Yes, I had to come back for this.
Did you see those 3 or 4 possessions, where it was only STAT & Melo on the strong side, playing old school 2 man hoops? Setting screens for one another, passing the ball back and forth, and connecting on multiple shots and looks inside, getting STAT to the line, and then discussing their efforts and strategies on the court? Was that not a few minutes of bliss?
It was beautiful to watch. Melo is an underrated passer, but sometimes not really a willing passer.
What made it sort of deadly, was that we were making our 3's so the defense had to respect our spacing. Stat like last year, is slowly coming around. Kepping him in the 20 mins territory is whats best moving forward.
His Defense is still terrible to keep him longer.
The problem is that when the Knicks move the ball like they did tonight once they got the idea, it's not part of a concerted effort from a planning standpoint. Woody isn't scripting this style of play. If he was we'd have seen it from the start and it would be much more frequent. However, if the players can figure this out on their own and keep looking for each other that will have a great positive effect. Melo running PnR with STAT and Bargs is a high % play almost every time. Why Woody hasn't made this a feature of the offense is beyond me. He should know his own teams statistics and what is most efficient.
nixluva wrote:The problem is that when the Knicks move the ball like they did tonight once they got the idea, it's not part of a concerted effort from a planning standpoint. Woody isn't scripting this style of play. If he was we'd have seen it from the start and it would be much more frequent. However, if the players can figure this out on their own and keep looking for each other that will have a great positive effect. Melo running PnR with STAT and Bargs is a high % play almost every time. Why Woody hasn't made this a feature of the offense is beyond me. He should know his own teams statistics and what is most efficient.
ultimately hes gotta go for this reason alone.
The 2 man game with STAT and Melo has been something others have brought up in the past and when STAT is healthy he and Melo work very well together. I feel the same could be said about Bargs too. This team needs Melo to be involved in more PnR plays. It was a big topic in the summer when Melo mentioned he had been looking to work on that with his trainer this summer because of how efficient he is in PnR and then the season starts and ... NOTHING!!! This is crazy. Between Melo and Woody they have to make sure that this is a regular feature of the offense. It's just too successful not to be.
