I agree with MJ18, the Knicks Defense has been awful. They cant stop anybody in the transition game. It is almost to the point you can easily predict which teams will garner an abundance of points in the opencourt against this Knick defense. And that is a problem the Knicks are going to continue to struggle with all season. A Crawford return will help the offense pickup. But the Knicks still will stink on the defensive side. The Knicks dont really have the parts to be successful on the team defense aspect. Marbury tries sometimes, but he really isnt that good, McInnis got into the lane against him easily yesterday. Allan Houston has always been a liabity on D and running around on injured legs makes him even worst. He got beat up the floor by every wing player on the Cavs, consistently. The Knicks best defensive perimeter player maybe Trevor Ariza & even he isnt that good in on the ball defense. The frontcourt tries to be solid in all the vall defense with Kurt Thomas & Jerome Williams. But those guys arent really help defenders & definately dont block any shots to prevent teams from penetrating the lanes all day. So the Knicks are going to continue to struggle on the defensive end.
And it really hurts right now cause it seems like with no defense & Crawford not there to provide offensive help,if Marbury doesnt go for 35-40 the Knicks wont win. And I dont think the Knicks want to get Marbury back into the mode where he feels he needs to score 50 every night cause once Crawford comes back it will hurt. Marbury sometimes when he gets into that mind frame doesnt know when to revert back into the playmaker, even when he has more offensive options available to him, he still ties to carry all of the scoring load. I think the thing that made him successful early this season, is because he was starting to find the happy medium bettween scoring & making others better. So you want him to continue in that mindset, making him go back to being the dominate scorer again inorder to win, is setting him as well as the Knicks back imo.