www.KnicksDefense.com

Somewhere, sometime today, Nate Robinson may or may not be dressed up as batman.

The home opener is Sunday, but the first game is on the road against the Cavs on Friday. I was hoping that it would be today, but I am mistaken. Now that I think about it, here is the November schedule for future reference:

I had to repost Mr. Lives from the last blog entry, hope you don’t mind Lives!

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Welcome Vic Corbitt, Marquette ‘07, Frantz Richard and Sean Butcher. You’re just in time for the

KNICKS DEFENSE HALLOWEEN ROLL CALL

Good Morning DEFENDERS. Happy Halloween. It’s almost time for the start of a season-long Monster Mash, at MSG and visiting stadiums near you, and the Blogger Bash at “www.KnickDefense.come and read the best in Knicks analysis and commentary in the blogosphere.”

The atmosphere is electric; the energy is building in the building. Our host with the most, Blogzilla a/k/a Starburyfan, the dominator and wacky terminator, has created a Frankenstein of a Blog. The where?wolves are here, wearing Knicks Jerseys, EwingCurse talismans and cross-over dribbles to defeat the bloodsuckers of the Atlantic Division. How will the division be divided? Yes, we know. With the Knicks upstairs in playoff glory and the Net Worthless’, 70sickers, Craptors, and CellarTicks in . . .well, the cellar graveyard. Long Live Knicks Love.

Gentle Folks, are we ready to receive the winnings and “shiny stuff” we so richly deserve for our fanaticism? Are we ready to bask in the rain of treys and the reign of our BIGS in the paint? Are we ready to Post-Up Princely and to be Steady while we get Cooleyhigh and be Poppin in Orange and Blue?

If the answer is yes, and I know it is, it is time for the Official 2007-2008 Roll Call for Knick Defense. Training camp is over and we are ready like Freddy Krueger. So let’s do this.

Yes, we are scary good. On October 1, there were three posters (Modi, Steady and Robin) hanging out with our esteemed host preparing this space for our arrival. With the following words by Shamgod, on October 8 at 10:05 pm at Knicks Fix, the migration began: “Go courtside with news and commentary on the wacky world of the New York Knicks. Wacky world of the NY Knicks? C’mon what kind of ad is that? Sounds like they are making a joke of the Team” on Knicks Fix.” .

Shortly thereafter, BARF on October 9th at 7:42pm set his flag in the heart of KD post territory with the following comment heralding a historic journey that would shake the blogosphere and turn this private haven into the headquarters of Knicks intel. BARF wrote, “Maybe that wacky stuff won’’t go down and we’’ll all migrate here.” Truer words were never typed. . . .

And here we are. Fall In. Attention. Roll call at 47 strong and growing:

Modi, BARF, Peaceman, Jazz, BronxboyinMD, Orange and Blue, Cooleyhigh, Steady, John Q, Shamgod, Robin, Lives In New Jersey, Bumrush40, DaVonnJ, African, Post-Up Prince, Anti-NYSportsnews, Boomann, Statesman, Syd, DNM, DLT Knicks, Poppin Scoski, Harlemboyin MD, St._George, Charles Follymacher, Stopmikelupica, Bokonon, George M., Knicksome, Saipanknickster, TMAN, Minnesota Knicks Fan, MAK, LGM, Andone, Kandiman, Don, Ali G, Dross, Rush, Kevin Harewood, Frantz Richard, Sean Butcher, Trane, Vic Corbitt and Marquette ‘07.

We also acknowledge special visits from CellarTicks fans: T.o.m and S.e.a.n. Shields Up, Captain.

[Lives in New Jersey, Loves New York]

Well, today marks the first day of the regular season, what’s on my mind? Well, the Knicks aren’t playing today, so forget all that Oden-less Portland vs Spurs noise on TNT–do they ever pick the right games to televise anyway? Answer: not in the last three or four years…

I’ll tell you what’s on my mind, what costume do I wear for Halloween this year? The Knicks give us some of their feedback.

Check out the results from our most recent poll:

For the math heads out there, looks almost like a normal curve. All votes being equal, we can interpolate from the results that the average Knicks Defender predicts about 46 wins this upcoming season. Very interesting because, as you know, most NBA preview articles are writing off the knicks as 4th in the atlantic and out of the playoffs. That’s some contrast.

A few of the local newspapers are doing preview videos streamable online. Check out Vescey’s here.

Newsday also has one, but I couldn’t get it to load, and Berman from the post has one here, but it is not as positive. These videos were brought to my attention by the excellent The Big Push, which was in turn brought to my attention by our BARF–thanks homie.
Finally, this is the program I’m going to blame for holding some of your comments from being posted immediately. It isn’t me, this program is built in to the blog so I’ve done all I can to minimize its effects. It is only a problem for a few of you, but still, if you don’t see your post at first, just be patient, chances are it will go through.

Glad to see DVJ is back, and now we’ve got Tman here, Kevin Harewood stopped by and also mr. Trane joined in on the discussion, so it seems we all know the spot! Keep it poppin’ indeed!

So these four guys will be playing another year on their rookie contracts. I can’t say I disagree with keeping any of these guys here, they’re some of the best players on the team.

Game time is at 7:30pm. For the defenders who live outside of the tri state area, NBA league pass is still $169 for the entire season. The price will go up in a few weeks.

The rumors are Jason Kidd will play, and I’m hoping he does get some PT because I’d like to see what the new Nate can do against him. That would be a fun match-up.

Demetris Nichols, young rookie from Syracuse, you can shoot the rock–hope you land on your feet and make a pro squad. You defied Isiah twice too often, and yet I credit you for having courage to stick up for yourself because you believe you are destined to play in the NBA this year. There is no way of telling right now if you will make it as an NBA player. However, since Isiah found you, the odds are, you would have been a good addition to the Knicks had you agreed to go to Europe for a year–but you refused. Isiah liked your game enough to trade a pick for you, yet apparently Isiah is in love with having Jerome James rot on the bench in street clothes, because that’s all he’s going to do for the Knicks this year. I’ve seen enough to know that by now, because that is all he’s done for two full years now. I hope I’m wrong, but if Nate Robinson is all heart, then Jerome James is just halfhearted. I know the financial ramifications of the story, but we’re talking about Jim Dough-lan here. That’s what we’ve done since the Ewing trade, buy out players we no longer want–and I’m not saying it is Isiah’s fault, so don’t go there. Still, that’s been New York’s “MO.” Pay them not to play for us. In that respect, keeping Jerome James is the same as buying him out, because NY is still paying him not to play. A second round pick is a second round pick, but when you’re Isiah and you can turn a second round pick into Trevor Ariza, then you have to wonder what exactly New York gained by bringing Nichols over just to cut him.

My apologies to all the Jerome James Knicks fans out there. Both of you.

As some of you already know, D-nice (Demetris Nichols), Jared Jordan and Walker Russell are no longer Knicks.

I thought Isiah would wait until the last minute to trim the roster, but that just goes to show how much I know Isiah.

I guess we’re stuck for another year with ol’ Jerome James riding the pine. His contract makes him virtually untradeable, yet it is almost certain he won’t be a factor this season with the latest rumors being that he needs season-ending surgery. Talk about getting off the couch the wrong way! Lookout Greg Oden. The knicks already have Randolph Morris ahead of Jerome in the rotation as the backup center, as well as Malik Rose who can spot Curry some minutes at center in certain situations.

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Speaking of Demetris, didn’t that jumper look “pure” last night against the Sixers? Sure he looked a little goofy trying to put the ball on the floor, but, let’s face it, that was the most burn he’s had in a real NBA preseason game thus far. I thought for sure Jerome would be cut, because I am such a big fan of Isiah’s uncanny drafting abilities, I wanted to see more of Jared Jordan and D-nice as knicks but that’s a mute point by now.

We haven’t even seen what Renaldo can do after a year under his belt. He was as impressive in the Vegas summer league games as Nate was in my opinion. We have one of the most dynamic benches in the league with the three key energy guys: Nate, D Lee, and Renaldo. You may be able to throw Fred and Chandler in there depending on how the season plays out this year. Clyde confirmed last night what I was saying, you need the rotation to be about 8 guys, no more than 9.

Nate Robinson, I have to admit it–the man looks unstoppable right about now. I doubt J. Kidd will play on Friday, but it would have been nice to see him go up against another top-flight guard to see if he can continue to dominate like this. What I wish to see Nate continue to develop is his sense of what the team needs when he comes into the game. Some nights he’ll need to put up 20 for us to win, other nights we’ll need him to get certain key guys involved in the game, other times we’ll need him to be a ball hawk on defense. When you have the energy of Nate Robinson, and you’re able to control it, and harness it to do what the team needs you to do, that is real power. We probably don’t need another guard off the bench–that’s what I was saying the last post: Steph, Jamal and Nate in the back court seems more than adequate on most nights in the east.

Zach Randolph is just making it look easy out there at this point. He barely leaves the ground on that excellent j of his.

Another quiet night from the centerpiece Eddy Curry, the E-Z mystery has yet to be solved with Eddy getting into foul trouble again.

Jared Jeffries played well last night in my opinion. He still has no jumper, but he was out on the breaks getting easy baskets, using his length to be a pest on defense, this is the Jared Jeffries that I remember during his tenure in D.C. I can see why Isiah wanted him, he can be a difference maker in a game without showing up on a stats sheet. Some fantasy people have trouble understanding that phenomenon some times.

For some of the NBA veteran fans out there, I want to ask you this question: how complete of a player was Isiah Thomas when he first came into the league? I know he was the best in his championship days because I saw it with my own eyes, but when he was a collegiate champion, and his first couple of years in the league, was he already a complete point guard, or were there aspects of the game he worked on improving?

***Note: i don’t know what to say about the spam filter. I have everything turned off, it has been off for days, so there should be no reason for it to select comments to send to the spam folder, yet it continues to do so. My apologies to Barf, Tom and Steady, and anyone else that has experienced this, if your post doesn’t first show up, please be patient while I work out the kinks to this blog software.

I’m not going to the game, any of you guys going?

I’ve been taking care of business away from the knicks defense, guys please help give our esteemed scholar MODI any info he requests for the piece he’s working on, I appreciate it!

Also, for those without MSG network, the radio of tonight’s game will be streamable through the sixers website.

Here are the preseason stats for tonight’s opponents.

It is important that the Knicks stay motivated and continue with the same intensity and urgency they brought to the table last time with the Celtics.

I have a new poll that I’m going to post in the next few days, but I think most of us are still on cloud nine from the win over the Celtics the other night, so I’ll wait a few.

The recent discussions about Nate are very interesting. Are great point guards born or made? Clearly Stephon has been altering his game over the past two years to benefit of the team. Nate will continue to shed light on his answer as the preseason concludes for the Knicks this week.

And another thing, is defense a skill to be taught, or is it mostly desire from within? Have there been many NBA players that have gone from no D to great D? Eddy Curry hopes to be one of them this season.

Anyone heard anything on Balk’s MRI results from yesterday?

If I were to guess at an 8 man rotation right now, I’d say Steph, Jamal, Q, Zbo, and Curry with three guys coming off the bench: Nate, D Lee and Renaldo.

Fred Jones, Mardy Collins, Wilson Chandler, Jared Jeffries and Malik are also reserves that will be used in certain situations, but I think there are 8 are the guys that Isiah is looking at getting regular minutes as of right now. That’s the best way to do it, 8-9 player rotation. We won the most games last season when everybody was out, because people got used to playing with each other on the floor. If you have to keep shuffling the deck to stroke each player’s ego, the turnovers are probably going to stay as high as they were last season.

Just bloggin’ homies.

Early Atlantic Division Parity

 

Why couldn’t I have bought tickets to tonight’s Knicks-Celtics game instead of last week’s? Well, at least I got to see Allan Houston play in a Knick uni for the first time in two or three years. That’s something.

I’m not going to over-analyze what I saw tonight because most of you defenders were right there with me holding down this spot with the play-by-play.

Great stuff tonight from Nate, Zbo, D Lee, Stephon, and I liked Q’s defense tonight as well. These two teams played like they’re going to be fierce competition in the Eastern Conference this year. Jersey-pulling, smack-talking, face-grabbing, it could have been a WWE match out there except there was some fine basketball being played at times. I didn’t know Nate could thread the needle on some of those consecutive passes he made, I hope that continues.

No minutes tonight for Mardy Collins, Randolph Morris and barely any for Jared Jordan(10 seconds is generous, more like 8 seconds). Maybe next time they can show their skills with some minutes.

KG, well, he looks like a beast out there, as does Paul Pierce. Ray Allen was off tonight, but then again, Jamal couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn tonight, he still found ways to contribute.

Though 16 is an improvement from the last game (20+), I’d like to see the Knicks continue to work on reducing their turnovers, their regular season goal should be about 12, ideally.

Yes, JohnQ, the Knick perimeter defense is still porous, but you have to like their effort, and the confidence the knicks showed tonight in facing the team that beat them by 40 last week and finding a way to win this time around.

You can’t read too much into the pre-season games, but for those that saw this game, it was less of a pre-season game and more of an intense playoff-like game.

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If you check the last blog entry, there is a link to a new Alan Hahn article that reports that Demetris Nichols has requested to be cut if he is not going to make the final roster. The kid has balls, what can I say? I guess he does not know the story of Trevor Ariza, and he’s going to find it out the hard way. Isiah has not cut him yet, nor has he cut Walker Russell, Isiah might not make another cut until after the pre-season games are over on Friday. Maybe we’ll do another poll soon. 10 out of the 50 that voted last time got it right when they picked Allan Houston to be next off the island. I was not in that bright 10 who chose correctly, maybe you were. They say the AH7 comeback could have been a publicity stunt to distract the fans from the ABS trial because it did not make any sense to come back to this particular over-loaded roster. Who knows? Winning is the best distraction for this team, for any team.