but the main reason we were competitive against Phoenix at all was Curry’s first-half dominance and he didn’t even play last night and the main reason we played so well last night (before Jamal went nuts) was Marbury’s return and 8 or 9 first quarter assists. the Knicks have played plenty of good single games so far this year, my point is that they need a streak and they need it now to stay in the playoff race (this was Herb Williams’ point also in the pregame, maybe you can lecture him about how the ‘ebb and flow’ of the game works also). again, last night was a good start, let’s see them keep it going.

On the serious side though, you both seem to be converging on the same place, just from opposing ends of the spectrum. This team–as flawed as it is–still should not be this bad. It shows enough flashes, even sometimes in losses, that the players, coaches, and fans are all justified in expecting better.

It’s far too easy to overreach on what we learned vs Phoenix and in other losses when I see this team make the same fatal mistakes almost every game, win or lose: turnovers, bad shots, and an inability to identify shooters.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure we saw nothing useful in the Phoenix loss. Does anyone remember Nate Robinson being such a pest defensively? I hadn’t paid much attention but didn’t recall Robinson playing so much on the ball defensively unless the Knicks picked up three-quarter court. Robinson played the first reasonable facsimile of screen-roll defense by a Knick guard I can remember seeing in a long time.

Nash had 6 TOs, and most if not all were a direct result of Nate fighting over screens and forcing Nash to help. Of course, Nash punished him for going underneath the screen a couple times late, but *that’s* the Nate that can really help this team, especially with Marbury’s creaky knees.

Jon it appears to me that youare excellent at doing research and putting up numbers but do you actually understand the ebb and flow of basketball.

What is there to understand? I said there were lots of postive signs in the loss to Phoenix. There are good losses and bad losses. The Phoenix loss was a good loss. Losses like that can build confidence in a team. Confidence needed to start a nice winning streak.

If you cant understand that – then you dont know bball.

Well, for one it took them far too long to wake up and realize what was happening. Had their been this kind of awareness of how shitty Zeke was from day 1, the media would have picked up on it and he’d be gone by now. They got what they deserved.

Hopefully, they will carry the momentum into Sunday’s game. The Bucks have lost 11 of the past 12.

confucius: “The Knicks aren?t losing money.” “are the Knicks a profitable organization?”

Forbes: “They had an NBA-high $185 million in revenues for the 2005-06 season, but also topped the league with losses of $39 million.”

so, that would be a big NO.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/01/25/ap3364277.html

Nice to see Jeffries out of the starting five. Anyone think that’ll be a permanent move or just until Curry comes back?

Jerome James had a nice little spurt there. It would be great, though probably unlikely, to see more of that.

hopefully not, because what you said earlier still doesn’t make much sense. tonight was a different night, Steph back, Curry out, Jeffries off the bench, no Mourning. lots of good signs, great win, the best game of Crawford’s life, none of it matters if they don’t beat Milwaukee Sunday. Herb Williams said on the pregame “we need to win 7,8,9, 10 in a row”, which is basically all I was saying, no room for close losses at home to anyone at this point if they’re going to make a run at 40 wins. they need to start stringing together wins ASAP, tonight was a nice start, got to keep it going Sunday.