On Christmas Day, Carmelo Anthony was able to bail the Knicks out of a wilting 3rd quarter performance with late game heroics. Last night, against the normally defensively-challenged Golden State Warriors, Anthony could only muster one point in the 4th quarter as the Knicks' fragile six-point lead evaporated. I bring this up not to excoriate Anthony for not being "clutch" (a term that my sabermetrically-inclined baseball mind cringes at), but to point out the more troubling trend that the Knicks offense in the past two games has lacked any semblance of motion, fluidity or vision.
A look at last night's 4th quarter shot chart tells much of the story of why the Knicks struggled so much on offense, mustering a measley 14 points and only 8 points in the first 9 minutes of the period. The first shot in the paint came from a garbage time put-back from Jerome Jordan with 3:47 left to play and the game already out of hand. When the Knicks needed a bucket as the Warriors started their barrage, the offense consisted of: 1) pass the ball to Amar'e Stoudemire or Anthony, 2) jab step (repeat as needed), 3) hoist up a 12-20 foot jump shot. When they weren't doing that, they were turning the ball over while attempting to run this "play." It worked brillaintly on Sunday because Anthony worked his magic and reminded us what a gifted scorer he is. That said, it's not a viable way to win games over the course of a grueling regular season.
The truly troubling part of this is that the Warriors are not a team with an intimidating interior defense. We all lived through the David Lee era in New York and know that opposing teams should be able to score inside at will against a team where he is masquerading as a center. Kwame Brown, who was the other Warriors big on the floor during crunch time, is a washed up never-was who a team with competent forwards should be able to score against at will. The Knicks will need to find some consistency out of their point guard play, whether it is Toney Douglas maturing into a viable point guard (unlikely), some necromancer rising Mike Bibby from the dead (impossible), or hoping the Baron Davis can tap back into the desire and talent that made him so electrifying in the 2007 season (wouldn't bet on it). Unless that happens, the Knicks will continue to be susceptible to these scoring droughts, despite having two of the best scorers in the game, because there is no one to right the ship when things get out of hand and make sure that Anthony and Stoudemire get the ball where they need it, not 20 feet out with their backs to the basket.
It would be easy to blame the defense for this loss, but that's not fair. If you had told me before the game that the Knicks would hold the Warriors to 92 points, I would have wagered good money that the Knicks would have cruised to victory. The way this team is constructed, it should be able to score over 92 points per night, particularly against the Warriors. That said, I'd like to have the airing of grievances about Tyson Chandler. The first post on this blog was supposed to be me railing against the Chandler signing, but that's a stale story, so I'll hit the main points here. The idea that Tyson Chandler is a Defensive Stallwart, Amazing Teammate, and Leader of Men is simply the narrative du jour and not indicative of the type of player he has been his whole career or who we can expect him to be going forward. He went from draft bust, to guy who could catch passes from Chris Paul, to guy with bad feet who got a trade rescinded, to guy with bad feet who misses lots of games for a mediocre Charlotte Bobcats team, to salary dump, to gritty defensive center for a championship team. The guy has been in the league since 2001 and was never considered a marquee. Late bloomers exist, but I think we had a sufficient sample size from Tyson Chandler to have a good idea of the type of limited player he is. Tyson Chandler is a useful player and a solid starting center in the NBA, but he is not the missing piece the Knicks needed to put them over the top and by signing him the Knicks have foreclosed themselves from the possibility of adding that piece.
There's nothing worse than paying a guy for a career year, unless you're paying that guy for a career year that is based on intangibles. This is James Posey 2.0. What I saw last night was a center who got stupid, ticky-tack fouls, got frustrated, and then acted the fool by taking a technical foul late in the game. Mind you, this is the second time that he's been hit with a late technical foul. Chandler was supposed to bring maturity, focus, and teamwork to this team. None of these things have been apparent in the first two games of the season. If they wanted a center with limited offensive ability who tried really hard on defense and talked a lot, why didn't the Knicks just keep Ronnie Turiaf? He cost a hell of a lot less and they wouldn't have been stuck with him for the next four years. Now the Knicks go into a game against the Lakers tonight, the second night of a West Coast back-to-back, and it looks like when the dust settles they'll be one Carmelo Anthony miracle away from starting the season 0-3.
P.S. Maybe that Christmas Day win wasn't so impressive on further review? The Celtics got smoked by a Hornets team that did not have Eric Gordon last night. Yikes.
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