Frank:
As much as I’d love to celebrate last night’s game, my real thought is that Detroit is barely an NBA team at this point.

I have to agree with Frank. I was at the garden last night as well (good thing about a bad team is cheap tickets) and before even the opening tip I was discussing how flat the Pistons looked. I don’t believe you necessarily need to jump up and down and scream before every game to play well, but it was pretty clear that they had absolutely no energy, and when you don’t have much talent, no energy is a killer.

So while it did seem like there were huge strides taken last night it’s hard to read much into them given how awful that Detroit team is, and that we compounded it by making absolutely everything. If they come out and play with similar energy and style on Thursday I think they can keep it relatively close, and that would be a definite sign of progress.

ruruland:
The great Gallo: 1-10, 0 assists.

Benched in 4th quarter and OT.

Denver fails to “execute” close 4th quarter game against reasonably decent defense.

Maybe that deserves a blog post, extrapolated into eternity.

You know what “confirmation bias,” is right? Maybe this will help you.

1/1–Denver 99, LA 90 (most of the season a top-10 defense)–Denver scores the final 11 points in the fourth quarter on a balanced attack, as LA’s I-can-score-on-anyone superstar Kobe Bryabt goes 0-3 with a turnover in the last two minutes.

1/2–Denver 91, Milwaukee (one of the best defenses the last two years) 86–Denver outscores the Bucks 11-5 in the last five minutes, wins behind 21 points and 10 boards from Gallo.

1/18–Denver 108, Philly (2012 Def Ranking: #1) 104 (OT)–Andre Miller ties it in regulation to cap off a 4Q Nuggets comeback and Nene and Afflalo win it in overtime.

1/21–Denver 119, New York (2012 Def Ranking: #9) (2 OT) (you remember this, right?)–Gallinari scores 9 of his 37 points in the second overtime, as many as the Knicks as a whole score during that period; Knick superstar Anthony shoots 10-30 from the field.

Yeah, they’ve lost some close games against good teams, too–like pretty much every good team has. But before you run your mouth off about how they can’t close out against good defensive teams in close games, try to make sure that’s actually, you know, true.

I consider Iverson to be quite unlucky in that regard, he never got a really good team in Philly, and he was done by the time he went to denver. Mutombo was a really good complimentary piece for him, but he was already 34 when they played together. Derrick Rose might be similar guard to Iverson, and Joakim Noah might be similar to Mutombo; but Chicago is luckier because both of them are young and will play together lots of seasons.

On a happy note – that might be the best game I’ve ever see Landry Fields play. Amazing how different this offense looks when guys are hitting open 3s. Also – that might be the most in-the-flow games Melo has ever had as a Knick. Out of his 14 FGA only maybe 1 or 2 could be considered not in the flow of the offense.

Re: Lin – he was fine I guess. 4 assists but I’d say the official scorer was being extremely kind to him on 2 of them, and one of the other assists was on a broken play where Jordan was just standing under the rim by himself. Even so, I’d like to see him get more burn only if because it gets Toney Douglas off the floor.

@Ben R – other than the Chauncey-era Pistons, there really haven’t been any championship-winning teams without “superstar”-type players. The closest team to that is really the Spurs, but Duncan is a superstar in anyone’s book, Parker is somewhere below that, and Ginobili IS a superstar. I hear what you’re saying about “better” teams winning in the playoffs, but maybe they’re “better” because they have someone they can trust to score on any defense.

But yeah, unless Lin and Jordan get a shot at playing real minutes, how can we judge them? When you tout their impressive performances, the counter is “it is garbage minutes!” But if all they’re given is garbage minutes, what the heck else can they do to prove themselves but do well in the minutes given to them – which they have! And yet they’re never rewarded with more minutes. So I think it must be practice issues.

In all seriousness, I think he and Lin should get more burn. Until TD and Ball Wilker can prove that they DESERVE to be 6th men, let’s keep different people rotating through and try to run more with fresher legs.

Also, one thing that hasn’t been talked about that’s semi-related: is MDA giving our starters too many minutes? I need to check the stats, but from watching the game, it seems like our big 3 are out there too often. I don’t think this bodes well for the playof — nevermind! MDA is brilliant. You can play your big three as much as you want if you’re not trying to make the postseason!

ruruland: The great Gallo: 1-10, 0 assists.
Benched in 4th quarter and OT.
Denver fails to “execute” close 4th quarter game against reasonably decent defense.
Maybe that deserves a blog post, extrapolated into eternity.

I hope you’re joking, xD. You can’t base anything in only one bad game by Denver and one good game by the Knicks; let’s see if we can keep this up.

You can have a lot of variance in just one game, not too far ago (2 seasons, perhaps), Dallas won by 50 point against us, and then they lost by 30 points to us the next game between the two teams. It is an extreme example, but anyway. If Denver faces Memphis in the playoffs (as a 2nd and 7th seed, or a 3rd and 6th), we can start to argue whether Denver was built for the playoffs or not based on the empirical results. I personally think that their depth won’t be an advantage then, but let’s see. (Meanwhile, Memphis lack of depth shows at times in the regular season, last night Marc Gasol played 50 min… that’s not good in the long run)