Udrih ( A+ ) -- and so here was the big one for Beno. On this roadtrip so far I had given him two B+s and a B despite 20pts a night scoring and great efficiency. And the reason was that he was rather blatantly only playing one side of the ball, in fact I think may have even been the tonesetter for our run up and down liike idiots an screw the D mantra from teh first three games of the roadtrip. He was husrting us on one end, helping us on the other. So how do you dump yourself from a B+ to an A+? You come out and play both ends. You fill up that boxscore, be "the man", carry the team, and do it without having to apologize for your play on the other. And tonight Beno did all of that really from the opening tip right until the end of the game. Had a couple of early scores, but also a couple of good hustle plays on defensem and actually saved a hoop in transition by getting back and making a great use of hands on defense. In the third his little minirun ballooned the lead as he got a late runout, then a three in the corner to make it 11. Kept on coming up with loose balls, and came up with a spectacular version of his spin layup with the foul on top (see video above) through traffic to push us to 14 in the early 4th. Big on offense down the stretch continuing to hit little jumper after little jumper and badly outperform Felton throughout. Capped things with the first of our back to back dagger game icing threes (Reke would follow wiht his own next posssession) at the 3:10 mark. And just finally did it. Finally played both sides of the ball, was in on every hustle play, and did it all without giving up any of the ridiculously efficient offense he has been putting up all roadtrip. A+.
Evans ( C- ) -- back and had "one of those games", but it wasn't really "one of those games" quite like we've seen this year. In fact actually looked realy good physically to start this one, racing up and down the court in the early going and racing fullcourt through the entire Knicks team for the layup to sta....and it rolled off. And THAT would be the storyline tonight. Time and time again, as we've seen on and off all year. There was a ton of traffic around the hoop, it just wasn't falling, things were blocked, and it just went on and on. Funny thing was, that as much as the misses made you slap your head, the overall performance was not really hurting us. In fact whenever he was out of the game we felt shaky. And some of that was because he was doing a lot of the other things that he can do. He was consistently on the defensive glass, was doing a nice job passing ahead on the break too as he's been getting much better at that. Using those hands on defense again too. Was doind a pretty good job of drawing and kicking, but his shooters weren't consistently hitting them, and Cisco in particular was een refusing to take them there for one stretch. It was a pretty well played game really....except for that offense. And there as always you had to wonder what was what. Rust? Maybe. 8ut its worth noting the bounce in his step he had early did not seem to be there by the second half of the game, which is a pattern we've seen before with those ankles/feet. Sprinled in a couple of jumpers as the game wore on, and then after a game long struggle took a pass from Beno and stepped up out of nowhere to drain the game icing three at the 2:30 mark. A tad of a disappointment late, as he was going to give Daly the celebration dunk at the 1:00 mark with Daly out ahead of the pack on the break mark, but Sam fumbled the nice easy pass that would have been his exclamation point. You should be abel to count on Reke for far more than 4-15 shooting and 9 points, but I held this grade up just a tad because of the other stuff, and because of the unmistakeable impression that we were bettter when he was on the floor.
Bench
Dalembert ( A- ) -- and so Daly's season of up an down usage continued with one of his longest stints of the season off the bench. He earned every minute of it, but he came in so early -- basically the first man off the bench -- and in such a manner (brought in for JT in the mid-1st to team with Cousins against a team that has no size) that it was clear there was a plan to use him more coming into this one. Hit an awkward little post move, and with Cousins/Dalembert in there the boards were ours. Was really calling for the ball offensively again, which is scary (and as usual we could not resist going to too much of a Daly centric offense for whatever reason), but you could just see the incredible comfort level/confidence he had against this undersized team. Nice hi-low pass to Beno to open the second. But of course the real reason he was in there was for defense, and as the game went along increasingly the other guys we experimented with against Amare fell off, and it became a one on one duel between the MVP candidate and Daly. And it was one that our guy won. Strong play in the third on both ends, and a big help block on Amare in the final minute of the third sent us running the other way. Then in the 4th Amare began to surge, and you could feel him trying to take the Knicks on his back and lead their comeback against th Collapsing Kids, and Daly began to lose a little control of him as Amare got his faceup and foul drawing game going. Briefly had to leave the game after picking up his 5th, but after returning a couple of minutes later led our charge down the stretch as we iced it, using that great length to send balls back into Amare's face time after time, forcing traveling calls, and in general just locking up the middle, and with it New York's hopes to steal one. Was the primary force in holding Amare to 6-22 shooting. As mentioned in Reke's grade was all set up to get rewarded with a celebration breakaway dunk at The Garden with 1:00 to go, but fumbled one fo the softest/easiest passes you are ever going to get out inthe open court.
Landry ( B- ) -- odd game to grade as Carl took a shot at the wrogn kind of triple double tonight. Came in for Cousins early and immediately turned it over down in the post for TO #1. Made a terrible post feed attempt to Reke -- may never have been on that end of it before -- and there was TO #2 etc. Was extremely aggessive if nothing else in the second, but really started to throw up junk, was turning it over, and stalled the entire offense after a while. Really seemed driven to attack no matter the wisdom of it on any given play, and was working extremely hard for position and on the glass. Back in in the third and airballed his first move, then mishandled a feed on the break. And were several odd turnovers inviolving him with our guiards trying to feed him, and him just not being where they thoguht he'd be -- those were credited tot he guards I ma sure, brining the totla number of Landry related TOs to probably something like 10, which is pretty amazing. Happened with several different feeders so makes you wonder if maybe it was Carl. On a more positive note was able to repeatedly knock down those long jumpers that made you wince until they went in, and while he could nto handle Amare at all without help and we avoided that matchup like the plague, gave us better rebunding then we normally expect out of him. Got viictimized by a bad offensive foul call with 5:00 to go that fortunately did not turn momentumn as it could have. 16 and 9 wiht aggression is good. Dripping with turnovers though is not and it held this grade down.
