Offense struggling greatly without Steph. Missing perimeter shots again like we did against the Clips. Some loose balls bouncing NYK's way. Defense pretty decent and keeping the game close.
Lucky to be down 2 after a sloppy 1st quarter. Amare never got involved much and Melo didn't do too much damage. Knicks really don't have a ton of other talent aside from their starting 3-5. Ish Smith made some nice plays and Brandon Rush had another good showing before Melo drew two consecutive fouls on him.
Dunno if D'Antoni is calling Iso's or Amare is demanding the ball but Amare has attacked Udoh several times in a row to pretty much no success. The one foul he got was dubious at best. Klay makes a nice move off of an Ish Smith drive and dish, then promptly misses an open 3 the next possession.
Lucky to be down 6 at half. Ish Smith is the only player who actually played well, aside from a very brief stint by Brandon Rush. Amare and Melo not shooting well but still getting FTs.
Monta subbed out, team immediately goes on a big run. Guy is playing TERRIBLY. Wow. Oh by the way, Dorell Wright has regressed. Brandon Rush killing it. Ish Smith doing well.
I think Monta may have gotten the message. Passed up two possible shot opportunities for passes that ended up being assists. Tyson Chandler gets his 5th foul, McGuire making a bit of an impact.
By my count Monta got 3 assists to open the 3rd Q, with 0 TO and 0 FGA. Then gets to the rim and makes a layup, followed by a possession where he didn't take a pull-up 3 (the crowd was audibly perplexed), passed it to Lee and dove to the rim where Lee hit him for an open layup. Gotta give him credit for getting the message. I can't figure out why the Knicks started doubling him though lol.
Love that McGuire can come in at the end of the game and have an impact. MJ likes him as the smallball PF and hes great at it. I don't know if you can find a better guy to guard Melo in the league and he rebounds like a monster.
Human victory cigar in: Jeremy Tyler enters. Jeremy Lin is in for the Knicks too, gets a standing ovation.
Two big wins in a row already. I can't remember any wins against good teams last year? The true test will be how they play on the road but so far I'm impressed. LOVE the defense so far. Held the Knicks to 78; Amare was 5/14 on FGs and Melo was 3/13. If this really is Malone's genius so far taking Melo, Amare, Rose, Boozer, etc. out of the game and getting these guys to buy in then bravo. Don't let that guy go! Gotta give the front office credit as well for adding defensive personnel in Rush, Kwame, McGuire, Udoh before them. Brandon Rush was definitely the MVP but Monta did have a very good 4th quarter after being terrible through 3 quarters. McGuire was excellent in the 4th as well and Ish Smith got us through the first half. Lee really struggled. We crushed them on the glass as well 47-31. Kwamdris Browndrins went for 17 rebounds in 26 minutes. Kwame was particularly good with 10 rebounds in 12 minutes and a +9 with his typical space eating defense. I like what I've seen the last two games from him. Klay and Jenkins were unimpressive. Oh and did I mention Curry didn't even play?
Wow, Run, I did not think the warriors looked like they were going to win. It reeked of the Clippers game, but the defense kept the warriors in this one. I loved the bench play. I'm really becoming a big fan of Rush and Kwame Brown's play off the bench.
It was nice to see Monta get 12 points and SEVEN assists in the 4th after an ugly start to the game. Looks like they truly are stepping up their defense and its refreshing to finally see. Where old warrior teams didn't know how to play with a lead, they're holding on to the lead by playing annoying D and getting under the opponents' skin. Great game.
Love to see the win. Amazing D on the wings, but also because the Knicks have absolutely no facilitator. Its all 'Melo iso or Amare iso and everyone else standing around. NY is all big names and no team. Pretty sad really. Fields had a hot start then they ignored him. Got to say, that baseline hammer dunk (and 1) by Amare was spectacular. Monta is an amazing offensive player, he's got bad handles but still one of the best finishers at the rim in the game. His D remains awful though, just no effort. One sequence in the 2nd, he's under the bucket with Douglas and he does absolutely nothing to get Douglas out or even body him up and Douglas gets the putback. Oh well, that's what you get. I worry that at the end of games, Jackson is going with a smaller team with no Biedrins or Kwame, Lee in the middle. Rush and McGuire are in with Wright which means they are not tiny, but still small. If McGuire can get rebounds okay but they can get out-boarded with that lineup. Lucky that Amare and 'Melo are not hungry rebounders.
Knicks are definitely pretty pathetic as far as guard play goes. And they're relying on Baron to come in mid-season and fix that issue... I'm getting more and more worried about Monta in a half court system. To be honest, I really think the guy wants to win at any cost, he just doesn't know any way besides "give me the fuggin ball and I'll score" because thats what hes been doing his whole life. Prior to last night I thought he was definitely looking to set others up more than he ever had before and it shows up in the game log- 8, 7, 8 assists in each game so far this season. Hes struggling more to finish at the rim with defenses set up, but he was going up against some really big front lines with the Clips, Bulls, and Knicks. He was absolutely awful through 3 quarters last night but brilliant in the 4th and this is encouraging because MJ benched his ass in the third and he came in and really turned it around, got a ton of drive and dishes for assists and then hit some big shots to close the game. I don't know if he can really turn his whole mindset around but I do think he'll try and if we win because of it he'll do it more and more. I'll reserve full judgement yet because Steph was out last night and its not an overnight process. I do think hes dishing it more and going for steals less though. Anyone else notice that MJ tries to avoid running Monta at point? I was surprised to see Ish starting at PG instead of Monta at PG with Klay/Rush at the 2. Jackson knows Monta is a pure 2 and the offense doesn't flow well through him. Even when Monta is setting guys up he does it like a 2 guard, not a PG. I wonder if we only went small at the end because for both of the last two games we had big leads and Chi/NY were loading up with 3 point shooters to try and get back in it. I'm pretty confident that Lee/McGuire/Wright/Rush/any PG can rebound fine against another smallball unit. I think MJ was just matching up because he didn't want Kwame/Biedrins/Lee trying to close out on Kyle Korver/Steve Novak/etc. Its worked fine so far. Love McGuire! Can you think of anyone you'd rather have on Melo/Dirk/Odom/Durant types? 6'9 with great length, plays good defense and rebounds the fugg out of the ball. Wish we could find him more minutes but we usually play with bigger lineups and its hard to beat out Rush for playing time these days. I want to give some props to Udoh too. He shut Amare down 1 on 1 and owned Bill Walker in the post a few times. Rush and McGuire are great lock down options on the wing but if Udoh turns into a guy who can bottle up star PFs without double team help that would be MONEY. He looks like a career reserve but dude plays damn good defense and his post scoring has improved. If he could stick the mid-range J he'd be damn serviceable off the bench. The team defense has been money but look at the individual defenders on the bench- Rush, McGuire, Udoh, Kwame. Front office has done well to surround our no-defense core with defensive role players who are relentless, good individual defenders, and intelligent help defenders.
