jon abbey: pretty sure Michael Kay doesn’t post or read here, thankfully.basketball is a game of matchups, we might miss Amare if we play Chicago in the first round. but for regular season games, we might not miss him that much, especially if Jeffries is available.

Jeffries may be the key. I don’t really think the Knicks miss Amare that much with Jeffries around to soak up 20 min a night. But without both, the frontcourt rotation is awfully thin.

jon abbey: pretty sure Michael Kay doesn’t post or read here, thankfully.

basketball is a game of matchups, we might miss Amare if we play Chicago in the first round. but for regular season games, we might not miss him that much, especially if Jeffries is available.

Yeah, I was referring to the public (people at the game last night) and media mostly. People on here know too much to make blanket statements like that.

Zach Horst:
I was making the point more towards those (like Michael Kay) who have said “without Amar’e, we won’t make the playoffs.”

pretty sure Michael Kay doesn’t post or read here, thankfully.

basketball is a game of matchups, we might miss Amare if we play Chicago in the first round. but for regular season games, we might not miss him that much, especially if Jeffries is available.

btw – the last 2 games make me wonder whether or not Melo’s best position is really as a 4. Just like Amare overwhelms slower players on offense when he plays the 5, there isn’t a 4 in the league (other than maybe Josh Smith – we’ll see) that can stay with Melo. Melo’s been doing a very nice job on the boards also. Against teams with a true offensive 4 playing Melo there probably won’t work, but it sure has looked good the last 2 games.

I think it just goes to what we’ve been saying about this team for a long time now, that their three star players don’t really work well together. I mean, don’t get me wrong, with the defense playing well, you can win with the three of them not co-existing well (as they just have to be decent on offense to go with the great defense), but otherwise, you have three players who excel when they are the main option on offense.

Lin played at his best when he was the focal point of the offense. He played pretty well when Amar’e was the focal point of the offense recently, but he played best when he was the focal point of the offense. His importance diminishes depending on the amount of touches he gets (in other words, he is not a Derek Fisher-type of 1).
Amar’e played at his best recently when he became the focal point of the offense for the first time since last season. He’s pretty much useless on offense when he is not the focal point of the offense.
Melo played at his best early in the season when he was the focal point of the offense and now, in the two games since Amar’e went out, he stepped right up and produced in a similar fashion. When he was not the focal point of the offense, he fell apart mentally.

With the defensive-minded players they have plus the guys like Fields who don’t need to shoot to help the team, the Knicks really only “need” one focal point of the offense. Once they have said focal point, what they need next is just have the supporting players hit their open shots that they get as a result of the focal point. When they do…well, you’re going to have a blowout.

Zach Horst:
I was making the point more towards those (like Michael Kay) who have said “without Amar’e, we won’t make the playoffs.”

We might not make the playoffs without Amar’e, but if that turns out to be the case we probably wouldn’t make the playoffs with Amar’e either.

And more telling of our 7-1 record without Amar’e is our 19-25(?) record WITH him.

Z: What is our record without Amar’e this year? What is the point differential in those games?

Yeah, I realize we are like 7-1 or something like that right? I mean, maybe we are better without him, and I just don’t want to believe it? I still think he can be a very valuable asset though if Carmelo isn’t hitting his shots.

Zach Horst:
We are definitely a better team with Amar’e, but not as much as people think.

What is our record without Amar’e this year? What is the point differential in those games?