are you kidding me?? GTFOH, Im a growm man yo. I dont have time for that BS. WHat even made you bring up my name? If i get banned for no reason , thats gon be real shady fam.
 

platnumn

Benchwarmer
YungMelo aka JohnnyB-sax aka JohnB....

You just got CAUGHT THE F*** OUT, SON!!
:gony::gony::gony::gony::gony::gony::gony::gony::gony:
 

Knicks4Life_1985

★The Floor General★
You can tell when people lack having a real life, they set up fake accounts and try and cause problems online.

I dont have time for jokers
 
I was thinking the same a week ago, but for some reason the results don't change.

I thought: 'Well ok, so our coach sucks but we have good players now, superstars, they will realise that we lose because of our non-existing defense and start defending'.
Unfortunately that didn't happen. Honestly we are the worst defensive team in the league. STAT get's out of the way to allow layups, dunks and offensive rebounds. Melo is focused on his offense, Billups is not a 100% healthy, Fields is an average defender and so on..,you know the rest.

I don't think we'll ever see proper basketball in NY until our current coaching staff is gone.

I'm sick and tired of those 121-117 games....to the point where I'm dissatisfied even if we win. All those uncontestet shots for our opponents it drives me crazy.

To me proper basketball is that win against Miami on the road, the win against Chicago on Christmas or the win against the Hawks in Atlanta.

Teams like the Bulls, Thunder or Nuggets are playing the right way and it pays off.

We could add Chris Paul and Earl Barron to our team and still wouldn't win 50 games and rank last in defense under this coaching staff.

Question is: Which coach could get STAT and Melo to play defense?

Seattle/Oklahoma City rebuilt through the draft and look what a fine team they have.

We could have:

Rondo
Eric Gordon
Wilson Chandler
DeJuan Blair
DeAndre Jordan

right now, had we rebuilt through the draft and drafted properly.
All these players were available with our picks and it would have been a pretty good team with plenty of defense.

Add a good shooter and a good rebounder to the bench and it's a better team than we have now.
 

Oldtimer

Rotation player
Defense

There is individual on the ball defense and there is team defense. Amare' and Melo are both such good athletes that they are certainly capable of being superb on the ball defenders. But someone who plays on the ball -- man to man -- defense with intensity is likely to foul more often than the more laid back defender. Melo and Amare' are probably wary of fouls and tend to lay off too much. Moreover, it is tough for Amare' to guard bigs who have a couple of inches and 50 pounds or more on him. He should not have to guard big centers.

As for team defense, I believe George Karl suggested that Melo was a good on the ball defender but bad in team defense. He did not switch very well.

I do not know what team defensive schemes, D'Antoni has in place. I am not a good enough student of the game to see them. But what makes Thibodeau so good? It cannot be rocket science. We have the same caliber athletes as Chicago, though we do not have a Noah.

It is unlikely to happen this year -- there is just not enough time -- but Amare' and Melo have to pick up their defense -- both on the ball and team. The team defense, particularly, requires defensive coaching. If D'Antoni is going to remain as the coach, we must get a defensive coaching specialist. I am sure that Amare' and Melo want this to work and I am sure they have heard enouh about their defensive shortcomings. They are surely proud enough not to take their money but fail in New York. Get us a defensive big -- not an easy thing to do and impossibe without jettisoning Billups given our non-existent cap space-- and we can be real tough next year.
 
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