All the buzz around fans of the league in the last day has been centered around transcendent performances and reckless fouls, but the Knicks have their own mini-controversy: should Nate Robinson be starting over a slumping Chris Duhon? And where was Nate during the final 5 minutes of the Nets game at the Izod Center?

Chris Sheridan stirred the pot the most with his column in Monday's Daily Dime:

"Would you explain, Coach, why you kept Nate Robinson on the bench for almost the entire final 5½ minutes?"

Mind you, this was a final 5½ minutes that the New York Knicks needed desperately to win in order to keep from dropping even further out of an Eastern Conference playoff race that is slowly, steadily slipping away from them, a final 5½ minutes in which the mistakes came one after another after another in what ended up being a 106-101 loss Sunday to the New Jersey Nets.

"You know, Chris, I know you're on his bandwagon, but if you watched it he didn't have gas, wasn't getting over picks and wasn't getting good shots. It's pretty simple if you watched the game," D'Antoni said.

Nate has had inconsistent performances since his ankle injury against the Heat last week, and it's possible that the ankle was continuing to bother him and limit his effectiveness. However, the reasons he was on the bench in the fourth quarter also had to do with ongoing problem with defense. Here are four critical examples from Sunday's game:

1) [3rd quarter, 5:06] Vince Carter is at the top of the key, and fakes slightly to his left in anticipation of a screen coming in that direction from Robin Lopez. David Lee hangs behind Lopez, perhaps anticipating that he will have to help on Carter. Nate is behind Lee, inexplicably losing track of Devin Harris, who is alone several feet behind him at the corner. Harris cuts and scores (and is fouled) on an alley-oop from VC. 68-67 Knicks after Harris misses the free throw.





Nate is anticipating Carter driving to his left, but has completely lost track of Harris behind him, who goes to the rim


And Harris finishes at the rim on an alley-oop with ease, and picks up the foul from Nate while scoring.


2) [3rd quarter, 0:58] On this play, Nate is picked off by Sean Williams. Wilcox moves up on Harris, then plays back for the drive. Nate never manages to get over the screen, allowing Harris to fire an open 3 pointer, for a 76-72 Net lead.




Here Nate gets caught behind the screen and can't get over. Harris converts the 3 pointer

A very angry coach yelling at Nate to go over the screen.


3) [3rd quarter, 0:20] Just 35 seconds later, Harris again dribbles around the top of the key, with Williams again setting a screen. Harris, perhaps sensing Nate's dificulty with moving around screens, dribbles for a few seconds around the screen, measuring the space he has. Finally, with 4 seconds on the clock, he launches a three, which is contested by both Nate and Wilcox --Nate's effort is more of a desperate lunge, though, that results in a foolish foul that gives Harris 3 foul shots. Harris makes all 3 to give the Nets a 79-74 lead.


Nate gets caught under again, and fights through the screen too late. Fouls Harris while shooting and gives him 3 FTs.



4) [4th quarter, 10:18] The Knicks make a nice run to go up 85-81 at the start of the fourth. But the momentum shifts back to New Jersey with again, Nate getting screened off by Sean Williams. He takes a long time to recover, leaving Keyon Dooling wide open for a 3 pointer that cuts the Knick lead to 85-84.




Another screen again wipes out Nate. Keyon Dooling WIDE open for a three.


Despite all these lapses, if Nate had stayed as hot as he had been in the first half, D'Antoni might have rolled the dice with keeping him in at the end of the game. But with Nate cooling off, Gallinari with a hot hand, and the need to have some sort of defensive presence in the critical final five minutes, D'Antoni kept Nate on the bench. It's fair to say that the Knick lineup at the end of the game, so used to seeing Nate go one on one in crunch time, might not have been as smooth or as assertive as it needed to be when looking to score.

But the Knicks have been a sieve on defense in close games all season. Just a snapshot of the last five close games: Charlotte (scored each of their last 5 possessions), Miami (scored 8 out of last 9 possessions), 76ers (6 of last 7), Indiana (Knick win, but Pacers scored 7 straight possessions before the Knicks finally got Jeff Foster to throw a bad pass to seal the game).

The Knicks were not exactly the Spurs at the end of the Net game, but they did get 4 stops in 8 possessions with Nate out. Turnovers and poor execution doomed them, however, as the coach and players pointed out in their post-game comments.

Two more curious observations from Sheridan's piece:

*  Do you play out these final 20 games with Duhon, whose legacy for this franchise will be a stint as a two-year rental, a stint in which he couldn't even be trusted Sunday to defend Devin Harris? (Wilson Chandler got that assignment instead, with Duhon checking Trenton Hassell)

Duhon may be struggling, but who he guards has little to do with his recent struggles. D'Antoni has protected Duhon in many games by not having him guard the opposing point, especially if they are a significant offensive threat: Jeffries, Chandler, and more recently Hughes have all been used to slow down opposing points. Duhon tends to be more valuable on help, and given the degree to which the Knicks switch, it's not a big deal for Duhon to actually be assigned to his counterpart anyway.

*  [Robinson's]  the only player on the Knicks' roster who even remotely resembles Steve Nash, and if I recall correctly, Nash had a pretty nice little run under D'Antoni.

I will give Sheridan this: Nate has been an elite offensive player for over a month, and prior to the ankle injury, he outplayed names as significant as Tony Parker and Dwayne Wade (for a half, before he turned his ankle). But he "remotely resembles Nash" only in the way he keeps his dribble and stays low (sort of) -- Nate doesn't have any of the court awareness that Nash does, and his assists are generated primarily off the threat of his own offense and some simple sets: it's one stretch of a comparison to believe Nate could be D'Antoni's next Nash-styled point.

Should Nate replace Duhon at the point, or at least, get more minutes as a primary guard the way he did against the Bobcats? Knickerblogger makes the case that it's time to do so. I think it's a reasonable experiment, but only when Nate is fully healthy, and keeping in mind that the ball movement that D'Antoni loves so much will be weakened  -- Gallinari and Lee, in particular, are going to struggle to get the kind of touches they get with Duhon at point (see the Clipper game for how effective Lee was while Nate was directing).

And the defense, already so weak, will be even worse with Lee, Gallinari and Nate on the floor together. 

Personally, I think replacing Duhon in the starting lineup is hardly the home run others are making it out to be. It may be a good short term fix, but I don't sense this is that D'Antoni really feels is right for his team (at least, not until Nate develops and matures more in certain areas). And I share his skepticism.