D'Antoni is good for winning games, but not play-off series. He is a stubborn mule when it comes to coaching and it is why the Knicks will only win another championship if they have another coach.
ok Miss cleo, who is he being stubborn against? fans? do you remember when he said he had to change his style to more of a triangle offense? to me, thats not being stubborn, thats tailoring a game toward your strengths
He stifled Mozgov and Randolph's development by keeping both of them on the bench, while we were getting out rebounded and losing games. Sure, their lack of experience would have lost us some games, but it would have also won us some games; and, by playing them, we would have had two more valuable trade pieces or perhaps two key guys to the rotation.
Mozgov started centre all for the first part of the season....why do people ignore the facts? The proof is in the pudding, benching Moz was the best for him. He got a change to learn more english, to learn the system etc. keep in mind there are many differences between euroball and the nba. Saying it would have lost us games, and may have won us games is pure speculation.
Instead he plays Amar'e 40 minutes a game, Felton 40 minutes a game, and expects them to keep up the MVP and All-Star pace they had developed all year 'round. We will be spent come play-off time, which is provided Amar'e can stay healthy enough to make it til then.
its difficult when youre trying to win games, to yank your best players to give rookies experience. Is dantoni also stifling andy rautins growth? if so, why is no one complaining? or would everyone make a big fuss when he comes out and is a lights out shooter?
D'Antoni's style is all about short-term goals. It will win you games, but it will not let you reach your max potential as a team. D'Antoni right now is riding the high horse because he was lucky enough to get a player that turned into MVP material, a point-guard who turned into all-star material, and a diamond in the rough in Landry Fields.
IMO his systems brings the best out of a player, again, the proof is there. Look at nash predantoni, and nash post dantoni, look at all of his players before during and after. Find facts to support your arguemnt. Lucky? sounds like dantoni is a player and a coach. You work with what you have. He played small ball in phx because diaw was their centre. Phx had the 7 foot steven hunter, 6'11' marciej lampe, 6'11 jake voskul and 6'10 jackson vroman. They all got minimal time on the floor because they suck. not because dantoni hates bigs, but because they suck. Mozgov sucked early on, but now he doesnt, therefore he gets burn.
But, you can already see his style wearing on the players. Felton is shooting poorly; Chandler is shooting poorly; Gallinari was shooting poorly, until he had two weeks off due to injury.
You win championships on defense and rebounding... the Knicks do neither. If you look at the last ten years worth of championship teams -- all of them were in top 10 in NBA; and all but 1 of those 10 were top three...
we are not that bad of a defensive team, just because we dont play halfcourt ball. We are 16th in defensive ratings according to nba.com. thats a huge improvement from last year.
Mozgov is needed. 15-20 minutes a game, even if he's not producing -- because you need to get his confidence up and you need him to learn how to play in games... not just practice.
if he's not producing, bench him.
Eventually he'll get the hang of it and you can raise his minutes. most importantly, however, is it saves Amar'e from going up against the biggest guy on the floor every night, saving his knees and health.