2) pick and roll defense. Chandler is not quite Garnett, but I think his ability to hedge and trap/blitz on the pnr and recover is what seperates him from a guy like Howard (who is a very mediocre pnr defender, which doesn’t bode well when Steve Nash is your point guard in a great point guard conference). So far, Chandler’s pnr defense has been atrocious. He’s consistently getting beat at the point of attack, never mind slowing down the ball handler and rotating back to his man or shooters.

Chandler is probably the best defender in the NBA when he plays the pnr like he’s capable of, but it requires a lot of energy, and frankly, the Knicks haven’t needed him to be great yet. But they will.

3)boxing out. Chandler has never been a great inividual rebounder, but he’s always been able to keep his man from getting inside position so his teammates can do the job. But Chandler seems to be consistently yielding leverage to his opponent, which is resulting in the Knicks horrid defensive rebounding numbers.

Chandler has put on a ton of muscle mass since he came into the league. The dude has massive legs. He doesn’t get beat because guys are stronger than him, he’s getting beat because he;s being outworked and giving up leverage.

Juany8: Melo’s assists are at career low numbers, yet almost everyone who’s watched has seen that he’s been a more willing passer than ever before. Statistics are dumb without more context.

More than ever before is simply not true at all, but I understand the sentiment that it’s not representative of how his passing has helped the offense.

Prior to coming to New York, the Nuggets offense over 2 1/2 years was largely built from Melo’s ability to draw 2-3 defenders, creating open shots, ball movement and penetration on the weakside.

Sometimes Melo didn’t pass enough, but his 3 1/2 assists per game was definitely not representative of his passing contribution.

I’ve always said that the second most important value to Melo’s high-usage offense is the ball movement and weakisde opportunities he creates for teammates.

flossy:
Tyson Chandler has a .217 WP/48, .225 WS/48 and is only a point lower in PER (17.7 vs. 18.7) than last year.
but nobody who is watching the games could say with a straight face that he’s been as impactful as last year.

Yeah, Chandler is always going to look spectacular by advanced metrics.

The three biggest problems with Chandler’s game so far:

1) Over-helping in situations he shouldn’t help at all. Part of Chandler’s greatness is coming out to help on shooters around or outside the paint (in certain situations). He contests and distracts shots no other big man –including Dwight who is inferior in a few ways to Chandler defensively— even thinks about going after.

The problem is that this year, Chandler is coming out against guys who are being well-defended and already forced into tough situations — creating much better opportunities behind him.

Chandler’s actually been the most undisciplined defender on the team, the one — far and away– who’s broken the team defensive concepts the most.

If Melo plays heroball on offense — sometimes spectacular, ofentimes inefficient— Chandler is playing heroball on defense.

In football, it’s like a linebacker who consistently misses his gap assignment and flows to the ball. Sometimes this results in incredible plays, oftentimes it doesn’t. This is why Lavar Arrington, despite being perhaps the greatest athlete to ever play linebacker, never had a great NFL career.

Now last year under MDA, so many players missed rotations and help,Chandler needed to overhelp because his teammates help was so poor.

But that’s not the case this year, and Chandler has yet to adjust to his far more focused and discplined teammates.

Part of the reason the Knicks are getting killed on the boards is because Chandler is out of the paint.

flossy:
Tyson Chandler has a .217 WP/48, .225 WS/48 and is only a point lower in PER (17.7 vs. 18.7) than last year.

Statistically it would seem he’s having an excellent start to the season, but nobody who is watching the games could say with a straight face that he’s been as impactful as last year.

Melo’s assists are at career low numbers, yet almost everyone who’s watched has seen that he’s been a more willing passer than ever before. Statistics are dumb without more context.

Statistically it would seem he’s having an excellent start to the season, but nobody who is watching the games could say with a straight face that he’s been as impactful as last year.

Juany8:
Watching the Nuggets-Spurs game. It’s really incredible how good the Knicks defense is compared to most teams. I don’t know how consistent the offense can be all season, but the defense is amazing to watch. The turnover differential is going to stick all season too I think, even yesterday against Memphis they only had 13 turnovers to Memphis’ 14. Starting to look funny that people thought teams like the Nuggets, Rockets, and Hawks might be better than the Knicks. Or that people predicted the defense would get worse for no reason. Imagine if Chandler ever starts to play like last year! Novak has been sucking too for that matter

On top that Melo and Felton are top 2 chuckers so far have posted 0.532 and 0.500 TS respectively. I just can’t fathom that posted 5 double digit win margin already in 7 games.

Juany8:
Watching the Nuggets-Spurs game. It’s really incredible how good the Knicks defense is compared to most teams. I don’t know how consistent the offense can be all season, but the defense is amazing to watch. The turnover differential is going to stick all season too I think, even yesterday against Memphis they only had 13 turnovers to Memphis’ 14. Starting to look funny that people thought teams like the Nuggets, Rockets, and Hawks might be better than the Knicks. Or that people predicted the defense would get worse for no reason. Imagine if Chandler ever starts to play like last year! Novak has been sucking too for that matter

plus still no Shumpert, can’t wait to see him and Brewer together defensively.