COSELLOUT

The Knicks are down by one point to the Seattle Supersonics and call a time out with 19 seconds left. What should they do? Establish a hot shooting Zach Randolph DOWN LOW and get him the ball? Not quite: Zach ends up getting the ball on the perimeter, is immediately double-teamed, and swings it to Nate Robinson who caps off an 0 – 9 night by launching his last of six 3-point misses. Knicks lose. …Should they have run their standard Jamal Crawford isolation play from the top of the key since Jamal just hit a critical shot 30 seconds earlier? Wrong night. That was the play the Knicks deliberately ran one night earlier at the end of regulation in an overtime loss to Portland at a time when Jamal couldn’t throw a pebble in an ocean (missed his final 12 shots!).  After each game Jamal and then Nate took responsiblilty for the Knicks loss. But Nate and Jamal’s missing jumpers weren’t the real problem: It was the missing coaching– again.  Nate and Jamal are notoriously streaky shooters who forget their last miss as soon as it hits the rim. It is up to the coach to remember. But I’ll let Knicks Defense tell it!. But drawing up plays for ice cold shooters to take game winners is emblematic of this entire 2007-2008 season. The Knicks have gone to ice-cold shooters at the end of games, ice-cold line-ups at the start of games, and ice-cold substitution patterns in between: ALL SEASON.

After the games, Crawford said: “I’ve never seen a team play that hard for five straight games and have a chance to win each game and come up short every time” . The more you watch, the more it seems clear. The Knicks are not who we think they are. Not nearly as bad. And Isiah is both a better GM and worse coach than you probably think. In fact, they are very likely a playoff team THIS SEASON – if the players were properly utilized. They are 10 extra wins from being over .500 and 7 more wins from being playoff contenders. But just how many wins have been coached away this year? You just have to wonder what might have happened this season if Isiah didn’t: botch the ends of games; regularly start five scorers; refuse to play David Lee and Renaldo Balkman more minutes; have blind loyalty to Jamal and Quentin Richardson; reactively bench Stephon Marbury during the 6^th game (see Death by White Chocolate Theory); and, most importantly, keep playing Eddy and Zach together despite disastrous results (see latest Eddy-Zach Blues update/data at bottom of this post). 

[1]Isiah has proven himself to be a decent coach with the Indiana Pacers, and also, last year with the Knicks before the injuries hit. However, the prevailing theory is that a combination of player loyalties and stubborness has led to poor judgment this year. This is not the first time this has happened to a Knick coach. Is his unwillingness to separate Eddy and Zach as bad as Don Nelson’s desire to make Patrick Ewing "the second option" to… Anthony Mason? No, not that bad. Is the unwillingness to change the starting line-ups as bad as Larry Brown’s 42 line-ups from two years ago?  Just about. Maybe it’s the New York water or fan pressure or the media that can make a good coach go crazy? Sound like a story for a future column… back to the Eddy-Zach Blues.

History Repeats Itself: The Eddy-Zach combo meal and the Knicks ongoing flawed starting line-ups got me thinking about the OTHER worst starting line-up pairing of the Isiah coaching tenure: Last year’s duplicative back court of Marbury and Steve Francis. This tandem was ended on December 6, 2006 and the Knicks played the next 3 months minus a starting Francis until multiple season-ending injuries  took hold (to Lee, Jamal, & Q) and precipitated his return. During that span of exactly half a season the Knicks went 21-20 and even Marbury’s harshest critics praised Stephon’s new “leadership” and play after a miserable November. Also during that span, Isiah had line-ups with usually two starters that did not need the ball (i.e. usually Lee, Jared Jeffries or Channing Frye) who were happy to let the scorers find their groove. There was also visual player development, visual chemistry building, and five razor-thin heartbreaking losses. During those 41 games, the Knicks also went a very impressive 16-6 when Eddy Curry scored 20+ points, lending credence to Isiah’s plan that developing an offense with Curry as “option A” had future growth and promise. That half-a-season is half-a-world away, but the lessons of it are as useful as ever.

What It Means?: Last year the mainstream narrative was the “the Denver fight” “brought the Knicks together”. The reality is that the removal of Steve Francis one week earlier combined with the line-up changes initially forced by the suspensions created a much better line-up for the Knicks.  Last season did Marbury magically get better after the line-up changes?  This season, do Eddy and Zach magically get better when they get separated? Does the team suddenly play with more “fire” when they have a mixture of offensive and defensive players on the court at the same time? No, each time the better play came because the line-up flaws were corrected. You can partially hide the flaws of one front-court non-defender, but not two.  You can’t leave your best energy guys on the bench together. You can’t start five scorers who need the ball to be effective. Period. Duplicated individual strengths = enhanced team weaknesses. Knick fans, including myself, keep getting bogged down in the deficiencies of this player or that player. We have heard it all. “Marbury is selfish”… “Eddy is fat and lazy”… “Zach is a ball hog…” … “Jamal is a chucker…” … “Lee can’t play D”, etc.  But this partly a wasted exercise since, first and foremost, the Knicks team flaws are STRUCTURAL. All the motivational speeches will not change this fact. Only one man can begin to fix this problem: Isiah Thomas or his coaching successor.

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