Lakers 99 Knicks 82: To Live and Die in LA (mostly die)

Coming into the game, there was reason for optimism that this would be an opportunity for the Knicks to get themselves a big early season road win. Andrew Bynum was still serving his suspension for clubbing JJ Barea in the playoffs, and the Lakers starting lineup featured Josh McRoberts and Devin Ebanks at forward opposite the Knicks’ stars. The hope was that the previous night against Golden State was simply a trap game, with the Knicks looking past a Warriors team without Steph Curry to their higher profile match up with the Lakers. Unfortunately, those hopes were quickly and repeatedly dashed throughout the evening, as the Knicks turned in a subpar performance, losing to the Lakers 99-82, in a game that never really seemed in doubt from the opening minutes.

What went wrong? More like what didn’t? The Knicks allowed the Lakers to score 31 points in the 1^st on 63% from the floor, including 16 points in the paint on the Knicks' refurbished frontline to take a 7 point lead into the 2^nd. I would love to tell you the Knicks defense improved from their 1st quarter struggles, but the Knicks barely forced a miss in the 2^nd quarter, with the Lakers extending their halftime lead to 12, 63-51. The Lakers shot a robust 72% for the half, their most prolific shooting half since they shot 77.1% against Orlando in 1999. While the Knicks made a run to open the 3^rd, with their improved defense holding the Lakers to 17 points in the quarter, they were never able to really swing momentum. 13 of those 17 came from an impressive scoring binge from Kobe Bryant, including a 4 point play when he was fouled by Renaldo Balkman in the act… 30 feet from the hoop… with 2 seconds left on the shot clock. It was that kind of evening.

The Knicks trimmed the deficit to 8 to start the 4^th, but a 17-3 Lakers run to start the quarter put the game out of reach, with the Knicks' first hoop from the floor finally coming half way through the period on a Carmelo Anthony drive. The Knicks have now lost to Kobe and the Lakers 9 times in row, dating back to February 2007 and, according to Shaq, this was the worst Knicks shooting performance in 4 years, at 31.3% from the floor. Not a lot of positives to take away, other than the game is over.

In terms of individual performances, I want to focus on the Knicks, but I’d be remiss in not mentioning the efficient performances by the two Lakers stars. Kobe went for 28 points on just 17 shots, and Pau Gasol added 16 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks in similarly efficient fashion on just 12 shots. Additionally, the Artist Formerly Known as Ron Artest, Metta World Peace, gave the Knicks no peace, as he harassed half the Knicks team at one point or another, leading to an impressive +20 +/- for the game in just 25 minutes. The Lakers scored 44 points in the paint, shot 52.1% when it was all said and done, including 9 of 16 from deep.

For the Knicks, a bright spot was Carmelo Anthony, who put up 27 points on just 14 shots, and added 7 rebounds, 5 assists and was generally the only functional part of the offense (more on that in another post). He was aggressive all night long, getting to the line repeatedly, although his 5 turnovers were the portrait of a man trying to force the action towards the end of the evening when his teammates had really seemed to abandon him.

Tyson Chandler had the best game of his young Knicks career, as he played aggressively and with purpose, turning in a 13 point/11 rebound double-double, adding 3 steals, 2 blocks and getting himself to the line 14 times. An encouraging performance by Chandler. The Knicks ability to get to the stripe was really the only team positive to take away from the performance, as they shot 41 free throws and knocked down 34 of them, a 20 point advantage at the line over the Lakers. I shudder to think how badly this outcome would have looked if that advantage didn’t exist.

Amar’e Stoudemire turned in a performance that was unblemished by success, save for the nice corner 3 he swished for the 3^rd time this season. STAT went 4-17 from the floor for 15 points, turned the ball over 4 times, didn’t manage a single assist (typical) and only registered 2 boards (sadly, even more typical). To make matters worse, he turned his ankle in the 4^th quarter, headed to the locker room, and appears to be questionable for the NYE game against the Kings. That’ll put a bow on that performance.

The starting backcourt of Fields and Douglas combined for 8 assists, which itself is not an impressive number from a starting backcourt, but combined with Melo’s 5, the starting 1 through 3 men accounted for 13 of the Knicks' 15 assists. Although they both struggled to score, they played well at times and the team seemed much more effective on both ends when they were out there together, much like last year, as Toney posted a -6 +/- (impressive for a 19 point loss) and Fields played the Lakers to a draw at a 0 +/-.

For the bench, I was always told if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. In trying to find any rays of hope on the pine, here’s all I’ve got: Novak showed the stroke the Knicks are hoping he provides from deep, knocking down 2 of his 3 3pt attempts. Balkman played hard and was active in his brief 10 minute stint, although a little too active on the 4 point play he handed Kobe at a key point for momentum in the 3^rd. Finally, Billy Walker showed a lot of hustle in diving for loose balls, coming up with 3 impressive steals, but outside of that effort, he managed to only contribute a stat of line 1 point, 1 assist and no rebounds in 17 minutes on the floor. Save for his 5 personal foul, it would have been easy to forget he was out there.

All in all, it was a tale of two halves; unfortunately, there was nothing positive about either. The first half featured an epically bad defensive performance, and while the defense tightened noticeably in the 2^nd half, the offense completely disappeared at its expense. There was little to no ball movement after the crisp first few minutes of the game, no transition game to speak of, and although the help defense was impressive at times, the help to the help was nonexistent, leading to easy after easy hoop off the pick and roll. The defense was so bad that D’Antoni said he thought about rolling out a zone defense in the 2^nd half, despite the fact that he had not had an opportunity to install the scheme in practice. I’ll just let that statement sink in for its alarming indictment on the Knicks' man to man defense, as well as their lack of preparation as a team.

It’s difficult to not be alarmed by this second straight subpar performance, but it is important to keep in perspective that it often takes a team a while to gel with new pieces to start the season. Still, with potentially the softest part of the Knicks schedule coming in the next 10 days, the Bockers really need to right some of their wrongs sooner rather than later and get on the same page against a slew of lottery bound teams that can’t match their talent level. Hopefully the turnaround starts Saturday against the Kings.