Hughes Irked with Dantoni

[DontForgetDerekHarper]

It feels like this forum is mostly divided into 2 groups nowadays, D'antoni haters and D'antoni lovers with only a handful of people looking at things objectively.

Sure D'antoni made some mistakes in his 1 and a half year tenure as Knicks coach, but people pointing out stuff that is questionable at best to try to add credence to their hate/love for the guy is just silly.

D'antoni has his weaknesses for sure, his substitute patterns are erratic and his late game plans are poor, however as pointed out he turned this team from the 2nd worst in the league in november to sitting 1 game out of the playoffs as things stand now. I don't understand the theory that the players are responsible for our team defensive improvement. As someone showed in another thread and you can find a whole thread dedicated to it, that D'antoni had said before the season began that he wanted the Knicks top 15 on D. Of course Jefferies constant harassment and effort on D sends a message through the rest of the players on the court to equal that intensity but the gameplan comes from the coach.

The things coach D should be working on now is having a backup plan instead of the pick and roll for late game scenarios, as we have seen several times when a team shuts down the pick and roll in the 4th we can struggle to keep ourselves in the game. Also we need some other defensive sparkplug than Jefferies available when JJ gets into foul trouble which is often with his style of harassment. As seen in the Bobcats game we lost due to easy penetration and no interior defense to shut down the layup.

Apart from meeting the Lakers and Mavs our January schedule is against other struggling teams and we have the opportunity to cement that December performance and prove it was not a lucky streak. Hopefully we will stay at .500+ for January and move ourselves into the playoff picture.

I agree with this whole post except one part

your back up plan idea and Mike D's late game plans.

Truly, you are speaking about Mike D's game plan as if we are a great basketball team haha, This is the NBA

there is only one LATE GAME plan for winning basketball teams

its called get the ball to your star and move the F out of the way

we do not have a star sorry to say
nor a guy who can take over late in the game

I see Gallo as being that, and some times Harrington is there, but night in and night out we do not have that type of player

Phoenix had nash who could just take over late in a game, we dont have that caliber player

so Mike D's late game plan is flawed for one reason and one reason alone,

our team does not have the players for that

 

[New New York]

I could care less that Hughes is sitting on the bench. If you read my previous post, I mentioned the fact that he sucks. I am just surprised that D'Antoni would play Hughes and then suddenly bench him. Especially considering the fact that he played poorly for most of the games D'Antoni gave him minutes for. Most coaches would have benched him sooner. That's my point.

lol at you leaving the Steph situation alone. You scared of a potential Starburywar? jk

Nate Robinson was not benched for his actions and you know it. I know you like D'Antnoni, but D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Damn! D'Antoni clearly benched him because he had something personal against Robinson. You don't compare someone to "Satan" and say that you have "no morals or scruples", if you like them. Walsh obviously must have told him to give Robinson minutes so that they can package him in a deal.

What Dantoni has against Nate is not personal, but rather he hates how Nate represents himself and the team.

Mike Dantoni is not the first coach to clash with Nate, in fact all of Nate's NBA coaches have clashed with him for the same reasons. Mike Dantoni is the first coach to bench him for his acting like a child! Nate is an amazing talent and I love that he is on our team, but he acts like he is 10 years old!

Was it personal for Mike Dantoni to bench Curry for being fat? Eddy needed to lose weight like Nate needed to act like a Pro after 5 years in the league

We have all played sports and we all know that your attitude and character is almost as important as skill. The fact of the matter is that Nate needed to be checked.

I am not a undying Mike Dantoni fan -why on this site do you have to either love or hate a player or coach?- I do however respect him for benching a player w/ Nate's talent to teach that he needs to stay focused.

Actually, part of a coaches job (a good one) is to keep team morale up throughout the season. It's not babysitting. Coaches deal with a lot of different personalities and everyone on the bench wants a chance to play. A good coach communicates with his players and lets them know what the TEAM plan is. Not properly communicating to your players is one of the worst things you can do... especially when you will need their services eventually.

Dantoni appears to be only concerned with his "who's hot now list" and usually ignores the other players until a change is needed. As a coach I would play Hughes every game and make sure he knows what his primary role is on the court. The guy can defend and thats a fact so have him guard the pg in the 4th quarter of a close game to disrupt ball movement... defensive strategy stuff like that.

Hughes has always shot poorly so that's not a valid reason for his benching even in a blowout game. It's just that Damntoni has a 8 or 9 man rotation and sticks to that number. It also doesn't seem that this overrated coach knows how to adjust during the game and sub based on his players' strengths. Granted, the team has been playing better but I still worry about his coachinig skills in close games.

First off, Dantoni has only sat Hughes for 2 GAMES, a large part as to why he sat Hughes in Atlanta was the play of Nate!
Should Dantoni have gone over to Lee and explain why he sat most of the 4th against Atlanta? No! a professional is going to recognize that the coach is doing what he feels puts the team in the best position to win a game. And guess the hell what Larry, we did win!

Second would Hughes really had respected being played in the second half once the game had gotten out of hand against Indy? Again if Larry had a team first attitude he wouldve noticed that while he was sitting The Knicks built a nearly 50 pt lead.

Again it was just two games! We had just been only the 3rd team to lose to NJ all season, and after the loss many fans -myself included- called for Dantoni to let Nate play in place of Hughes.

My message to Hughes....cash your checks and be ready....or in other words sit down and shut up

About "keeping up team morale" lets just look at the late 90's early 00's Laker teams, Shaq and Kobe's beef was covered nightly and split the locker room in half at times, how did Phil Jackson resolve this? BY WINNING!

A coaches job is to win games and make the moves neccessary to make that happen, a player's job is to be ready if/when his number is called.

The fact of the matter is Larry Hughes wants to be playing and he would not feel any better about it if he was told that he was out of the rotation.

 

[DontForgetDerekHarper]

r we really rooting for larry hughes people lol
you gotta be kidding me .

he is a non factor. now and future.

 

[Torp]

I really say play Hughes and nate and forget about Duhon. Duhon is streakier than Nate and definitely a worse player than nate. Hughes is also streaky but at least he can make layups and play defense

 

[DontForgetDerekHarper]

have u not been watching duhon over the past 17 games.

45-91 from down town

plays defense,
doesnt turn the ball over,
and every one is getting the ball in position to score

and we are 11-6

from a MLE level player what more do you want ?

lets get off duhons case already. yeah bad start
but he could of packed it in for the year

and going over earlier box scores the whole team was playing shitty to start the year

Duhon was a classic scape goat for us.