David Crockett:
Couldn’t catch the game but seems like Prigioni has to play more, yes? As I’ve watched he seems to bring a Duhonian presence to the pick and roll game that Kidd no longer brings. JK is more of a ball rotater and spot up shooter now.

All this and it’s just so fun to watch him get steals on the inbounds.

If the defense feels they can’t prevent the other opponent from getting layups, they will give up 3 point looks since they have significantly more variance. Keep in mind that starting a possessions from a defensive rebound off a miss is preferable to starting a possession out of bounds after a made basket. So even though 3 point looks are worth more, the misses are just as painful and 3′s miss a lot more. A layup is also easier to get an offensive rebound off of, so protecting the paint is by far the top priority. If a team like the Knicks also manages to support their “paint scorers” with good 3 point shooters, the defense is forced to give up the 3′s in order to protect the paint.

You’re right that the Spurs missed some good looks and the Knicks didn’t, but the margin was big enough that it wouldn’t have mattered much. I don’t think the Knicks are a clearly better team than the Spurs, although it is an excellent sign that the Knicks swept them. As of now, I’m convinced that the Knicks have the best single lineup in the league (Felton-Kidd-JR-Melo-Chandler) and that’s going to be a big deal late in the playoffs when Felton JR and Melo can play 40+ minutes and Chandler and Kidd can go hard all the time. If Amar’e is also capable of playing defense like yesterday, the Knicks have as good a chance of winning the title as any team in the league

DRed: And people mocked the Landry Fields signing. . .

The guy with the sub .400 TS%? I hope this was some kind of joke, Landry Fields is a terrible basketball player.

Frank:
btw, I’ve totally slept on them, but Twitter reminds me that Toronto is 8-1 since 12/14 — best record in NBA since.

That Dwayne Casey can coach.And so can Frank Vogel – Indy 19-13 now.

And people mocked the Landry Fields signing. . .

That Dwayne Casey can coach. And so can Frank Vogel – Indy 19-13 now.

Nick C.:
Fair enough. During the game thread last night it was pointed out that the Knicks strategy was to defend the paint and risk the threes. In other words a team strategy rather than a response to the abilities of Manu, Parker, Duncan or whoever. Then reading here and in the game thread, superficially the same action, an offensive player going or threatening to go into the pain results in a wide open three was attributed to the offensive players abilities.Last night Amare-Prigioni, in the past Melo’s passing out of double teams (which even I noted)or having “floor tilt”, Chandler on the pick and roll in the Miami game, Felton’s penetration. To me the description seemed on first blush to be a way of supporting a point of view or pre-conceived perception rather than a 100% accurate reflection of reality.

Not sure what’s so hard to understand about this–when Amar’e Stoudemire rolls to the basket defenses cheat in a bit to try to stop him and it makes it much harder to recover out to 3 point shooters. When Chris Copeland rolls to the basket most teams will not send help, because he is not even on the same planet when it comes to the ability to catch on the move and finish in traffic.

In a sense Tony Parker is the Amar’e in this scenario, because the Knicks chose to pack the paint to prevent him from getting layups and wreaking havoc. If the Spurs didn’t have someone so great at breaking down the defense and scoring in the paint, maybe the Knicks defensive gameplan would have been different.

The offensive players’ abilities force teams to react, which in turn creates other opportunities. The difference is a) SA was never able to completely shut down the paint whereas we were and b) SA was not able to convert the 3 point looks that resulting from packing the paint, and we were.

On the other hand the Spurs had no such clear strategy that they were able to impose on the Knicks. When we ran pick and roll initially the Spurs rotations were atrocious and we got a ton of good paint looks.

Then in the second half their adjustments made it easier for us to make them pay for downtown which we did to great affect. We didn’t score nearly as many points in the paint, but we forced San Antonio into adjusting and when they did we made them pay from downtown.

San Antonio never forced us to adjust our defensive strategy because of their inability to hit from downtown. You are never going to take away everything an offense as varied and effective as the Spurs’ so you pick your poison and hope it pays off. In this case we were content to let them bomb away with the trade off being that points in the paint were not going to come easy. If Bonner, Leonard, Green and co. got it going from deep we would have adjusted accordingly and sacrificed some paint protection in order to better contest perimeter attempts.

This happens all the time in the NBA. The best example is the 2006 NBA Finals when Riley urged Miami defenders to give up the corner three in order to send multiple defenders at Dirk at the elbows and essentially force ball rotation to the corners. Miami played a dangerous game giving up highly efficient looks in order to take away Dallas’ best option of isolating Dirk in the middle of the floor. They won a championship.

We took away Parker’s incredible ability to get inside and score with his floaters, pull up jumpers or create open looks for the Spurs’ rolling bigs. We were willing to concede 3′s and it paid off because the Spurs didn’t make us pay for the shots we did give them.