The battle of New York between the New York Knickerbockers and the Brooklyn Nets is pretty tight, probably a lot closer than many people would've expected, certainly a lot closer than I ever did. Also, it's a lot more.. hmm.. what's the word i'm looking for?... some sort of hybrid between boring and painful.
Despite however farfetched you believed this was, coming into the season these teams had dreams of contention and 11 games in they're sitting at 3-8. That's tied for the second worst record in the Eastern Conference and the third worst in the entire league. Not a great place to be whilst on the hunt for the Larry O'Brien trophy. I understand that it is still really early in the season. But I also remember Laker fans yelling that 11 games into last season and if contention was the goal, I'm not quite sure the Los Angeles Lakers ever really turned it around. So is it time to panic in New York, is there serious cause for concern here? My answer to that is a little more complicated than just a yes or a no, to answer this we have to look at what is plaguing these two teams.
First let's take a look at the New York Knickerbockers coming off their best regular season in over a decade and a half. This terrible start has to be especially disheartening to Knicks fans after the incredible 18-5 start the team had last year. So what is so different between this season and last, you ask? .... Well as a raptors fan i want to scream and shout "ANDREA BARGNANI THATS WHAT!!!!!" but i won't. Instead I will say, injuries and lack of depth, bad defence, a stagnant offence and questionable lineups all play a part in the Knicks slow start.
First let's take a look at their defence. The Knicks are a horrible 22nd in defensive efficiency tied with the Nets. A lot of this has to do with Tyson Chandler being out. On Nov 6th it was announced that Chandler would be out for 4-6 weeks. If I'm a Knicks fan I'm counting down the days until his return like it's Christmas.
This sort of leads into their lack of depth in the front court. Sure it's an extremely expensive front court and filled with big names and former high lottery picks. Two former number one overall picks play at the 4/5 positions. But, one of them is almost 36 years old and despite being healthy and practically begging for a roster spot, wasn't even in the league for most of last year and the other, is Andrea Bargnani... need I say more?.. didn't think so.
With Chandler out, the old and slow Kenyon Martin, the defensively inept Bargnani and the worst defender ever Amare Stoudemire are being called upon to anchor the D. And to the surprise of no one it has been bad. With the winners in all of this being the opposing guards. With little to no rim protection and poor defending at the point guard spot, opposing guards are having no trouble getting to the rim.
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| Defence the Amare Stoudemire way |
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| Il Mago - blocking shots we can't even see! |
And the numbers back it up, Here's a look at the opposing point guard play in the games since Chandler's been sidelined.
In the loss to the Indiana Pacers on Nov 20,
George Hill - 23 pts, 8 rebs, 3 asts on 39 FG%, 40 3FG% and 5-8 FTM-A
In the loss to the Detroit Pistons on Nov 19,
Rodney Stuckey - 21 pts, 2 rebs, 5 asts (Jennings had 7) on 57 FG% and 5-5 FTM-A
In the win and loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Nov 13 and Nov 16,
Jeff Teague - 25 pts, 5 rebs, 8 asts, on 41 FG% and 11-14 FTM-A - nov 13 (win for knicks)
Jeff Teague - 16 pts, 5 rebs, 1 asts, 3 stls on 56 FG% and 6-10 FTM-A - nov 16 (loss)
In the loss to the Houston Rockets on Nov 14,
Jeremy Lin - 21 pts, 5 rebs, 3 asts on 44 FG% and 6-6 FTM-A
In the win and loss to the Charlotte Bobcats on Nov 5 and Nov 8,
Kemba Walker - 25 pts, 3 rebs, 5 asts on 36 FG% and 8-8 FTM-A (win for knicks)
Kemba Walker - 25 pts, 5 rebs, 6 asts on 45 FG%, 43 3FG% and 4-5 FTM-A (loss)
The Knicks gave Rodney Stuckey his best game of the season, Jeff Teague lead the Hawks in points, scoring 16 on 56% in only 25 minutes to help defeat the Knicks. Lin and even Kemba looked like all-stars in their teams wins over New York.
(NOTE: in NYK's win over the Bobcats where Kemba shot a bad 36%, Felton looked stellar and Bargnani was engaged both on the offensive end and defensive end, both contributing factors. The obvious point here being, the Knicks need Andrea and the starting pg who ever that may be to step it up. )
The Knicks struggled defensively last season too and with Chandler coming back in a few weeks, things should start to look up for them. That is not to say that everything will be fixed, he isn't a miracle worker and he is still playing along side Melo, Amare and Bargs.....Poor Tyson... But, what I'm getting at is, a bad defensive team can still have a great regular season, just not when they're bad offensively too. That mix simply creates a bad team. Currently the Knickerbockers boast a 23rd best offensive efficiency rating. 23rd out of 30 teams, I've never been too good at the mathematics, but even I know that's not very good. It is also a huge drop off from where they were just last season, sitting as the third best offensive team. So what's changed, you ask?... You mean aside from number 77? ... Well let's see.
Injuries play big a part, JR smith was out for all of training camp and was suspended for the first 5 games of the season, Felton a big part to this team's offence is currently hurt. And with Tyson gone and Barg's as your centre - second chance opportunities become rare. But that's not all of it, or even most of it. The Knicks aren't shooting like they did last season..... well.... yes they are, they just aren't knocking them down like they did last season. The Knickerbockers are shooting 32.2% from three this year, that is the 5th worst percentage in the league. Last season they shot 37.6% that was tied for 4th best with the San Antonio Spurs.
The idea behind bringing Andrea Bargnani over was that the team was adding another floor spacer, a stretch four that would make the deadliest 3pt shooting team, even deadlier. What the Knicks should've known though, is that the only thing Bargnani kills is his team's offence. (Sorry, I had to.. But seriously, the Toronto Raptors needed a stretch four too, to pair with their wings that can't shoot from downtown and were still considering amnestying Andrea and openly discussed trading him. Why the Knicks jumped on that trade is still beyond me.)
Since arriving to the Big Apple, Il mago has shown Knicks fans the good, the bad and the hideously ugly. You've seen it all, some nights he's stellar but most nights he leaves you frustrated. When he's playing well the team plays well and the offence looks good and when he's not the team struggles.
Despite how Bargs is playing, one thing is for sure, he stagnates an offence. Bargnani needs the ball in his hands and so does Melo. This becomes an even bigger problem when you throw a guy like JR Smith into the starting line up. The ball movement the Knicks entertained us with last year doesn't exist anymore with these guys and I'm not sure it can. Thankfully though I think the JR experiment in the starting lineup is over. But I don't believe that replacing JR with Iman Shumpert is really going to drastically improve the ball movement. There are just too many ball stoppers.
I'm a big fan of "if it aint broke don't fix it" and the Knicks offence last season certainly wasn't broke and yet they tried fix it, moving away from what worked for them. Also, in trying to fix their offence, the knicks somehow managed to further break their already broken defence. So it's all a big ol' mess over at the Garden. Still though, we haven't seen this team entirely healthy and it is only 11 games into the season they deserve time to gel. So while I don't think anyone should be hitting their panic button or firing their coaches, I do see cause for concern. Barring a major trade, or a trip to the wizard of OZ where Amare gets new knees, Bargnani asks for the ability to want to exert himself everyday and JR lands himself a brain, I don't believe this team is in contention for anything besides a 4-6 seed.
This is only part 1, part 2 will come out soon featuring the Nets and I pick what team I believe has a better chance of turning it around and who will finish with the better season.
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