Knicks Honeymoon is Over

via bleacherreport.com

After my embarrassing predictions from my last post I’ll quickly get my prediction for tonight’s game out of the way: Minnesota 104 New York 92.
Not only do I predict a New York loss but I can give you a solid game summary before the game takes place.  The T’Wolves will jump out to an early 16-6 lead and build up an 18 point lead by halftime.  The Knicks will claw their way back and cut it down to four before they go ice cold the final three minutes and lose to one of the worst teams in the league.
Just for the record this isn’t an attempt at a reverse jinx, this is my true belief after watching this team play the last three games (Fun fact: Knicks castoff Darko Milic will have his best game of the season).
The honeymoon's over folks, I don’t care that we’re the fourth youngest team in the league, I don’t care that up until last game we’ve been starting two rookies and I don’t care that 85 percent of this roster is new.
We’ve been dismal for the last decade and I honestly can’t take it anymore.  We have a so-called offensive “genius” in Mike D’Antoni who’s making $6 million a year, a new star power forward in Amar’e Stoudemire making $100 million and we have an underachieving sixth overall pick from the 2008 draft that refuses to do anything but shoot pull-back three-pointers.
Mike D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns were one of the most fun teams to watch in the NBA.  Mike D’Antoni’s New York Knicks are one of the worst teams to watch in the league.  I know Phoenix is more talented but I have yet to see this team run an offense scheme that is at all productive.  The only reason they put up a decent ppg average is because they put up about 20 more shots per night then most teams and shoot around 30 three pointers a night.  It’s comical.

There is plenty of talent on this roster; the blame at some point has to fall on the coach.
Every now and then Raymond Felton will penetrate the lane but other then that rare occasion you’d be more likely to see Barry Bonds turn down some steroids then to see a Knick player attack the basket with authority.  When your three offensive plays consist of swinging the ball around the perimeter and hope somebody makes a contested three point shot; isolating Amar’e 25 feet away from the hoop and wait for a turnover (I’ll get to that later), and attempting to run a pick n' roll, you're not going to win many games.
I never played professional basketball but when I was 10 I did learn that picking away from the ball and sharing the ball tends to be pretty effective.   Mike D’Antoni even went as far as to make this quote.
“He needs to cut sometimes. But he’s cutting all the time. You have to understand when it is to cut and when you don’t,” D’Antoni said yesterday. “Because otherwise you cut right into Amar’e [Stoudemire] and you mess Amar’e up.”

Really Mike?  You want the only player in your starting lineup that seems to have a high basketball IQ to dumb down his play just to help the others around him?  It’s not that hard. The Knicks of the early 90’s had five offensive plays tops but they seemed to do just fine.
There’s also the whole point that D’Antoni has a history with Amar’e and should know  how he can be effective.  Amar’e isn’t Dirk; he isn’t going to beat you off the dribble.  Giving him the ball 25 feet from the basket is only going to lead to turnovers and an offensive genius should know that.  Whatever happened to a good old fashion low-post move?