The Knicks - yet again - put together a solid half of play against an excellent Orlando Magic team that shot extremely well, but couldn't be bothered to defend the Knicks early. And again, the Knicks withered down the stretch when the other team decided to put its foot down.

Bear with me while I share a convoluted analogy. When I see a team struggling the way the Knicks are currently, it brings me back to when I had just started high school, and became friends with a classmate from a wealthy family who had a squash court in their home. My classmate invited me over to play several times, and his uncle (who taught squash at the nearby country club) even gave me a few lessons.

My sport was basketball, but I was intrigued enough by squash to get into it for a few months -- it was certainly a great workout. But I remember how baffling it was to play the first couple of months. There is a lot more wrist action in squash than in tennis (at least the way I played it), and those four walls (with a glass wall in the back) and that crazy little rubber squash ball were murder for me to deal with. I would learn to smash the ball along the side wall, and the teacher would retrieve it easily and smash it harder. I would learn to sustain rallies, but at the right moment, the teacher would flick a drop shot that left me lunging. I would learn to position myself on the court to cover drop shots, and develop a nice one of my own, and the teacher would retrieve my drop shot and execute a lob to the back wall that would end up dying in the rear corner.

This went on for about eight to ten lessons - I'd add to my repertoire, mix up my attack more, but the teacher would just counter everything, take advantage of a mental lapse or fatigue on my end, and then smile and give me a look like "it's not coming together for you, is it?" There were times where it felt like I covered every inch of the court retrieving shots and sustaining rallies and delivering sure winners -- and squash rallies can go on for a LONG time - and I might as well have spun myself dizzy in the center of the court like a sugar-charged toddler and collapsed for all the good it did me.

My biggest challenge was shots off the rear glass wall, where the ball's physics were completely different on impact. At the end of some rallies, I'd crash into the wall, drop my racket, and mutter: "Damn that glass wall". Probably everyone who's learned a new sport or activity or game has a story like this.


Watching the Knicks play the last eight games is a lot like those first few weeks of my futile attempts to be competent. One game the Knicks get production from Amare and Billups, but Carmelo and Douglas can't seem to get it going. Another game they get extremely hot shooting from almost everyone, but can't defend at all and turn the ball over at the worst times in the fourth quarter. Yet another game, they put together a terrific third quarter run against the opponent's starters, then give it all up against the opponent's second and third string. Last night, the Knicks got excellent first half shooting from Billups and Douglas, strong minutes from Turiaf, and Carmelo's most complete game since the trade (24 points on 12 shots, nine assists, 5 rebounds) -- and Amare shows up with dead legs, misses 11 of his first 13 shots, and ends up shooting 6 for 20 for the game.

The "damn glass wall" for the Knicks is the fourth quarter. And the way the pain is being delivered isn't as obvious as it might seem.  One would expect the starting units from better teams like the Celtics and Magic to eventually come through and hit the Knicks at their biggest weaknesses. But the Knicks are making mental mistakes that should be avoidable, and self-destructing against weaker second units as well as crumbling against the suffocating defense and intensity of stars like Howard and Garnett.

The effort last night from the Knicks was extremely good, even though it was clear from the beginning that they wouldn't be able to stop Howard. The Magic's defensive intensity was badly lacking in the first half, and the Knicks took advantage through Carmelo's midrange and post game, and outstanding three point shooting. Billups in particular looked the best he's looked since returning from injury (15 points, 3 assists in the half). The Magic countered not with defense but equally torrid shooting from outside the arc (8 of 14 on 3 pointers).

In the second half, the Magic bumped up the intensity on defense, and the Knicks started missing shots after building an eight point lead early in the third.  A brutal third quarter drought where the Knicks scored seven points in seven minutes made the lead vanish --  Amare, Billups, Douglas and Jeffries combined to go 1 for 12.

But the killer stretch, in my opinion, was the beginning of the fourth quarter. In the first half, the Knicks made up an early deficit by torching the Magic bench.  In the final period though, Magic bench players Arenas, Earl Clark and Quentin Richardson teamed with starters Howard and Jason Richardson to fuel a 9-0 run after the Knicks had gone ahead 82-81 to start the quarter. Arenas ran pick and rolls, found Richardson for a transition three pointer, and made Douglas and Mason look a step slow. Amare meanwhile, couldn't take advantage of mismatches with Clark, the type of player he overpowered routinely earlier in the season.

The most encouraging part of the fourth quarter came with Carmelo's return, when he assisted on a Shawne Williams three pointer, an Amare pick and roll, and an Amare cut into the lane, taking advantage of all the attention on him in the post (as Melo put it in the postgame, the weak side was "wide open"). If anything can be taken from this game, it's the hope that much more of this two man game can happen.

But the execution was a mess for too much of the final quarter, and to Orlando's credit, Dwight Howard was every bit his MVP self, dominating on both ends of the floor. The Knicks got some decent looks, but apart from Melo and Amare the other shots were mostly wishful rather than assertive -- threes from Billups and drives by Douglas looked bad from the time they were launched. The shot chart for the Knick 4th quarter tells the tale:



New York Knicks 4th quarter shot chart vs Magic, 3/23/11

I haven't labeled who shot where, but it's pretty clear that anything outside of 15 feet was poor, save a Toney Douglas three pointer to the left of the key and a long Shawne Williams two pointer near the right corner. Seven jumpers from 20 feet and further out missed -- three from Shawne Williams, three from Billups, one from Melo. (Carmelo had only one shot in the fourth). This is not the shot distribution of an elite team -- or even a respectable playoff team -- in crunch time, especially when you consider Williams can only make them from the corners.

This shot chart is relevant because it amplifies the point that the Knicks really miss the shooters to space the floor that they had before the trade. Opponents have picked up on Douglas' tendencies and are playing tighter on him, and Billups is still not close to form -- another empty fourth quarter missing 3 shots, including two three pointers. I noted earlier that Billups had a 15 point, 3 assist first half -- the only thing he added in eighteen second half minutes were two FTs, two rebounds, a foul and a turnover.


Game Notes:

*  This latest three game stretch has come against three of the best five defenses in the league, which provides an interesting bookend to the first few games after the trade, where the Knicks faced the same tough defenses. Have the Knicks made progress or regressed? Take a look:

Opponent	Date	Pace	Off Eff	Def Eff	Result
MIL	23-Feb	97	118	111	W, 114-108
at MIA	27-Feb	95	96	90	W, 89-86
at ORL	1-Mar	98	112	118	L, 110-116
at MIL	20-Mar	89	107	112	L, 95-100
BOS	21-Mar	89	99	110	L, 86-96
ORL	23-Mar	90	110	123	L, 99-111

The biggest difference between the games vs elite defenses right after the trade and the games in the last week is the slower pace -- what should alarm the Knicks the most is that their defense is just as bad, even against struggling offensive teams like the Bucks and Celtics (of recent vintage), in games with fewer possessions. But their offensive efficiency has gone down in these slower paced games. (That Miami game looks more and more like a fluke against a team the Knicks happened to match up well against at the time).

Taking a (generously) positive spin, the differences aren't that dramatic and can be explained to a certain degree by the recent games coming at the tail end of a brutal month of games -- the Milwaukee and Boston games were part of the four game in five day stretch, and of course there's that issue of Billups' injury. But there's also the reality that the quality teams didn't know what to expect when first playing the Knicks, and in recent games have the advantage of seeing what they've been running and have effectively hampered the primary options (especially the Amare catch at the elbow and the basic Melo right and left block post-ups).

The lack of practice time (especially hard, full contact practices) means the players have had little time to really run through the offense and all its possibilities, and learn each other's tendencies apart from figuring it out on the fly in game situations. This sounds like an excuse that's been trotted out a lot since the trade, but it's no less valid for how often it's been said -- you can see the lack of crispness in the cuts and screens and ball movement in fourth quarters when the opponents' defense gets tighter. Star power can only do so much to get a team to a certain level of execution against more seasoned teams like the Magic and Celtics.

*  The rampant fouling continues to take a toll in the fourth quarters as well. Here's a quick summary:

Fourth Quarter Fouls

Nine PFs vs Orlando
Four PFs vs Boston
12 PFs vs Milwaukee
5 PFs vs Detroit
7 PFs vs Indiana at Conseco
7 PFs vs Indiana at NY
8 PFs vs Dallas
9 PFs vs Memphis

Against Boston, the fouls were low because the team just gave up down the stretch from exhaustion (though Carmelo's fifth allowed Paul Pierce to go off in the final minutes), while fouls were low against Detroit because that was a game that the Knicks controlled (the officials were also extremely permissive regarding contact).  The Knicks will never be a good defensive team until they can get some help over the summer, but what the Knicks are going through with foul trouble, difficulty executing on offense, and getting badly outrebounded (which negates some of their better defensive stands) is an unholy trinity.



Charlotte and Milwaukee lost last night, meaning the Knicks continue to be in the weird position of having little pressure of falling out of the playoffs, even as they fall below .500 and don't exactly have a bright future ahead with another back to back coming up this weekend. I'm with the coach and players -- panic and anxiety don't do much to improve the situation. At this point, I'm exhausted not just from the losing, but from the ridiculous overanalysis and endless forced narratives being imposed on everything the players and coaches are doing. (This is what I call "displaced hostility" -- it's not just Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks, Nuggets, and related players and coaches on trial here, but the whole system of free agent movement going back to the Decision that provides the undertow to every baker's dozen of "what's wrong with the Knicks?" copy coming out every hour).

But you know what, seven losses in eight games doesn't breed much confidence, and while there's a perverse pleasure in the idea of losing out and making the playoffs...uh guys, let's try to win one soon, OK? And stop crashing into that glass wall.