Positives and Negatives
I'll start with positives since they are few.
-Toney Douglas had his first solid game were he actually looked to penetrate and drive to the hoop. Douglas is struggling because he looks to shoot instead of drive but he has speed and he hasn't been using it. Douglas can onlybe effective if he drives to the hoop. He CANNOT be a SG, he has to play like a PG.
-Jared Jeffries was very good. He played great help defense and rebounded well. I can't stand Jeffries and thinks he plays way too much but Amare has been terrible this year and Jeffries is playing better defense and Jeffries doesn't kill opportunities by bricking a million shots, he just doesn't shoot.
-Chandler has shown that he can stop the top center in the NBA, Dwight Howard. Dwight had only 8 points. The blame goes to the perimeter defenders, mainly guys like FIelds and Walker who got torched by JJ Redick and no one helping out to cover Ryan Anderson. Knicks are the worst team defending penetration to the hoop. They collapse their defense and leave players outside wide open, this is obvious and the Magic took advantage of our inconsistent defense.
Negatives
Where to begin.
How about the fact that as I previously said, we are horrible at guarding hte perimeter. This shows me that as a team trying to be better on defense, we try so hard to guard the paint that we collapse the paint all game and leave shooters open from the outside.
We continue to make bad switches. How many times is a guard covering a big man down low after a switch? How many times is Amare covering a PG on the perimeter? This destroys us and teams always take advantage of it and the fact that it happens every game and the team doesn;t stop doing it tells me the defense has barely improved. Without Tyson we are worse than last year on defense.
Landry Fields is terrible. I can't stand watching him anymore. I honestly believe that anyone else on this team would make a bigger impact than Fields. WHenever he gets the pass he does three things...he either passes the ball back quickly, he dribbles for a few seconds then passes to someone behind him, or he does a pump fake and passes it right away....none of these moves results in helping the offense. He is stagnant and continues to look lost and can't pass or dribble for his life. Fields is not a starter on any team in the NBA. His stock plummeted and continues to plummet.
Amare has his head in the clouds. I don't know if it was the trade talks with him going to NO for CHris Paul or what but Amare is lost. He is not even close to all star material and has hurt us more than anyone else except Fields. We desperately need a PG because Amare can't create his own shot, he is a dud on offense. He stands on the outside of the paint when he should be down low. He doesn't attack the basket for offensive rebounds like he did against the Pistons which made him very effective. He continues to balhandle and turn the ball over. He makes stupid plays on defense and continues to get into early foul trouble. All of these results in him scoring six points from the gam before this one and ten points in this game.
I would not mind trading Amare right now. He doesn't fit in this offense anymore. Melo is better on both ends of the floor, he is our franchise player, not Amare. Sorry Amare, you started it in NY but you can't finish it.
Mike D has to go. We are 6-7 when we should not be. The team is sturggling offensively when he is known as an offensive "genius" please get this clown out of NY. ANybody can coach this team and have them play better on both ends of the floor.
We refuse to do fundamentals such as get rebounds and play basic defense. We don't attack the rim and draw fouls consistently. We don't use our players strengths, we are lost. Please someone get fired.