J.R. Smith

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The state of the N.Y. Knicks-1/3 into the season…

Posted by fantasyfurnace on December 20, 2013
Posted in: NBA. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 8 Comments

Politicians give State of the Union addresses to it’s masses as a way of reporting on the condition of it’s City, State or Country. What will follow will be our state of the state of the N.Y. Knicks as we try to make sense of their profound regression from last season.

As this report is being published, the NBA season is approaching the 1/3 mark already-a fair enough sampling of what we might expect from this bunch as the next two-thirds unfold. We can say with conviction, right at the outset, that the state of the Knicks is not very good. We should have realized that this was going to be a long season from the get-go as we saw how they struggled to beat the Milwaukee Bucks, arguably one of the worst teams in the league, on opening night. They blew a 25 point lead and were losing with less than three minutes remaining in the game before pulling away.

It was as ugly a win as their ‘victory’ over these same Bucks on Wednesday, December 18th, a game that the Knicks didn’t deserve to win as they needed to go into double OT to beat a team who didn’t even have their two best players on the floor. A game that saw a gaffe by Andrea Bargnani attempting a 3-pointer with 13 seconds left on the game clock, on a kick-out with a fresh 24 second clock , and with the Knicks in the lead . If he holds onto the ball and kills some clock while waiting for a foul, the Knicks don’t go into a 2nd overtime, and Carmelo Anthony doesn’t break his career mark for minutes played in a game-55:27.

We’re also here to report on a game that was perhaps the Knicks most poorly played all season; the 41 point blowout at the Garden at the hands of the Rondo-less Boston Celtics. 10 points in the first quarter? 25.6 % shooting from the field in the first half? It just doesn’t get much worse than that. The Knicks threw up more bricks that afternoon than it took to construct the first 20 floors of the Empire State Building! If you haven’t had a meal in the last 4 hours and would like to see some of the “lowlights” of that game, here they are:

Lastly, how can we leave out the debacle against the Wizards on December 16th, 2013, when Mike Woodson had a brain freeze for not calling a timeout with 6.9 seconds to go in the game and down by just one point. Instead, the beleagured headcoach decided to take his three remaining timeouts home with him…

Coach Mike Woodson shoulders much of the blame for the loss to the Wizards on Dec. 17, 2013 for not calling a 'timely' time-out with 6.9 seconds remaining in the game. Photo Getty Images

Coach Mike Woodson shoulders much of the blame for the loss to the Wizards on Dec. 16, 2013 for not calling a ‘timely’ time-out with 6.9 seconds remaining in the game. Photo Getty Images

Knick players as well as some fans can sugar-coat their horrific season by saying that they’re only three games out of first place but the facts are this: The Knicks play in one of the worst divisions in all of sports and they do not have a very good team. With the exception of Carmelo Anthony, the team is devoid of another consistent scorer. Melo is also being worked way too hard as his minutes, at some point in the season, will catch up to him.

J.R. Smith worked hard to get that new contract but now that he has it he has regressed into an 11 PPG player. Of course ever since his elbow was introduced to Celtic Jason Terry’s jaw last season, J.R. has not been the same. His shooting percentage dropped like a ton of bricks and he was no where to be found in the playoffs last year. Couple that with knee surgery in the off-season and J.R. is no longer J.R.

Will things change for the better once some of the injured Knicks return? Why should they? Raymond Felton when he is totally healthy, is at best, an average point guard. He never was one of the elite guards in the league because of his inconsistency. Defensively, Pablo Prigioni is a decent facilitator but not a scorer. Iman Shumpert is half the player he was last season and part of that probably has to do with all the trade rumors that have been circulating around the league and the press since the season got underway.

If Andrea Bargnani was THAT good, Toronto would never have let him “Escape to New York”. The former 1st rounder, as Knick fans have seen, comes to this team replete with flaws. A seven footer should average more than 5 rebounds a game-period! If the Knicks wanted a center who could shoot threes and not rebound, they would have never gotten rid of Channing Frye!

#77 Andrea Bargnani goes up for one of his 82 3-point attempts this seaon making just 24 of them for an anemic 29.6 % average. Photo:

#77 Andrea Bargnani goes up for one of his 82 3-point attempts this season making just 24 of them for an anemic 29.6 % average. Photo: Getty Images

So how was this team able to win 54 games last season? Several ways… Those hundreds of threes they were unloading were going in-they’re not this season. Rasheed Wallace, together with his defensive prowess and leadership skills, helped the Knicks get off to a 16-4 season a year ago while Jason Kidd (for a part of the season) and his basketball savvy, chipped in his talents as well. J.R. was shooting lights out, averaging around 18 points a game, and lastly, the Knicks were one of the stingiest in the league at turning the ball over.

Mike Woodson has taken a lot of the heat for the team’s demise and rightfully so. For those that would argue that point, why is it that when the Knicks were playing wining basketball last season, Woodson was called a defensive genious and team savior, but now that the team has gone in the opposite direction, we’re not allowed to put any blame on him…

As for the Knicks owner, Jim Dolan, his incompetency is only exceeded by his ineptitude. Do not look for the “rich one” to spend large chunks of money by the Feb. 15th deadline. Remember, he  just got through spending a small fortune on the reconstruction of Madison Square Garden and we’re not expecting him to be making any trades because there is no one to offer of any real value anyway.

And so the state of the state of the N.Y. Knicks is not good and neither, we think, is their future this season. Additionally, we are not all convinced that Mike Woodson will be on the Knicks sideline by the time the season comes to a merciful conclusion.  In the meantime, as long-time Knick fans often do, we’ll be watching and hoping that we won’t see games like the few we described above.  We hope that they will find new ways to win and not old ways to lose…

Knick fans are growing impatient as the weeks go by.

Knick fans are growing impatient as the weeks go by. Most would like to see a return to team defense, pride, and competitiveness but question if that can happen with this team as currently comprised and with this coach.

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Knick fans: Don’t despair..at least not yet..

Posted by fantasyfurnace on May 22, 2013
Posted in: NBA. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

So the ‘season of hope’ is over. The Knickerbockers gave it a ride didn’t they? Look, at the beginning of the year I really thought that the Knicks were going to be playing “wheelchair basketball” with all the AARP members on board!

Kurt Thomas, Marcus Camby, Rasheed Wallace and Jason Kidd have already begun to fill out their applications for Medicare! If you would have told me before the season started that this bunch, which by the way included an injured Amare Stoudemire and an Iman Shumpert coming off of major knee surgery, that they were going to win 54 regular season games and finish first in their division, I would have signed up for that in a heartbeat.

The signings of Jason Kidd & Kurt Thomas along with Marcus Camby & Rasheed Wallace, turned the Knicks into the NBA's oldest team last season. Photo: ROBERT SABO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The signings of Jason Kidd & Kurt Thomas along with Marcus Camby & Rasheed Wallace, turned the Knicks into the NBA’s oldest team last season.
Photo: ROBERT SABO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

And while the majority of Knick fans are frustrated, upset, or depressed, they’re missing the bigger picture. Besides 1st place in the East, they also garnered the 2nd seed and made it through game six of the second round of the playoffs with some of their players going up and down the court in walkers and casts!

I don’t recall reading before the season began, that this Knicks team was the favorite to win the NBA Finals Championship…do you? Should they have beaten the Pacers? In the words of Sarah Palin, “You Betcha!” ‘Sheed and Kidd were instrumental in the Knicks opening the season at 18-6 but Wallace took himself out of basketball and Kidd just ran out of gas, needing a GPS to find the basket.

Stoudemire, who was averaging 17 points and 8 rebounds in March before his other knee gave out, didn’t have enough stamina in the post season and was limited in minutes on the floor. Tyson Chandler, who lost 12 pounds from a severe strep throat at the end of the season was just a shell of the defensive player he was last year and couldn’t keep up with the superb play of Roy Hibbert.

We know all the reasons why they couldn’t finish off the Pacers but in the opinion of many, the tide and momentum of the playoffs changed right after J.R. Smith’s ejection after stupidly elbowing Jason Terry. The Celtics probably get swept and the energy would have carried over into the series with Indiana if Smith had kept his cool.

#8 J.R. Smith's shooting woes began when he returned from his one game suspension for elbowing Jason Terry. Photo ; COREY SIPKIN/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

#8 J.R. Smith’s shooting woes began when he returned from his one game suspension for elbowing Jason Terry. Photo : COREY SIPKIN/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

The Pacers you’ll recall never ‘blew out’ the Knicks unless you consider losing by 7 to 11 points a ‘blowout’. If J.R. doesn’t introduce his elbow to Terry’s chin, we would have more than likely seen a different result in that 2nd round.

The point is this team, as constituted today, should be a competitive bunch in the 2013-2014 season. However there will be some tweaks made to this roster before next year begins; a year in our opinion that will be the last before its key players are purged and a rebuilding process gets underway…yet again.

With the 24th pick in the first round of the next NBA draft, and perhaps through trades, the Knicks need to find a backup point guard to replace Pablo Prigioni who will take his family back to Spain to finish out his career. Hopefully he’ll be a quick guard who will bring some speed to the second unit. Kidd is NOT that guard.

They also need another big body to play the 5 off the bench so that Amare doesn’t have to. You can’t say enough about the excellent job that K-Mart did for this team but the club needs a taller, younger, and more agile player than Kenyon especially at this stage of his career.

Because of the new CBA, the odds are that the Knicks will not keep both J.R. and Copeland. And to all those that are calling for Smith’s head, that’s all well and good as long as you can find another player that could put up the kind of numbers he did off the bench. The problem in the series with the Pacers is that J.R. who admittedly still hadn’t found his shot, played way too many minutes as Woodson forgot that there was a Chris Copeland on the bench…

Many feel that #14 Small Forward Chris Copeland spent too much time on the bench in the Pacer series and not enough on the floor. Photo: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

Many feel that #14 Small Forward Chris Copeland spent too much time on the bench in the Pacer series and not enough on the floor. Photo: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

We say ‘Don’t despair’ because there still is one more run, we believe, in the majority of this group. It is not a great team! It can’t be when you only have one future Hall of Famer playing major minutes. And at 40 years of age we’re not counting Jason Kidd who will be a lock for the Hall but clearly is not a major contributor anymore. How many do you have on other teams who made it into the 2nd round of the playoffs? Well, there are at least three in Miami and the same in San Antonio alone!

So Knick fans, come back off the ledge! It was a nice run but it was with a team that simply overachieved in the regular season. Be hopeful that Glen Grunwald will make that 24th pick a meaningful one. Pray that he’ll find a player who can finally know how to take a charge. Someone like Anderson Varejao for example. And let’s all hope that there is at least one more ride for the Knicks and their fans…

The Knicks need to stop the nonsense and use their ‘Sixth’ sense!

Posted by fantasyfurnace on May 2, 2013
Posted in: NBA. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 12 Comments

What’s happened to the Knicks? How could they been up 3-0 and then lose the next two? Can they even close out the Celtics in this series? And, more importanly, could we be witnessing the 2004 “Boston Red Sox-like Celtics” vieing to become the first NBA team in history to come from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series? Will history repeat itself?

This year's Celtics are trying to repeat what the 2004 Red Sox did; coming back to win a series after being down 3-0. Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

This year’s Celtics are trying to repeat what the 2004 Red Sox did; coming back to win a series after being down 3-0. Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Think about this stat: Just 11% of all NBA teams who were down 3-0 even make it to a game 6!  This is what the Celtics have already accomplished and all we want to do is break down some of the reasons why and  how we have gotten to this point.

For openers, we were at Game 1 at the Garden and can tell you that the Knicks played with a bit of a swagger, especially in the second half. That confidence extended into games 2 and 3 as the Celtics never scored 80 or more points in any of those games.

And then, with a comfortable lead near the last half of the 4th quarter of game 3,  J.R. Smith got suckered into losing his cool after jawing with Jason Terry for most of the game. He elbowed the veteran, got ejected, and received a one game suspension from David Stern. The swagger left the court along with J.R. Smith and hasn’t returned in spite of the Knicks amazing comeback from being down 20 in game 4 to force the Celtics into OT.

#8 J.R. Smith shortly after elbowing #4 Jason Terry during game 3 on April 26th, 2013. Photo: Gettyimages

#8 J.R. Smith shortly after elbowing #4 Jason Terry during game 3 on April 26th, 2013. Photo: Gettyimages

That act of pure stupidity by Smith, with his team up by double-digits at the time, was reminiscent of what took place with the Knicks in another heated rivalry back in 1997. The Knicks were up 3-1 in that series with the hated Miami Heat when, in game 5 P.J. Brown took offense over Charlie Ward’s attempt to gain position for a rebound. Brown flipped Ward over his head and body-slammed him, and a melee ensued.

The Heat's P.J. Brown after slamming Knick Charlie Ward to the floor during the 1997 playoffs.

The Heat’s P.J. Brown after slamming Knick Charlie Ward to the floor during the 1997 playoffs.

Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, Alan Houston and John Starks left the Knicks bench and when the smoked settled, Ewing, Houston and Ward were suspended for game 6 and Johnson and Starks for game 7. The Heat went on to win games 5, 6, and 7. That series, as this current one with the Celtics, was viewed as unwinnable at the time these actions took place.

Did Pat Riley tell P.J. Brown to instigate a brawl in the hopes of having the Knicks players lose their cool and face probable suspensions? Was Jason Terry ‘urged’  to incite a loose cannon like J.R. Smith? You be the judge.  

This much is for certain. The Knicks wearing black at last night’s game 5 vs the Celtics, as if they were dressing for Boston’s funeral, did incite and infuriate coach Mike Woodson as well as a lot of Knick and basketball fans alike. The Knicks should stop the nonsense, put their collective noses to the grindstone, and do their best to try and win this series.

They have no reason to act so cocky. They ain’t won nuthin’ yet so maybe they should just settle down and play the same kind of ball they did in their first three games. And for those who think that the Knicks might have lost the last two because  Chris Copeland didn’t play or Steve Novak didn’t play enough, give that a rest as well.

Chris Copeland has played a combined 24 minutes in this series shooting 0-5 with 1 rebound. Steve Novak has only been on the court for 31 minutes; 4-6 shooting for 10 points. (He also came out of last night’s game because of back spasms).

No, the Knicks need to remember what got them to 3-0 at the beginning of these playoffs in the first place;  hard nosed defense, distribution of the basketball, and that ‘swagger’. All of which was lost to some extent with Smith’s suspension.

 If you’re a Knicks fan, all you can hope for is that this series will not be the second coming of the 2004 Red Sox vs Yankees World Series, and that the team will not fall into any ‘traps’ during the remaining game(s); verbal or physical… otherwise history will just might repeat itself…

The Knicks need to avoid scenes like this in their remaining game(s). Photo: Gettyimages

The Knicks need to avoid scenes like this in their remaining game(s). Photo: Gettyimages