Knicks Morning News (Sunday, Jan 20 2013)
January 20th, 2013 by Mike Kurylo | @KnickerBlogger | Comments | Permalink |
Carmelo Anthony was back on his regular diet this week, which included red meat plus a helping of mid-range jumpers, post-ups and three-point shots.
Chris Paul had 22 points and 11 assists, Blake Griffin added 17 points and 11 rebounds, and the Los Angeles Clippers hung on to beat the pesky Washington Wizards 94-87 on Saturday night.
Brandon Jennings had 30 points and eight assists, Ersan Ilyasova added 27 points and 14 rebounds, and the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Portland Trail Blazers 110-104 Saturday night to wrap up a successful road trip.
Tony Parker had 23 points and 12 assists, and the San Antonio Spurs held off the Hawks, 98-93, in Atlanta for their fourth straight victory.
Randy Foye scored 20 points, Derrick Favors had a season-high 19 and the Utah Jazz beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 109-98 on Saturday night.
Klay Thompson had a season-high 29 points, Jarrett Jack scored seven of his 25 in the final minute and the Golden State Warriors beat the New Orleans Hornets 116-112 on Saturday night.
Marc Gasol scored 19 points, Zach Randolph had 13 points and 19 rebounds, and the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Chicago Bulls 85-82 in overtime on Saturday night.
Chris Johnson and Mickael Gelabale signed 10-day contracts with Minnesota on Saturday morning, then scored the first 23 points of the fourth quarter to lift the Timberwolves to a 92-79 victory over the slumping Houston Rockets on Saturday night.
Marcus Thornton scored 18 points off the bench, Tyreke Evans came up big down the stretch, and the Sacramento Kings held on to beat the Charlotte Bobcats 97-93 Saturday night for their third win in four games.
For three Raptors fans from Toronto, a trip to Barclays Center was worth a few missed classes.
Two days after a one-sided defeat in Atlanta, the Nets won a back-and-forth game against the same bruising opponent.
What a difference a month makes.
It’s been just over a month since the Nets and Knicks last faced each other inside Madison Square Garden, a game the Knicks won handily to move themselves six games clear of the Nets in the Atlantic Division standings. The loss was the…
Anytime you ask Amar’e Stoudemire about offense, he changes the subject to defense. It’s a refreshing reversal in priorities since making his season debut Jan. 1 â?? a rusty return in which he often found himself lost on the defensive end.
Since that night, Stoudemire has acted like a…
Although former Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni professed to love European players, sources told The Post he was against bringing in Spanish League point guard Pablo Prigioni the past few years.
The Post reported in July the Knicks had Prigioni on their radar for four years. According to multiple sources…
Ever since Joe Johnson arrived in Brooklyn and stepped into the borough’s rivalry with Manhattan, the moment he became a Net and inherited their rivalry with the Knicks, he has fueled it by insisting the Nets are the city’s top team. They haven’t been, but tomorrow’s…
Mike Kurylo is the founder and editor of KnickerBlogger.net. His book on the 2012 Knicks, "We’ll Always Have Linsanity," is on sale now. Follow him on twitter (@KnickerBlogger).
So now that the NBA season is at the halfway point, and we have more than a small sample of data, has anyone here jumped off the “matching Lin was a no-brainer” bandwagon yet?
I’m feeling like the real season in the east will start after the all-star break. Most teams will have played each other by then and, barring significant trades or injury, will be who they will be for the rest of the season. Significant players like Rose and Granger should be back. Teams like the Celts and Nets are settling in.
When Felton comes back, we will get our first look at the Knicks as a complete unit. Yeah, Camby and Sheed are still on the shelf, but we can at least start to visualize who we will be come playoff time. The way things are going, I am more concerned about the Bulls than I am the Heat. If Rose comes back as healthy looking as Shump, watch out!
I was off the Lin bandwagon before the season started.
Hello, long time reader, first time poster here. I was recently having an argument with a friend who said he’d rather cut Ronnie Brewer than James White if we ever signed Kenyon Martin. His logic was that Brewer has been a major disapointment on both offense AND defense. I, of course, disagreed about Brewer’s defense. I was wondering if someone could show me advanced stats to defend my argument about Brewer’s defense. Thanks.
Lakers getting shredded early in Toronto. Landry Fields playing like the first half of 2010-2011.
Kobe Bryant through 20 minutes:
11 FGA, 4 PTS, 3 TO
SUPERSTAR.
He is at 58% TS for this season, which is quite reasonable. But he is getting a pass for utterly terrible defense this year.
Trying his best Harden imitation. I kid I kid. Slightly.
Anyone have some Harden Synergy stats for this year compared to last year?
Or/ and his numbers against the better defenders?
Hold on.
Harden: 15 of his last 60, averaging 5 turnovers in his last 9 games.
Also, going into today Kobe’s ts% was just below Harden’s, his turnover % 3 points lower.
Landry Fields,WP superstar: .410 TS/.382efg, 9.9ast%/19.9tov%
Somehow got much worse from last year, hard to find a worse player getting 20 minutes or more.
Last year
Isolation: 1.03
P/R ballhandler: .99
post-up: 1.14
spot-up: 1.16
off-screen: 1.4
cut: 1.55
transition: 1.24
This year
Isolation: .83
P/R ballhandler: 1.06
post-up: .74
spot-up: 1.01
off-screen: .89
cut: 1.7
transition: 1.3
It’s very much a distribution of shots problem, even with an extremely high percentage of transition shots to off-set it, Harden is taking a lot more of the kind of shots primary options take, and his shooting efficiency while still great, has come back down to earth, which everyone outside of the wow folks should have predicted given the role change.
Without Dwight the Lakers’ mediocre defense becomes non-existant. Kobe as the perimeter defensive stopper on this team is a completely ridiculous idea. He’s been awful defensively this season which somewhat offsets how efficient he’s been shooting the ball. It’s unrealistic for Kobe, at his age, to carry a significant offensive load and also ball hawk one of the opposition’s top offensive threats at the same time.
If there’s a guy on the team that has escaped a lot of scrutiny it’s Gasol. His offensive numbers have suffered partly because of injury and adapting to a new system, but his defense has been atrocious for a season and a half. He was never a stopper, but now he’s just a sieve.
Sorry no idea why i quoted your post ruru.
Well, this game he has a nice stat line: 18 pt on 11 shots, 2 FTs 10 Rebounds 4 steals. Has anyone watched the game? how does he look now?
He seems better since returning from injury.
He just kind of hung around the basket, got a few tip ins, scored off a few cuts here and there.
Thanks Ruru. This sstretch has really hurt his numbers.
Yeah, but we were outnumbered 10-1 on this site, including most of the KB authors. Must be all Kevin McHale’s fault. Here’s an interesting take:
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2013/1/20/3896262/jeremy-lin-benched-houston-rockets-kevin-mchale
Heat sign Birdman to a ten-day contract. Decent pick up for them; he brings what they need if he still has anything left. Looks like nobody will touch K-Mart with a 10-foot pole.
Andersen is a huge pickup for the Heat, if they bother to play him. He’s been an awesome low-usage player for a long time, and should make them the clear-cut best team in the East.
He does a lot of things well, cutting, finishing and running he’s still excellent.
He really started to show age last season, but the biggest reason guys like Mosgov were getting minutes ahead of him were his poor rotations.
Like Camby, he’s not as good as his numbers, but in a lot of situations he’ll be an upgrade of Anthony.
We’ll see if he even plays though.
And remember, Jowles was telling us that Camby and Brewer were the only reasons the Knicks would be better this season.
It has to be the Del Negro thing.
I thought the basketball case for signing him was a no-brainer, based on the potential he’d shown. I didn’t think matching the money was a no-brainer. It is a lot less clear now that he would have panned out had he stayed. I’m not sure how one could have predicted that with confidence at the time. Jon, I think your reservations were mostly based on injury likelihood given his style of play. That makes sense, but doesn’t seem to have been the problem in Houston.
I was at his return to MSG game in December. That’s the only time I’ve seen him live. He played well. I’d take him over Prigioni which is probably where I think he’d have ended up on the depth chart. Personally, I only care in a vague way whether his career turns out to be an inspirational story or a cautionary tale because his run was a such a crazy great moment. But the Knicks have moved on and as a Knicks fan I have also.
NBA TV currently showing Game 6 of the 1994 NBA Finals. Knicks down 3 heading to the 4th quarter. Im about to start crying….
One thing I think the Knicks haven’t missed about Lin is the media circus involved- If Lin had struggled this much here you’d be reading three articles like this daily. Plus every coach and player would have to answer multiple Lin questions(just like last year) in every post-game interview. Not a huge deal but certainly an unneeded distraction.
Speaking of Lin, Chris Ballard has an article on Melo coming out in this week’s Sports Illustrated and the other day he was tweeting stuff that didnt make the article and one thing he tweeted that was interesting was about Lin apparently not running plays that D’Antoni was calling for Melo. Here are the 3 tweets about this:
Heard from one source that last season D’Antoni would call a play for Melo and then Lin wouldn’t run it. I asked Melo about this…
He said “As far as being out there and plays going away from me, I didn’t feel that…” but also….
…speculated it was possible “[D'antoni] told him the plays and I didn’t hear the call, probably did happen.”
7.6 secs left, Knicks down 2 with the ball. Starks with 16 pts in the 4th quarter, expect him to take the final shot…
To my dying day I will always believe if Hakeem doesnt get a piece of Starks’ 3pter the shot goes in and the Knicks are champions.
Durant’s whistle right now is absolutely out of control. Denver is getting hosed.
After his lousy first few weeks coming back from injury, he’s been a competent all-around (if somewhat inconsistent) NBA starting point guard. That roughly corresponds with his salary. Notably, the description “competent NBA starting point guard” does not apply to the 2012-2013 performance of any player currently on the Knicks.
You can’t be serious bud.
Celtics losing by 16 in Detroit with 8 mins left in the game. Celtics will be 20-20 after they presumably lose tonight.
Damn, Marion was right about the OKC/officials. Unreal.
Yeah, sucks to be a Boston sports fan tonight, I feel so so bad for them
The calls Kevin Durant is getting tonight warrants an investigation. Truly amazing, tune in now I guarantee he’ll keep getting them.
I would have been fine either way at the time, and would have preferred that we matched. I only said that deciding not to match was not a rash decision, it was perfectly acceptable and nothing to jump ship about, as many fans did. I said that there were many reasons to hate Dolan, but that this was not one of them.
I did cite injury as one of several reasons why I was OK with not matching. And while Lin has stayed healthy, he rarely gets to the line anymore, which is why I thought he would get broken down in the first place, so staying healthy has come at a cost to his effectiveness. I also criticized his poor perimeter shooting, high turnover rate, and lack of a left hand under intense ball pressure.
My bringing this up is with the assumption that you can’t separate the player from the contract. So it seems that once we factor in the contract, we essentially agree.
Agreed, I had also said way back then that in this critical year, the last thing we needed was a PG controversy.”going for it all”
No true, he has been pretty consistently lousy. Look at his monthly splits. His 11 january games have been especially mediocre.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/linje01/splits/2013/
wow!
http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4701431/docs-take-we-are-playing-awful
Durant with 21 more free-throws tonight.
10th time a guy has had back to back 20+ free throw attempts since ’86.
Shaq, Malone, Jordan in the ’80s, guys who actually lived in the paint.
Andre Drummond’s line:
16 pts on 6 FGA, 7 REB, 0 TO, 1 STL, 2 PF in 20 minutes
Anyone want to argue that Lillard is Rookie of the Year?
Yeah, he’s been playing a lot better since he returned from the injury. You have to figure the wrist injury had a good deal to do with the fact that he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn at the beginning of the season.
5 for 24 pre-surgery
32 for 63 post-surgery
But yeah, as ruru notes, a lot of it is also him playing around the basket. He’s always had a small forward body and he’s definitely playing more as a forward in Toronto. He is getting a lot more rebounds now than he did early in the season pre-surgery.
Lol KD goes 7-20 and finished with 37 wow
The other day he got 52 on 13 made shots…….I guess?!?!
FWIW, i thought then and think now that $5 mill per is about Lin’s fair market value, including a markup for his marketability.
We haven’t seen any of the maturity issues that were supposed to come with Andre. Definitely a force going forward, but he isn’t winning ROY playing under 20 mpg.
Perhaps is not a bad idea to make an immature rookie to earn the spot in the starting lineup even though he is playing well… he has to respect hierarchies, it also puts less pressure on him. Looking at Sacramento and how they have sent Tyreke Evans, Cousins and Fredette into the fire repeatedly, one has to wonder if giving the keys of your franchise right away can have negative implications on your players (if they are emotionally unstable, nothing wrong with Tim Duncan’s first season, hehe)
Yeah, while we obviously can put blame on Frank for not playing Drummond more, you can’t give ROTY to a guy who doesn’t even get big minutes on his own team.
That said, I’d like to see what the end results are for guys like Drummond who everyone knew could ball but had red flags on maturity level. How do they typically end up in the NBA? In other words, how foolish was it that Drummond fell to where he fell in the draft?
Drummond was the best player in the draft. I always preferred him to Anthony Davis because of his superior build. In high school, Drummond used to play like he was Kevin Durant: running the floor, midrange shooting, etc. If that kid ever puts it all together, Detroit will have the best center in the NBA in about 3-4 years.
In defense of Damien Lillard, while Drummond is obviously the better prospect long-term, I think it’s exponentially more difficult to step in, start at PG and play 38.5 (!!!) mpg for a team that is at least making a run for a low playoff seed in the West that it is to come of the bench for 20 mpg, play defense and catch lobs for a team in the East that still sucks.
Not sold on Drummond over Lillard either, or over Anthony Davis for that matter. Give Davis a bit of time to figure the NBA out, like Durant needed in his rookie year when people (including some here) were writing him off.
That said, I don’t think it is true anymore that the NBA is devoid of legit big men. Maybe it’s not the ’90′s but there are lots of very good centers league-wide. If you add names like Bynum and Bogut to this list, it’s not like a healthy Howard would have no competition.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&type=totals&per_minute_base=36&lg_id=NBA&is_playoffs=N&year_min=2013&year_max=2013&franch_id=&season_start=1&season_end=-1&age_min=0&age_max=99&height_min=0&height_max=99&birth_country_is=Y&birth_country=&is_active=&is_hof=&is_as=&as_comp=gt&as_val=&pos_is_c=Y&pos_is_cf=Y&qual=&c1stat=mp&c1comp=gt&c1val=600&c2stat=&c2comp=gt&c2val=&c3stat=&c3comp=gt&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&c5stat=&c5comp=gt&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=&order_by=ws_per_48
Harden 2-9 so far