Pacers/Knicks Postgame

[Justin Tyme]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

Some of this is on Granger.

First, Harrington was his man when he lit it up for three several times and evened up the score. That was the turning point in the game.

Not to mention Wilson Chandler burnt Granger numerous times in the 1st half. I've never been impressed with Granger's "D". It's great he can block shots, but he has a hard time guarding his man on shooting 3's. He always has. I was hoping this year would be the year he'd fine tune his "D"... apparently not.

[Wage]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

To go in a slightly different direction:

Is it just me or does our entire team seem completely lost regarding low post offense?

We have no one that seems comfortable making an entry pass to the low post. Once NY started fronting the post, forget about it. We were completely lost. Even when we did manage to get the ball in the post with good position, most of the time it seemed our team went into "watch the big fella" mode, just standing around as bystanders.

[Trophy]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

It's easy just to laugh. But unfortunately, nothing Midcoasted said is funny.

Just because TJ Ford plays the point guard position, does not mean he's a point guard. It's just what his size limits him to. If he was 5 inches taller he'd be Dahntay Jones. He can score, on good days. On bad days? He's an extremely poor man's Allen Iverson.

He has no point guard traits. Court vision? Sub-par. Game management? Please. Stability? Give me a break. Play-making? If he's not kicking it out to Murph for a three, he's lost.

TJ greatest contribution to this team? Helping get rid of Jermaine O'Neal's contract.

I would've rather done the trade with the Lakers moving O'Neal for Lamar Odom and I think it was also Farmar.

TJ just can't fit into the system all the other players seem to fit in well to and it's unfortunate because he's really not a bad player. It's not JOB who made this the system, it's the kind of players we have.

TJ is also a better backup than starter. It's puts less pressure on him when starting the game. The few games Earl started in OKC, he played well then they went with Westbrook.

Earl is well deserving to open and close the game (when coming down to the wire). I hope we bring him back next season. He's really done a fantastic job defending the opposing PGs.

Some else Earl does well that TJ doesn't and that's making 3 pointers. Earl was never known for his shooting and now he practiced on it and now he makes many of his shots.

The only shooting I like out of TJ is when he drives in then fades away from the basket.

[OakMoses]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

It pains me greatly, but, for Brandon's own good, I really believe he also should very privately request a trade prior to February. He has to know that when Dunleavy possibly returns in the next two to three weeks (if we believe Dun's blogs) that he will be lucky to see the floor for 10 minutes a night even while Dun is getting his legs back because we remain an offensively oriented team, with flashes of defense at scattered times. It will be critical to Brandon's earning potential for his career to go somewhere that teaches the fundamentals of the game to their players and believes in applying that on the court. Going to Utah under Jerry Sloan might be nearly ideal for him, or possibly Charlotte under Larry Brown, or Dallas under Carlisle. We might be surprised what package deals we could get back for a Murph / Rush combination at this point, but O'B has such a man crush on Troy that there is virtually no chance of that happening.

I'm getting close to agreeing with you about Rush. I'm not blaming either side, but I just don't think that he and O'Brien are a good fit.

I'm not buying the argument that O'Brien's man crush on Murphy means he won't get traded. I don't think Bird gives JO'B that much voice in player moves. If we got a good offer for Murphy that combined a slight downgrade in talent and some cap flexibility for next season, we'd probably take it. However, I have a feeling that most of the deals out there would either take away future cap flexibility while not bringing a viable sidekick for Granger or give us cap flexibility but force us to take a huge talent hit. Bird's not going to accept any deal that would do either of those.

[Wage]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

I would've rather done the trade with the Lakers moving O'Neal for Lamar Odom and I think it was also Farmar.

I am way happier with getting Roy than I would be with that Laker trade.

The Raptor trade was always "You take our ginormous terrible contract, and we will take back one of your much smaller but a year longer bad contracts (Ford) along with some expirings and a draft pick."

We got some cap breathing room and big Roy for JO. Ford was just to keep the deal from being to good to be true. Somehow people got confused and thought we were trading for Ford and he was going to save us.

Ford was always just the cost we had to incur in order to get any value from JO. Any productivity we get from him is just icing on the cake in my opinion.

[OakMoses]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

I've been thinking about it, and I can really only come up with 2 teams that might be willing to trade for Murphy: Atlanta and Cleveland.

I figure teams must meet the following criteria:

They want to win this season. They're not in the 2010 FA race. They don't have a similar or better player at the same position.

The Cleveland trade involving Ilguaskas' expiring contract has been discussed ad infinitum. Throwing Rush in might get us Hickson, but I'm not sure that's quite enough.

Atlanta has really nothing to offer us, they have assets that would be combinable to reach Murphy's contract, but assuming they don't want to trade Crawford, Johnson, Smith, Bibby, or Horford there's not much left. Marvin Williams would be the only attractive piece, and I'm not sure how attractive he really is, especially since he'd have to be combined with another reasonably sized non-expiring contract.

[KennerLeaguer]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

I'm getting close to agreeing with you about Rush. I'm not blaming either side, but I just don't think that he and O'Brien are a good fit.

Hibbert isn't exactly a great fit in JOB's system either since its more about jacking up quick shots and ignoring the post for long stretches. But players can't sulk or get down on themselves in these situations. They must play through it and try their best to do what their coach asks of them even if they don't like it. At the end of their rookie contract, if they are any good, if the coach is still there and the player doesn't like how the coach is using him that player can always leave. But until then the player must go out and do his best. Whenever the negative vibes start to bother him he can remind himself he is being paid quite handsomely for a plum job. And for a guy like Rush he can also take solace in getting a lot of playing time because there are players on the bench who are dying to get any minutes on the court .

[McKeyFan]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

I just rewatched the fourth quarter:

- TJ Ford was awful, on offense and defense. On two or three crucial plays in the last two minutes, his man got by him and it led to layups for the Knicks.

- We had some back luck as well. Both Roy and Dahntay made great defensive plays that should have been charges, but the refs missed the call.

- Granger's foul trouble really hurt us. Some of that is Danny's fault but there is some bad luck there too.

- Dahntay Jones played really well. He's a keeper.

[clownskull]

Re: Pacers/Knicks Postgame

The offense was stagnant most of the second half. No ball movement. No player movement. Virtually never reversed the ball.

I thought the Knicks did a good job harassing Roy in the post with help, but I still can't understand why he was used so heavily in the high post with the size advantage he had on Lee. They didn't hesitate to abuse our weakness catching Roy in the P-n-R on Lee.

It's a team game. No one guy lost us the game, but Ford, Watson, and Rush all have to be more effective and consistent. We go about zilch from the backcourt all around. Bottom line is they got up and they got lazy and sloppy.. Hope they learned a lesson.

Don't like the Watson-Ford tandem.

i agree. the offense fell apart in the 2nd half. in the 2nd, they reverted to the 0-3 team we saw earlier. there was no more moving around with purpose, just some guys going around like in a pickup game who had no previous experience playing together. the chemistry fell apart completely. our point guards failed us in that game. tj was awful with several terrible passes and bad decisions and laying bricks but watson wasn't getting it done either. as for rush- yes he played solid D as usaul but for those who get on obrien's case for stating the obvious is silly. brandon has been shooting terribly. there really is no way around that fact. yes he is struggling in that dept. i doubt he would disagree that his shooting has to improve if we are to win more games.