This video just about summarizes the Knicks loss to the Sixers: Disorganized, annoying, and involving a duck. (Yes I spent 15 minutes looking up duck videos)
Oh, hello there. I assume you’re here because you want to read a recap of the Knicks game. In that case, allow me clean up the pool of vomit that has gathered on my floor. Ok, done. Where were we? Oh, right. The game went a little like this:
Knicks fans were very excited for the return of Raymond Felton, and the starting lineup of Felton-Kidd-Shumpert-Anthony-Chandler. Then the Sixers started out 6-6 from the field, with Jrue Holiday leaving scorched earth behind him as he went to the basket and suddenly Knicks fans were much less excited. Melo forced a lot of shots inside the paint while often double or triple teamed. The pick-and-roll we hoped that would spark the Knicks never got going, as Felton didn’t make many attempts to pass the ball to Chandler. Moreover, a lot of the Knicks plays went to Melo or Amare post ups. Jason Kidd missed some 3s. Iman Shumpert missed some 3s and some 2s. JR Smith missed the rim a couple times. Bleh.
The Knicks effort defensively wasn’t good, as they gave up many dribble penetrations and failed to rotate and help. In fairness not even Iman Shumpert could stop Jrue Holiday from getting in the paint. Holiday had his way with Felton, Kidd, and JR Smith as well, and took a strong stance against missing shots. Conversely, the Knicks had no qualms about missing shots. Melo finished 9-28, JR was 0-8, Shumpert 0-6, and Felton 2-8. As a team, they shot 34%, and were 4-17 from three point land (14%). The Sixers? They shot 50% from the field. Yeah, the Knicks sucked tonight.
The only bright spot was Amar’e Stoudemre. Using an array of post moves, some creative finishes and a couple jumpers, STAT went 8-13 and racked up 20 points. This was by far his best game of the year, as he even got the Sixers to start doubling him in the post while Melo was on the floor. He was quick off the face-up, and managed to get around his defender a couple times, too. He didn’t have much pick-and-roll action as the Knicks mainly went to him or Anthony in the post. He did, however, have one monster block coming over from the weak side and helping out a guard who got beat.
Yep, that’s about it. The Knicks had about a thousand shots go in-and-out, but that doesn’t excuse the lack-luster defense. Ultimately, I’m not too worried about this game. Philly made a lot of their jumpers (most of them open) and the Knicks, while having very good ball movement to start the game, missed their open looks. The Knicks have a game tomorrow against the Hawks, and hopefully the shots go down this time.
This is as far as I’ll go, because to go any farther with this recap is to admit this game happened. Let’s all pretend it didn’t.