[Game] Knicks @ Kings Game Thread 11/17/10

[Jechtsphere]

I really expected better from this team especially because they have had many days between games and plenty of practice time and nothing has really improved. I heard on TV Westphal saying if you don't play D you won't play? If true hope we continue to finally see more Donte.

 

[Sarunas]

Remember last year when this team prided itself on playing hard? I don't even hear players and coaches talking about it like last year, much less doing it. You just don't play D as lousy or as sporadically as this team if you're playing hard. From what I see there are a lot of selfish agendas out there with players more concerned about their minutes than they are about the team winning. Winning seems very secondary to their agenda.

Couldn't agree more, but I think a lot of these selfish agendas regarding playing time falls on Westphal not establishing a rotation, so guys don't know if theyre going to play 25 minutes one game, and 8 minutes the next.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

I also think a contributing factor is the over-reliance on his dribble penetration. I think asking him to work off the ball more, setting up his post game, iso on the baseline, etc with the ball in beno's hands more will do wonders for this team.

Agreed, but you have to consider he's 21 years old coming off a season where if he wasn't dribble penetrating then the Kings weren't creating offense. Time for PW to show his coaching chops, come up with a scheme that centers around maximizing Reke/Landry/DMC and stick to a rotation to build chemistry.

 

[Kingster]

I also think a contributing factor is the over-reliance on his dribble penetration. I think asking him to work off the ball more, setting up his post game, iso on the baseline, etc with the ball in beno's hands more will do wonders for this team.

Couldn't agree more. Tyreke has a habit of dribbling every time he gets the ball. I'd like to challenge him to receive a ball during the game and not dribble it one time. Just pass the ball; and then cut after he passes. Coaches have drills where no ball touches the floor. The Kings need a ton of that kind of work.

As an aside, it would be nice if both Tyreke and Garcia could have Beno as their off-season shooting coach. Beno is by far the most fundamentally sound shooter on this team. The Las Vegas high kick from Garcia and Tyreke just frustrates me to no end (though it seems like Tyreke may have cut down on it just a little.)

PS. After watching some of this game again, it's hard to even put into words how bad the offense was at times. It's selfish, selfish basketball. Maybe the selfishness is by design (Westphal), maybe it's players wanting to do it on their own because they are frustrated, or maybe it's guys just wanting to pad their stats and they could care less about this team. I have no idea. But the dribble, dribble isolation game, with one or no passes, just doesn't cut it. The Knicks are a bad defensive team. Heaven forbid if the Kings play with this selfishness on offense against a good defensive team.

 

[hardware_failure]

Ive watched every game this season and everything I want to say would prolly be looked at as trolling...

The current playing, coaching, staffing, and mess with the area all adds up to a very depressing situation. It almost feels like everyone is intentionally going for some sort of "chapter 11" in hopes of a move.

 

[Kingster]

Couldn't agree more, but I think a lot of these selfish agendas regarding playing time falls on Westphal not establishing a rotation, so guys don't know if theyre going to play 25 minutes one game, and 8 minutes the next.

To some degree, it's a chicken and egg problem. I can see the possibility of sporadic minutes affecting a player's offense; I can't see it affecting their defense. You either play with effort, or you don't. And regardless of the minutes, if you're a professional in the NBA, you have no excuse not to play with effort.

I think some of what we see has to do with normal evolution of a young team. Think about the individual player. He comes in as a rookie. The world is his oyster. He doesn't see himself as a bench player. He sees himiself as a starter, maybe even an All-Star one day. Well, for most of the rookies, that's not the case. Most of them aren't good enough to start one day, much less be stars. That's got to be very dissapointing to a player. So the player doesn't get minutes because he's just not that good. What does the player think? If I only got minutes, I'd show everybody how good I am. The problem is, they just aren't that good. They are marginally ok at best. So yeah, you're going to get a lot of disgruntled players who aren't happy with their lot. It's hard to come to grips with your shortcomings when you're 22 or 23 years old. Eventually, they have to get past their dream colliding with reality and take pride in every minute that they get out there on floor.