Just painful. The NBAs only hope for its brand is that rather than watching this everybody was off on another channel watching a bunch of 19-20 yr old kids flying about without a clue rather than watc...I should say, enduring this. Very classy as well to see us take our only opportunity of the season to run up the score and play our starters right to the bitter end. Very fortunuate for us that the Knicks did not sign me off the street before the game, because somebody in Kings purple would have been taking a rather nasty spill before it was over.
Let's make the theme appropriate: History's Most Pathetic Performances
and it will come eventually...
NOTE: ok...not sure about the rest of you, but the site was down for me for about 12 hours (I'm guessing when the server saw the score of this one it had a heart attack), so I am getting going on this late....
so...keeping these brief:
Cisco ( B ) -- back before his homies and ironically about the only starter not playing well in the early game blowout. Played better in the second as a suport guy. Like everyone else got whatever he wanted, just a question of hitting. Spent a lot of time arguing with the refs looking for handouts on anight when neither he, nor we, needed them. This is the first of several grades here where I am going to apply a competition modifier -- you can either believe that all of our starters played the A+ best games of their lives, or you can have watched the game and realized that the Knicks were at least as responsible for many of the ridiculous numbers we put up. This largely felt like an average game for Cisco, except he was jsut so fortunate as to not actually have any opponents. So I went average with an uptick.
HMS Titanic -- you want to know a good way to end up looking like a complete dufus? Introduce your new boat with the claim that it is unsinkable...and then have it sink on its very first voyage! Doh!
Thomspon ( B+ ) -- worked easily and uncontested inside in the early going, added a jumper, but then really helped the Knicks get going on their only challenge of the night with sloppy turnover after sloppy turnover in the early second. After order was restored, all he had to do on offense was move toward the hoop with his hands up, and absolutely no Knicks big man would be within 5 feet as they softly wandered around the court trying to "help" or whateverthey were calling it. Ended up with similar numbers to Spencer as we just pounded the Knicks ridiculously inside, but this wasn't nearly as strong a game as Spence's, and the turnovers actually hurt us as much as anything was going to hurt us on a night like tonight.
Maginot Line -- in the modern era we have grown so accustomed to making fun of the french for giving up, being wimps, cowards, whatever, that it is often hard to remember (if indeed you ever knew) that for centuries in Europe the french were the great badasses of the continent. Everybody was scared of them. I know, hard to believe. In any case, that all changed after France's disastrous collapse and surrender in WWII (the truth was it had changed some 50 years before then, it was just made absolutely clear by WWII). A real good way to lose yourself a war is to not realize that times have changed and instead end up trying to fight the last one. And its a constant problem since of course future military leaders are drawn from the ranks of soldiers who learned their lessons in past wars. The Maginot Line -- a massive and intimidating 30 mile deep 350 mile long line of fortifications, barricades, forts, bunkers, power plants etc. etc. built by France after WWI along its border with Germany was just such a mistake. Built to win a slogging defensive grinding massacre like WWI (and heavily advertised by the french as impregnable), the Maginot Line completely failed to take into account the new mobility of military forces by the time of WWII. The Germans took one look at the Line, said, yep, that sure does look intimidating, and promptly drove around it (and flew over it), completely bypassing it and smashing France from the north instead. Oops. So pathetic that the french are still being made fun of for it 70 years later.
Hawes ( A ) -- in a welcome change from Charlotte grabbed most of the Knicks early bricks off the glass. When he returned, we immediately kicked it up a gear again as the Knicks just had nobody of that size and Spencer dominated them inside. Lee looked like he had quit before he arrived on the court and just sort of passively forced a few little attempted layups through Spencer, and then quit entirely. Spencer was able to use his dominance to set up teammates for passes as well as the Knicks clueless corps swarmed (relatively) around him and left everyone else on the court open. Slowed after halftime, considerably actually. But the damage was done by that time as the Knicks looked like us out there -- mounting themselves a little charge in the 3rd quarter...just to get themselves back to within 19. Best King on the floor tonight, and obviously the big bounceback game. In some ways its unfortunate it was the Knicks we were playing, and that they decided to lay down and tank on the night. I have no doubt Spencer wanted to bounce back form the Charlotte awfulness, but because he only had the Knicks to do it against, just how good he was on the night will forever be an open question. He dominated, but on this night, so would have Kenny Thomas.
Martin ( A- ) -- was actually pretty quiet in the first quarter, but led a little push immediately upon returning in the 2nd and never really slowed down thereafter, including getting to play almost to the closing buzzer in a near 30pt blowout. Not like there was anything stopping him from doing so. The Knicks closest excuse to a perimeter defender is supposed to be Chris Duhon, before he came to New York, got D'Antonied, and hurt his back. Tonight he was completely ineffectual in all ways and Kevin just got whatever he wanted wherever he wanted it. A good performance, and I felt like it had to be an A-, but so easy against so little pressure that you have no idea just how good it was.
Udrih ( A- ) -- got off to the fast start just operating completely unopposed out there. As mentioned Duhon was awful, and little Nate doesn't even really try. He'll bounce around every once in a while, but just bounced off Beno and Beno actually used his size somewhat to his advantage. You ever wanted to see what Beno looks like running layup drills, here was your chance. Being Beno he of course disappeared in the second quarter. But he returned as maybe the game breaker in the third, not with brilliant passing, not with long bombs, nifty layups or anything else that would be required to put away a good team, but by simply dribbling down the court, totally unchallenged, dribbling into the lane, totally unchallenged, and pulling up for 8-10 foot jumpers, totally unchallenged. Again and again. And again. And again. Hey, if they aren't going to stop it...but still jsut a mind numbingly bad display of "basketball" by the junkballers from the Big Apple.
Let's make the theme appropriate: History's Most Pathetic Performances
and it will come eventually...
NOTE: ok...not sure about the rest of you, but the site was down for me for about 12 hours (I'm guessing when the server saw the score of this one it had a heart attack), so I am getting going on this late....
so...keeping these brief:
Cisco ( B ) -- back before his homies and ironically about the only starter not playing well in the early game blowout. Played better in the second as a suport guy. Like everyone else got whatever he wanted, just a question of hitting. Spent a lot of time arguing with the refs looking for handouts on anight when neither he, nor we, needed them. This is the first of several grades here where I am going to apply a competition modifier -- you can either believe that all of our starters played the A+ best games of their lives, or you can have watched the game and realized that the Knicks were at least as responsible for many of the ridiculous numbers we put up. This largely felt like an average game for Cisco, except he was jsut so fortunate as to not actually have any opponents. So I went average with an uptick.
HMS Titanic -- you want to know a good way to end up looking like a complete dufus? Introduce your new boat with the claim that it is unsinkable...and then have it sink on its very first voyage! Doh!
Thomspon ( B+ ) -- worked easily and uncontested inside in the early going, added a jumper, but then really helped the Knicks get going on their only challenge of the night with sloppy turnover after sloppy turnover in the early second. After order was restored, all he had to do on offense was move toward the hoop with his hands up, and absolutely no Knicks big man would be within 5 feet as they softly wandered around the court trying to "help" or whateverthey were calling it. Ended up with similar numbers to Spencer as we just pounded the Knicks ridiculously inside, but this wasn't nearly as strong a game as Spence's, and the turnovers actually hurt us as much as anything was going to hurt us on a night like tonight.
Maginot Line -- in the modern era we have grown so accustomed to making fun of the french for giving up, being wimps, cowards, whatever, that it is often hard to remember (if indeed you ever knew) that for centuries in Europe the french were the great badasses of the continent. Everybody was scared of them. I know, hard to believe. In any case, that all changed after France's disastrous collapse and surrender in WWII (the truth was it had changed some 50 years before then, it was just made absolutely clear by WWII). A real good way to lose yourself a war is to not realize that times have changed and instead end up trying to fight the last one. And its a constant problem since of course future military leaders are drawn from the ranks of soldiers who learned their lessons in past wars. The Maginot Line -- a massive and intimidating 30 mile deep 350 mile long line of fortifications, barricades, forts, bunkers, power plants etc. etc. built by France after WWI along its border with Germany was just such a mistake. Built to win a slogging defensive grinding massacre like WWI (and heavily advertised by the french as impregnable), the Maginot Line completely failed to take into account the new mobility of military forces by the time of WWII. The Germans took one look at the Line, said, yep, that sure does look intimidating, and promptly drove around it (and flew over it), completely bypassing it and smashing France from the north instead. Oops. So pathetic that the french are still being made fun of for it 70 years later.
Hawes ( A ) -- in a welcome change from Charlotte grabbed most of the Knicks early bricks off the glass. When he returned, we immediately kicked it up a gear again as the Knicks just had nobody of that size and Spencer dominated them inside. Lee looked like he had quit before he arrived on the court and just sort of passively forced a few little attempted layups through Spencer, and then quit entirely. Spencer was able to use his dominance to set up teammates for passes as well as the Knicks clueless corps swarmed (relatively) around him and left everyone else on the court open. Slowed after halftime, considerably actually. But the damage was done by that time as the Knicks looked like us out there -- mounting themselves a little charge in the 3rd quarter...just to get themselves back to within 19. Best King on the floor tonight, and obviously the big bounceback game. In some ways its unfortunate it was the Knicks we were playing, and that they decided to lay down and tank on the night. I have no doubt Spencer wanted to bounce back form the Charlotte awfulness, but because he only had the Knicks to do it against, just how good he was on the night will forever be an open question. He dominated, but on this night, so would have Kenny Thomas.
Martin ( A- ) -- was actually pretty quiet in the first quarter, but led a little push immediately upon returning in the 2nd and never really slowed down thereafter, including getting to play almost to the closing buzzer in a near 30pt blowout. Not like there was anything stopping him from doing so. The Knicks closest excuse to a perimeter defender is supposed to be Chris Duhon, before he came to New York, got D'Antonied, and hurt his back. Tonight he was completely ineffectual in all ways and Kevin just got whatever he wanted wherever he wanted it. A good performance, and I felt like it had to be an A-, but so easy against so little pressure that you have no idea just how good it was.
Udrih ( A- ) -- got off to the fast start just operating completely unopposed out there. As mentioned Duhon was awful, and little Nate doesn't even really try. He'll bounce around every once in a while, but just bounced off Beno and Beno actually used his size somewhat to his advantage. You ever wanted to see what Beno looks like running layup drills, here was your chance. Being Beno he of course disappeared in the second quarter. But he returned as maybe the game breaker in the third, not with brilliant passing, not with long bombs, nifty layups or anything else that would be required to put away a good team, but by simply dribbling down the court, totally unchallenged, dribbling into the lane, totally unchallenged, and pulling up for 8-10 foot jumpers, totally unchallenged. Again and again. And again. And again. Hey, if they aren't going to stop it...but still jsut a mind numbingly bad display of "basketball" by the junkballers from the Big Apple.
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