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In the end, when you're working with the worst starting backcourt in the playoffs, and even they have to be cast aside for Anthony Carter, Roger Mason, and Bill Walker in order to sustain one final surge in the final home playoff game, you're not working with a lot of ammunition.

That's how it ended in Game 4 on Sunday afternoon for the Knicks, who couldn't survive the loss of Chauncey Billups. the drop in form due to injury of Amare Stoudemire, and the even more severe drop in form of key complementary players. The Celtics flipped the switch and the effect was that of illuminating the stage lights within a grand old theater for another playoff run; any switches the Knicks tried to flip were the equivalent of resetting circuit breakers in a decrepit building.

The Knicks came out with much better energy in Game 4 than in the previous game, when the Celtics buried them early and fought off a series of mild runs. They also pushed the pace as successfully as they have all series, even running after Celtic made baskets, resulting in a 25 possession first quarter (a pace closer to the pace they like to operate at).

But they simply could not make shots, and their typical salvation in this series -- making up points against a struggling Celtic bench --- disappeared with the return to competence of Glen Davis, Delonte West, Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic. Paul Pierce and Ray Allen missed 14 of 18 shots in the first half, but the Celtics used their defense to make even the simplest passes in the Knick halfcourt offense difficult, and the Knicks fired up brick after brick after brick. In the second quarter, the Knicks missed 17 of 20 shots, from every possible location:



First half shooting: Toney Douglas 1-8, Amare 1-10, Shawne Williams 0-5, Landry Fields 0-3. Carmelo Anthony was the paragon of efficiency with a 5 for 13 shooting line by these awful standards. A fair amount of it was good Celtic defense, but some of Douglas' looks were wide open, and Amare missed shots he would normally make if he were closer to 100 percent.

In the third quarter, the Knicks fell behind by 23, with Douglas continuing to flounder running the team. When Anthony Carter replaced him at the 5:37 mark and the Knicks down 74-54, no one expected much -- after all, Carter put in 5 and a half uneventful minutes in the first half. But AC provided a major jolt of energy upon re-entering the game, and took advantage of the Celtics falling asleep with a large lead. He got up on Rondo, forcing him into 3 of his 5 second half turnovers, and found Carmelo twice on fastbreaks. He made 4 of 5 shots, had 4 assists and 3 rebounds. And he was a one-man help machine on defense, having a hand in virtually every one of the Celtics' six fourth quarter turnovers.

Carter's defensive disruption was also notable for the way it forced the Celtics into getting away from the way they dissected the Knicks successfully with their multiple options -- suddenly, anytime the Celtics had a mismatch on a Carter switch, they got baited into running isolations such as Pierce or Allen on Carter. They also tried pounding it into Garnett on two occasions during the Knick run and though that's generally a good option against the Knicks' soft interior, all the ISO and labored post action from the Celtics played into the Knicks' hands.

The Knicks fought back spiritedly to get the lead down to 84-80 and 88-83, and for the first time that I can remember in a while, D'Antoni did not make a single substitution in the fourth quarter -- he rode with Melo, Amare, AC, Shawne Williams and Roger Mason the whole way. Eventually, that wasn't enough: a tough luck charge on Williams in transition, along with defensive lapses from Mason (a Rondo cut in the lane with no around him) and Williams (Ray Allen left alone on the left wing for three), and the Celtics twice running a pick and pop between Rondo and Garnett (with a hobbled Amare barely providing resistance) sealed the game and series for Boston.

Game Notes:

*  Amare's Effort: I did not expect Amare to play Game 4, and his sub-par form due to injury may have been the nail in the coffin for this series, but I was proud of the effort he put out there in his final game of the season. His stat line ended up ugly (5 for 20 shooting), but grabbing 12 rebounds, earning 12 FTs and continuing to attack the rim in the second half with a bad back was a great show of "no quit" until the end. He ended the season hurt and worn down, but in this short series (and keeping in mind the subjective nature of these kinds of judgments) he looked like he wanted to win more than any other Knick player out there. For him more than anyone else, I'm sorry the Knicks couldn't at least have gotten one win in the last week.

*  Anatomy of An Offensive Breakdown: The Knicks had only their second 30 point quarter of the series in the third quarter last night, and it was really their first meaningful one, since the other one was the last quarter of Game 3's blowout. In a 12 minute stretch spanning the last half of the third quarter and the first half of the fourth, the Knicks scored 29 points in 25 possessions while holding the Celtics to 16 points in 25 possessions. This was probably the highlight of their series as far as combining offensive production and defensive efficiency since the first half of Game 1. For the series as a whole, the Knicks' offense was shut down:

NY Knicks	Pace	Off Efficiency	Def Efficiency
Game 1	85	100	102
Game 2	90	103	107
Game 3	94	102	120
Game 4	97	92	104
Season Average	96	111	110

Only in the final two games did the pace approximate what the Knicks are accustomed to -- but really, when you consider that the season average reflects the pre-trade Knicks' greater propensity to run -- perhaps the increased pace benefited the Celtics more than the Knicks. Or just as likely, the outstanding transition defense of the Celtics coupled with the poor guard depth of the Knicks meant scoring in transition was always going to be tough.

According to Synergy Sports, the Knicks averaged 15 transition plays/game during the regular season; the Celtics averaged 13. In this series, the Celtics upped their average slightly (14/game for the series), while the Knicks were brought down to 11 per game, with a lower efficiency in scoring on those transition opportunities in every game.

The Knicks could barely get their pick and roll going, especially once Billups was hurt, and alternated between a lot of isolations (over 20 percent of plays in each of the first three games) and spot-ups (26 percent of plays in Game 4, most of which went "clank").

The only area where the Knicks seemed to be successful if they committed to it were cuts -- in Games 1, 3 and 4, the cuts were 9-10 percent of plays and the Knicks were very efficient in scoring off of them (Carmelo in particular produced well off the cuts).  This is something for the coaches to look at in the off-season when they're re-tooling the offense.

*  Plus-Minus Winners and Losers: Raw plus/minus is a flawed indicator of actual contributions, especially for high minutes players, but it can tell an interesting story for role players who make their impact in a 15 to 25 minute chunks. (For example, few would doubt that the Celtic bench's bad plus minus numbers told a certain story in the first three games). On the Knicks, the plus/minus numbers are especially damning for Landry Fields (-34 in his last three games in only 51 minutes of play), Toney Douglas (-45 in 112 minutes of play, including a sad -14 in game 4) and Ronny Turiaf (-30 in only 75 minutes).

There's no point in belaboring Fields' performance in this series, but Turiaf's and Douglas' performances were far more damaging. Turiaf only played 10 and 12 minutes in the final two games and the defense cratered when his knees/other ailments started acting up. Douglas also had a recurrence of his bad shoulder, and he seemed totally out of sorts after being dominated by Rondo the last three games. When you consider that the most important players beyond the "Big 3" of Billups, Anthony and Stoudemire were Douglas and Turiaf, for them to come up short (along with injuries to two of the three stars) made it impossible for the Knicks to stay competitive.

Jeffries (-11 in 84 minutes) and Walker (+7 in 89 minutes) did their part to fill in with energetic play, along with Carter and Mason, but all I kept thinking when I saw Mason miss all of his threes in the fourth quarter last night was how I wish Douglas' shot had been on for at least one game in the series.

On the Celtics' side, each one of their four stars dominated at least one game, but the most important unheralded player was Jermaine O'Neal. Plus 54 in the last three games of the series in only 68 minutes, and according to John Schuhmann of NBA.com, Boston had its highest on-court offensive efficiency with him on the floor.

*  Carmelo Anthony Broadening His Game: When Mike D'Antoni says Anthony can be a "triple-double guy" (and taking into account the usual coaching hyperbole), he means becoming a hub for the offense with his shooting, his off the ball movement, and his passing. It's been an up and down adjustment for Melo in this regard, but apart from the off the ball cuts mentioned earlier, he had two good sequences at the end of the third quarter while the Knicks were rallying -- a difficult bounce pass to Amare cutting in the lane for a layup, and a pick and roll with Amare where Melo fired a perfect cross-court pass over the screen to Williams for the three. Frankly, I'm not sure a more ideal D'Antoni pick and roll (using the screen to swing to shooters) has been run since Felton left town. It would be good to see much more of this from Melo after a full training camp next season.

*  The Final Ovation: I don't consider a sweep anything to be proud of or to take silver linings from, but I did appreciate the Garden crowd applauding the players at the end of the game yesterday. It was one of those moments where I'm really grateful New York loves basketball so much and can recognize effort and what was (despite too many ups and downs for me to maintain my blood pressure) an entertaining season. I'm sure the Celtics loved sweeping the Knicks and taking the air out of the superstar hype in New York, but I also appreciated their graciousness in post-game comments -- toward the coaches, the players, and the franchise.

*  The Coach -- Part I: It's knee-jerk time! (speaking of which, was I the only one who tired of Mark Jackson's endless auditioning for the coach's job throughout this series?) Actually, I have been mostly impressed by how sane a good segment of the New York fan base has been regarding the coaching beyond the usual columnists and talk radio blather designed to get the phone ringing. My position mirrors that of Bill Rhoden and Chris Sheridan, with Rhoden in particular demonstrating an unusual sensitivity to the reality of the current situation.

One thing to keep in mind. Look at the top 15 teams ranked by defensive efficiency over at Hoopdata. Every team has a player that protects the rim capably, and in the case of Miami and Philadelphia (where that's debatable), they have elite wing defenders. The Knicks have neither. Even in Phoenix when D'Antoni had a defense ranked around 13th to 15th, he had Shawn Marion and Raja Bell that guarded multiple positions well. D'Antoni has never had a strong interior defender in this three years in New York -- Turiaf is the closest, but he showed all season (and in this series) that he can't stay healthy. And his best wing defenders got traded to Denver for you-know-who.

You can see the glass as half-full (two elite offensive superstars and a veteran point guard with more moves to be made), or half-empty (an aging point injury-prone point guard and two superstars who are defensive liabilities that may not be rescued with the meager resources available in the off-season). Whoever the coach is next year, he will have quite a challenge molding a competent defensive unit out of these pieces. I do think, health permitting, that the Knicks can be a top 4 seed and a 46 to 50 win team next season with a full training camp and modestly productive pieces acquired through the draft/free agency/trades. And I seriously believe Mike D'Antoni can turn this team into a much better team, if not a championship team with the pieces they have.

(Worth reading: a fabulous post by Tom Ziller on just how mercurial the nature of coaching is when you use the playoffs as a measure of evaluation).

*  The Coach - Part II: Now, I will leave with a little parting shot at the coach just so people don't accuse me of being an apologist. One of the reasons, I think, that the coach still maintains his popularity (or at least modest support) is the commitment he made to New York, and his unrelenting professionalism throughout the ordeal of the last three years. For this reason, it baffled me to see his comment about Rondo prior to yesterday's game.

In general, D'Antoni parses his words carefully even when he's being searingly direct, and he usually leavens the most pointed observations with some humor or a mild shoulder shrug (like "hey, you know I'm not totally serious, right?). According to Alan Hahn at Newsday, D'Antoni immediately qualified his comment about Rondo and the Timberwolves by saying "he's a very good basketball player, really, really good", which is typical for the coach. (These things are rarely as bad when you see the person actually speaking them, but I couldn't find video of the offending quote).

But I still thought it was out of character for him to provide fodder for a player who had already torched his team twice. The only other time D'Antoni got caught making an off the cuff comment that got jumped on significantly-- his characterization of Jordan Hill as a "bad rookie" -- made perfect sense when you saw him speak and understood the context behind his remarks (in short, Hill didn't deserve playing time. And he wasn't wrong, frankly). The Rondo quote was worse. I don't know if Rondo heard the coach's words before the game, but it wouldn't surprise me if Rondos' jumpshots were just a bit more accurate last night because of that motivation.

Bad form, Mike. Hope it was simply a bad joke, and not a sign of the pressure coming down on you.


And with that, two months of lengthy late night recaps tracking one of the most interesting Knick teams in years is done. I'll appreciate having a bit more sleep, and being able to watch the rest of the playoffs without tracking every possession and watching game sequences multiple times. (I'd happily do it for the Knicks to still be in the playoffs, but maybe next year...). Thanks to all who came by to read through all the words and obsessiveness, and I'll be back to post on things as the offseason heats up with many unresolved questions (Billups, Walsh, D'Antoni, the draft, etc).

More great reading on the Knicks: Jack McCallum and Zach Lowe weigh in with extremely reasonable pieces.