Knicks · Bad Roster or Bad Coaching? (page 1)

For a month now there's been this ongoing argument about what the real issue with this team was. IMO there is no single answer but a HUGE part of the problem was the coaching coming out of training camp. There was no clear vision of how this team was going to play and the players performed like a team that didn't know how it was supposed to play. Sure we had players who needed to get in shape and get their form back but the problems were too numerous for that to be an excuse and neither was injury.

Woody was insulted that people were saying Ball Movement was a huge problem. The fact is that we have video evidence of the team working on Ball Movement and spacing the floor. It's clear for all to see that even with the exact same players this team is capable of play much better than it was and it started with Ball Movement and Spacing. This isn't to say the Knicks are suddenly a great team, but the point is that they are not and should never have been as bad as they started off looking.

You can't say the roster sucks and therefor the team can't win and then all of a sudden when the coach actually does the right thing with his team they win. CLEARLY this wasn't a case of the worst talent in the league but rather POOR coaching which had the team forgetting it's identity and making things much harder than they should've been. I don't think the roster is perfect and they do still need an improvement in talent, but now we need to put to bed this idea that the current roster can't pay well enough to win and that the coach should get a pass cuz he's saddled with a bad roster. IMO that was always BS and now we can see that they can play much better.

It's mainly coaching but the roster played a part in it. Woody is still a weak coach, I hope no one thinks he is in any way responsible for these wins.

Unique roster, unimaginative coaching. Also, we haven't had solid PG play.

New roster. Injuries. Guys getting to the point where they were ready to change.

Well what I would say is that the way this team has played the last 2 games is much more like last year and what we expected to see. It took WAY too long for Woody to finally acknowledge that this team needed to play the way it did last year. The Ball Movement, Floor spacing with Melo in the post is EXACTLY what they did last year. Then you can run some of the other plays this team ran successfully like the Horns, Triple Screen and Scissors plays. All of it was better than the garbage he allowed all year. They still need work, but it's a great example of how important it is for a coach to make it clear what the players should be doing.

I still can't get over how Woody chafed at the idea that Ball Movement was the source of the issues with the losing and now we see 2 games with GREAT Ball Movement and the team looks 1000x better. Dude basically dropped the ball and caused his team to flounder. It wasn't that he had a bad roster, but that he failed to coach them in the right direction. You have to drill Ball Movement and spacing into your teams head until it's second nature. Now we see Ball Movement drills before a game??? NO new players, just a change in approach that was obvious to most except Woody.

nixluva wrote:Well what I would say is that the way this team has played the last 2 games is much more like last year and what we expected to see. It took WAY too long for Woody to finally acknowledge that this team needed to play the way it did last year. The Ball Movement, Floor spacing with Melo in the post is EXACTLY what they did last year. Then you can run some of the other plays this team ran successfully like the Horns, Triple Screen and Scissors plays. All of it was better than the garbage he allowed all year. They still need work, but it's a great example of how important it is for a coach to make it clear what the players should be doing.

I still can't get over how Woody chafed at the idea that Ball Movement was the source of the issues with the losing and now we see 2 games with GREAT Ball Movement and the team looks 1000x better. Dude basically dropped the ball and caused his team to flounder. It wasn't that he had a bad roster, but that he failed to coach them in the right direction. You have to drill Ball Movement and spacing into your teams head until it's second nature. Now we see Ball Movement drills before a game??? NO new players, just a change in approach that was obvious to most except Woody.

We also benefitted from not having to face a quality PG. Felton, to his credit, has also been solid.

Just The Facts

nixluva - team cohesion requires months of building trust, sometimes years

The Knicks turned over 40 per cent of the roster

Our primary catalyst, Ray Felton has been playing injured. Our other guards struggle to defend.

Carmelo feels obligated to lead as he thinks a scorer should lead, by scoring. He is seeing things different. 10 rebounds and 4 assists is a nice look for him.

Knicks players are getting acquainted with new matchups and new rotations from new opponents

Michael Carter Williams would look positively beautiful in orange and blue.

It is a long season.

BigDaddyG wrote:

nixluva wrote:Well what I would say is that the way this team has played the last 2 games is much more like last year and what we expected to see. It took WAY too long for Woody to finally acknowledge that this team needed to play the way it did last year. The Ball Movement, Floor spacing with Melo in the post is EXACTLY what they did last year. Then you can run some of the other plays this team ran successfully like the Horns, Triple Screen and Scissors plays. All of it was better than the garbage he allowed all year. They still need work, but it's a great example of how important it is for a coach to make it clear what the players should be doing.

I still can't get over how Woody chafed at the idea that Ball Movement was the source of the issues with the losing and now we see 2 games with GREAT Ball Movement and the team looks 1000x better. Dude basically dropped the ball and caused his team to flounder. It wasn't that he had a bad roster, but that he failed to coach them in the right direction. You have to drill Ball Movement and spacing into your teams head until it's second nature. Now we see Ball Movement drills before a game??? NO new players, just a change in approach that was obvious to most except Woody.

We also benefitted from not having to face a quality PG. Felton, to his credit, has also been solid.

Sure we still have issues guarding quick PG's, but on offense it's night and day from how the team was playing before. I'm talking about the sets, ball movement, spacing and execution. We lost mostly due to PUTRID offense. This team was an offensive team last year and still is this year, so we can't afford to forget how to play efficient offense. Woody for some reason abandoned the style of play from last year and now that he went back to it all of a sudden everything snaps back into place.

nixluva wrote:Well what I would say is that the way this team has played the last 2 games is much more like last year and what we expected to see. It took WAY too long for Woody to finally acknowledge that this team needed to play the way it did last year. The Ball Movement, Floor spacing with Melo in the post is EXACTLY what they did last year. Then you can run some of the other plays this team ran successfully like the Horns, Triple Screen and Scissors plays. All of it was better than the garbage he allowed all year. They still need work, but it's a great example of how important it is for a coach to make it clear what the players should be doing.

I still can't get over how Woody chafed at the idea that Ball Movement was the source of the issues with the losing and now we see 2 games with GREAT Ball Movement and the team looks 1000x better. Dude basically dropped the ball and caused his team to flounder. It wasn't that he had a bad roster, but that he failed to coach them in the right direction. You have to drill Ball Movement and spacing into your teams head until it's second nature. Now we see Ball Movement drills before a game??? NO new players, just a change in approach that was obvious to most except Woody.

I don't think Woodson had any autonomy this year. He had it last year with Grunwald. Once Grunwald was fired his safety net and gm was gone. That means a lot to a coach. Look at what happened with D'Antoni despite having a much more talented roster. Woodson lost Tyson but wasn't allowed to play KMart and then was forced to play Amare. Amare has been a handicap/negative all season. Maybe last night will help get him right but I fear that he is injured and I don't think he will ever be right. Being forced to keep Chris over a competent big (Chris played 11 minutes tonight in erie and didn't score), having an injured Felton and then losing Felton, losing Tyson etc. Too much adversity and outside things going on for a team that is already over analyzed by an intense media and fan base. In sports generally the medical staff says if a guy can play or not. Telling a coach to play a guy 9 minutes a night is ridiculous for everyone involved. I don't think any coach has had to adjust to anything close to the wild and crazy antics of the Knicks owner when he becomes involved. He must be on tour. Shump is smiling again.

misterearl wrote:Just The Facts

nixluva - team cohesion requires months of building trust, sometimes years

The Knicks turned over 40 per cent of the roster

Our primary catalyst, Ray Felton has been playing injured. Our other guards struggle to defend.

Carmelo feels obligated to lead as he thinks a scorer should lead, by scoring. He is seeing things different. 10 rebounds and 4 assists is a nice look for him.

Knicks players are getting acquainted with new matchups and new rotations from new opponents

Michael Carter Williams would look positively beautiful in orange and blue.

It is a long season.

Tho these are facts they have NOTHING to do with the fact that this team wasn't running the right offense all year. You talk like we have a bunch of strangers on the floor, no film of last year, a new coach or something. I can literally show you the stills from games we lost this year and show you that the team wasn't using the same Spread Offense we killed teams with last year. That's the biggest reason for the failure. Then you also have rotations and defense, but most of all it's been the return of the Spread floor, ball swinging, Melo in the post style from last year. Woody didn't make that the core of the offensive attack this year and it was obvious.

Don't use the new players as an excuse cuz that's not what the problem was. That's the reason we have Pre Camp, Training Camp and Preseason to drill the offense and get the ball movement and spacing right. simply NO EXCUSE for how bad it was until now.

Yawn

Knicks win.

Go for three.

nixluva wrote:

misterearl wrote:Just The Facts

nixluva - team cohesion requires months of building trust, sometimes years

The Knicks turned over 40 per cent of the roster

Our primary catalyst, Ray Felton has been playing injured. Our other guards struggle to defend.

Carmelo feels obligated to lead as he thinks a scorer should lead, by scoring. He is seeing things different. 10 rebounds and 4 assists is a nice look for him.

Knicks players are getting acquainted with new matchups and new rotations from new opponents

Michael Carter Williams would look positively beautiful in orange and blue.

It is a long season.

Tho these are facts they have NOTHING to do with the fact that this team wasn't running the right offense all year. You talk like we have a bunch of strangers on the floor, no film of last year, a new coach or something. I can literally show you the stills from games we lost this year and show you that the team wasn't using the same Spread Offense we killed teams with last year. That's the biggest reason for the failure. Then you also have rotations and defense, but most of all it's been the return of the Spread floor, ball swinging, Melo in the post style from last year. Woody didn't make that the core of the offensive attack this year and it was obvious.

Don't use the new players as an excuse cuz that's not what the problem was. That's the reason we have Pre Camp, Training Camp and Preseason to drill the offense and get the ball movement and spacing right. simply NO EXCUSE for how bad it was until now.

Where were these complaints when the Knicks came out of training camp with D'Antoni every year and lost a ton of games. D'Antoni had the same roster except for Darko, and the two draft picks and the team went 1-9. At that time I think the players weren't doing what d'antoni taught them according to you. You are trying to trash a coach that actually won a lot of games as a Knick coach. There are a lot of factors involved in the poor start and Woodson absolutely has to take some of the blame but this isn't a reset to say that the guy is a bad coach.

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:Well what I would say is that the way this team has played the last 2 games is much more like last year and what we expected to see. It took WAY too long for Woody to finally acknowledge that this team needed to play the way it did last year. The Ball Movement, Floor spacing with Melo in the post is EXACTLY what they did last year. Then you can run some of the other plays this team ran successfully like the Horns, Triple Screen and Scissors plays. All of it was better than the garbage he allowed all year. They still need work, but it's a great example of how important it is for a coach to make it clear what the players should be doing.

I still can't get over how Woody chafed at the idea that Ball Movement was the source of the issues with the losing and now we see 2 games with GREAT Ball Movement and the team looks 1000x better. Dude basically dropped the ball and caused his team to flounder. It wasn't that he had a bad roster, but that he failed to coach them in the right direction. You have to drill Ball Movement and spacing into your teams head until it's second nature. Now we see Ball Movement drills before a game??? NO new players, just a change in approach that was obvious to most except Woody.

I don't think Woodson had any autonomy this year. He had it last year with Grunwald. Once Grunwald was fired his safety net and gm was gone. That means a lot to a coach. Look at what happened with D'Antoni despite having a much more talented roster. Woodson lost Tyson but wasn't allowed to play KMart and then was forced to play Amare. Amare has been a handicap/negative all season. Maybe last night will help get him right but I fear that he is injured and I don't think he will ever be right. Being forced to keep Chris over a competent big (Chris played 11 minutes tonight in erie and didn't score), having an injured Felton and then losing Felton, losing Tyson etc. Too much adversity and outside things going on for a team that is already over analyzed by an intense media and fan base. In sports generally the medical staff says if a guy can play or not. Telling a coach to play a guy 9 minutes a night is ridiculous for everyone involved. I don't think any coach has had to adjust to anything close to the wild and crazy antics of the Knicks owner when he becomes involved. He must be on tour. Shump is smiling again.

What does any of this have to do with Spreading the floor and moving the ball? They weren't even trying to run that offense until now. The last 2 games is the only time the team has actually focused on the same style of ball they won with last year. It had NOTHING to do with Grunwald being fired or losing Tyson. Basically it was a tactical mistake by Woodson. He never used the things that worked last year with pretty much the same players. If he started off dedicated to playing that style and just grafted in the new players they would've picked it up faster. He hasn't been trying to play that style and now before the game he actually has the team drilling swinging the ball around the perimeter???

If I was to show you stills of the sets from last year and compare them to the losing games this year and then the last 2 games you'd immediately notice that the last 2 games were a match for what we did last year. It's really mostly Woody's fault for not making it a priority. The core players already knew how to do it, so it wouldn't take long to establish that and work the new guys in, but Woody didn't do that.

misterearl wrote:Yawn

Knicks win.

Go for three.

REAL ADULT. You were wrong and now you can't be a man and admit it. You went after me relentlessly saying this was about the roster and couldn't be helped. You made it sound like this team was doomed to bad BB because of the roster and that there was nothing WOody could do. I've been saying the same thing since day one and now that Woody finally makes a change it all comes together.

We know the team needs upgrades, but that had nothing to do with all the losing. The team should not have lost so many games and looked so lost. That is a COACHING thing. The team still needs a better PG, but that shouldn't stop them from better execution, spacing and ball movement. That was Woody's fault. He didn't make that a priority and now that he has the team is getting it and playing much better. No new players, just a move back to the scheme that worked for this team. This is how they have to play. Woody forgot that somehow.

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:Well what I would say is that the way this team has played the last 2 games is much more like last year and what we expected to see. It took WAY too long for Woody to finally acknowledge that this team needed to play the way it did last year. The Ball Movement, Floor spacing with Melo in the post is EXACTLY what they did last year. Then you can run some of the other plays this team ran successfully like the Horns, Triple Screen and Scissors plays. All of it was better than the garbage he allowed all year. They still need work, but it's a great example of how important it is for a coach to make it clear what the players should be doing.

I still can't get over how Woody chafed at the idea that Ball Movement was the source of the issues with the losing and now we see 2 games with GREAT Ball Movement and the team looks 1000x better. Dude basically dropped the ball and caused his team to flounder. It wasn't that he had a bad roster, but that he failed to coach them in the right direction. You have to drill Ball Movement and spacing into your teams head until it's second nature. Now we see Ball Movement drills before a game??? NO new players, just a change in approach that was obvious to most except Woody.

I don't think Woodson had any autonomy this year. He had it last year with Grunwald. Once Grunwald was fired his safety net and gm was gone. That means a lot to a coach. Look at what happened with D'Antoni despite having a much more talented roster. Woodson lost Tyson but wasn't allowed to play KMart and then was forced to play Amare. Amare has been a handicap/negative all season. Maybe last night will help get him right but I fear that he is injured and I don't think he will ever be right. Being forced to keep Chris over a competent big (Chris played 11 minutes tonight in erie and didn't score), having an injured Felton and then losing Felton, losing Tyson etc. Too much adversity and outside things going on for a team that is already over analyzed by an intense media and fan base. In sports generally the medical staff says if a guy can play or not. Telling a coach to play a guy 9 minutes a night is ridiculous for everyone involved. I don't think any coach has had to adjust to anything close to the wild and crazy antics of the Knicks owner when he becomes involved. He must be on tour. Shump is smiling again.

What does any of this have to do with Spreading the floor and moving the ball? They weren't even trying to run that offense until now. The last 2 games is the only time the team has actually focused on the same style of ball they won with last year. It had NOTHING to do with Grunwald being fired or losing Tyson. Basically it was a tactical mistake by Woodson. He never used the things that worked last year with pretty much the same players. If he started off dedicated to playing that style and just grafted in the new players they would've picked it up faster. He hasn't been trying to play that style and now before the game he actually has the team drilling swinging the ball around the perimeter???

If I was to show you stills of the sets from last year and compare them to the losing games this year and then the last 2 games you'd immediately notice that the last 2 games were a match for what we did last year. It's really mostly Woody's fault for not making it a priority. The core players already knew how to do it, so it wouldn't take long to establish that and work the new guys in, but Woody didn't do that.

Well Melo said they do that drill all the time in his post game interview but things definitely changed. I think there were a lot of things wrong with the knicks and I think the coach had one arm tied behind his back in regards to who he could play and the amount of minutes he could give them. I think your statement that Woodson 'chafed at the idea of ball movement' was way off. Not sure where this was coming from but I think there are a lot of factors at play in why the Knicks are struggling and I think a lot of it was a reaction to the dysfunction and recent hands on approach by the owner. Prior to this losing streak Woodson has done nothing but win since he became coach. Long losing streaks didn't happen and he was able to coach through roster turnover and injuries. That talent didn't suddenly go away. A lot more was thrown at him this year. Ignore his success if you think it means that he was lucky when he took over and got a well below .500 team to finish 18-5 or last years team to win 54 but I don't think that was the case. Let me ask you this, Why was Glen Grunwald fired? Why was Chris Snith left on the roster? Why was Amare given 9 minutes to turn the ball over every other night? I think all of those decision impacted Woodson, his coaching and his team despite what he said and did. Do you trust someone or think they are all about winning when they endorse keeping Chris Smith?

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

misterearl wrote:Just The Facts

nixluva - team cohesion requires months of building trust, sometimes years

The Knicks turned over 40 per cent of the roster

Our primary catalyst, Ray Felton has been playing injured. Our other guards struggle to defend.

Carmelo feels obligated to lead as he thinks a scorer should lead, by scoring. He is seeing things different. 10 rebounds and 4 assists is a nice look for him.

Knicks players are getting acquainted with new matchups and new rotations from new opponents

Michael Carter Williams would look positively beautiful in orange and blue.

It is a long season.

Tho these are facts they have NOTHING to do with the fact that this team wasn't running the right offense all year. You talk like we have a bunch of strangers on the floor, no film of last year, a new coach or something. I can literally show you the stills from games we lost this year and show you that the team wasn't using the same Spread Offense we killed teams with last year. That's the biggest reason for the failure. Then you also have rotations and defense, but most of all it's been the return of the Spread floor, ball swinging, Melo in the post style from last year. Woody didn't make that the core of the offensive attack this year and it was obvious.

Don't use the new players as an excuse cuz that's not what the problem was. That's the reason we have Pre Camp, Training Camp and Preseason to drill the offense and get the ball movement and spacing right. simply NO EXCUSE for how bad it was until now.

Where were these complaints when the Knicks came out of training camp with D'Antoni every year and lost a ton of games. D'Antoni had the same roster except for Darko, and the two draft picks and the team went 1-9. At that time I think the players weren't doing what d'antoni taught them according to you. You are trying to trash a coach that actually won a lot of games as a Knick coach. There are a lot of factors involved in the poor start and Woodson absolutely has to take some of the blame but this isn't a reset to say that the guy is a bad coach.

I don't want to drag this into another round of MDA talk. I've more than made my point regarding MDA and IMO MDA's time here was NOTHING like the relative stability Woody has had. Not to mention that Woody didn't get beat down like MDA did for years before he took over. Woody got a roster you can win with. Woody took over a roster with talent and a pouting Melo. When Melo decided to give MAX effort everything changed even tho nothing change from a tactical standpoint. They were winning before Melo came back. He comes back and drags the team down, pouts and we lose. MDA leaves, NO Practice or new strategy and suddenly Melo is bursting with energy and team wins! NOTHING Woody did on day one was responsible for the explosion we saw. You can disagree but the facts are clear. MDA is just fine with his new team. This is about Woody and the Knicks.

My point isn't that Woody can't win here. That would be stupid. My point is that he was very much responsible for the slow start. He had a ready made style and core of players from last year and he failed to do his job. You can't excuse the fact that he never used his team in the same way that was most successful. ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS START WITH WHAT WORKED. Now the very second they went back to that all of a sudden you see the spark. In fact this team only seems to lose when WOody goes away from that style. In the Playoffs he went with a more ISO heavy style and it wasn't as effective. To start this year he abandoned the style and we saw what happened. SOON AS HE GOES BACK TO IT...

On a side note there is a funny fake mike woodson account on twitter that i figure folks here might appreciate.

The handle is @MikeWoodsonPls and it's usually good for a laugh

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

misterearl wrote:Just The Facts

nixluva - team cohesion requires months of building trust, sometimes years

The Knicks turned over 40 per cent of the roster

Our primary catalyst, Ray Felton has been playing injured. Our other guards struggle to defend.

Carmelo feels obligated to lead as he thinks a scorer should lead, by scoring. He is seeing things different. 10 rebounds and 4 assists is a nice look for him.

Knicks players are getting acquainted with new matchups and new rotations from new opponents

Michael Carter Williams would look positively beautiful in orange and blue.

It is a long season.

Tho these are facts they have NOTHING to do with the fact that this team wasn't running the right offense all year. You talk like we have a bunch of strangers on the floor, no film of last year, a new coach or something. I can literally show you the stills from games we lost this year and show you that the team wasn't using the same Spread Offense we killed teams with last year. That's the biggest reason for the failure. Then you also have rotations and defense, but most of all it's been the return of the Spread floor, ball swinging, Melo in the post style from last year. Woody didn't make that the core of the offensive attack this year and it was obvious.

Don't use the new players as an excuse cuz that's not what the problem was. That's the reason we have Pre Camp, Training Camp and Preseason to drill the offense and get the ball movement and spacing right. simply NO EXCUSE for how bad it was until now.

Where were these complaints when the Knicks came out of training camp with D'Antoni every year and lost a ton of games. D'Antoni had the same roster except for Darko, and the two draft picks and the team went 1-9. At that time I think the players weren't doing what d'antoni taught them according to you. You are trying to trash a coach that actually won a lot of games as a Knick coach. There are a lot of factors involved in the poor start and Woodson absolutely has to take some of the blame but this isn't a reset to say that the guy is a bad coach.

I don't want to drag this into another round of MDA talk. I've more than made my point regarding MDA and IMO MDA's time here was NOTHING like the relative stability Woody has had. Not to mention that Woody didn't get beat down like MDA did for years before he took over. Woody got a roster you can win with. Woody took over a roster with talent and a pouting Melo. When Melo decided to give MAX effort everything changed even tho nothing change from a tactical standpoint. They were winning before Melo came back. He comes back and drags the team down, pouts and we lose. MDA leaves, NO Practice or new strategy and suddenly Melo is bursting with energy and team wins! NOTHING Woody did on day one was responsible for the explosion we saw. You can disagree but the facts are clear. MDA is just fine with his new team. This is about Woody and the Knicks.

My point isn't that Woody can't win here. That would be stupid. My point is that he was very much responsible for the slow start. He had a ready made style and core of players from last year and he failed to do his job. You can't excuse the fact that he never used his team in the same way that was most successful. ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS START WITH WHAT WORKED. Now the very second they went back to that all of a sudden you see the spark. In fact this team only seems to lose when WOody goes away from that style. In the Playoffs he went with a more ISO heavy style and it wasn't as effective. To start this year he abandoned the style and we saw what happened. SOON AS HE GOES BACK TO IT...

In regards to Woodson getting a roster that he could win with why didn't d'antoni win with it? D'Antoni has a philosophy/system that he goes with regardless of the players he has. It didn't work with that roster and the way he was using Melo. When Woodson took over the players, not just melo, came out and said things were different. They didn't go back to melo playing point forward tonight. They held a team to under 85 points. They moved the ball on offense. Maybe that is something stressed by d'antoni but do you think other coaches don't stress ball movement?
Here is a question for you. When Grunwald was fired and Steve Mills hired on the eve of training camp what did you think?
I thought oh ish. Anything can happen and expect the worse. What has happened? Chris Smith was given a roster spot. Amare was given 9 minutes every other night. KMart was restricted in minutes and playing back to back games even with the Tyson injury. JR appeared to be guaranteed a starting job and Shump was on the trading block and appeared to be the scapegoat at times.

woodson is not a good coach IMO, but he is not a bad coach.. somewhere in between... The roster is bad... I think it is that simple.. bad roster +average coach= vomit.

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

misterearl wrote:Just The Facts

nixluva - team cohesion requires months of building trust, sometimes years

The Knicks turned over 40 per cent of the roster

Our primary catalyst, Ray Felton has been playing injured. Our other guards struggle to defend.

Carmelo feels obligated to lead as he thinks a scorer should lead, by scoring. He is seeing things different. 10 rebounds and 4 assists is a nice look for him.

Knicks players are getting acquainted with new matchups and new rotations from new opponents

Michael Carter Williams would look positively beautiful in orange and blue.

It is a long season.

Tho these are facts they have NOTHING to do with the fact that this team wasn't running the right offense all year. You talk like we have a bunch of strangers on the floor, no film of last year, a new coach or something. I can literally show you the stills from games we lost this year and show you that the team wasn't using the same Spread Offense we killed teams with last year. That's the biggest reason for the failure. Then you also have rotations and defense, but most of all it's been the return of the Spread floor, ball swinging, Melo in the post style from last year. Woody didn't make that the core of the offensive attack this year and it was obvious.

Don't use the new players as an excuse cuz that's not what the problem was. That's the reason we have Pre Camp, Training Camp and Preseason to drill the offense and get the ball movement and spacing right. simply NO EXCUSE for how bad it was until now.

Where were these complaints when the Knicks came out of training camp with D'Antoni every year and lost a ton of games. D'Antoni had the same roster except for Darko, and the two draft picks and the team went 1-9. At that time I think the players weren't doing what d'antoni taught them according to you. You are trying to trash a coach that actually won a lot of games as a Knick coach. There are a lot of factors involved in the poor start and Woodson absolutely has to take some of the blame but this isn't a reset to say that the guy is a bad coach.

I don't want to drag this into another round of MDA talk. I've more than made my point regarding MDA and IMO MDA's time here was NOTHING like the relative stability Woody has had. Not to mention that Woody didn't get beat down like MDA did for years before he took over. Woody got a roster you can win with. Woody took over a roster with talent and a pouting Melo. When Melo decided to give MAX effort everything changed even tho nothing change from a tactical standpoint. They were winning before Melo came back. He comes back and drags the team down, pouts and we lose. MDA leaves, NO Practice or new strategy and suddenly Melo is bursting with energy and team wins! NOTHING Woody did on day one was responsible for the explosion we saw. You can disagree but the facts are clear. MDA is just fine with his new team. This is about Woody and the Knicks.

My point isn't that Woody can't win here. That would be stupid. My point is that he was very much responsible for the slow start. He had a ready made style and core of players from last year and he failed to do his job. You can't excuse the fact that he never used his team in the same way that was most successful. ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS START WITH WHAT WORKED. Now the very second they went back to that all of a sudden you see the spark. In fact this team only seems to lose when WOody goes away from that style. In the Playoffs he went with a more ISO heavy style and it wasn't as effective. To start this year he abandoned the style and we saw what happened. SOON AS HE GOES BACK TO IT...

In regards to Woodson getting a roster that he could win with why didn't d'antoni win with it? D'Antoni has a philosophy/system that he goes with regardless of the players he has. It didn't work with that roster and the way he was using Melo. When Woodson took over the players, not just melo, came out and said things were different. They didn't go back to melo playing point forward tonight. They held a team to under 85 points. They moved the ball on offense. Maybe that is something stressed by d'antoni but do you think other coaches don't stress ball movement?
Here is a question for you. When Grunwald was fired and Steve Mills hired on the eve of training camp what did you think?
I thought oh ish. Anything can happen and expect the worse. What has happened? Chris Smith was given a roster spot. Amare was given 9 minutes every other night. KMart was restricted in minutes and playing back to back games even with the Tyson injury. JR appeared to be guaranteed a starting job and Shump was on the trading block and appeared to be the scapegoat at times.

You seem to forget that MDA was stuck with Toney Douglas to start that year and he didn't have a full training camp to even work with his players. MDA had Melo coming off surgery in the off season and he didn't work on his game like usual. They had already stopped playing Melo at Point Forward because of Lin. Man you really aren't remembering how things went. The offensive style that Woody employed was still based off of MDA's system and in fact what worked so well for Woody last year was basically MDA style BB. I mean come on man let's get real here. That ISO stuff only goes so far and the more Woody does to it the worse things get. I can go deep into the details of how things went down 2 years ago but it's a moot point now.

The simple fact remains that this team didn't have to come out playing so poorly. My contention is that Woody wasn't resolute in what he wanted to do. He wanted to go away from what they did last year and that is clear from how he chose to play. No more Felton and Prigs. No more spread offense. It's not hard to see what Woody was doing wrong. Now that he's gone back to more of a style similar to that Spread offense things are better. More ball movement which involves more players and they can get a feel and gain confidence. It's really about Woody more than anything else. The idea that the Knicks have been working on Ball Movement all the time contradicts what we have seen all season. If that's the focus of your offense then it would show in games and it's odd that all of a sudden they decided to drill it before the game. They haven't been doing that until now.

I agree with a lot of what's being said here. Why wait so long before acknowledging that a lack of ball movement was part of the problem and then only now electing to work on it and implement changes?? Where were these changes 10 games ago? 15+ games ago?? I personally think he's making the same mistake (sheer stubbornness really -- what else can we really call it?) by not using Cole Aldrich more. Esp. tonight. OK we wound up blowing the Magic out but that game was close for half the game. There we were, having our typical problems defensively, namely closing out on 3-pt shooters AND allowing guys like Oladipo to drive right to the goal uncontested. At least Aldrich could've helped in one of those areas by clogging the middle, protecting the rim. And Woody knew he didn't even have Amar'e available tonight going in... Just don't understand Woody at all --- he seems a step slow identifying problems and then coming up with the solutions...Ball movement, this incessant switching themselves to death all the time which always seems to play right into the opposition's favor (Bargs winds up trying to cover a PG, our guards switch off on the opponents' bigs, etc. -- seems a little less obvious lately, we've been playing better, but it's still there), even utilizing his entire roster to the fullest...I said right from jumpstreet that winning as many games in the regular season was beyond important if we were really serious about competing for a chip. I wanted the best possible playoff seeding we could get for ourselves. Home court advantage is crucial come playoff time. To just piss away how many games here early on w/o coming up with at least some fixes to our obvious problems is beyond frustrating. I mean how do you just sit back and continue down the wrong path for so long w/o trying to implement changes for the better? That's this guy's #1 problem imo. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? OK, but by the same token -- if it's broke, FIX IT please, by all means!!! Don't just sit there on your hands. All of a sudden now we're working on ball movement?? Please..Come on, Woody.