Knicks at Suns Game Thread

[Cheesebeef]

i don't think we can take anything away from these early season W's except the fact that they're Ws, which is good enough for me at this point. Keep it rolling on Thursday boys!

 

[LV-Suns]

Jamal Crawford is a very good guard. He would absolutely kill on a better team.

we had marion out there today guarding crawford sometimes.

when we play teams like the Lakers, we need them both.
Bell against Bryant
Marion against Odom

 

[Cheesebeef]

good to hear Amare looked good tonight.

 

[cly2tw]

I was thinking more barbs. This is a much deeper team than 2 years ago when raja was so important. Remember, he was brought in as a reserve (when we had joe).

When he is out there w/ amare, there really seems to be a clash.

Exactly, I'd really like to see LB's transition into our starting 2 guard. Let Raja be the energy guy off bench he was first brought in to be. I hope this way he'd have enough left to contain Manu when we face the Spurs again. In the last series loss, Manu went off big time while Bell was lacking energy to shut him down the way it was supposed to be.

 

[cly2tw]

Bell against Raja
Marion against Odom

Are you suggesting that Raja is his own worst enemy?

 

[LV-Suns]

Are you suggesting that Raja is his own worst enemy?

Bell against Bryant

 

[TheHopToad]

OT: Pretty good game in Portland tonight going down to the wire vs the Pistons:

http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.p...0_nba-league_pass_portland_051201.asx&gid=103

 

[Folster]

Amare had 26, 12, and 4 with only three fouls. That is the kind of stat line that I expect from Amare on a nightly basis. Although, I don't expect a 4 bpg average. There is no reason he should ever have less than 10 boards. Ever.

 

[Nash2Amare]

Amaaaareee!


Still losin some explosiveness, but had some nice whamo's, as Al would say

 

[Stargazer]

My thoughts on the game:

1. Has Hill finally arrived? He's getting there. I've been on record from the beginning as being in favor of him taking 3's, and maybe it's finally paying off. Before tonight, 5 for 24 = 21%. After tonight, 8 for 28 = 29%. Take away the horrible first game (1 for 7), and he's shooting 7 for 21, or 33% from behind the arc. That's Shawn Marion territory -- not good enough to make a living from behind the arc, but good enough to force spacing and open up his driving game. It's still too early to draw conclusions, but the experiment should continue.

2. Even on a "quiet" night, Nash is just insanely good. That left-handed catch/pass to Barbosa was unreal. For the season, Nash is shooting 60% from the field AND 60% from behind the arc, and is perfect from the line. And still averaging 9 assists a game. Just amazing.

3. Minutes played is overrated, and I think people are worrying for nothing over player minutes. Raja sat out two games, which, all by itself, will reduce his "average minutes played" over the season by nearly one minute, even if nothing else changes the rest of the year. Does anybody think that's going to make any difference at all come playoff time? Minutes played is only relevant when you're talking about the first game of a back to back, when saving minutes on the front end can really have an impact. Otherwise, who really cares?

4. I'll give D'Antoni the benefit of the doubt, but why in the world is he putting Pietkowski in instead of the rookies? Pike isn't going to contribute anything this year, and he's not going to matter for the future, so why not give the time to DJ or Tucker?

5. Good win tonight, but obviously a game we were supposed to win. Chicago will be a bigger test.

 

[azirish]

Through out the game I kept thinking that I could not tell if the Suns were that good or just that the Knicks are really bad. In any case, this was a lot more like the real Suns that some of the poor showings they've had lately.

Hill had a monster game: 7 of 8 overall and 3 of 4 for three, plus 4 of 4 from the line with some decent team defense. Plus he did it when the game was still competative and opened things up for the rest. Some of his mid range stuff was very impressive and looks like what he was doing last year.

Skinner in his own way had an equally impressive game with 7 rebounds, three steals, and two blocks in just 18 minutes. He's living up to reputation of being a kind of big Raja who really irritates his opponents with his defense and is very active. What was most exciting is that he hit both his free throws and looked smooth in the process. With his reputation for being a Duncan class free throw shooter, this might means he could actually play crunch time minutes.

IMHO, the contest for 8th man is all but over - it is Skinner. D'Antoni will keep experimenting, but I have little doubt that Skinner will keep getting better as he gets used to the Suns offense. Marks is just not physical enough and none of the others are going to take minutes from Leandro and Bell.

 

[jbeecham]

4. I'll give D'Antoni the benefit of the doubt, but why in the world is he putting Pietkowski in instead of the rookies? Pike isn't going to contribute anything this year, and he's not going to matter for the future, so why not give the time to DJ or Tucker?

I was thinking the same thing all night. Pike was abused out there defensively as soon as he got into the game. The Knicks just attacked him and scored easily. It doesn't matter how much playing time we give him, he's not going to be better defensively than DJ or Tucker and those guys need the game experience.

 

[dodie53]

maybe next time,
DA will field a rookie or Marks early in the game.

 

[jandaman]

It was a decent game from the Suns, but what was everyone expecting?

To be honest Suns should of beaten them by more, but as D'Antoni said the Suns were a bit flat and I only got to watch the first 3 quarters and it seems they were trying okay, maybe they dropped off 4th quarter most.

But this win doesnt really mean anything...

The team was under going some turmoil and add that to the fact that they are not very good.

Amare scoring 25 and grabbing 14 on Curry is a good sign... I think.....

 

[dodie53]

amare not feeling something on his knees is a good sign.

 

[FArting]

I miss Gina on the Suns dance team.

Where did she go? She went to my high school.

 

[FArting]

When Curry picked up his 4th foul why did Amare shoot 2 free throws? D Antoni called out the crowd saying there wasn't enough energy. I sat in Section 120 row 17 seat 1.

 

[Errntknght]

I think playing the main rotation more-than-strictly-necessary minutes is fine at this stage of the season. The team isn't clicking that well yet so its good to give them all the PT they can handle. That said, I have to agree that playing Pike was a bizarre move.

 

[WuRaider]

2. Even on a "quiet" night, Nash is just insanely good. That left-handed catch/pass to Barbosa was unreal.

Dude, that play juked me nasty. I was watching on my projector, saw the ball go to Nash, kept on watching Nash to see what he was going to do, then in a split second saw Barbs laying it up. I had to rewind the Tivo to see what happened. Nash is craaaaaazy.

 

[CaptainInsano]

D Antoni called out the crowd saying there wasn't enough energy. I sat in Section 120 row 17 seat 1.

Good for him, the crowd seemed almost dead the entire game.

 

[mribnik]

Good for him, the crowd seemed almost dead the entire game.

I was going to say the exact same thing last night. Going into the third quarter it seemed like half of the people weren't even back in their seats yet. Nobody seems that excited. Pretty disgusting actually.

Edit: Oh, and Grant Hill looked awesome last night. It's a thing of beauty watching him make the turn-around jumper over a smaller defender. His 3 point shot looks much better as well. D'Antoni may just prove us wrong by the end of the season.

 

[FArting]

When the Knicks were shooting free throws it was pretty quiet.

 

[Cheesebeef]

I was going to say the exact same thing last night. Going into the third quarter it seemed like half of the people weren't even back in their seats yet. Nobody seems that excited. Pretty disgusting actually.

The fans are supposed to whoooping and hollering at having seen
a disgusting Laker blowout, a lackluster win against the Cavs and a game where DA was upset at the energy of his own team. Hey, I give the fans as much crap as anyone, but this team hasn't exactly given us a lot of reason to get pumped up, as I think most fans a) didn't appreciate the moves made in the offseason and b) the resulting spin that came from those moves which treated us like we were 2 year olds and c) constant talk of guys not liking each other, wanting to get traded, etc, etc.

Let's face it - this team isn't imminently "likable" right now. They've got a lot to prove. The 2004-5 team just shot out of the gates and wowed everyone, the 2005-6 was beloved because they were just the little guy who wouldn't quit and it never seemed like everyone got completely on board with last year's club until 30 seconds remained in Game 4 and then the suspensions came. I think people just don't know what the hell they have with this team and aren't ready to embrace it yet and thus you see the resulting silence from the crowd.

 

[mribnik]

The fans are supposed to whoooping and hollering at having seen
a disgusting Laker blowout, a lackluster win against the Cavs and a game where DA was upset at the energy of his own team. Hey, I give the fans as much crap as anyone, but this team hasn't exactly given us a lot of reason to get pumped up, as I think most fans a) didn't appreciate the moves made in the offseason and b) the resulting spin that came from those moves which treated us like we were 2 year olds and c) constant talk of guys not liking each other, wanting to get traded, etc, etc.

Let's face it - this team isn't imminently "likable" right now. They've got a lot to prove. The 2004-5 team just shot out of the gates and wowed everyone, the 2005-6 was beloved because they were just the little guy who wouldn't quit and it never seemed like everyone got completely on board with last year's club until 30 seconds remained in Game 4 and then the suspensions came. I think people just don't know what the hell they have with this team and aren't ready to embrace it yet and thus you see the resulting silence from the crowd.

Oh come on. It's not like the crowd was just not loud or anything, they were completely dead. The team is 6-2 and they were playing well last night. There were plenty of "OOHHH AHHH" plays last night and plenty of reason for the fans to get loud. Of course the team is likeable. They still have Nash, Amare, Marion etc. The team is still exciting and Grant Hill had a fantastic game last night. I think the expectations are just unreasonable at this point. A team simply cannot beat down a team by 35+ points every night just because they can. It doesn't work that way. I get excited when the Suns play well regardless of when they play well and who they play well against. It's not like every fan is a die hard fan either. Many of them probably don't even know who Kurt Thomas is. That crowd was completely dead. It sounded like a Bucks/Clippers pre-season game on a neutral site and I absolutely agree with D'Antoni calling them out.

 

[FArting]

In the middle of the 4th quarter a bunch of fans were leaving for the exits. There were some empty seats when the game began.