I'm probably the one millionth person to offer this insight, but the Knicks will not play another game in the Pacific or Mountain time zones for the rest of the season after the New Year's Eve drubbing of the Sacramento Kings.
The Knicks' lone West Coast swing was disappointing overall. The loss to the Warriors on Wednesday night was a truly lackluster performance. It might have been the hangover from the sweet vengeance on Christmas Day against the Celtics, the affects of the cross-country flight to the Bay Area, or looking ahead to the next night's match up with the Lakers, but the Bockers came out completely flat against the Warriors. They built a smoke and mirrors lead at halftime, but their poor shooting and inability to get any movement on offense let the Warriors back in the game. Tyson Chandler was a total non-factor and Melo and STAT shot a combined 8-27 from the floor against a porous Warriors defense, leading to deep sadness and much panicking from Knicks fans everywhere.
Knicks aficianados went from mild alarm after the Warriors game to full-on Threat Level Midnight after the Knicks pooped the bed against the Lakers the following night. It was more of the same from New York on Thursday night, as the offense consisted on one pass, two jab steps, no movement, and a long jumpshot. Amar'e couldn't get out of his own way, shooting a woeful 4-17 from the field before spraining his ankle.
On New Year's Eve, the Knicks managed to avoid the ignominy of an 0-3 road trip by notching a desperately needed wire-to-wire win against the Kings. With Stoudemire out, Josh "Jorts" Harrellson filled in capably, tallying 14 points (5-11 FG, 4-8 3PT) and 12 rebounds, including a bank shot that he totally called. Amazingly, Harrellson was the lowest scoring player in the starting lineup, as Anthony, Chandler, and Landry Fields' Amazing Hair Product scored 23, 22, and 21 points, respectively. It was hard to get too excited about this game after witnessing firsthand the human atrocity that is the Kings' roster, but good teams have to handle bidness against bad teams on the road, which is precisely what the Knicks did.
What can we take away from these games?
First, when the Knicks are connecting from behind the arc, they are a dangerous team. In their two wins, they have shot 40% from three (19-48). Conversely, the Bockers were laying bricks (like the title of this blog!) in their losses, shooting 23% (10-43) from the deep end. It's not rocket surgery to say the Knicks are more likely to win when they shoot well, but with this particular team it is crucial. The three best players all like the ball in the high post or on the block. If defenses aren't forced to respect New York's shooting out to 24 feet, the floor gets clogged and they end up with the stagnant morass of ugly isolation plays that we suffered through on Wednesday and Thursday night.
Secondly, this team is painfully thin. Certainly the injuries to Stoudemire, Jared Jeffries and Shump Shump have pressed Steve Novak, Renaldo Balkman and Jerome Jordan into action more than the Knicks might be comfortable with, but only one bench player (Billy Walker) mustered a double digit point total in the win to the Kings. I'll reserve judgment on the roster as a whole for the next few weeks, as a rotation of Baron Davis, Toney Douglas, Mike Bibby, Landry Fields, Anthony, Stoudemire, Chandler, Jorts, Shump Shump, Walker, and Jeffries will look a hell of a lot better than the current version. That said, this compressed schedule will favor teams with deep benches and the Knicks are playing shorthanded for the foreseeable future, which showed in the last three games.
All in all, it was the loss to the Warriors that was key. I can't rend my clothing or gnash my teeth too much about losing to the Lakers on the road in the second night of a back-to-back, but the Knicks should be eating small, young, undisciplined teams like the Warriors alive if they are going to credibly assert themselves as championship contenders. Up next, the Knicks are coming up against the soft underbelly of their schedule with the Raptors, Bobcats, Bullets (I'm not calling them the Wizards, sorry), Pistons, Bobcats, and Sixers on the slate in the next two weeks. They should win all of those games, but will probably suffer a "schedule loss" in that Detroit game on Saturday night.
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