Go NY Go NY Go!

[whensly]

Me thinks other NBA teams are going to start taking the bockers seriously. ;D

[ironman95]

I think the other teams do take the Knickerbockers seriously. Since the team is like Jeckyl and Hide, they hope the Jeckyl shows up and not Hide. I think their mindset is "which Knicks are going to show up tonight?". Same question D'Antoni asks himself every night. What I am noticing is some lesseining is the inconsistency department. Crawford and Zach were pretty incosistent, put them together with some of the others and it carried over. Now less player are inconsistent. Lee very consistent, Chandler getting there, Gallo getting there. Unfortunately I don't Nate, Al or Larry will ever get there.

[axios]

I have to give credit to Harrington, sharing the ball more and not heaving up 23 shots a game. Hughes is crying again, he needs to keep it quiet, we cant win with him going 1-16.

[irish2u2]

I am watching the metamorphosis of a NBA team.

First and foremost they are playing defense and for all the criticism leveled at Jared Jefferies (and to be fair some was totally justified) he is the defensive/team catalyst. His effort, hustle, sacrifice and willingness on defense is the key to our recent return to NBA respectability.

We are inconsistent. I think MDA is looking for a rotation but as pointed out he is starting to get consistent performances from all his starters (Lee, Chandler, Duhon, Gallinari and Jefferies), he is getting production off the bench in Harrington, Nate and Bender and we can even see that the young uns' like Douglas, Hill and Landry have some serious skills.

I think we are approaching the point of "fine tuning" the rotation but the key is the continuing development of Lee, Duhon, Chandler and Gallo. In each case I see a different player now then at the beginning of the year. They are more aggressive, more sure of themselves and less reluctant to display skills we all knew they had but seldom showed. They have some confidence and swagger to them. They are also playing extremely well together and showing some impressive on court smarts. I think Chandler should be singled out as his game seems to me to have grown and matured the most.

We will get games like the Nets game because we are still a team that is smallish and too dependent on jump shooting but when it clicks like last night against Indiana we are a pretty good NBA team capable of beating almost anybody.

The real good news is we didn't have to wait till the summer to have some fun with this team.

[ironman95]

I think the better defense, both effort and results, leads to more confidence and less desperation on offense. Hence less hoisting up threes. If you know you can get a stop, then working for a two seems more palatable than firing away from 3-point range. I now see the value of Jeffries(I have been one of the detractors). I wish he had more muscle, I wish he could shoot, but he does a lot of the intangibles, like taking charges, some blocks and good switching defense. He may be the glue. I still think we should sign LeBron and Lee as our major free agents, forget about Joe Johnson, and either sign Azubuike(or somebody similar, Kleiza and Pietrus come to mind) or try and get MacGrady for the MLE in the summer, or both.

[irish2u2]

Iron

I like Azubuike too. ; ) I don't know who was first advocating him but we both liked him 2 years ago. Still if we can sign LeBron, Lee and Joe Johnson why wouldn't we? Johnson will go for less than max and we can't save that amount for a run at Chris Paul who will surely be looking at max money. However if we can make a run at Paul by not going after Johnson then I am all aboard with your plan.

I think it also remains to be seen if Wilson Chandler can morph into a NBA shooting guard. If he can, and so far he is doing a pretty decent job, that is another reason not to go after Johnson.

I am leery of McGrady and those tender knees.

[irish2u2]

BTW, Kleiza is signed overseas and the Magic love Pietrus. On the other hand with Donnie Nelson as coach and 200 shooting guards on the team Azubuike may be available. ; )

[ironman95]

Azubuike unfortunately has had a very serious knee injury, which will side-line him the rest of the year. So the Knicks need to get a full bill of health on him, before signing him. I like him a lot, always have, but caution is the proper tack right now with him. He's a wing player who defends, won't cost an arm and a leg, and can put up numbers..............if healthy. Not sure who joined his fandom first, maybe me, but it could have been you. I know I saw him play one time, and loved what he did, about 2 years ago. I think I'm right on Beasley over Rose, long-term, Tyreke Evans being the 2nd best pick this year, and Budinger, Jerebko and maybe Blair being my 2nd round sleepers. I still would have taken Budinger over Douglas. I'm still a big fan of Jerome Jordan of Tulsa, and they are winning most their games this year, although I haven't watched yet.

[dk7th]

Jan 4, 2010 18:47:44 GMT -5 ironman95 said:

Azubuike unfortunately has had a very serious knee injury, which will side-line him the rest of the year. So the Knicks need to get a full bill of health on him, before signing him. I like him a lot, always have, but caution is the proper tack right now with him. He's a wing player who defends, won't cost an arm and a leg, and can put up numbers..............if healthy. Not sure who joined his fandom first, maybe me, but it could have been you. I know I saw him play one time, and loved what he did, about 2 years ago. I think I'm right on Beasley over Rose, long-term, Tyreke Evans being the 2nd best pick this year, and Budinger, Jerebko and maybe Blair being my 2nd round sleepers. I still would have taken Budinger over Douglas. I'm still a big fan of Jerome Jordan of Tulsa, and they are winning most their games this year, although I haven't watched yet.

that would've been me. i made a list of players i thought were good value role players. azubuike, pietrus, brandon bass, linas kleiza, leon powe, james posey, paul milsap, and jason maxiel were on that list. i stand by that list still. i also like ime udoka when he was with the spurs. nobody else i have seen since that time comes to mind except the rookie blair on the spurs-- except those knees... although cut from a different cloth i am fond of what i have seen of chris douglas-roberts as a sixth-man scorer type. i saw the rookie pg lawson for the nuggets play a few minutes in college in the ncaa tournament and though he'd be a steal for the knicks. too bad we went for the "best player available" instead but i guess the nba draft doesn't work that way.