New York vs. Dallas

[Mr. J]

Knicks 13-11

Howard can use some pounds on the defensive end so if TT utilizes his weight, he can have some good low post opportunities. All I will say is I have my fingers crossed.

vs.

PF: Kurt Thomas will have Dirk Nowitzki at the PF spot. I think that so far this season Kurt has had the toughest job. He has played just about all of the elite PF?s this season. Dirk Nowitzki is having the best season if his career so far. Averaging 26ppg, 10rpg he will be a very tough challenge. I have noticed that Kurt Thomas has had the most trouble against the more versatile guys that play the 4. Dirk Nowitzki is as versatile as the come. He can rebound, score from anywhere, and he can put the ball on the floor. He can play every position on the floor. Kurt Thomas I think will be most valuable on the offensive end then defensive. JYD will be greatly needed in this game.

vs.

C: Nazr Mohammed will be playing a player that was too close from being a Knick. I have seen Erick Dampier a number of times and this cat is brolic. You can tell much of his time was at the weight room. However, he sin?t too gifted offensively. His presence is mostly felt on the defensive end of the floor. Nazr Mohammed will definitely have a bit of trouble against Dampier. Hopefully Mohammed?s athleticism will help him have somewhat an advantage over Dampier.

<font size="3"><font color="DarkOrange">Knicks Bench Summary</font></font>

I think what makes the Knicks a good team is their bench. Their bench is full of role players that always do their part. The players off the bench that I think we will most likely need the most are JYD, Allan Houston, Trevor Ariza, and believe it o not Moochie Norris.

JYD for obvious reasons. His hustle plays, energy and defense will greatly be needed against a high powered offense such as Dallas. I think that if all JYD?s hustle plays were converted to actually stats on the box score, he will be a superstar. Atleast in my book he is! Allan Houston?s floor stretching will be needed. Especially since the Mavericks cranked it up a bit on defense last season. Trevor Ariza?s and Moochie Norris? defense will be a factor for us. If we can slow Dallas down a bit with some good defense, we greatly increase our chances in taking a win from them and protecting our homecourt.



<font size="3"><font color="Blue">Mavericks Bench Summary:</font></font>
Dallas has one of the best benches in the league. There bench will definitely give us competition. They have so many players to choose from. They can choose Stackhouse, or all rookie second team selection Daniels, or one of their veteran role players such as Darrell Armstrong. Their starters can take a good rest free of worries. This means that the Knicks will have their hands full throughout the whole game. Don Nelson can almost close his eyes and do an enie meanie minie moe and point to anyone and they will be a good substitution for the game. The Knicks must be ready at all times.

<font size="4"><font color="Green">Key Matchup:</font></font>
The Key Matchup is at the SG position.
Crawford

Finley
Two unquestionably very talented SG?s. Crawford will especially have a bigger role against the Mavericks. If Michael Finley plays poorly, he still has much more offensive weapons who can take off the scoring burden while Crawford has decent scorers with Hardaway out, Houston with limited minutes, and TT playing dismal basketball the Knicks are definitely somewhat more at a disadvantage. Also Crawford?s style of play gets MSG rocking and this is crucial with the Knicks playing a home game against an elite team. Michael Finley is a scorer who has unlimited ways in doing so. This is 2 of the best scorers on their team going head to head. Very exciting matchup definitely the key one of this game.


<font size="4">My Prediction:</font>
I have seen New York now for 24 games. I have seen what they are capable of and what they are not. Because the Knicks are playing off a lot of momentum and at MSG I am going to go with them with a 103-98 win over Dallas. The Knicks now are currently 8-3 at home. That?s about 73% win percentage at home. So far, we are doing a great job pretecting our homecourt. This will definitetly be a game that goes down to the wire but, I think that the Knicks have confidence from those previous wins and in addition that game against Detroit. Despite a loss the Knicks played well and the game was never at all lopsided. I see a lot of energy against elite teams from NYK the question is will it where off. I think the Knicks are very capable of wining this game and if they do, it will help us establish more of an identity.

 

[VintageNYK]

Nicee preview man

 

[TnNeG]

wow i love everyone's previews for knicks games, thanks for the read.
Prediction: Knicks by 6. Houston is gonna have an astounding night.

 

[Mr. J]

Well I try to hook up my fellow Knick fans!

 

[VintageNYK]

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mrj18:</div><div class="quote_post">Well I try to hook up my fellow Knick fans!

</div>

And you do a GREAT job! THANKS BRO!

 

[Henacy]

Great Preview. I think when you look at the Knicks the same Keys are usually there. You want to see the effectiveness of the Pick & Roll between Steph & Kurt Thomas because went its effective it attacks alot of attention from the opponents defense. And leaves room for Mohammod to be free down in the post area to get a quick move on the low block or clean up the offensive glass. At this point you always focus in on Jamal Crawford's shot selection. When he decides to mix penetration & ball movement into his game the Knicks usually have success on that night.

Dallas' open court style has been put on hold a bit, since they dont really have a PG. But the Mavs can still score, they just do it in a half-court more now. The return of Mike Finley will be a different look for the Knicks because he didnt play in the 1st game. Now, Dallas can throw him & Stackhouse in the game at the same time, causing a bit of a matchup problem for the the Knicks from time to time. I think the Knicks will keep it close but at the end of the day I dont see Jerome Williams & KT having the same success in slowing down Dirk as they did in the 1st match. So I will take Dallas in a close one.

 

[02civic]

another prediction for a Knick win ;o)

i'm just kidding...though you do predict them to win all the time. Heck they'd probably beat Godzilla AND The Giant Moth

 

[samoan-maverick]

Damn MRj18 you wrote that. My fault i thought all the previews on this thread (JBB) ALL of the previews were from another article. Damn you guys are good. until that last part.

Mavs - 102
Knicks - 88

 

[Tribute to H2O]

OMG. IS ANYONE ELSE SEEING THIS??? I wish I could say were gettting spanked but I wish we were getting spanked right now. We arent even getting crushed. There are no words for what's happening to us. I dont think the franchise has been this embarassed since Chamberlain scored 100 points. This is terrible!!!! I think I need a paper bag or something. If I'm one of the Knicks right now I'm not leaving that locker room. I dont think I'm going to watch the rest of it. If Lenny Wilkens wants to try some new ideas he's had he might as well. He might as well start Starbury, H20 and JC together and pray for the best. On the other hand if they can do it to us...we can do it to them as unlikely as it may seem right now. We should be able to come back simply because NO team can play THAT BADLY twice in two halves. They just cant.

 

[Mr. J]

<font size="7">Halftime</font>
Knicks 36

Mavericks 75

<font color="DarkOrange">
<font size="4">Knicks Leading Scorers:</font></font>
Tim Thomas: 10 FG's:4-8

Jamal Crawford: 7 FG's: 2-7

Allan Houston and Nazr Mohammed have: 7 Allan: FG's 1-2 Nazr: FG's:1-5

and

<font color="Blue"><font size="4">
Mavericks Leading Scorers:</font></font>
Dirk Nowitzki: 23 FG's: 7-11

Michael Finley: 17 FG's: 6-8

Josh Howard: 10 FG's: 5-10

<font size="4"><font color="Red">Hot at the Half:</font></font>

<font size="2">Tim Thomas</font>
Tim Thomas has played pretty well. Who was it that said whenever TT plays well, we end up losing? Anyways, he has not play excellent basketball but everyother Knick is playing HORRIBLE Basketball!!!!!! We cant have TT drop 40 and lose by 30. It can't happen.
<font size="4">My Prediction:</font>
We are down by 29 with 24 minutes of basketball left. The way I look at it we can still make a run. We need that rally from Philly but, the Mavericks are a much better team than Philadelphia. We made a run last year forced it into OT. Let's do the same. <font size="3">Just about every Knick has been playing like bums</font> and we need to atleast close the gap and lose by about 10. My prediction is I have faith.

 

[Devilz]

^u made a mistake on t.thomas pic

i'm not watching the game, but from the live scoreboard, I can imagine how poor ball game the Knicks are playing. are they in the game?????
47-81 (7.31 left in 3rd)
Surprise at how the Knicks are playing in MSG today....

 

[Penny]

I could only imagine all the New York fans booing thier voices out after this game is through.

Worse off, imagine what Isiah Thomas is going through, just when he thought the New York Knicks were going fine, they get blown out like this. I hope this doesn't encourage him to pull a trade off somehow, either that or he may consider firing Lenny Wilkens.

All the New York Knicks need is more consistency on the defensive end and that should help resolve some of their problems.
They are now currently down by 41 points! This one was over at the end of the 1st Quarter, they were never in it.

For such a good and lengthy preview, it's a shame that the New York Knicks played so poorly. It would make me feel like I wasted my time. Good job nonethelesss mrj18.

Currently:
Dallas Mavericks 88
New York Knicks 47

Not good. :-o

 

[VintageNYK]

Uh....Uhhhhhhh....Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....No Comment........

 

[Henacy]

Well I knew the Knicks werent going to win but this was pathetic, when the crowd has to lower themselves to cheering Bruno Sundov, then you should be ashamed as a team. Mike Finley & Dirk Nowitzki were just too much to handle. But beyond that this is just the Knicks being a .500 team again. I will continue to say this...every time it seems like they have turn the corner for the better, they come out with this type of performance to just remind those who forgot they arent much more then a .500 team. Boston on the schedule tommorrow, lets see what they bring to the table. Coming off a game where they lost by 30 trailed by 40+ most of the night. And coupled with the fact the last time the Knicks saw the Celtics, they got blown by 34, so tommorrow even more then tonight we find out what type of heart and pride this team really has...nothing less then a strong energy performance is acceptable.

 

[Penny]

Despite how bad the New York Knicks played, I am really beginning to take a shine to Nazr Mohammed. He is playing very good basketball right now, even in today's blowout.

(I am trying to take some kind of positive from this game.)


Nazr Mohammad
14pts
11 rebs
2 blks

NYK vs DM Boxscore

Kurt Thomas 0/7 0pts 6rebs.

 

[Mr. J]

<font size="7">Final</font>
Knicks 94

The Knicks dug an early hole and dug deeper and deeper. Coming into the second half they played for about a minute and then they stopped. The game went to Dallas by 40+!! Give me a lineup of Ariza, Sweetney, JYD, Moochie, and Sundov. New York really dissapointed me. We better win against the Celtics no question. It has to be a blowout! I am mad and the rest of the Knick community. Knicks you guys get a

 

[urbannomad23]

ouch! u guys got ur <strike>a$$es</strike> handed to ya! i was watching the 4th just cuz it was like watching hs ball. haha i was cheering for bruno as well. I always watch games with fan favs, lol. the onyl person that came to play in the 4th was JYD then ariza then bruno. this was a pathetic game the knicks played. it will scar u guys for a very long time. I just hope the knicks can bounce back, if not there are some questions to be raised :|

<font color="Red">Please refrain from using curse words, even with the $'s</font> - <font color="navy">Knicks Analyst</font>

 

[Nylex]

Lol, unlucky NY.

 

[02civic]

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting mrj18:</div><div class="quote_post"><font size="7">Final</font>
Knicks 94

The Knicks dug an early hole and dug deeper and deeper. Coming into the second half they played for about a minute and then they stopped. The game went to Dallas by 40+!! Give me a lineup of Ariza, Sweetney, JYD, Moochie, and Sundov. New York really dissapointed me. We better win against the Celtics no question. It has to be a blowout! I am mad and the rest of the Knick community. Knicks you guys get a

</div>



i hope your "player of the game" means "Knick player of the game". Cause i dont think Ariza's 6 points equals Dirk, Howard or Finley
but you're right...they all sucked so Ariza gets the nod by default

 

[Knicks Analyst]

This game was a horrible one for Knicks fans everywhere. No defensive intensity, no offensive sparks. The offense was completely disoriented, tons of problems with passing early on, and there was absoultely nobody willing to draw a charge or step up and take a man on.

Now, Tim Thomas was horrible in the 1st despite his stats. He had turnovers that were not marked or noted, broke up picks on offense, didn't set proper screens, passed too early or late, lost his man, missed scoring opportunities and took ill-advised shot all the while milking the clock - hurting our chances of mounting a 'comeback' through a spark or barrage of drained shots. Disgusting.

Early on, MArbury's passing was horrible as was Crawford's. As soon as I saw Crawford miss that early outside shot so early, I turned over to my father and simply stated: "It's going to be a long game." Early on, we were lost on defense and offense and it didn't change later.

Now, you're all probably waiting for me to blame this on Wilkens - but I won't. I'm going to blame it on Isiah. He compiled a starting lineup with only one player of ability to shut someone down on defense - Kurt Thomas (Who he tried to trade!) This in combination with a poorly drawn offense (Compliments of Wilkens) killed us - we backfired.

I mean, there are some players that have some solid defensive performances in terms of how it may appear in the boxscore (blocks, rebounds, steals etc.) - I'm talking about the starting 5---some with "talent" include the likes of: Mohhamed, Crawford and Marbury. But guess what? They choose to utilize it only on ocassion. Even when they decide to 'activate; this 'intesity' it doesn't always work properly. Ocassionally, they are too active or anxious on defense and make stupid mistakes with can result in easy baskets.

Funny, we get two morale-boosting wins or what should be) and we blow it the next game. Real hilarious.

BTW-
mrj18 - Your bias was bleeding in the preview. There really wasn't much of a chance of us winning this game. Try to study the other team before writing previews. Dallas has been outstanding on the road this year (especially in comaparison to last year). And of course, offensive-minded teams play their hearts out in the Garden.

 

[Mr.Wade]

Nazr did alright... 14 points 12 boards. He's starting to play very consistent at a high level.

 

[Tribute to H2O]

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Penny:</div><div class="quote_post">Despite how bad the New York Knicks played, I am really beginning to take a shine to Nazr Mohammed. He is playing very good basketball right now, even in today's blowout.

(I am trying to take some kind of positive from this game.)


Nazr Mohammad
14pts
11 rebs
2 blks

NYK vs DM Boxscore

Kurt Thomas 0/7 0pts 6rebs.

</div>

You think Nazr played well??? Take a look at the box score and see how many shots attempts it took for Nazr to get those points. And it's easy to get 11 rebounds when your team cant seem to find the basket.

Now I've had time to digest this loss and process it to figure out exactly what went wrong and how did this happen. First off Isiah had JYD talk to the crowd(anyone else notice that whenever someone talks to the crowd we get blown out?). That was the first mistake and after that I had a bad feeling about the game.

Another thing, why are we giving Nazr the ball when he's being guarded by Dampier??? The zone defense murdered us early on as well(dont ask me how when we have Houston on the bench). Then the other problem came along, Dirk. If you think about it were one of the better teams equipped to handle him. We have players that are tall enough and mobile enough to chase him around but we didnt use them soon enough. If you havent guessed by now I am blaming Wilkens for this debacle. I actually hoped before the game began that maybe Lenny would actually decide to bring his best coaching to the game today. I was wrong.

I had hoped that he would pull Kurt and Crawford early and put in Houston and JYD so there wouldnt be a mismatch. Of course he didnt do that. Then he did something that astonished me. He actually played a zone defense while Dirk was on the floor!!! Now I know the game was getting crazy and out of hand but it hadnt gotten THAT out of hand to play a zone defense with that man on the floor. He of course shot us out of it. Then they had the nerve to play a zone defense while Houston was on the floor which was simply them adding insult to injury and somehow we didnt beat it. Go figure. Kurt Thomas was dismal and Crawford didnt catch fire. Another problem was that Dirk had been shooting poorly which meant he was going to have a strong game sooner or later. He chose sooner.

mrj18, Bruno Sundov was the(Knick) player of the game not Ariza. I say Bruno Sundov should get his own spot in the rotation whenever the Knicks play at home. After playing the way he did last night he deserved his own little two minute stint whenever we're at home. He's a big man who can shoot the three!! One of the only other big men I know who can do that just happens to be one of the guys who cut our throats last night.

In conclusion it was just one of those games. These kinds of games can be avoided if our coach would just make the proper substitutions so we cant be exploited at any one position. It would also help if the starting unit comes out with some "fire and desire" and if they dont come out with that hunger then bring in the 2nd and 3rd unit. I'm just hoping we can do the Celtics tonight like the Mavericks did to us last night.

 

[Mr. J]

Tribute to H2O I agree with you. I blamed Wilkens too and noted that zone defense. I believe Finley, Dirk and Terry were all on the floor at the same time and he still decided to play zone.

Sundov played well but, I think Ariza really got them into things with that dunk. I also think he played good defense but, Bruno was a close second.

 

[Ming637]

Now that I think of it. That loss meant nothing to us. Boston lost, so they're not any closer to the 1st place in the atlantic, plus we play them tonight and we can send them 2.5 games back.

 

[Mr. J]

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Now, Tim Thomas was horrible in the 1st despite his stats. He had turnovers that were not marked or noted, broke up picks on offense, didn't set proper screens, passed too early or late, lost his man, missed scoring opportunities and took ill-advised shot all the while milking the clock - hurting our chances of mounting a 'comeback' through a spark or barrage of drained shots. Disgusting.</div>
Well, I wouldn't say horrible if it weren't for TT, we might have lost by 40+. TT gave us a little scoring in as much as he might have had a couple of ill-advised shots, he was making them. It doesn't really matter if you take a bad shot but, you better make it. He had 10 points in the first quarter and even though, he might have been a bit detrimental in the pick breaking etc. no one was producing so it wasn't as bad as it looked. Overall I would say he had a horrible game but, first quarter I don't think so.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">
Now, you're all probably waiting for me to blame this on Wilkens - but I won't. I'm going to blame it on Isiah. He compiled a starting lineup with only one player of ability to shut someone down on defense - Kurt Thomas (Who he tried to trade!) This in combination with a poorly drawn offense (Compliments of Wilkens) killed us - we backfired. </div>
I don't think this is Isiah's fault. He might have compiled a starting lineup of just offensive talent however, in addition to the Knicks leaving their games at home, the way the team was used was the reason we lost. Lenny Wilkens created favorable matchups for the Mavericks. I said in my preview that Kurt Thomas will have trouble against Dirk, and we will need JYD's services. We only played JYD for 19 minutes minus the 12 minutes of garbage time=5 minutes of real action. This team definitely has its flaws but, Isiah is not the culprit. It was Lenny and the Knicks.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">mrj18 - Your bias was bleeding in the preview. There really wasn't much of a chance of us winning this game. Try to study the other team before writing previews. Dallas has been outstanding on the road this year (especially in comaparison to last year). And of course, offensive-minded teams play their hearts out in the Garden.</div>
I was not being bias. The Knicks could have won this game. They played well against the NBA champs, they had mommentum from that Philadelphia game, and Utah. I did study the Mavericks. I did write that they were 8-3. The Knicks did have a chance in winning this game. The Knicks are 8-3 at home themselves. That game was one of those occasions where no Knicks showed up. The game should never had been so lopsided as it was. I do have faith in my Knicks but, I am not bias.