Knicks Recently Inconsistent

If I could describe the New York Knicks season in one word it would be, “unbelievable”. In case you haven’t been following their season so far I will give you a quick recap. At the start of last year’s off-season the Knicks felt as though they needed a coaching change to inspire their team to play to its full potential. James Dolan responded by hiring an excellent coach in Mike D’Antoni on May 10, 2008. The next interesting story of the season has been how the Knicks finally got rid of Stephon Marbury, they have been attempting this for the past two years and were able to get him to stay away from the team as per he was causing to much of a distraction. The most recent Knicks event took place on Sunday and Tuesday. On Sunday the Knicks hosted the Boston Celtics and shockingly defeated them by the score of 100-88. The entire team played great as they beat a team who at the time had the best record in the NBA. Wilson Chandler lead the team in scoring with 31 points, followed by Al Harrington with 30. Paul Pierce did score 31 points for the Celtics but it was not enough as Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett had off nights. So at this point all Knicks fans were very excited thinking, wow this team might actually be coming together after all. Now lets fast forward two nights later to the game against the lowly Oklahoma City Thunder. The Knicks team who was supposedly back to its glory days after its big win two nights before got defeated by the score of 107-99. As a Knicks fan myself I was thinking they are just as bad as they have been all season and the Celtics just didn’t bring their A game the game before. It is unbelievable how a below average team such as the New York Knicks could one game beat the mighty Boston Celtics, then the next game lose to the worst team in league, the Thunder. Obviously the Knicks players were a little bit too excited after their big win that they forgot that it is not even the all star break and they were still six game under .500. In my opinion this up and down trend over the past week has to be blamed completely on the coaching staff lead by Mike D’Antoni. At practice the next day after the victory over the Celtics you have to tell your team that it is no different than beating any other team and that a win is a win no matter who you play. I guess he did not do that because they were outplayed on offense and defense, they gave the Thunder fifth win in 36 games. It is unbelievable how a Knicks team with so many resources including money and publicity could be this bad. It is terrible for the NBA as a whole because as a league they need their big market teams to win games and go deep in the playoffs. I understand that this was only a two game stretch but it has been a trend throughout the season. If the Dolan’s cannot make the Knicks into a winning team, the NBA must take action and try to figure out a way to find owners who take an interest in their team.

Daniel Weberman

NYchalktalk.com