[h4]
Knocks On Knicks Grow Louder[/h4]
By Jared Zwerling
ESPNNewYork.com
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NEW YORK -- Rewind to Nov. 14, 2010. It was early in the NBA season, and the Knicks had just lost their fifth game in a row -- this time to the Rockets, 104-96 at Madison Square Garden. After the game, their leader, power forward
Amare Stoudemire, called out his teammates.
"I don't understand why we're not playing with the urgency," a visibly dejected Stoudemire said at the time. "I'm not used to that. We don't have that sense of urgency. It's almost as if it doesn't matter. That's something I'm not used to."
What happened next? The Knicks went on to win 13 of 15.
Fast forward to Wednesday night at the Garden, where the Bobcats were victorious 118-110. While it was only the Knicks' second straight loss, they fell to 2-4 on the season. After the game, it was Stoudemire's superstar sidekick, small forward
Carmelo Anthony, going on the offensive.
"I don't think the trust factor is there for us as a team," he said. "We don't have no choice but to be committed. We just have to build that trust factor for everybody."
Will that spark a win streak similar to that at the start of last season? Here's what the Knick will have to overcome:
On offense, the numbers from the starting five indicate they're producing. Going into Wednesday night, they were averaging 75.8 points per game, which put them third best in the league. The issue is that they've been scoring mostly individually. It's been too much Anthony and not enough team basketball.
Even after Monday night's 90-85 loss to the Raptors, rookie center
Josh Harrellson said film sessions showed the team tends to stand around and watch Melo go to work in isolation. He excels in that category, but that pattern will prevent the team from finding a consistent flow in the offense. Unfortunately, as good as starting point guard
Toney Douglas is as a shooter -- he's draining two 3-pointers per game this season -- he's not a facilitator. Therefore, the team's pick-and-roll game, for which Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni is known, has dried up like a prune. D'Antoni has been using Anthony occasionally as his point forward, but he's not the long-term solution to rhythmic problems.
Hopefully
Baron Davis is healthy soon to take over Douglas' duties, or the ball movement will continue to stutter. Case in point: The Knicks are averaging only 17.4 assists per game -- tied for fifth worst in the league with the
Memphis Grizzlies. Davis will especially help
Tyson Chandler and Stoudemire in the pick-and-roll, where he's become a nonfactor. He's shooting more shots from 16 to 23 feet (6.3 attempts; 26 percent) than at the rim (3.7 attempts), where he's 63.6 percent. Previously, Stoudemire played with a true point guard in
Steve Nash (in Phoenix) and
Raymond Felton (in New York last season). Douglas is neither.
The Knicks' bench is also a concern, as it is averaging 26.9 points per game -- the worst mark in the league entering Wednesday. But that should change come February, when Davis is expected to return from a herniated disc in his back. That will allow Douglas to be a significant spark in the second unit, along with rookie combo guard
Iman Shumpert, who's already surpassing expectations. In two games -- he missed four with a sprained right MCL -- he's averaging 14.5 points per game.
Defensively, the impact of Mike Woodson, who was hired in the offseason as an assistant coach to teach just that, still remains to be seen. After the Bobcats game, different reasons were expressed. A shortened training camp, poor rotations, lack of communication, still learning the defensive schemes. All those factors were obvious Wednesday night as the Bobcats found wide-open pockets in transition and from the backside. The Knicks had no hands in shooters' faces nor body-up ball hawking.
Douglas said it best: "It's a mentality that we've just got to have. There are no excuses for us not to come out in the first half ready to play on the defensive end. Offense will be there; I'm not worried about that. We've just got to stop teams. We can't keep giving games away like this. We have to play for something."
That mentality comes in the form of energy. Before Wednesday night's game, Shumpert said the team needed more of that, and he displayed those extra bursts on both sides of the ball. In the NBA, it's all about instincts and split seconds, and the Knicks right now are slow reactors. From watching Melo to being a step slow on defense, they better get after it and work better as a team.
If the Knicks are going to facilitate -- literally -- a winning streak like they did in 2010, Friday is a great place to start. They're playing the 0-6 Wizards on the road and then the 2-4 Pistons on Saturday.
Still, the Knicks will have short-term issues, and some of them will be corrected only with Davis as the starting point guard. The question is: Can his recurring injuries leave him alone? The real solution might come in this summer's free agency, when the consistently healthy Nash is available and could reunite with Stoudemire. And, of course, a focused commitment to defense. Without that, all of the Knicks players' talk of championship will go to waste.
