Knicks are Ugly, Selfish, Non-Coached, but Winners

The Knicks beat the Jazz in the Garden last night 113-109 (boxscore), giving New York it's 2nd straight win and once again proving that life on the road in the NBA can result in many surprises.

I think the New York and Utah battle was very much a battle of Good and Evil. The Jazz who play team first ball with some structure are Good. The Knicks who play an ugly one-on-one style game with very little structure are Bad. Therefore - a biased, Jazz first mentality leads to many quick thoughts....

• Rest is Good. The Knicks have been at home since Thanksgiving, and were off since Saturday waiting for the Jazz game. Utah was playing a back to back road game and didn't arrive with the defensive energy it need to stop the Knicks. The result - the lack of rest is either a loser's excuse, or a benefit to an idle home team.
• A cardboard cutout of Luke Skywalker could coach this team as well as Isaiah. The Knicks winning had nothing to do with scheme, play calling, or the type of suit that Isaiah thought would provide the best balance of the late fall season - yet contrast to the road team's uniforms. Down the stretch when the game was tight, Cardboard Cutout guy could have called as many plays as Thomas. Instead, whoever happened to get the ball would go one on one. It worked for one night, and might work a few nights at home or against the weak Eastern Conference. Congrats to Cardboard Cutout Guy!
  
• Making Shots is Bad.The fact that some of these awful shots went in for New York will do nothing but convince some of their players to keep taking them. Zach Randolph had a terrific shooting night. He made some tough shots. Truth is - he is a black hole who took some dumb shots. On this night they went in. The bad thing is - Zach thinks he should keep taking them. The ball doesn't move and the Knicks are easier to guard when he is in the game. Zach making dumb shots is bad.
• Crawford and Richardson are Square. Okay, not square but not well rounded. How about 1-D, as in one dimensional. In 76 minutes of combined playing time the teamed up for a total of 2 rebounds and 3 assists. I guess it's a style of play to get some talented offensive guys and ask them to shoot the ball, but don't require anything else.
• One Way Only. Fallen Star-bury played a nice game, on ONE end of the floor. Guess which one? Well, he played no defense on DWill, and a couple times go burned so bad he wouldn't even be in frame for a poster. Still, on offense he was motivated, agressive and when he was creating - the Knicks where tough. He did a great job of getting his shoulder in front of Deron Williams a couple times and drawing fouls or getting into the lane to create for others.
  

Up Next for the Jazz are the 76ers in Philly tomorrow night. The 76ers feature a couple of my favorite NBAers to watch - Andre Miller, a former University of Utah player who still favors team first ball, and Kyle Korver one of the best long range bombers in the league. The Jazz need the win to finish the 3 game trip at 2-1. To read up on the 76ers, I'd suggest Passion and Pride, a solid blog on the MVN.

Jazz Beat Detroit for 5th Straight Time

When I think of the Detroit Pistons, I think of two strengths - their tough defense and the talent of their starting five. Unfortunately for the Pistons, neither element was on display Sunday afternoon as the Jazz handed Detroit their first home loss of the season 103-93 (box score). For the Pistons, Rasheed Wallace missed the game and the Detroit missed his defensive spark and overall intensity. The Jazz trailed by 8 in the second quarter, went on a run and pretty much never gave up control after that. At the end, the Jazz beat the Pistons for the 5th straight time (3 in Detroit) and ran their win streak to 3 games and totaled their 8th win in 10 games.

Boozer Near Perfect
There were several bright spots for the Jazz - but none brighter than Mr. Carlos Boozer, who posted a season high 36 points, on an eye-popping 17 of 20 from the field. Boozer hit everything - some layups and put backs (8-8) and an array of jumpers (9-12) over a variety of defenders - check out the shot chart. Not having Wallace to guard Boozer was a big thing in this game. Though we all know how Rasheed can be - he could have very well gotten frustrated by the Jazz offense, landed in foul trouble and picked up a technical or two. Funny thing about Wallace- he must have felt left out and contributed a technical while on the bench in street clothes.

As a side note - the referees were not the Pistons' problem. The Pistons were actually called for 6 fewer fouls on the night, and the call that got Flip Saunders tossed was a correct call - though I had the advantage of replay and Flip tried to make a judgement all the way down the court and had a over-reacting player that probably swayed his viewpoint.

DWill vs. CBill
One of the other bright spots was Deron Williams, who handled Chauncey Billups in a similar fashion as he did Jason Kidd a few nights ago. Meaning - taking another of his US National Teammates to task with a one sided result. To be fair, CBill's game was not the disaster that Jason Kidd posted against Williams, as Billups tallied 15 points and 6 assists falling just short of his season averages of 17 and 8. Deron Williams on the other hand was brilliant with 21 points and 14 assists, while adding 4 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. A couple of Deron's baskets were the result of his quick pushing the ball up the court and then exploiting Billups or Rip Hamilton in a one on one match-up. Watch-out NBA, DWill might have been soft for a few games with the sore toe, but as he said tonight - he is pain free for the 1st time in two weeks.


















Detroit Pistons forward Jason Maxiell (54) has his shot blocked by Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko (47), of Russia, in the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007, in Auburn Hills, Mich. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson)

Quick Shots:

• The Piston game was the first of a stretch that includes 12 of 16 road games for the Jazz.
• Ronnie Brewer is a relentless cutter without the ball and a terrific finisher. Today was the 13th time in double figures - out of 14 games. He was 4-6 from the field and 3-3 from the line - check out his shot chart - and notice were all the makes are.
• AK47 posted 11 points and 10 rebounds, but only one block. The one block would say that he wasn't a defensive force - but if you saw the game you saw him contest and alter shots all day.
• Want to see NBA confidence in action? Memo Okur finished the game with 12 points and hit a couple of big hoops in the 2nd half. But, Why in the Heck was he still shooting? I believe Memo was 1-10 at the half, but went 3-6 in the 2nd as he kept taking the shots that came to him within the offense. I count it as trust in himself and trust by the coaching staff.
  
• Detroit's starting guards - Hamilton and Billups combined for 11-30 shooting. That is a lot of shots, a lot of misses, and wow are these guys going to need some help off the bench at some point in the year. When they aren't hitting shots, who can they turn to? Bueller? Bueller?
  

Up next, the New York Knicks - tomorrow night in Madison Square Garden. After a chance to witness the train wreck known as the Knicks up close and personal, the Jazz will move on to Philly on Wednesday and then close out the week at home with Kobe and Lakers Friday Night.

To read up on the Knicks, I recommend KnickerBlogger.net for not only good writing, but an analytical view into how the Knicks are doing. Check out the 4 Factors they track for each game.

My Quick Take on the Knicks - from a distance without seeing much of them:
The Knicks have a bunch of guys if you looked at on paper, by themselves, appear to be very talented. However, mix them together on a court at one time and you have no chemistry, no flow, not enough balls, not much defense, not much rebounding, and not many wins. Looking at some official league stats you can see the Knicks are 2nd to last in the NBA in assists per game, 27th in FG%, 26th in point differential (-7.3 OUCH), 26th in 3pt FG%, 28th in turnovers per game, and last in the league in blocks. I won't even start on Isaiah Thomas who has done little off the court to warrant employment of any kind. I'm still trying to decide if I feel bad for the owner of the Knicks, or if he is simply having to deal with the results of some very bad decisions. Either way, in order to truly start again the Knicks will have to write another coach a big check in order to leave town (see Larry 'newtown' Brown).

All this means of course that it's the NBA, the Jazz are playing road games on back-to-back nights, and for all my comments - the Knicks might pull the upset. The keyword there is MIGHT. If the Jazz youngsters stay in their system and rely on each other, we may well get to see a few more cars fall off the track in New York.