Is it too early to panic?
The Knicks are 2-3 and look disjointed and unfocused. They lack aggressiveness — they are last in the league in rebounds and, while they are getting to the line more than just about any other team, they are taking more three pointers as a percentage of their shots than the rest of the league.
Tim Legler gets at one of the team’s problems — a seeming unwillingness to do the dirty work — and Stephen A. Smith has remarked on the guard play. But I think this goes deeper. The team has one of the top low-post players — Amar’e Stoudamire — in the league and has not consistently run the office through the post. The team has been thinking outside first and not running it inside-out.
Yes, Toney Douglas is a primary culprit and management should have known it before opening he season without a real point guard. Baron Davis is going to help — how can he not? Landry Fields needs to get back to doing what he did last year — hitting the boards from the backcourt (to help Tyson Chandler, who’s necessarily aggressive defense takes him out of position for defensive rebounds) and moving without the ball. Stat also needs to rebound more and the team, aside from Chandler, needs to be better on the defensive end (though, to be fair, had the Knicks held opponents to 95 points a game last year, they would have won 50-plus games).
Ultimately, though, the key is refocusing the offense to make Stat and Carmelo Anthony equal partners.
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Hank Kalet 