Why are we still terrible?

As Saturday night’s NFL blowout reached halftime, I decided to check in on my Knicks to see if we were putting up any fight against the Thunder in Oklahoma City. Facing arguably the NBA’s best team without star Carmelo Anthony is certainly a losing battle, but there were moral victories to be had and hey, you never know. Upon tuning in to MSG, I was met with the horror that inspired this article. You know it’s bad when Brady’s beatdown on Tebow was the best thing on TV at that time. The first thing I saw, naturally, was an 89-59 deficit in the third quarter. I immediately reasoned out how this was possible. Both our offense and defense have been struggling and we are without our best player. However, the next layer of disgust really put my emotions over the edge. The jersey numbers of our five men at that moment were 17, 16, 32, 9, and 44. Casual basketball fans would not likely guess who any of these guys are on a quiz, and I would estimate that religious Knicks fans would get about two correct. In order, the players representing the Knicks at that given moment in time were Jeremy Lin, Steve Novak, Ronaldo Balkman, Jared Jeffries, and Jerome Jordan. It is somewhat common to give the substitute players a few minutes in the fourth quarter during a blowout (winning or losing), but this was not far past halftime. This was not an example of taking a knee to mercifully end a game; these are guys that actually get minutes. These are possible rotation guys, and that’s scary. That lineup makes Bill Walker and Josh Harrellson look like Carmelo and Amare. For reasons we will dive into, the fact that the Knicks are currently 6-6 is unfortunately great news.

The Knicks are traditionally terrible on defense, but it seemed that the addition of Tyson chandler would make them two things: willing and capable of playing defense. The basics are necessary before you become a great, or even a good defensive team. They have shown that they may be both of these, but their idea of defense is sadly contrary to what we immediately think of. They foul people early and often, which is not exactly good defense. The Knicks are 15^th in opposing points per game, which is not that bad, and places us right in the middle. For a team that is accustomed to bad, mediocrity is a gift. Chandler plays hard and is a quality anchor, but we have yet to see that attitude become contagious. Once Dallas caught this disease they almost immediately won a championship, so it is something to look forward to. The still struggling defense might just be an issue of cohesiveness. This is their only issue that I believe can fix itself over time. Until then, what little defense they play has been a display of “hacking and whacking”, as Clyde would say. The problem is that one or both of our star players are benched within six to ten minutes of play because he picked up two quick fouls. These early losses contribute to the Knicks’ offensive struggles at the other end of the floor, which are even more troubling.

While it still takes criticism, the Knicks have a defense that is serviceable and can win many games with the offense that they traditionally bring on a consistent basis. The problem is that while the defense has taken one small step forward, the offense has regressed one giant leap. The foul trouble mentioned earlier does not help but is not the leading cause of death for D’antoni’s system. What made him a good coach in Phoenix was one man, Steve Nash, the point guard. Having weapons for him was nice, but he was what made it work. The Knicks now have just about everything but that one essential element. Not having a franchise guy like Chris Paul or even serviceable point guard like Raymond Felton last year has led to absolutely no ball movement and a series of one on one possessions. Even our top heavy talent cannot overcome that. Toney Douglas was the first starter but made quick work out of losing his job. He now acts as a sparkplug off the bench who has lost his shooting touch (a bold combination). Both he and Landry Fields have been turnover machines at mass production. One saving grace has been Iman Shumpert, the rookie we picked too early who seems to actually be a good idea so far. He hustles more than anyone else on the team, plays the second best defense to Chandler and is surprisingly an efficient scorer. So how did coach D’antoni screw this one up? He made him the next franchise point guard, which is clearly not his role. Granted, I may not have the better option, but I would rather identify every good player we have, keep him in his role, and experiment with the remaining slots. Let Bibby and Douglas fight over the point guard role until Baron Davis takes it from both of them. I like to think he is the long term answer for this season, but only time will tell.

Attacking a couple of individuals identifies the Knicks’ problems just as well as the teamwork related issues. First victim is Amare Stoudemire; I am both a fan and fantasy owner of the man they call “Stat”, so his struggles are well documented with me. Most fans or analysts would draw his problems since the Melo trade back to his injury problems, but they should know better. Here’s a guy who has not been healthy since High School and basically plays with one eye. Despite all this he was a strong MVP candidate up until we acquired Carmelo Anthony. I cannot tell whether his problem is with the dual superstar wielding system, or the fact that he has not had a decent point guard feeding him the ball since that trade went down. He is not a selfish player or person, so I lean towards the absence of a point guard. For this reason, he has to get over it, accept that receiving the league’s best scorer was worth getting rid of a few decent players and start creating his own opportunities. He has as good a skill set as any big man in the NBA; very few power forwards are as capable of creating their own shots. Once Davis returns, he will hopefully be reintroduced to quality passing, but until then he needs to fine tune his own game.

The second target is Mike D’antoni, a guy I do not usually pick on because more than any other coach in sports, I feel his pain. He gets more visibly frustrated on the sidelines and I completely understand it. When Carmelo walking off the court for either a breather or foul trouble basically means you can no longer play well, a coach feels helpless. However, while I sympathize with his reactions, he is only doing half of his job. He identifies their problems, which is no more than what fans do, and then he fails to do anything about it. They have lost consecutive games to terrible teams, which coaches should not let happen. They have flirted with 30 point losses in consecutive games, another coaching sin. He may not have the easiest job in the world, from their embarrassing lack of depth to the high expectations, but he has to at least keep this team focused enough to win the games that they should win against teams that they should beat. My realistic expectations as a Knicks fan require that we beat bad teams and simply show up and play respectable basketball against good teams. We are not a championship roster yet, but we have to start showing signs that we are even close.