Amaré played tough, both ways.

The Knick’s defensive efforts did, in the end, make the difference. That is the main thing.

Other notes:

Perimeter shooting was effective.
Much of this tough play came from bench/role players.
We’ll be even better with Chauncey, Turiaf and Walker.

I hope we see more of this tonight against Utah.

I feel, though, I’m the only one besides Carmelo who thought his game was really awful. His passes seemed to me more like bailouts once he recognized his jumpers and drives were not going anywhere. I’ve always liked Carmelo but he was sucking the the life out of the offense. I thought at one point he ran over to Tony Douglas to take the the ball out of his hands to finish the quarter (half?) instead of letting the point run the offense to set up a shot.
Eye concerns were not evident there. Grrr… Chauncey Billups must have been turning over in his chair.

Maybe Coach D’Antoni noticed to: Once Carmelo was benched the team started to play together.

I want Carmelo to trust and look for other teammates besides Amaré. Then all Knicks, players and fans, might enjoy a lot of positivity.

latke: According to Hollinger’s playoff odds, our most likely matchup is against Chicago with us as the 7th seed and Chicago at the 2nd seed. I like this matchup. We have the individual scorers who should be able to put up a decent offensive game even against the Bulls great D, and the Bulls’ mediocre offense (especially from the 3pt line) will allow us to put up a fight defensively.
The next most likely possibility according to the hollinger stats is us holding onto the sixth seed and playing Miami, or us dropping to the 7th and Miami moving up to the 2nd (hollinger finds the latter scenario less likely). The only way IMO we win this series is by mental collapse from Miami. Miami’s biggest weakness is against quick PGs, and Billups is not quick. THis will allow Bibby to play big minutes, and I can totally see his 3pt shooting being a major difference-maker on the nights when we are able to contain the big 3.THe third most likely scenario is a matchup against Boston (us in the 7th seed, Boston in the 2nd seed), a team I think we are worse off against now than we were before the trade. Before, we had the quickness to punish Boston’s older players. Now, we’re much more reliant on the halfcourt, and Boston’s defense will be able to lock in. There are so many bad matchups here: Who will slow Rondo? Pierce can defend Carmelo, Garnett can defend Amare. Our biggest weakness has been defending the three pointer, and with Allen and Pierce, we could be in for some very long nights.  

I’m still hopeful to pass Atlanta at the 5 spot. They looked really shitty last night. But overall, I agree with your analysis: we match up much better against Chicago than Miami and much better against either of those than against Boston. With Boston I fear we could be swept. That would suck.

BigBlueAL: Its not about advanced stats, its all about heart and love:

http://espn.go.com/blog/TrueHoop/post/_/id/25944/the-heart-of-sports  

“A physicist, a biologist and a statistician are sitting in a street café watching people entering and leaving the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people entering the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three people leaving the house. The physicist says, ‘The measurement wasn’t accurate.’ The biologist says, ‘They must have reproduced.’ The statistician says, ‘Hey! If one more person enters the house then it will be empty.’”

Second night of a back to back , prob playing without Billups… I think Vegas likes the Knicks more then the Knickerbloggers.

http://espn.go.com/blog/TrueHoop/post/_/id/25944/the-heart-of-sports

The next most likely possibility according to the hollinger stats is us holding onto the sixth seed and playing Miami, or us dropping to the 7th and Miami moving up to the 2nd (hollinger finds the latter scenario less likely). The only way IMO we win this series is by mental collapse from Miami. Miami’s biggest weakness is against quick PGs, and Billups is not quick. THis will allow Bibby to play big minutes, and I can totally see his 3pt shooting being a major difference-maker on the nights when we are able to contain the big 3.

THe third most likely scenario is a matchup against Boston (us in the 7th seed, Boston in the 2nd seed), a team I think we are worse off against now than we were before the trade. Before, we had the quickness to punish Boston’s older players. Now, we’re much more reliant on the halfcourt, and Boston’s defense will be able to lock in. There are so many bad matchups here: Who will slow Rondo? Pierce can defend Carmelo, Garnett can defend Amare. Our biggest weakness has been defending the three pointer, and with Allen and Pierce, we could be in for some very long nights.

The Heat though are also in the Top 5 in Offensive Efficiency, where as the other 3 teams are all ranked lower than the Knicks with the Bulls not even in the Top 15 in the league. Thats why I prefer the Bulls because they are not a very good offensive team and I dont think they will be able to have Cavs-like games against the Knicks where as we have already seen the Celtics/Magic/Heat have great offensive games against the Knicks.

Either way the Knicks will be hard-pressed to win a series against either of them but Im looking for a matchup that will at the least have the Knicks win 2 to 3 games and give us a good/fun series to watch. I think they can do that vs any team except for probably Boston though so in the end its why at this point I dont think it really matters who the Knicks face in the 1st round and whether they finish 6th or 7th in the East.

1-18 is not something that happens often in professional sports leagues, especially to a team that is otherwise deep and experienced.