Beating New York 92-78

92-78

Great game last night from the dubs, and we have fan reaction from folks at the game and those on the couch.

From behind the Knicks bench… PNQ weighs in.

Ish: I hate this guy’s game. With a passion. But he produces results… he’s our energy guard. Unfortunately we still don’t have a backup PG though.

Jenkins: slow as HELL. Looked OK against Sacto, but they are slow as hell too. But against Douglas, this guy was in slow motion. Guess that answers why he isn’t playing much. How much would it take to get Luke Ridnour from MIN?

Klay: Poor floor game tonight. Burned awfully bad early by Fields and was otherwise shut down by him on offense as well.

Rush: No quit at all in this guy. This is the player I was talking about as Kansas… if this continues, that’ll be one more hit on my all-time ‘need to draft’ list. Which would leave Earl Clark and Cole Aldrich as the 2 players I’ve so far missed on in 5 years /gratuitouspattingselfontheback (and FTR, I’d still take Clark and Aldrich. Love their games)

Dorell: Played like ass most of the game. Hit a late 3, but the guy was getting burnt on D and his penchant for pump-faking lost him a number of shots. This season has not proven himself to be starting caliber.

McGuire: This guy is our stopper, and he’s very, very good at it. We need to find him some more minutes.

Udoh: Very solid defense on Amar’e, and threw up a nice hook I remember for some reason. Works for position pretty well, but I cant see this guy starting, ever, at PF. His future is likely as a reserve 4/5 that patrols the lane, which isn’t bad at all. A very necessary piece IMO. But time to lower the expectations of him.

Biedrins: Inhaled rebounds. Solid defense. Didn’t crap the bed offensively… what more can you ask from him?

Kwame: See: Biedrins. Added bonus: whenever he gets a bunny shot that isn’t a dunk, its entertainment factor 10.

Lee: Great, understated game from Lee. He single-handedly took Chandler out of the game. Sitting behind the Knicks bench you could hear Chandler complaining about him at times. Lee was GASSED at the end of the game though, and you could see it on the FT line. And for those who noticed, the Knicks defense was so, so chaotic in the 4th because of their missing anchor, which perfectly set up…

Monta: Let me preface by saying the 1st 3 Qs were abysmal. Now that that’s over, his 4th Q was great. He avoided the lane for most of the game, and then out of nowhere took it to the hole and dished to Lee, and the light switch seemed to go on – the Knicks were tired and they had no help inside. And like a smart player would, he smelled the blood and attacked. I hate calling it a PG peformance – simply because Ive never seen a PG lose his handle with minimal pressure so much before – but that’s what it was. It was opportunistic, and in a game without our initiator, that’s HUGE.

Jackson: I’ll catch crap I’m sure, but not impressed. Everyone’s propping him for changing the culture… no no no. It’s the players. We have surrounded our ‘stars’ with good defenders and hard workers, and THEY are rubbing off on the players. In one instance in the 3rd Q, Monta was sent to the bench and the scrub unit was out there. Met at around mid-court, and one player (couldn’t tell who) was firing the team up and talking about switching and accountability. The very next play I saw some beautiful scramble defense that resulted in Melo missing a jumper and the W’s scoring… which eventually brought us the lead.

Great, resilient game from the W’s last night… never seen them fight back like that, ever. With some consistency and a real backup PG we can do some damage this year..

From a couch somewhere in Northern California Earl J Slick

I don’t think you need to call Monta’s 4th quarter a pg performance. He played like a good SG who wasn’t hitting open shots and decided to involve others. That alone is a monumental improvement over the first 3 quarters. Agree on the poor handle.

As for Jackson, there clearly is some coaching going on and it’s probably Malone and other assistants. Players don’t design the defense, they execute it. Someone is actually designing the defense and teaching solid team defensive concepts to the starters. Most of the others guys came from places where that probably happened, but our starters have never had that. I credit them for executing but if you just threw them out there it wouldn’t be happening like this. I credit Jackson for setting the priority as well but as we saw last year, that’s nothing without a plan and players buying into the plan.

And of course it’s only three games. They have to play like this for the entire season before it matters.