Can’t say I predicted the Spurs to be this good this year, I thought they were over the hill and expected Tony Parker to jump ship and join the Knicks.

Without Danilo Gallinari’s services (out 2-3 weeks with a sprained knee) I would assume we’ve no shot, but if the Knicks have been anything this season, they have been surprising.

The starting five will be adjusted by sliding Chandler and Stoudemire to the three and four, respectively, along with Ronny Turiaf being re-inserted back into the starting lineup.

If the Knicks wanted to make a statement, now would be a good time to make it against the team with the best record in the NBA.  The Knicks are starting to have the reputation of being a lower tier playoff team that can’t get over the hump when it comes to defeating top-tier teams like the Magic, Heat and Celtics.  I say it is all about matchups.  We don’t match up well against the Heat (who does, they’re only supposed to have two max guys on there, not three) but that doesn’t mean we might not compete with San Antonio’s lineup.

6’1″ 205   Raymond Felton   PG    6’2″  185  Tony Parker

6’7″  210  Landry Fields         SG   6’6″   205  Manu Ginobili

6’10″  245  Ronny Turiaf         C    6’7″  270  Dejuan Blair

6’8″   225   Wilson Chandler    SF   6’7″  230 Richard Jefferson

6’10″  240  Amar’e Stoudemire  PF  6’11″ 245 Tim Duncan

Off the bench the Knicks will rely on Toney Douglas, Shawne Williams and Bill Walker, while the spurs get production from George Hill, Gary Neal (who?), Matt Bonner, Antonio McDyess (remember him?) and Tiago Splitter.

Seven of nine upcoming games are on the road after tonight’s game.

Call me crazy but I think we can take this team tonight.

This is a record-breaking season for these Knicks.  Earlier in the season, Amar’e Stoudemire had 9 straight wins with 30+points per game, now Raymond Felton is on the threshold of setting another Knicks precedent:  six consecutive games with 10+ assists is only three games shy of the record set by Michael Ray Richardson.

They may have more talent, may have the refs in their pocket, but we ARE the better team.  We have a group of guys that put team first, and enjoy playing together.  We don’t have players that disrespect their head coach, disrespect the NBA, pining for it to contract and cut some of the worst teams, or mislead 6 NBA teams on only to go play behind someone else in Miami.

We play better on the road, no doubt, and considering how bad they beat us two weeks ago at the Garden, I think we will be better prepared and have a counter attack planned out.

LeBron met Amar’e at the rim several times during the first encounter.  I expect Amar’e to come out with a vengeance.

Miami’s biggest weakness is they have no point guard or center, so we should attack those two areas with Felton, Amar’e and whoever else we can throw at them.

We have such consistent play from this team, the x-factors are the least consistent players in the 8-man rotation:  Gallo and Toney Douglas.  If they have big nights, we can take them, because Felton, Stat and Fields will get their double-doubles.

Chandler needs to have a big game, and I believe he can do it.  He should step up and guard LeBron.

Rebound the ball (not just Fields and Stat), get back in transition, attack the basket, try to get to the line, make that baseline three that is always open in this system, and of course…

GET STOUDEMIRE THE BALL AND GET OUT OF THE WAY.

Let’s go Knicks!  Miami are a bunch of punks!

Felton, a ray of light

New York Knicks rising in the east

Knicks to be battle tested on the road

The hypothetical Schmeelk

Frank Isola’s game preview

A few guys D’Antoni has yet to give any real playing time to:

Timofey Mozgov: You can argue that he was a starter, but he was never used the right way.  Why not run a clear out and post him up?  Is it that taboo for the seven seconds or less offense to run a traditional post up once a year?  He did post up well against TEAM USA this summer, supposedly “the best players in the NBA.”  Can’t we figure that out for 5-10 freaking minutes a game?  Supposedly he can’t catch the entry pass.  I say clear it out so there is no traffic, the pass will be easier to make.  D’Antoni didn’t post up Shaq much in Phoenix, did he?  I bet he didn’t.

Anthony Randolph:  has yet to be put in the position to be a factor.  He’s not as good as Landry Fields at playing off the ball and still being a factor.  That’s why when he has the ball, he forces the issue.  What could we use from him?  Shot-blocking, pick-setting, reading the passing lanes and rebounding, to name a few things.  If he can rebound and bring the ball up, I don’t see why that would be a bad idea, again, as long as he doesn’t force it and can see the floor and make a good pass.

Andy Rautins:  Can he be a backup point guard in D’Antoni’s system?  Why not activate him and try since on some nights Toney Douglas’ shoulder problems effects his shooting ability.  He can shoot, something that is needed when Douglas shoots less than 40% from the floor on most nights.  He’s athletic enough for us NOT to have to revert back to Chris Duhon.

Roger Mason Jr hasn’t seen daylight since the preseason.

How about the Magic pulling the trigger to get Turkoglu back?  That’s got to be a little humble pie for Otis Smith to re-acquire the contract he didn’t want to ink Turk to begin with.  I can understand why they got rid of Vince Carter.  Why Phoenix would part with Jason Richardson is interesting to me.

We get to see the new-look Magic at the end of this month.

Jameer Nelson

Gilbert Arenas

Dwight Howard

Jason Richardson

Turkoglu

Not a bad starting five on paper.

As far as Carmelo not coming, I say so be it.  Time for the superstars to stop jerking New York’s chain.  We’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime, NBA players and coaches using New York only to not come here.

If you want to come here, the proof is in the pudding.  Man up and come here.  Don’t make the whole city pine for you just to sign with the Russian.

Amar’e Stoudemire might not play tonight due to his soar neck.  It will take a huge effort from D’Antoni to look past his stubbornness and play Anthony Randolph and Timofey Mozgov, although they could be what the the Knicks need right now.  Randolph will turn it over, but if Stoudemire doesn’t play, that’s five less turnovers right there.

Stoudemire is getting the bulk of his 26 points per game off of jump shots from the perimeter.  Mozgov is a true post up player and Randolph can run the floor and finish on the break, so I say give them some PT, especially if Stoudemire is hurt, there is no need to force the issue a la Patrick Ewing when his wrist got jacked in the playoffs in ’99.

And by the way, is James Dolan at all a factor in the stubborn decision to not play Eddy Curry, or is that again all on Mike ‘D’Antoni?  He’s at least good for some fouls.  Again, no use for a post up player, I assume.   Starting to say screw seven seconds or less.

Well, the draft is in a few days, we have that to look forward to as Knicks fans. Reports coming from around the league have us offering Wilson Chandler to Washington in an effort to move up in the draft. I’m not sure how I feel about that given Chandler’s development in 1.1 NBA seasons (if you recall during Chandler’s rookie year, he played only at the tail end of a 23-win season). I like Wilson Chandler, he’s athletic, can shoot, has moves, can block shots…

You can say this about moving Chandler: they must feel pretty certain about Danilo Gallinari recovering fully if they’re going to move away a potential legit starting small forward (Chandler) for one that had back surgery and sat out most of the season (Gallinari).

I see a pattern developing in New York. If you are a knick rookie, you sit. That’s kind of odd if you think about it, considering our record over the past few years. You’d think the rookies would get the burn to develop our youth.

I wonder how close to moving up in this draft Walsh and company are? Could they make it to five or even 3 or 2? We’ve got Chandler and Lee, and not much else to entice ball clubs with. Nate? Will people trade away their picks for the rights to resign a prolific scorer who is terribly undersized and sometimes makes the wrong decisions with the ball?

If Nate was ever going to be a true point guard, we wouldn’t have had to get Duhon, and we wouldn’t still be looking at taking another point guard with our lottery pick this year. Keep Nate only if you want to build with the shortest two guard in recent NBA history. Nate should have been watching Muggsy Bouges tapes instead of Steve Nash tapes if he wanted to improve his point guard skills.

Speaking of Nash, I can see the possibility of him coming to New York at some point during the 2009-2010 season. He lives in Manhattan in the off-season and basically epitomizes what D’Antoni wants in a point guard, so if the Suns sniff his intentions to leave Steve Kerr’s hot mess behind, they may try to get something back for him before his 2010 free agency status kicks in (of course we don’t know how much value we will have left to offer by then since we’re trying to trade our current players for a pick in this week’s draft).

T-minus a few days and counting until our beloved Knicks pick 8^th in the NBA draft.

T-Mac as a knick? I can’t see it happening, but never say never.

With the trade deadline on the horizon, the 21-31 Knicks are rumored to be shopping Malik Rose’s expiring contract in order to get a big.

Which big, you ask?

32-year old seven-footer Brad Miller.

Although he is a decent scorer/rebounder, I don’t think this is a long-term solution to the Knicks’ defensive crisis.

Despite the horrible 6-game losing streak, the Knicks are just two wins away from equalling last season’s win total of 23 with about half of the season still remaining to be played out.

Should only be a matter of weeks before something gives and a real roster spot for Ewing opens up.

Of course you could argue that we need more immediate help in the back court.

But I’d like to hear anyone argue that we don’t need any help playing fundamentally sound interior defense.

It is true what they say, you can’t teach height. But it seems equally true that you can’t teach heart, otherwise Eddy Curry would be an all-star every year and would play defense for once.

Knicks need this win in Jersey tonight pretty badly.

I think they have a good chance to win, but Jersey obviously has the better record, so we’ll see…

I had to include this photos of the amazing alley that Chandler threw to Q. You’d think it would be the other way around but if you saw it, you know it was a great play.

Half way through the season defenders and I won’t lie to you: it has been a tough season for the orange and blue. I want to know how everyone sees this going down, check out this survey and please take the time to be honest about these knicks.

Any doubt since Oden is out, that this young man will be the next rookie of the year? Al Horford may give him a run for his money in the second half of the season, but Kevin Durant is a safe bet to be one of the front runners by the end of this season. I haven’t seen much of his game in the NBA, but I did catch many of his college games last season on ESPN, and they were all phenomenal. He’s a pure scorer and is averaging 20.3p 4.6r and 1.3bl in his rookie campaign thus far. It gets boring to hear Charles Barkley saying every five seconds on TNT how this guy needs to put on weight at 6’9″, 215lbs, but I can only imagine his game would improve once he does.

A lot has been made about the roll the Knicks fans at the garden have had in the team’s recent struggles. The home crowd should cheer for the home team, I believe that, and I’ve never booed any of the games I’ve been to, even when they got blown out up in Boston earlier this year or when they were killing Marbury at this time last season at the Garden. Seems everytime they’d interview Marbury after one of those games, he’d always have the same response: “that’s New York. They’re going to boo if you don’t bring it,” if I can paraphrase last year’s Stephon.

If you want to show the Garden crowd how to really support the home team, check out this link, there are some good deals there on tickets for the Seattle game.

Stephon probably isn’t ready to play yet, but I don’t question by now, he wants to go out there and help the team win some ball games. Randolph shot his way out of his slump last game, so we’ve got one of our two big guys ready to step up and play basketball. Hopefully Eddy Curry isn’t too far behind… Maybe now that Malik Rose has been moved to the IR list, Chandler may actually get some minutes this month. He could be good for the knicks, last time I remember him in a Knicks jersey it was against the Nets in the preseason and there were some encouraging signs he can contribute at the NBA level. Crawford must really try to shift his focus on getting the other players in the starting five going, I’ve seen him do it before, so I know he is capable of finding his rhythm without it being to the detriment of the team.

Kurt Thomas will be back in the Garden, that should be interesting, and the Sonics have other weapons in Chris Wilcox, Earl Watson, WallyWorld, Delonte West, and former Knick guard Gerald Wilkins’ son, Damien, who is putting up solid numbers as a starter for the Sonics in his fourth year in the NBA. Oh, and watch out for the other rookie, Jeff Green, he’s a baller too.

Seattle comes to New York at 5-17, having been blown out by the Bulls 123-96 in the first of a back-to-back on the road.

Mike Dougherty reports Eddy Curry has been re-examined and will practice with the team as soon as tomorrow.

This is great news for Knicks fans because it gives the team a chance to develop a rotation with chemistry, particularly what to do with ZBo and Curry in the game.

Zbo showed an ability to pass the ball in the Maccabi game on Thursday, look for an offense that will see more touches with him on the high post, with Curry the first option on the right block from 5 feet deep.

Eddy Curry may be the key player to this team because he needs to keep his scoring up while improving defensively. With Lee and Randolph in the lineup he may not need to get double-digit rebounds (how many teams have two, let alone three double-digit rebounders?) but Curry absolutely needs to be more of a defensive presence if the Knicks are to win. Curry came in to camp 20lbs lighter than his weight last year, which is a good sign in terms of his ability to leave the ground quicker and also in terms of second efforts in the paint.

The New York Times’ Howard Beck reports that Curry has been re-examined by team doctors who say Curry will be out a maximum of two weeks. Curry will probably make the season opener against the Wolves. Though you’d ideally like Randolph and Curry to acquaint themselves during the preseason, at least Eddy will start working with Zach when the games that matter begin in November.

No word on Jerome James’ status as of yet.