Paul Stengel's New York Knicks fan blog

Welcome to the starting lineup Toney Douglas! The Knicks are 2-0 in games Douglas has started, and he has clearly given the team a spark it was missing when it started Duhon and Sergio Rodriguez. Douglas has averaged 20 points over his last three games, and has brought great energy to the defensive end. His three steals against Philadelphia and clutch three point shooting helped keep the 76ers from coming back.

 Another big contributor to the Knicks lately has been Bill “Sky” Walker. Walker’s high flying dunks and surprising outside touch have been on display of late. He’s shooting near 60% as a Knick and has been a pleasant surprise in general when considering he was originally a throw-in in the Nate Robinson trade. Tracy McGrady’s frequent injuries have opened up minutes for Walker and he’s taking advantage.

Continue reading "Welcome to the starting lineup Mr. Douglas!"

CLAAAANG!!!  Another errant Knicks shot glances off the rim.  The New York Knickerbockers have mastered the art of losing for the past 10 years.  The only silver lining after this season is the possibility of signing two big name, “max contract” players.  The Knicks traded away their upcoming draft pick (along with Jared Jeffries and others) to Houston,  to free up more money for these players.  Nothing is guaranteed, the Knicks aren’t necessarily getting anyone for their trouble. 

 

The losing that the Knicks have been doing is a relatively new experience for their head coach, Mike D’Antoni.  D’Antoni came over from Phoenix, where he had an outstanding winning percentage, playoff appearances every year, and usually a late-season meeting with the San Antonio Spurs that ultimately would decide who would come out of the west.  Before he coached Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash and Shawn Marion to 60 wins a year.  Now he leads Al Harrington and a band of inexperienced, below average knicks to likely two 30 win seasons. 

Continue reading "New York Knicks, what the salary cap future holds"

…and we know you don’t care.  This team is not going to trick me into watching it this year.  However, I have decided that I will check in on them, as one would check in on an ailing old friend.  They looked pretty good tonight, beating the Phoenix Suns, 126-99.  I’ll just give my critique of Gallinari’s play, since I know the Knicks arent doing anything this year, and Gallo’s one of the few players I know will be around next year. 

 

The Knicks and Suns entered the game with records that were the complete inverse of each other (3-14 to 14-3).  Gallinari looked particularly focused on this day, starting the game with a quick dunk, and a reverse layup.  After that his shot was on target the whole night.  In addition, his passing and his defense were excellent.  He never forces anything. 

Continue reading "Knicks Blow Out Best Team in NBA (12-1-09)"

Ugh, I remember this feeling.  The Giants are once again an excruciating, exhausting team to watch.  They have been for most of my lifetime, yet somehow, they put it all together at the end of the 2007 season.  They won the Superbowl, beat an undefeated team, and even carried that momentum into the majority of the following season, but overall this has never been a team that handles prosperity well. 

The Giants conservative approach on offense is becoming more and more frustrating to watch.  They have to play the perfect game now in order to win against decent/good teams.  Even the Dallas win this year required a flawless performance from Eli to eek out a win against a team that commited at least 4 turnovers. 

I believe Coughlin and the rest of his staff need to shift their overall philosophy in several areas.  They overemphasize the importance of controlling and possessing the ball.  They win the turnover battle almost every game, they run the ball a ton, and they ALWAYS dominate time of possession.  Is this team capable of scoring quickly on offense?  I thought they had shown in the first few weeks that they were a dangerous passing team, but watching them take nearly 11 minutes to piece together a touchdown drive today has left me with doubts. 

Continue reading "Another Deflating Giants Loss (11/8/09)"

The Giants once again dominated the time of possession against the Eagles, holding the ball for over 35 minutes, and they again had a "healthy" balance of run and pass plays.  They actually ran the ball 32 times in this game, 8 more times than the Eagles.  They also lost the game 40-17, and were outperformed in every phase of the game.  The one thing the Giants did more effectively than Philly was to actually run down the game clock, effectively taking care of that for the Eagles by taking way too long in their drives, and running an absurd number of draw and running plays while trailing by 24 points.  

There is something fundamentally wrong with the Giants offensive philosophy.  The defense also looked horrendous, and they have for long stretches of this season, but for now I'll concentrate on criticizing the 1940's style, "power football" that the Giants are employing on offense.  Sometimes the play-calling and formations of the offense truly baffle me.  They continue to try to establish the run early in games, and lately with very little effectiveness.  I personally have nothing against running the ball, and all teams need to have some kind of balance, but the Giants take it too far.  Most good teams (like Pittsburgh and New England) nowadays pass early in the game to take the lead, and then run, to run down the clock.  The Giants run all the time, no matter the situation, which shortens the game and limits their number of possessions.  They often dominate games in terms of yardage and T.O.P. and yet they struggle in the red-zone and don't put up enough points.  Their slow tempo on offense also allows vastly inferior opponents to still have a chance to win, because they rarely jump out to big leads.  (For example, they completely dominated Tampa Bay in week 3, didn’t allow a first down in the first three quarters and for about the first 40 minutes of the game were only up two scores.)  The last three weeks, the Giants have fallen behind early and shown absolutely no ability to run an up-tempo offense.  Maybe they overestimated the ability of their defense, but the lack of urgency or creativity from the offense boggles the mind.

Continue reading "Thoughts following a terrible loss to the Eagles (11-1-09)"

Last night's game against the Cardinals left me quite upset. Prior to the past two years the Giants were one of the most frustrating teams to root for. They would start off well, then collapse, they'd talk trash and not back it up, they had a head coach that was a stickler for details, yet they seemed to be one of the most penalized, undisciplined teams, and alot of their players seemed unhappy and unlikeable. During the 2007 season, things seemed to change, but what caused that change exactly?

Most people could safely assume that the loss of Steve Spagnuolo would hurt the Giants defense, but I'm wondering if it may run deeper than that.  In regards to Bill Sheridan, I don't think that he's a bad coordinator but he seems to be someone that is only as good as his personnel, and I know it's early but you can already tell that he's vastly inferior to Spagnuolo. Spags always seemed to maximize the production of whoever he had out there; Despite the Giants pass rush tailing off at the end of last season, in the final 5 games it was obvious that the Giants OFFENSE did not play up to the level of their banged up defense in any of those games. I would actually like to tally up the number of three and outs that the offense had in those final 5 games. Consistent three and outs by an offense are demoralizing for any defense. Last nights game was the first time this year in which the defense outperformed the offense, which is also a big cause for concern.

Continue reading "Still Missing Spagnuolo (New York Giant Concerns - 10-26-09)"

The Knicks are going to start winning again (they were slightly above .500 before dumping Randolph and Crawford), simply because of the depth they suddenly have with Gallinari.  It seems like D'Antoni can put any five out there and be effective; he can even win with a short-handed team, but at the pace the Knicks play, it has to help the whole team to have a capable bench.  Nate and Gallinari could be a deadly change of pace.  

Gallinari just looks like a really good player, period.  Especially offensively, he looks like Turkoglu (almost), and he's only 20.  

Continue reading "Gallinari to the Rescue?"

Since Michael Jordan's retirement basketball has seen its popularity decrease tremendously.  Too many teams overemphasize individual play at the expense of passing, running and taking shots in the flow of the offense.  
As a fan of the game, I don't watch basketball to see world class athletes stand around or take free throws. D'Antoni amazes me in that he has found a way to bring a definite flow to NBA basketball.  Both as coach of the Phoenix Suns and now for my Knicks he has made basketball watchable again.  His teams play an up-tempo, freewheeling style that focuses on quick offensive possessions and constant fast breaks.  This style solves what I believe is one of the biggest problems with the NBA and its (un)watchability: the problem of wasted motion.  

Continue reading "D'Antoni has made the Knicks (and basketball for that matter) watchable!"