But the quest for food turned into an exercise in chemistry building, as the players watched football, talked trash, played cards, and rapped about having fun on the basketball court. No coaches were present. The Knicks lost their next two games, but gained confidence after playing well against contenders Denver and Orlando.
Then they won four of their next five games, including Monday’s 93-84 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers that pushed their season-long win streak to three.
“It really started in Denver,’’ said Duhon, who had a game-high 9 assists against Portland. “We sat down as a team, by ourselves, and got a lot of things off our chests. We talked about what we need to do to win, about being more relaxed. It was the first time in my two years here that we did something as a team where all the players were together.’’
via Knicks Thankful For Newfound Winning Ways – TrueHoop Blog – ESPN.
On December 3rd, Tom Ziller penned another of his brilliant articles complete with trademark graph providing insight to this game we all know and love. His topic? Three point shooting frequency and efficiency. A central tenant? The Knicks suck.
The following day on December 4th, he penned another article outlining the Tyrus Thomas-Al Harrington trade rumor, pointing out alternate ways for the Knicks to rebuild, since this team was so phenomenally terrible.
The next day, on December 5th, he wrote an article discussing Brandon Jennings and Walsh’s throwing of the Isiah-era scouts under the bus, laying the blame at Walsh’s feet for not taking control of the situation.
Since that time, they are 3-0, with wins over Atlanta and Portland.
Why do I bring this up?
Mostly to screw with Tom, since he’s only wrong about three times a year and he’s not even wrong about this, the Knicks are terrible conceptually and usually in practice, I just found this funny.
It’s hard to put a finger on what the Knicks are doing well. I mean, Larry Hughes is at least scoring more points than the number of shots he takes, which is good (at least for him, anyway), and that’s an outlier. They’re trying really hard on both sides of the ball, and that’s an outlier. Nate Robinson’s not playing, and that’s an outlier. David Lee’s really found his rhythm, and that’s nice. Al Harrington’s been a leader, that’s an outlier. And they’re shooting well from the arc (50% last night). You have to figure this will be stopping soon, but for a group of guys who everyone trashes so consistently, it’s nice to see them put things together for a few games. So, thanks, Tom!
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Kobe will win the next three MVP awards, and Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
What are the Knicks doing well recently that’s ignite their turn-around?
1. Stopped playing Nate Robinson, and using an assortment of other silly line-ups that feature as many as 9-11 players.
2. Clearly identified an 8-man rotation that Mike D’Antoni feels comfortable with using on a game to game basis with welldefined roles for each player:
STARTERS
PG, Chris Duhon [controlled set-up man]
OG, Larry Hughes [creator/scorer]
SF, Jared Jeffries [defender/rebounder]
PF-C, Al Harrington [scorer/perimeter shooter]
PF-C, David Lee [glue guy-rebounder/Trash-man]
———————————-
KEY SUBS
PG, Toney Douglas [solid two-way back-up with decent size]
OG-SF, Wilson Chandler [solid two-way back-up with decent size]
PF-C, Danilo Gallinari [perimeter shooter, to stretch the D]
From as far back as this past summer, some in the on-line community have in fact been predicting that this year’s combination of Knicks’ players possess the goods to actually challenge of a lower-tier playoff spot in the EC this season … provided that Danilo Gallinari can remain healthy.
Time will tell if that prediction comes true or not.