yellowboy90:
Wouldn’t hiding battier on Chandler create a terrible mismatch of trying to guard the lob?

The goal against Chandler’s rolls to the basket is to keep him from getting in position to catch a lob. Once he’s at the rim, there aren’t many who can break up a lob. That means usually it’s about team defense. Generally, this means a defender breaks in from the strongside corner 3 guy to get in the way of Chandler, and Chandler and felton’s defenders trap felton. it’s actually advantageous to have a faster guy on Chandler in a pick and roll — he’ll be better at trapping the guard. That’s why most of Chandler’s scoring in games vs smaller lineups is off put backs.

This is what makes Amar’e capable of being a high usage player whereas Chandler has never been even average: Amar’e can catch the ball six feet from the rim with a guy in front of him and still get a quality shot. Chandler will usually throw it back out for a reset.

The problem with guarding him with a Battier type player is when he’s motivated, TC can dominate the boards, so you’d need to gang rebound or else you’d end up with Chandler doing what he did to Golden State, when they had Draymond Green guarding him for extended periods.

BigBlueAL: Ive begun to sour on Woodson alot but Id still prefer him to Don Chaney lol.

Ah, come on! What was wrong with Iso-Nailon?

Brian Cronin: It’s weird because D’Antoni was like that, too. Two really stubborn coaches in their last three. Isiah was just weird. Remember when Woody impressed us all with his flexibility early on?

Ive begun to sour on Woodson alot but Id still prefer him to Don Chaney lol.

Woody’s currently doing his best Larry Brown stubborn, crotchety, get off my lawn old guy imitation.

It’s weird because D’Antoni was like that, too. Two really stubborn coaches in their last three. Isiah was just weird. Remember when Woody impressed us all with his flexibility early on?

max fisher-cohen: If I remember correctly, the play before, the Knicks had the ball down one and JR came off a screen for an open J within 6 seconds.

Nicos, I think you do put it best: you have to TRY to force other teams to adjust to you. Now, that won’t always work. Most likely, Bosh would have guarded Amar’e, and the Heat would have hidden Battier on Chandler (or James on Chandler before James started guarding Melo). Outside of his offensive rebounding, he’s not going punish other teams’ mismatches.

Also, the slowness of the Knicks guards makes it really hard for them to also play bigger, slower players up front. If you look at the Grizzlies, who have the biggest frontcourt around, it’s the speed of Conley and Allen — their ability to contain penetration — that allows them to play. There’s also the fact that you could never hide James or Battier on Gasol. Remember when the Knicks tried to do that with Melo? Didn’t work out so well.

It’s the cost of having 1-dimensional players — very hard to create mismatches when the other team can always hide their worst defenders on Kidd, Shumpert, Chandler, White or Novak.. even Felton. So I do agree that the Knicks have to force their brand of basketball on others, I understand where Woodson is coming from.

I agree that the going big might not create better match-ups with Miami and OKC (who are both better than the Knicks anyway). That said the two weakest links on those teams are the coaches and I think you should at least try to force them to make a bad decision especially if it means getting your best players out on the floor anyway. I think you stand a better chance of getting Spoelstra or Brooks to blink and go big and match you than you do going small and having to match their best line-ups by using Shump or Novak rather than Chandler or Amar’e.