The Sixers were riding high on a six-game winning streak until last week’s loss to the Knicks. Many feel like the Knicks brought Philly back to reality when they outscored them 24-15 in the first quarter. But the reality is the Knicks showed their true colors. Entertaining team to watch? YES. NBA championship contender. NOT EVEN CLOSE.
You would think that the Knicks would be one of the favorites to come out of the Eastern Conference. They have one of the top NBA performers in Carmelo Anthony, perennial all-star Amare’ Staudamire and recently acquired Tyson Chandler, who was a key contributor to the Mavs championship run last season. But these individual talents just don’t seem to mesh. Despite being the team’s starting power forward, Amare Staudamire doesn’t rebound better than an average guard. I understand that a history of knee injuries makes it difficult to sky the rim for boards, but if Elton Brand can do it-- no one other than Greg Oden has an excuse. Amare is not the only guy on the team who should receive the blame for a dismal 6-5 start. Who would have ever thought that Carmelo’s calm, cool and collective demeanor would also be his weakness? Sure he nailed jump shot after jump shot on Iguadala in the second half Wednesday night, but it took a trash talking session and a double technical for him to get into the game. His lack of intensity on a nightly basis, along with the inability to play defense almost cancels out the tremendous scoring ability that he possesses. In fact, Tyson Chandler seems to be the only guy on the roster who can spell the word defense. Sure he will end up being one of the league leaders in blocked shots, but that’s only because of the amount of help defense he will be forced to provide.
Generally these are the types of issues that are solved by the leadership of a head coach. Most good teams are orchestrated by a guy who can tell the star that he needs to step it up. They have a leader at the helm who preaches defense during timeouts. While most teams have someone on the bench who is looking to take their game to the next level, the Knicks have Mike D’Antoni on the sideline refusing to change his ways for the sake of improvement. D’Antoni is convinced that the run and gun offense is the way to go. Don’t get me wrong, some teams like the Suns and most recently the Clippers have garnered some success playing that style of basketball. There is just one thing that separates those two teams from the Knicks however; they have a point guard! With Baron Davis out of action until at least the end of January, the Knicks have been starting rookie Iman Shumpert. Sorry D’Antoni but it is neither fair nor rational to expect a rookie picked 17th in the draft to play at the same level as a Steve Nash or Chris Paul.
So the Knicks may have stolen a victory over the Sixers last week. Spike Lee and his notorious courtside antics had the opportunity to enjoy his hometown team. Being the great director he is, Spike should be able to envision the Sixers and his Knicks meeting up in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs as a 4 seed vs. 5 seed matchup. He should also realize that last week’s game was a few Sixers baskets away from being a New York tragedy. And if the Knicks don’t commit to defense, step up the intensity and hire a real coach then I don’t see this story ending happily ever after for Spike Lee or any other Knicks fan.
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