New York at Memphis

[Teletopez]

Haven't watched much of the Knicks this year, but I watched the first half and very little of the second. New York's knocking down shots like it's 2010 pre-Melo. Except Melo is now part of the mix, and his play has been phenomenal thus far.

[Oliver P]

I honestly agree with Guru in this thread.

 

I mean I was already a Knicks fan when most people here were not even born (sadly..) and you sure can trust me when I tell you that there was no one who was more pissed off than I was during Friday's game.. But the fact remains that we cannot blame the refs for the loss of that game, we can only blame ourselves.

 

Guru is right, almost all of the calls were legit. I said almost cause there were a couple that were definitely ridiculous, I'm talking about the flagrant on JR (he clearly wanted to block the shot, he grabbed Allen's arm by accident, I really can't understand how the refs missed that, especially after rewatching the play over and over again on video..), Sheed's foul (it wasn't a foul) and the T on Sheed. Although it is true that according to today's rule this can be considered a T indeed.. But I can't agree with that nonetheless, it was WAY exaggerating, I mean a T for running... Seriously... Other than that all the calls were legit. Let's be realistic.

 

Well anyway we are the ones to blame for that loss and I was pretty pissed off by our attitude during that game. Starting with Melo and JR. I don't know what got into JR's mind throwing elbow at Jeryd just like that.. Even if he had a good reason it's still stupid to do that, you know you're gonna get called for that.. As for Melo he did not act like a leader at all during the third, a true leader cannot spend his time bitching to the refs like he did.. A true leader keeps his cool under any situation. And stay focus on what matters the most : the game. When Jordan was pissed off he would calm down rightaway and would harness his energy to play at his best. Which is why everyone knew at the time that it was a very bad idea to get on Jordan's nerves..

 

So Melo lost his cool and our entire team did the same thing, in the the third they were all focused on the refs and just totally forgot to play.. We just stopped playing like a team, everyone wanted to play for himself and they spent their time taking hard shots. Meanwhile the Grizzlies kept playing their game and destroyed us in that quarter.

 

There were still some positive things in that game though. First of all I liked the way we reacted in teh 4th. Melo and JR calmed down, Melo acted like a leader again and we finally forgot about the refs and focused on basketball only, we found our true game back and made a run, we had a chance to win the game but it was sadly to late..

 

The other thing I liked is that we lost our first game (and let's be realistic it was bound to happen eventually..) against the Grizzlies. Cause if we're to lose a game, it is better to lose against the best.. And yes I consider the Grizzlies to be the best team in the game RIGHT NOW. Yes so far they're the team that impressed me the most (well with the Clippers (CP3 impresses me more every year, CLEARLY the best PG in the league and I hope he's gonna be MVP this year, I love this player he's really unbelievable ; and Crawford is just perfect for this team, not only he's back to his best level with them but it seems that he's even better than he was in his Hawks years so far.. He's not just a bball player, he's an artist and it is just fantastic to watch him « dance » on the court ; and DeAndre is so impressive this year..) and.. Knicks (yes I said it)).

 

Now that they're all healthy the Grizzlies at back at their very best and it is just very impressive. They certainly have the best starting lineup in league (yeah I know the Lakers have Bryant, Nash, Pau and Dwight but I wanna wait a bit till they develop a real chemistry before I can judge what they can do), as well as the best chemistry in the league, the best passing game in the league. They remind me of the early 2000's Kings.. Except that they are clearly better defensively.

 

It's simple when the Grizzlies are at their best, they play the best basketball in the entire league. This team is very impressive and if they stay healthy I would be very surprised not to see them in the WCF. So we have nothing to be ashamed of, losing against this team. Especially IN Memphis. On a back to back game. Right after playing against the second best record in the West the preceeding night... Considering all of this it is actually even a miracle that we lost only by 10..

 

Another positive thing about yesterday was the Sheed. Earlier on the season he didn't play much, needed time to get back in shape and Woodson wanted to wait to see what he could do, but lately he's become an essential part of our rotation and he's been terrific, especially in the last two games against the Spurs and the Grizzlies. Especially against the Grizzlies, his best game of the year so far IMO, he didn't post up as much as he did in that game the preceeding games. Which is terrific news for us. To see him play that well in the post. Especially against arguably the best big men duo in the league right now.

 

A lot of people laughed when we signed Sheed but the fact is that he's definitely a perfect fit for us, he plays at a high level for someone who's already 38 and hasn't played in two years and brings us a lot of essential things that very few players can do, his defense, rebounds, post up play, 3 pointers, etc.. he helped us in so many ways.. It's just great to see the Sheed plays at this level. And I'm sure he will even get better weeks after weeks, and will be extremely valuable to us in the playoffs.

 

Overall we can only be satisfied by the way we've played so far. Who would have expected us to have our best start since the 93/94 season (94 Knicks happens to be my favorite team of all time BTW) ? No one. There are still a lot of question marks on this team though, and it's better not to jump to easy conclusions, but we definitely can go far.

 

The Heat are definitely the favorite to win it all this year, even if we've played better than them so far. And it's gonna be really hard to beat them. But in my opinion, the Knicks are the only team who CAN beat them in the East. If everything goes well, if we keep developping a chemistry between the players, if we stay healthy, and if Stat plays at the level expected (we will need him to win this year, Carmelo can play PF on the offensive end but on the defensive end.. when we play against teams like the Grizz who have two valuable big men, it's another story) then we will have a chance to beat the Heat.

 

We're not there yet though but I can't help drooling at the idea of a ECF between the Heat and the Knicks.

[fish7718]

Notice we never blamed refs for loss, we just did not like the way the game was officiated

[NomarFachix]

Notice we never blamed refs for loss, we just did not like the way the game was officiated