Knicks center David Lee was not among the selections for All-Star reserves, disappointing Lee and Knicks fans anxious to get the loser tag off the franchise which has not had an player in the All-Star game since 2001. The closest the Knicks got close to having an All-Star this year was the selection of recent former Knick, Zach Randolph who made the West squad while leading the conference in double doubles. Randolph, once known as the Black hole in New York, was traded, after being acquired by Isiah Thomas to team up with Eddie Curry, to make cap space for a pre-made All-Star in 2010.
"I was just the last resort and when I got it my leg killed me and I had no brakes. I couldn't stop the pull-up so I just tried to make the play and obviously got called for a charge." -- Al Harrington
"I think I have a lot to prove, as well as our team does. And we're just going to do our best to get wins. It was a lot of motivation for me to get a win, not to play a good game." -- David Lee
"We have two games on the road against sub-.500 teams [Washington and Minnesota] that we need to go and take care of right now. Toronto is an above-.500 team that's one of the best teams in the East. We had our chances tonight and we let one slip away." -- David Lee
"It's [knee] just getting worse and I want to see what's going on with my knee and why it keeps swelling up." -- Jared Jeffries
"We definitely wanted to get that 50-point loss, that taste out of our mouth.So everybody was just locked in." -- Al Harrington
"We really didn't play well against Dallas. It's really been one of the few games in the last couple of months so once in a while it does crop up. It's not good but we responded in a good manner. Now we've just got to keep it going from here." -- Mike D'Antoni
"This team is capable of doing good things but we need to bring it every single time we step on the floor.'' -- David Lee
Knicks Vicktimize Timberpups. Is that in poor taste? Is that a bad headline? Yeah? So, bite me.
LOL. I mean it Michael Vick couldn't have beaten those Wolves worse than the Knicks did. Yes, the Knicks on the opposite end of a laugher after being blown out by 50 against Dallas. The truth is that if I didn't know any better, if I didn't know that Jonny Flynn was a rookie on basketball's biggest stage, if I didn't know that the Timberwolves were having trouble learning the triangle offense, if I didn't know that Rambis is sort of a rookie head coach, if I didn't think I and the tPups would be fined by David Stern, I would have sworn that the Twolves intentionally tossed that game against the Knicks. The TWolves gifted 22 turnovers, a combined nine from their point guards Flynn (6) and Ramon Sessions (4). It was more comical than the Knicks' tragic perfomance against the Mavericks.
I'm not sure there is much to learn from this game. One could say the Knicks are resilient after rebounding so well from a monumental loss. But, another person could say that the TWolves looked nothing like our image of a professional basketball team.
Jordan Hill appears primed for improvement as he receives more minutes from Mike D'Antoni. While many of the other high profile rookies have been strutting their stuff since the beginning of the season , and are now starting to show some wear, Hill is just getting started. Hill, who D'Antoni identified during the 2006-07 season when Hill was at Arizona and D'Antoni with the Suns, has gotten stronger and is playing with good energy in limited minutes off the bench. A very positive Jordan Hill, recently spoke to Hoopsworld about his rookie year and his aspiration to be as good as Amare"Studmuffin" Stoudemire.
Before Jordan Hill had dreadlocks or an NBA contract, he had a goofy grin, short hair, and a dorm room in Tucson. As freshman at Arizona, Hill was developing his own game under a revolving door of head coaches; two hours north on the I-10, then-Phoenix Suns coach Mike D'Antoni had taken 6-10 power forward Amar'e Stoudemire, moved him to center, and revived the most basic offensive play in basketball, the pick and roll.
"(I watched) all the time," Hill said of the 2006-2007 Phoenix Suns. "It was right down the way. (I) went to a few games. The offense was something I liked. They were running the floor, picking and rolling, picking and popping. That's something I enjoy doing."
Utilizing Steve Nash's precise bounce passes, D'Antoni built his offense on the pick and roll. The Suns were leading the NBA in scoring and offensive efficiency in large part because of opposing centers' inability to defend the quicker Stoudemire.
"Stoudemire is one of the guys I grew up looking at - him and (Kevin Garnett)," said Hill. "Some people might compare me to him a little, but Amar'e is just an athletic beast. When he gets the ball in the post, he slows down, sees what he's got and he just goes to work.
"He likes to pick and roll," Hill continued. "The pick and roll with him and Nash is unstoppable."
Assistant coach Herb Williams sees Jordan Hill as a work in progress with great potential as they work to develop his mid-range shot. However, both Williams and Hill know that the rook's success in the league will depend on a good point guard.
Yes, Knicks fans -- the company loyalists, the leery, weary Fanatics and the Gullibles (who believe LeBron thinks the Knicks have a better core than Cleveland) alike -- are all wondering or considering how the Knicks can be so competitive against the world champs one night and receive a total, raw, naked, historic beat-down against wannabe champions the next game.
The Dallas Mavericks just simply dismantled any semblance of a winning culture at the Garden by beating the Knicks by 50 points. Why? Are we that bad? Are we as good as we were against the Lakers? Are we somewhere in between, which is the simple pat explanation for such wild inconsistency?
The answer is simple, and we will discuss it in greater detail in a two-part series entitled "Burning The Book of D'Antoni." The Knicks are a bad "team" with a collection of talented players without a superstar or talented leader who can disguise their deficiencies against well coached teams that can run the break and play stifling D for 12+ minutes. There are three primary reasons for the state of this team.
1. Mike D'Antoni is in his "bad coaching" period. This is not to say that D'Antoni can't coach. He showed he could coach under certain circumstances just like Isiah Thomas showed he could coach in Indiana and Lenny Wilkens showed he could coach in Seattle. But, right now, right here, D'Antoni is horrible.
After losses, D'Antoni always makes reference to the team's "lack of energy." He doesn't talk about the defense or the team's preparedness first; he always blames the loss on the team's energy. To some that may sound like a cop-out since it puts total blame on the players and ignores the more concrete measurable problems. In some ways D'Antoni's reasoning is a public cop-out, but in a very fundamental and important way it is true that the nicks lack energy; but the Knicks' lack energy as a team because of their coach and management not because of the team.
Unbelievable. Peaceman is a regular Nostradamus. Peaceman, the Fanatic best known for his explosive expressiveness as illustrated by his avatar picture of a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud, turns out to be the most prescient Fanatic of all. For the contest, which was won by Paul for the most accurate forecast of a the won-lost record during the first ten-game stretch of 2010, Peaceman predicted that the Knicks would set the record for the worst home loss ever. But, he missed by only one game when he suggested that the Knicks would lose to the Lakers by 62 points while going 1-9 from January 1 to January 22.
Instead one game later, the Knicks lost to the Mavericks by 50 in a 128-78 shellacking at MSG. This ass whupping was the worst home loss and the second-worst loss over all in franchise history.
At the time, both the won-lost record prediction and the huge loss seemed ridiculous. But once again the erratic, inconsistent and poorly coached Knicks have made Peaceman one of the most insightful Fanatics in Knicks' history. Now Peaceman is laughing at those who suggested the "losing culture" has left the Knicks front office and locker room.
When asked about the prediction, an unnamed source said, "Remember Peaceman was way off with that ridiculous 1-9 guess. I [Paul] am more in-tuned with the actual quality of this team. That was just a lucky guess. He was just lucky that the Knicks didn't realize there was a game today."
"It's hard to even comment on this game, it was just so bad in every area. It's regretful. But it happened, and we just try to flush it down the toilet." -- Mike D'Antoni
"All the guys who came out there, we didn't have enough fight in us. We let them get too easy baskets. Every time they shot the ball, they were wide open. They'd go to the rim and get wide-open layups." -- Jared Jeffries
The Knicks meet Dallas at 1pm today. I'll try to take in the game, but I think I'll be preparing for the Jets game which is at 3 pm followed by the Vikings-Saints game.
My allegiances are conflicted. I love the Jets since my fifth grade-eighth grade "I Love Cool New York White Men" phase, when I just loved renegade Joe Namath (the others included Joe Pepitone, Mickey Mantle, Elvis Presley and Walt Frazier).
O.K. I lied to be funny. It was a "Cool Dudes With Sideburns Period" which included Richie Allen and Tom Jones. I loved Mickey Mantle because of his role in the movie Safe At Home (1962). I thought he was cool even though he didn't have sideburns. Anyway, I really love underdogs and I like the Jets and Mark Sanchez. On the other hand, I remember when Peyton Manning was the underdog and I love the Colts because of him and Tony Dungy, two dudes the opposite of 1960s-cool. Back in the day, I took the Jets in the Superbowl because everyone else had the old-school Colts and my favorite old quarterback Johnny Unitas. (Yeah, I know Earl Morrell quartebacked most of that game). So today, for this website, I'm going to stick with the Jets -- unless the Colts win. LOL.
LET'S GO JETS
Anyway, since I spent so much time talking football, I don't have time to do a preview of today's Knicks-Mavs contest. So check out the following about the Mavs from the Dallas News:
Scouting the Mavericks
If you're looking for a Mendoza line for the Mavs, it's 97 points. When they score that many or more, they are 19-2 since Nov. 16. When they post 96 or fewer, they're 2-10. ... They have won six of their last seven visits to Madison Square Garden, including the last three. Last season, their 124-114 overtime win ended a horrific 2-7 start to the season. ... They shot only 17 free throws in Friday's loss at Philadelphia. Said Jason Terry: "We got to get into the paint, get to the basket and get to the [free throw] line. I shot zero free throws. That's unacceptable." ... Terry was 2-of-12 from the field against the Wizards and is 21-of-55 (.382) on the road trip.
