Let's start with the good: the team started confidently and the bench built on the confident start to build a 16 point second quarter lead. Even though it was against the Raptors, a spunky team that nevertheless seems to be composed exclusively of energy role players, you saw the signs of what can make these Knicks successful -- attacking the lane with Amare, finding open perimeter shooters, running wnen the opportunity presents itself, getting tenacious defense and opportunistic scoring from the bench (especially Chandler, Douglas and Turiaf). And when the lead evaporated and the Knicks were forced to scuffle for the better part of 20 minutes spanning the second to fourth quarters, the team put together a good enough stretch in the fourth to build an 8 point lead and hang on (inelegantly) at the end.

52 points in the paint, 10 (!) blocked shots, and after a rough early start where Reggie Evans was outrebounding the entire Knick team 10 to 6 (and the Raptors generally were beating the Knicks to every loose ball), the Knicks recovered nicely to win the rebounding battle 49 to 45. Stoudemire had 10 rebounds and Gallinari deserves credit for shaking off a bad start and getting most of his 6 rebounds in the 2nd half. Also, Landry Fields with 11 points on 4 for 8 shooting (69% TS, the best on the team), made an excellent debut and always looked active, contributing in small but meaningful ways in important minutes.

Now the bad: the offense looked scattered for long stretches and though Felton had a respectable game in the box score, the flow of the offense was disjointed and too often resulted in either a forced isolation from Stoudemire, a rushed 3 pointer (Knicks missed 9 of their last 10), or a one-on-one move from Chandler or Felton (who took 32 shots between them). It ended up working out in the case of Chandler, who despite his usual iffy shot selection (2 for 8 on long jumpers) benefited from favorable matchups with the Raptor wings and shot 8 for 10 from 15 feet and closer. 

But Gallinari was invisible for much of the game: his 15.4 usage (only Mozgov and Fields were lower among starters, and Mozgov played 7 minutes) reflected his sitting in the corner and doing little to put pressure on the offense beyond the occasional spot up jumper. The Knicks ended up with only 12 assists and 15 turnovers, with Amare responsible for 9 of the latter, a reflection of his trying to do too much from sub-optimal positions on the floor (more on that later).

D'Antoni played 10 players in the first half, but the quality dropped after the first eight: Mason and Walker only got 7 and 10 minutes respectively, and managed to miss all nine of their shots. I have hopes for Walker to contribute good minutes as a bench player this season and assume he just had a rough start, but Mason really shouldn't be getting meaningful playing time as long as his shot is broken -- and it is very, very broken. The Knick defense looked about as loose as it has the past two seasons under D'Antoni in terms of the switching and help (which can be chalked up to the team still getting used to each other, and the problems posed by the quickness of the Raptors), but the shot blocking, especially from Turiaf, did help the Knicks limit the Raptors to 39 percent shooting at the rim.

Credit has to be given to the Raptors for fighting back after falling behind by so much, and to Reggie Evans especially for making life difficult for Stoudemire even with the size disadvantage -- this put a lot of pressure on the Knicks to find creative ways to get Amare the ball or find other scoring options, which as already noted, was a very mixed bag this game. It was the first game, so it's reasonable to expect that there would be raggedness, especially with a team with as open a style as the Raptors. It's useful, then, to look at the fourth quarter and take a closer look at how the Knicks executed in a close game with their starters in.

For the first 3 quarters of the game, Amare was not especially efficient -- he was starting from positions too far out on the floor, resulting in out of rhythm jumpers, or turnovers after putting the ball on the floor from face up positions. Again, some of this was his teammates, especially Felton, not working harder to get him the ball in better position, but some of it was on Amare for forcing the action. Going into the 4th quarter, he had 12 points on 4 for 10 shooting and 7 turnovers in 24 minutes of play.  Here's his shot chart for the game, courtesy of ESPN (Xs are missed shots, dark circles are made shots): 

In the fourth quarter, Amare entered the game with 8 minutes remaining and the Knicks leading 84-82. In these last 8 minutes, the Knicks had 16 possessions, which I charted. Of these 16 possessions, Amare was "integral" or involved notably as a scoring option in 11 of them (in the other possessions, he was either a decoy, or the play was run for someone on the perimeter to get a jumper).

I made a judgement on whether Amare was "good" in terms of his positioning and execution on the 11 possessions he was actively involved in. On six of the possessions -- notably a 1:20 stretch where Amare got 3 baskets in a row to stretch the Knicks' lead to 96-88 -- he put himself in excellent position to receive the ball for a drive from one of the elbows, or to throw up one of his trademark floater/half-hooks on the lower blocks after a pick and roll dive. He didn't always convert, but success was generally characterized by being in position to receive the ball 15 feet or closer to the basket, and receiving the ball either open, or isolated one on one with the ability to make a quick move and explode to the basket.

On the other five possessions, Amare's involvement ended up "bad" through the fault of his own positioning or his teammates making a poor pass or getting him the ball while in an awkward position. Felton was guilty of this on two consecutive occasions when he rolled to the lane and fumbled an over the shoulder pick and roll pass to Amare who missed the close in shot as a result, and then the next time, throwing the ball to Amare on the baseline with two defenders on him. Toronto defense, to be fair, also contributed to Amare receiving the ball further out than he would like, and they closed the lane quickly on his drives, but he contributed to his problems by not protecting his dribble 20 feet from the basket on 2 different occasions, resulting in 1 turnover and 1 near-turnover (which turned into a bail-out foul on Evans).

These issues will undoubtedly be corrected and the offense will be refined with more time together as a team. And even when Amare wasn't a primary option, the attention he drew opened up the floor for Chandler to exploit space on the side opposite Amare's, or to find either Fields or Gallinari. 

Beyond Amare's role in the offense is how the other players play off of him -- I'm probably being  too hard on Chandler and Felton this early in the season, but I'm not yet comfortable with them as second and third options if this is really going to be a playoff team. Here's where it's critical for Gallo to be much more of a factor, both as a shooter and passer, in making the offense more difficult to defend. He did have a critical 3 pointer in the fourth, but that was made possible through a designed play where Fields set up 2 different screens and Gallo stayed behind the line. How Gallo improvises in the offense when 3 pointers aren't available will be just as important as Amare and Felton if the Knicks are going to be successful.

* Many pointed this out on twitter, but even on a second viewing, it was still disconcerting: Fields and Gallinari, who don't look anything alike, are nevertheless very hard to tell apart on the floor -- same frame, similar hair, similar looking numbers from a distance, both camped out behind the 3 point line on offense, both even scramble to the ball with a similar gait. A few times, I blamed defensive lapses on Gallo when it was Fields who made a rookie mistake. Weird.

* With Azubuike and Randolph both recovering from injuries, it's Turiaf holding the banner for the merits of the trade with Golden State, and so far so good. Apart from the blocked shots, he works hard given his limitations, and while I get nervous seeing him on the receiving end of pick and rolls given his issues in similar situations in Golden State, he acquitted himself well. There are some issues to work out with offensive spacing when both he and Stoudemire are on the floor together, but I enjoy watching him play.