Comments on: Knicks Morning News (Friday, Jan 18 2013)

By: nicos

nicos — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:06:17 +0000

jon abbey: so basically Shumpert was a one man savior, even in just 15 minutes. two tweets just now by Jared Zwerling: “When Shumpert was playing, the Knicks got the ball inside more. 40.9% of FG attempts were in restricted area. 14.0% when he was on bench. ” “When Shumpert was on the court yesterday, the Pistons shot 30.8 percent. Off the court? 50.9 percent. ”

Well Shumpert didn't play with Amar'e much at all which might explain both- 1. swapping Amar'e for Chandler at the 5 is going to boost the opponent's fg% even on Amar'e's best defensive day (not playing with Novak probably helped too) and 2. Amar'e was constantly on the free throw line during his 20 minutes- all of those fouls were drawn on inside moves but none counted as shot attempts- if you counted those drawn fouls as shot attempts those numbers might look a lot closer.

By: jon abbey

jon abbey — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:57:36 +0000

so basically Shumpert was a one man savior, even in just 15 minutes. two tweets just now by Jared Zwerling:

“When Shumpert was playing, the Knicks got the ball inside more. 40.9% of FG attempts were in restricted area. 14.0% when he was on bench. ”

“When Shumpert was on the court yesterday, the Pistons shot 30.8 percent. Off the court? 50.9 percent. “

By: nicos

nicos — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:35:58 +0000

If you throw out those first two games where Amar’e was rushing everything and chucking up shots he’s got a TS% of .626 with a usage of 20.6%. The usage should climb as Prigs and Kidd get used to him, Felton gets back, and (hopefully) JR gives up some shots. I don’t think it’s crazy to expect his TS% to remain around .600 and if his usage gets back up to 23-25 he’s right back to being one of the top offensive big men in the league.

By: Unreason

Unreason — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:25:50 +0000

Math of Mirth
Shump ‘N Play = happiness
Amare’s improving form = catnip

Logic of Desire
IF Amare <- steady progress
AND
Novak's shot <- equilibrium
AND
Ray and Kidd <- resume
THEN Delusions of grandeur

Defensive Rhetoric of Rationalization
The defense was consistently excellent early in the season when neither Sheed nor Camby played much. It will be again in the postseason. It’s OK that they’ve drifted into the habit of only playing tough D when it’s urgent. Almost no one in the league plays all out on both ends for all 82 regular season games, so they’ll still win a lot of games. More importantly, they have to manage their injury risk. Some are ancient or recently injured. Their limbs are mostly held in place by frayed ligaments, partly dissolved sutures, and twisted staples. Other are only recently converted believers in the power of D. Their hearts and minds can’t be expected sustain the requisite motivation when games don’t count as much. What looks like a major weakness is actually wisdom. They are more like the Spurs than the Giants.

By: flossy

flossy — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:50:53 +0000

“LONDON — After Carmelo Anthony continued his unbeaten streak in the United Kingdom, he and Amar’e Stoudemire were put on the spot.
They were sitting together in the news conference room inside The O2 Arena after the Anthony-led Knicks’ 102-87 victory over the Pistons, and a European reporter asked whose team it is. “It’s Melo’s team,” Stoudemire said quickly and with a big smile. He also pointed at his teammate. Anthony countered with, “It’s Jim Dolan ‘s team.” Both are right, but it’s significant that Stoudemire recognizes and acknowledges that he’s no longer The Man.”

http://mobile.newsday.com/inf/infomo;JSESSIONID=3A0CB941F575E9A53DC174D6C003BF85?site=newsday&view=knicks_item&feed:a=newsday_5min&feed:c=knicks&feed:i=1.4466280&nopaging=1

Seems a significant counterpoint to any of the remaining “Amar’e and Melo can’t co-exist” crowd. Say what you want about Amar’e's game, but he’s pretty much the consummate team player and has adjusted to this new reality pretty gracefully for someone who was 2nd-team All-NBA just two years ago and came here expecting to be the alpha dog.

Also, despite the tiny sample size it’s interesting to compare how Amar’e and Wilson Chandler have played this season while coming back from injury. They’ve played a similar # of games with similar MPG, but while Amar’e has shown steady improvement and is starting to post respectable #s (except for this rebounding), Chandler has been pretty damn bad–shooting a ton and missing everything.

Just goes to show that returning from injury is tough even for 25 year-olds and that Amar’e's struggles are not necessarily a reflection of whether he’s “lost it” or not.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=chandwi01&y1=2013&p2=stoudam01&y2=2013