the fact there is no Point Guard on the active roster. you can say whatever you want about how carmelo is inefficient (which would be a lie, he's been fantastic through 3,) how d'antoni doesn't know what he's doing, how the knicks don't play defense (they actually have this year in spurts) but none of that matters right now. when you look at this team through 3 games and you really look and see what's going on with this team you don't have to look any further than the offense and specifically the point-guard position. so now all the sudden d'antoni doesn't know offense? no. this team is being led at PG by a guy in Toney Douglas who is not a starting PG in this league. he's a fine player and definitely works as a sixth man and scoring off the bench but his forte is not as a distributor, which is the exact reason you see carmelo bringing the ball up so much. TD does not run the pick and pop efficiently either and this is hurting amear's game greatly. the pick and pop is a vital part of d'antoni's offense and with no PG to run that, as well as the engine overall, turns things into what we're looking at now - a mess. another issue offensively is that the addition of chandler has kinda clogged the middle for amear, which has turned him into a jump-shooter. amear has to figure this out and figure a way to do his thing with chandler taking up space downlow.
what does this all mean? well for one this is the 5th game of the season (if you include preseason) which means in a normal NBA year, we're not even HALFWAY through the preseason yet and this is for a team who has hardly played together to begin with after the carmelo trade of last year. unfortunately there are no excuses and these games count. but make no mistake about it - this team needs to find itself a PG, whether that's baron davis (and we all hope and pray that it is) or elsewhere, because an able-bodied PG, makes alot of these glaring issues go away and brings some posters back from the edge of the cliff.
I completely agree.
Add the PG situation to the lack of a pure shooter at the 2 and our problems are exacerbated.
After the Celtics game, it seems like teams have picked up on the fact that you just have to clog the middle and we turn into a bad jump shooting team.
Our true power is on the inside but we have yet to see that because we have no penetrating guards or pure shooters to draw the defense.
we had Felton and bilups fall thru our fingers.......Shump is hurt.
How many teams can go thru 3 pt guards and still have the caliber of Baron waiting in the wings?
Patience.
Nalod wrote:we had Felton and bilups fall thru our fingers.......Shump is hurt.
How many teams can go thru 3 pt guards and still have the caliber of Baron waiting in the wings?
Patience.
We are pinning a lot of hope on Bdiddy, if he doesn't work out we are in deep trouble.
The Point Guard is the key to our kingdom.
Simply the truth, but for everybody that has been seeing the games, it has to be quite alarming how terrible we look offensively without a PG, how we can't seem to device a new strategy or tweak something in order to stay afloat when we go cold in a game. For a team that has the weapons we do, its amazing how dependant we are on the PG.
Even more alarming should be how this affects our defense. We have shown we can play solid defense in spurts, but our deficiencies seem to frustrate our players into giving up on D. While that is understandable from a human point of view, as a team it shows lack of discipline, immaturity and lask of pride.
I believe we can still play good defense. Had we done it, the last games wouldn't have been blowouts and we probably win one. But we hung our heads and doing so this early is a reason to worry as much as for the lack of PG.
Kobe and Gasol have never had a legit PG and they won rings.
So yea, its our defense.
Nalod wrote:we had Felton and bilups fall thru our fingers.......Shump is hurt.
How many teams can go thru 3 pt guards and still have the caliber of Baron waiting in the wings?
Patience.
The reason no team has Baron Davis waiting is that they all passed on him! His health status is a complete unknown.
JrZyHuStLa wrote:Kobe and Gasol have never had a legit PG and they won rings.So yea, its our defense.
When Kobe was winning rings he was the best player in the world. They also had the best coach of all time not to mention the triangle offense which is a system that doesn't need a pg, especially when you have the best player in the league playing in it...
Uptown wrote:JrZyHuStLa wrote:Kobe and Gasol have never had a legit PG and they won rings.So yea, its our defense.
When Kobe was winning rings he was the best player in the world. They also had the best coach of all time not to mention the triangle offense which is a system that doesn't need a pg, especially when you have the best player in the league playing in it...
All fair points, but Stat and Melo are in their primes as well. I'm not saying they're in Kobe's level in regards to their prime, but what I am saying is that there is still no effort whatsoever defensively, and that has to fall on the head coach. Kobe's will to play defense gets overlooked because of his dynamic offensive production, but he gets on his guys time after time for defensive lapses. I don't see that from our stars. Sure, we definitely need some help at the PG position, but thats far from our biggest weakness.
JrZyHuStLa wrote:Kobe and Gasol have never had a legit PG and they won rings.So yea, its our defense.
No they dint have a great PG but fisher takes smart shots and can spot the open man. It's not rocket sciencem its basketball fundamentals
JrZyHuStLa wrote:Uptown wrote:JrZyHuStLa wrote:Kobe and Gasol have never had a legit PG and they won rings.So yea, its our defense.
When Kobe was winning rings he was the best player in the world. They also had the best coach of all time not to mention the triangle offense which is a system that doesn't need a pg, especially when you have the best player in the league playing in it...
All fair points, but Stat and Melo are in their primes as well. I'm not saying they're in Kobe's level in regards to their prime, but what I am saying is that there is still no effort whatsoever defensively, and that has to fall on the head coach. Kobe's will to play defense gets overlooked because of his dynamic offensive production, but he gets on his guys time after time for defensive lapses. I don't see that from our stars. Sure, we definitely need some help at the PG position, but thats far from our biggest weakness.
I see sparatic effort on D, when they do try, they overplay way too much. It seems like thay haven't been taught properly how to play man-to-man, help and recover. Think about it, MDA has been Amare's coach for basically his entire career...Some of the blame has to go the coach for not properly teaching Stat how to play D especially when you consider he never went to college.
Its ridiculous to watch them try to play defense with thier hands, karate chopping at balls and not closing out on shooters. Serioulsy, I think its a combination of coaching and the shortened training camp whihc didn't allow Woodson to really roll up his sleeves and teach them the proper techniques. BTW, I never knew Woodson was supposed to be a defensive specialist. I need to research his old Hawks teams...
or... we could be getting ready our last 3 preseason games with a new team which is where we should be right now.
Look at the schedule... its gets a whole lot easier and fast. Im guessing perceptions will change when we start pounding out some wins against the NBAs weaker teams
fishmike wrote:or... we could be getting ready our last 3 preseason games with a new team which is where we should be right now. Look at the schedule... its gets a whole lot easier and fast. Im guessing perceptions will change when we start pounding out some wins against the NBAs weaker teams
Agreed! Anyone remember the horrible start the HEAT got off to last year? Remember the articles, the talking heads and blogs and manic forum members screaming that Lebron and Wade have the same skillsets and they didn't mesh well? Remember when they lost by 30 to the Bulls at home and lost to the Celts and every other elite team? Remember when Bosh was said to be crying in the locker room and people began calling for Coach Spo's head. Remember, despite all of that the heat somehow managed to find themseleves in the Finals....How'd they do that?
fishmike wrote:Im guessing perceptions will change when we start pounding out some wins against the NBAs weaker teams
Like who, Golden State? 
Hope all is well with you Fish.
JrZyHuStLa wrote:fishmike wrote:Im guessing perceptions will change when we start pounding out some wins against the NBAs weaker teams
Like who, Golden State?
Hope all is well with you Fish.
You mean that same Golden State team that pounded the Bulls?
Uptown wrote:JrZyHuStLa wrote:fishmike wrote:Im guessing perceptions will change when we start pounding out some wins against the NBAs weaker teams
Like who, Golden State?
Hope all is well with you Fish.
You mean that same Golden State team that pounded the Bulls?
No no, we make excuses for the Bulls losing to them. We only over react to the Knicks losing.
