Mike D'Antoni's influence on our resurgence

smokes

Huge Member
I've been one to bash MDA pretty heavily last year and this year. I was happy to have him coaching from 08-10 especially since his brand of coaching adds value to some players and potentially got us more in return for them. However the flip side to that was us losing good players for next to nothing because of his infamous doghouse. After seeing him last year I was done with him, our total lack of defensive effort and the same old MDA mistakes had me thinking we desperately needed a different approach. Right now I might be willing to change my tune though.

The Knicks overall this season have played great defense. In part this is down to Tyson Chandler who obviously brings a solid defensive presence, the addition of Shumpert who is amongst the league leaders in steals, and you can't write off Mike Woodson's influence.

However we can certainly attribute the amazing play of Jared Jefferies somewhat to Mike since most other coaches in the league would probably not even play JJ. We've also seen an amazing increase in Landry Fields defensive effectiveness, finally putting his physical tools to great use at the defensive end.

Our offense clearly has gone from awful to amazing mostly due to Jeremy Lin but I'm not writing off MDA here either. The kind of offensive plays we are running, the floor spacing, the way Tyson is running the floor and our guards getting up court in seconds is in a big way down to the way Mike likes to play the game and also how he conditions his players. The fact we had enough physical energy to stick it out and eventually pull out a win in MIN has to be partly due to the amazing fitness of our players from running running running in practice every day.

I also like the way our coaching staff is dealing with our players. Tyson Chandler adding a 10-12 footer would be golden. In fact Tyson has been making shots you'd never see him attempting a year ago, hooks and layups from 5-8 ft away. Jeremy Lin in the space of a week went from being a sketchy jump shooter to being able to knock down clutch 3's in big games. Shumperts jump shot has come a long way this season. And I know people have bashed MDA for getting Jorts to shoot 3's but actually making the defense respect him from range makes him an even more deadly player inside where he is already prolific.

Lastly even his game management has come along leaps and bounds during our win streak. He's rotating as best as possible with the personnel we have available (with the exception of Balkman who quite frankly has been an NBA bench warmer his entire life and a couple of good preseason games doesn't change that). Even in the MIN game where we were not playing from a winning position he got Lin plenty of rest at the start of the 3rd and 4th quarters.

He has been taking TO's when we need them and not jumping the gun when we don't. In the MIN game Clyde said it best that "the Knicks don't play well out of time outs" which is why we let them go on that potential final possession.

It's going to be interesting to see how our team fits together and if Mike will keep a 10+ man rotation with the return of Melo and Stat but I actually believe he will.

Someday soon I might even be willing to say MDA is a good coach again!
 

NYCLakerfan

Rotation player
I agree it seems like ever since the emergence of Lin Mike has been coaching way better putting out good lineups, timely TO's, maximizing all these role players potentials.

Once this team is fully healthy it's gonna be interesting seeing if he can continue with a 10+ man rotation I hope he does it's a good look and can give the stars more rest.
 
Lastly even his game management has come along leaps and bounds during our win streak. He's rotating as best as possible with the personnel we have available (with the exception of Balkman who quite frankly has been an NBA bench warmer his entire life and a couple of good preseason games doesn't change that). Even in the MIN game where we were not playing from a winning position he got Lin plenty of rest at the start of the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Unless you're talking about MDAs use of timeouts in the 2nd half Lin didnt get a rest. He played the entire second half against Minny...
 

YuvalNYC

Rotation player
I've always been Pro MDA.

With a good PG, we're starting to see positive results with his system.. imagine better replacements instead of Bibby Douglas Walker Balkman, who haven't been contributing that much since we exploded this week.. and we have a championship calibre team.

I believe MDA can take us all the way.
 

smokes

Huge Member
Unless you're talking about MDAs use of timeouts in the 2nd half Lin didnt get a rest. He played the entire second half against Minny...

You might be right about that, I could be confusing it with the Lakers game or some other part of the same game, was working so not watching too closely.

Still if that's the only counter you have to that entire post then I'll take it. You can see why we needed Lin for the majority of that game.
 

c0leworld

Benchwarmer
I really, really like that play drawn up for Novak in the timberwolves game to tie the game. I respect D'antoni for that.
 

smokes

Huge Member
I really, really like that play drawn up for Novak in the timberwolves game to tie the game. I respect D'antoni for that.

Yeah and you have to give Lin and the rest of the guys a lot of credit for making the play.

I also loved those 2 MIN timeouts where all the guys were stepping up you could see Tyson and JJ saying who got who and JJ was annoyed at himself for not letting Love take that off balance 3.
 

Crazy⑧s

Evacuee
I've been one to bash MDA pretty heavily last year and this year. I was happy to have him coaching from 08-10 especially since his brand of coaching adds value to some players and potentially got us more in return for them. However the flip side to that was us losing good players for next to nothing because of his infamous doghouse. After seeing him last year I was done with him, our total lack of defensive effort and the same old MDA mistakes had me thinking we desperately needed a different approach. Right now I might be willing to change my tune though.

The Knicks overall this season have played great defense. In part this is down to Tyson Chandler who obviously brings a solid defensive presence, the addition of Shumpert who is amongst the league leaders in steals, and you can't write off Mike Woodson's influence.

However we can certainly attribute the amazing play of Jared Jefferies somewhat to Mike since most other coaches in the league would probably not even play JJ. We've also seen an amazing increase in Landry Fields defensive effectiveness, finally putting his physical tools to great use at the defensive end.

Our offense clearly has gone from awful to amazing mostly due to Jeremy Lin but I'm not writing off MDA here either. The kind of offensive plays we are running, the floor spacing, the way Tyson is running the floor and our guards getting up court in seconds is in a big way down to the way Mike likes to play the game and also how he conditions his players. The fact we had enough physical energy to stick it out and eventually pull out a win in MIN has to be partly due to the amazing fitness of our players from running running running in practice every day.

I also like the way our coaching staff is dealing with our players. Tyson Chandler adding a 10-12 footer would be golden. In fact Tyson has been making shots you'd never see him attempting a year ago, hooks and layups from 5-8 ft away. Jeremy Lin in the space of a week went from being a sketchy jump shooter to being able to knock down clutch 3's in big games. Shumperts jump shot has come a long way this season. And I know people have bashed MDA for getting Jorts to shoot 3's but actually making the defense respect him from range makes him an even more deadly player inside where he is already prolific.

Lastly even his game management has come along leaps and bounds during our win streak. He's rotating as best as possible with the personnel we have available (with the exception of Balkman who quite frankly has been an NBA bench warmer his entire life and a couple of good preseason games doesn't change that). Even in the MIN game where we were not playing from a winning position he got Lin plenty of rest at the start of the 3rd and 4th quarters.

He has been taking TO's when we need them and not jumping the gun when we don't. In the MIN game Clyde said it best that "the Knicks don't play well out of time outs" which is why we let them go on that potential final possession.

It's going to be interesting to see how our team fits together and if Mike will keep a 10+ man rotation with the return of Melo and Stat but I actually believe he will.

Someday soon I might even be willing to say MDA is a good coach again!

Why the sudden turn around, though? For Mike, I mean, not you.
 

smokes

Huge Member
Crazy⑧s;205857 said:
Why the sudden turn around, though? For Mike, I mean, not you.

Well the turnaround hasn't been so sudden. There are a lot of reasons for it though.

When we got Melo we tried to play MDA-ball with Billups/Melo. It didn't work. We reverted to Melo-ball which was also unsuccessful as a whole but did keep us in games and won us a few.

We tried MDA-ball at the start of this season with no success due to Shumpert/Douglas not being distributors of a high enough standard. However the defense improved dramatically due to Tyson, Woodson, and to some degree MDA.

Lin enters and shows he can be the MDA PG, MDA is galvanized like the rest of our team and coaches to the best of his ability.
 

amazinz5

Benchwarmer
Well the turnaround hasn't been so sudden. There are a lot of reasons for it though.

When we got Melo we tried to play MDA-ball with Billups/Melo. It didn't work. We reverted to Melo-ball which was also unsuccessful as a whole but did keep us in games and won us a few.

We tried MDA-ball at the start of this season with no success due to Shumpert/Douglas not being distributors of a high enough standard. However the defense improved dramatically due to Tyson, Woodson, and to some degree MDA.

Lin enters and shows he can be the MDA PG, MDA is galvanized like the rest of our team and coaches to the best of his ability.

that wasnt even mda ball before the turnaround....zero penetration, little to no off the ball movement. me and 4 guys i never met could play more cohesively than that at my old hs. in mda's defense tho, the offense did start to turn their shit around just before lin arrived.
 

smokes

Huge Member
that wasnt even mda ball before the turnaround....zero penetration, little to no off the ball movement. me and 4 guys i never met could play more cohesively than that at my old hs. in mda's defense tho, the offense did start to turn their shit around just before lin arrived.

I should have clarified, by the start of the season I meant preseason and 1-2 regular season games. When it became clear that it wasn't working we went to everyone ISO'ing playing schoolyard ball.
 

KingCharles34

All Star
The one thing Ill give Antoni credit for is he almost always lets players play to their abilities. This can be a good thing and a bad thing, at times it was a bad thing with Carmelo isolating too much but seriously his over-isolation has been blown way out of proportion by the knicks announcers, media, and fans. Hes also looked to move the ball more this year then ever before, hes got good chemistry with Chandler. Speakin of Chandler, hes my prime example of the first thing i said...Antoni has allowed him to be a bigger part of the offense then they did in Dallas. I give him credit for this, if u got a 7"1 guy thats capable of finishing the ally oop and often gets easy pick n roll dunks, why not let the other guys set him up and get him involved?
 

Crazy⑧s

Evacuee
I should have clarified, by the start of the season I meant preseason and 1-2 regular season games. When it became clear that it wasn't working we went to everyone ISO'ing playing schoolyard ball.

The opener was a bit different though. The ten came out scorching. That, and Melo made some tough shots, but it went in to an instant lull afterward.

Well the turnaround hasn't been so sudden. There are a lot of reasons for it though.

When we got Melo we tried to play MDA-ball with Billups/Melo. It didn't work. We reverted to Melo-ball which was also unsuccessful as a whole but did keep us in games and won us a few.

We tried MDA-ball at the start of this season with no success due to Shumpert/Douglas not being distributors of a high enough standard. However the defense improved dramatically due to Tyson, Woodson, and to some degree MDA.

Lin enters and shows he can be the MDA PG, MDA is galvanized like the rest of our team and coaches to the best of his ability.

I would have thought that the losses racking up would have been enough to galvanize anyone.

Credit where credit's due, however. Mike has been doing his job well throughout this 5 game streak. I have to wonder, is Mike sick of STAT and Melo's well below sub par performances? Was he as uninspired as the vast majority of posters here?

What will he do if one or both of STAT and/or Melo begin to hinder the new found chemistry? Guess we'll find out in 2 odd weeks.

Needless to say, I'm very apprehensive about how it'll unfold.
 
lin played 39 mins, rubio played 36....
why is everyone bitching about lin's time?

I'm complaining because he was dead tired and anyone with a brain could see it effected his play. He was so spent that Rubio blocked his shot on a layup because he had nothing left to get off the ground.
 

iJoe

Rotation player
We'll see how well Chandler is implemented into the offense once Amare comes back. That will be a big test. Amare is not going to be happy unless he has the majority of those pick and rolls.

If you hear the postgame interviews, Jeremy kept telling D'antoni that he was good and could stay in the game. D'Antoni joked that he wouldn't listen to Lin as much anymore and probably rest him more.

Besides... the way TD and Bibby have been playing? The game was way too close to let them drag our team down. If you noticed, Lin let Shump and others initiate the offense and kind of acted as a decoy to get some rest in the 4th quarter. That let him conserve some energy and save some juice for defense. He's a smart guy. He'll be okay.
 
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