The Knicks completed their trip to United Kingdom with an impressive 102-87 victory over the Detroit Pistons in a game that featured second year guard Iman Shumpert making his season debut after being sidelined nine months following knee surgery.
Carmelo Anthony won’t have to look very far if he wants to have a word with Kevin Garnett next month. Anthony and Garnett were named Eastern Conference All-Star starters on Thursday as the NBA announced final fan voting results.
LONDON â?? You never know. That’s the scary part. That’s what gives a world-class athlete night sweats, wakes him with a jolt in the middle of the night. We hear all the time about modern science, about technology, about the magic a talented doctor with a scalpel can weave…
LONDON â?? It took a trip to London for Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire to bond and finally look sharp together on the court.
Afterward, they were together on the podium in the bowels of the O2 Arena, sharing in the spoils of Thursday’s 102-87 rout of the Pistons…
LONDON â?? Commissioner David Stern said Knicks owner James Dolan would be in big trouble if he miked an opponent’s locker room to “eavesdrop,” but it’s not against league rules to do so on the court.During a press conference before the Knicks faced the Pistons yesterday, Stern said…
LONDON â?? The numbers are encouraging in their own right: 17 points, 11-for-12 from the foul line, four rebounds, 20-plus minutes.
But to watch Amar’e Stoudemire yesterday was to see a work in progress that will never be defined â?? or held back â?? by numbers. To watch him move better, more…
LONDON â?? Rasheed Wallace never talks publicly about his foot injury, but yesterday emphatically denied rumors he may not ever get back on the court because of the stress reaction in his left foot. The Knicks are fearful the stress reaction will turn into a stress fracture and are being overly…
If Carmelo Anthony keeps eating right, the New York Knicks might just be a contender for the NBA title.
LeBron James scored a season-high 39 points to help the Miami Heat survive a late rally from the Lakers and post a 99-90 win in Los Angeles on Thursday.
For a few exciting minutes in the fourth quarter, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers resembled the championship-caliber dynamo everybody expected this season, making a big run and surging past the Miami Heat.
Mike Dunleavy hit a 3-pointer with 57.4 seconds left to cap a 10-0 run and the Milwaukee Bucks pulled away to beat the Suns 98-94 on Thursday night, snapping a 24-game losing streak in Phoenix.
A nine-month inquiry determined that Billy Hunter failed in his fiduciary responsibilities and that the board of the union should consider replacing him.
Jamal Crawford scored 22 points, Blake Griffin added 20 and the Los Angeles Clippers hardly broke a sweat in cruising to a 90-77 victory over the free-falling Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday night.
The Knicks, feeding off Carmelo Anthony, jumped on the Pistons early, by as many as 20 points in the first half, then held off a third-quarter rally.
Kobe Bryant will make his 15th straight All-Star start. The Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony will join the Heat’s LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in the Eastern Conference lineup for the Feb. 17 All-Star Game in Houston.
Kobe Bryant will make his 15th straight All-Star start. The Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony will join the Heat’s LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in the Eastern Conference lineup for the Feb. 17 All-Star Game in Houston.
Kobe Bryant has been voted to his NBA-record 15th consecutive All-Star start, leading four Los Angeles players into next month’s game.
Carmelo Anthony led the New York Knicks to a 102-87 victory over the Detroit Pistons in London on Thursday, just five months after he helped Team USA take basketball gold on the same stage at last year’s Olympics.
NBA players should consider whether they want to keep Billy Hunter as executive director of the players’ association after a series of wrongdoings, according to a review of the union released Thursday.
Back in London and back on the basketball court, Carmelo Anthony went right back to his winning ways.
N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern said at a news conference in London on Thursday that he was not aware of any rules violated by the Knicks’ recent use of courtside microphones.
“LONDON — After Carmelo Anthony continued his unbeaten streak in the United Kingdom, he and Amar’e Stoudemire were put on the spot.
They were sitting together in the news conference room inside The O2 Arena after the Anthony-led Knicks’ 102-87 victory over the Pistons, and a European reporter asked whose team it is. “It’s Melo’s team,” Stoudemire said quickly and with a big smile. He also pointed at his teammate. Anthony countered with, “It’s Jim Dolan ‘s team.” Both are right, but it’s significant that Stoudemire recognizes and acknowledges that he’s no longer The Man.”
http://mobile.newsday.com/inf/infomo;JSESSIONID=3A0CB941F575E9A53DC174D6C003BF85?site=newsday&view=knicks_item&feed:a=newsday_5min&feed:c=knicks&feed:i=1.4466280&nopaging=1
Seems a significant counterpoint to any of the remaining “Amar’e and Melo can’t co-exist” crowd. Say what you want about Amar’e’s game, but he’s pretty much the consummate team player and has adjusted to this new reality pretty gracefully for someone who was 2nd-team All-NBA just two years ago and came here expecting to be the alpha dog.
Also, despite the tiny sample size it’s interesting to compare how Amar’e and Wilson Chandler have played this season while coming back from injury. They’ve played a similar # of games with similar MPG, but while Amar’e has shown steady improvement and is starting to post respectable #s (except for this rebounding), Chandler has been pretty damn bad–shooting a ton and missing everything.
Just goes to show that returning from injury is tough even for 25 year-olds and that Amar’e’s struggles are not necessarily a reflection of whether he’s “lost it” or not.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=chandwi01&y1=2013&p2=stoudam01&y2=2013
Math of Mirth
Shump ‘N Play = happiness
Amare’s improving form = catnip
Logic of Desire
IF Amare <- steady progress
AND
Novak's shot <- equilibrium
AND
Ray and Kidd <- resume
THEN Delusions of grandeur
Defensive Rhetoric of Rationalization
The defense was consistently excellent early in the season when neither Sheed nor Camby played much. It will be again in the postseason. It’s OK that they’ve drifted into the habit of only playing tough D when it’s urgent. Almost no one in the league plays all out on both ends for all 82 regular season games, so they’ll still win a lot of games. More importantly, they have to manage their injury risk. Some are ancient or recently injured. Their limbs are mostly held in place by frayed ligaments, partly dissolved sutures, and twisted staples. Other are only recently converted believers in the power of D. Their hearts and minds can’t be expected sustain the requisite motivation when games don’t count as much. What looks like a major weakness is actually wisdom. They are more like the Spurs than the Giants.
If you throw out those first two games where Amar’e was rushing everything and chucking up shots he’s got a TS% of .626 with a usage of 20.6%. The usage should climb as Prigs and Kidd get used to him, Felton gets back, and (hopefully) JR gives up some shots. I don’t think it’s crazy to expect his TS% to remain around .600 and if his usage gets back up to 23-25 he’s right back to being one of the top offensive big men in the league.
so basically Shumpert was a one man savior, even in just 15 minutes. two tweets just now by Jared Zwerling:
“When Shumpert was playing, the Knicks got the ball inside more. 40.9% of FG attempts were in restricted area. 14.0% when he was on bench. ”
“When Shumpert was on the court yesterday, the Pistons shot 30.8 percent. Off the court? 50.9 percent. “
Well Shumpert didn’t play with Amar’e much at all which might explain both- 1. swapping Amar’e for Chandler at the 5 is going to boost the opponent’s fg% even on Amar’e’s best defensive day (not playing with Novak probably helped too) and 2. Amar’e was constantly on the free throw line during his 20 minutes- all of those fouls were drawn on inside moves but none counted as shot attempts- if you counted those drawn fouls as shot attempts those numbers might look a lot closer.