grendelprime Blog Posts

Taskmaster Thomas Tough Talks His Team To Togetherness

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:11:04 PST

Well, well, well... Isiah Thomas took out the blowtorch and put it to the feet of his entire roster and the New York Knicks -- miraculously -- responded by dishing a supreme butt-kicking to the ailing near King-less Cleveland Cavaliers. In what was the most lopsided victory the Knicks have had probably in the Post-Patrick Ewing era, the Knicks trounced the Cavs 108 to 90! Damn near twenty points -- and what was really interesting mourning Stephon Marburry did NOT play (still battle back the tears from the loss of his father, Donald, again my condolences -- losing one's dad sucks!)

Who would have thought that the Knick's David Lee would earned the moniker, Beautician, because he was serving up facials throughout the night, scoreing 17 points. 11, in the first half.

The lackluster Cavs -- with LeBron -- gave up 56% shooting from the field! The Knicks haven't had that kind of firepower since the days of John Starks and Anthony Mason. Or was it more of a matter of atrocious D poorly played by the porous Cavs? Are they going to be play this way in the later part of the season? They have no

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Unabashed Whupping Of The King

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:08:02 PST

If I'm LeBron James, I'm asking to be traded NOW! You can't be THE marquee player and not get your team past the abyssmal New York Knicks! For the Cleveland Cavaliers to lose to a permanantly slumping squard like the Knicks, the whole game plan for the season is in doubt and must be reassessed.

This is the Knicks most lopside W of the season, beating the Cavs by 18 points! Have Knicks even been up by more than 10 on any opponent ALL YEAR? Possibly, but I can't recall. Zeke has been on the hot-seat for a long time, and it culminated with fans carrying a huge placard outside of MSG emploring Knicks' owner James Dolan to oust old boy. For some inexplicable reason Dolan is keeping Zeke at the reins -- maybe there's some blackmail scheme that Zeke has over Dolan that keeps him employed, or maybe it has to do with a back-room deal done surrounding that sexual harassment case.

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Knickerboxers in complete disarry

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:23:07 PST

I was talking before about the Curse of the Basketball Gods when it comes to the New York Knicks piss-poor performance over the last eight seasons, but this season is shaping up to be sheer insanity -- which as we know is defined as doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. I guess wins against the Nets is good for the cross-town rivalry, but other than that? I wonder if dumping Larry Brown was a smart move on the Dolans' part? He wasn't given a chance and his squad was horrendous -- even worse than what they have now. Sure he tallied up the franchise's worst record EVER, but he's a quality coach who would have had something to prove the following season. I mean were the clashes with perennial cancer Stephon Marberry that much of an issue to can the coach instead of the venom-spreading Starberry?

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It Takes Double Time

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:58:27 PST

So King James and his ailing Cavs defeat the Bucks in OT last night. I'm surprised that the Cavs needed the 2nd extra period to eek out a win... the sad thing is, whenever I see the Bucks play against the Cleveland Cavaliers I have a series of "what might have been" thoughts cascading into my head. Why? Because Michael Redd should be playing alongside LeBron. But for some reason, the Cavs couldn't make a competitive offer to the man two or three seasons ago when he was a free agent. Or maybe Redd, like so many other players, ain't tryin' to play roundball in the Mistake By The Lake! Imagine if LeBron was dishing off to Michael Redd in the corner instead of Larry Hughes? Imagine Redd leading the break off a defensive rebound outlet pass, he could dish to LeBron or take it to rack himself and bring the crowd at The Q to its feet? Those are just pipe dreams... sadly.

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Out Damn Spot Out

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:12:57 PST

What’s the deal with New York sports teams and curses? The most famous – The Curse of the Bambino helped the Yankees stay on top of their archrivals the Red Sox for too many decades. Currently, Knicks’ fans are suffering from a Sports gods’ curse and they probably don’t even know it or at least refuse to admit it. The fabled franchise’s woeful misfortunes can be traced back 8 years ago to around this time in the season – marquee player for 14 years Patrick Ewing broke his hand/wrist in a terrible fall against the Bucks. He sat out the rest of the season, and outrageously the Knicks – thru Jeff van Gundy’s exhaustive coaching – took the team to the Finals; they unfortunately lost to the rising Spurs (their first of many championships).

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Expectations Too high for the franchise

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:47:30 PST

To lose to the lackluster 76ers is something that’s going to happen to some high-expectation team at least a few times this season, because that’s the beauty of basketball – on any given night, any given team can be blessed by the Roundball Gods and win against a team that on paper seriously overmatches them.

However, when you’re the rebounding Cleveland Cavs you can not allow these types of loses to happen. After dropping six straight when the King was sidelined with a damaged hand, the Reclamation of the Throne by LeBron James isn’t going to be an easy march. Consider the fact that the Cavs have lost two of the last three since the King’s return – and players like Larry Hughes are saying that the team is still trying to get into the swing of things, get into a rhythm; what like a month in a half into the season? What was the purpose of training camp and pre-season for the Cavs to get the summer rust off? Is the strategy to start forging the team into a cohesive unit during the first half of the season? That’s a strategy that beckons failure at crunch time… which is exactly what we saw last year, and the year before when the Cavs lost to the Pistons in the East Conference Finals.

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The Return of the King

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:46:44 PST

By this I don’t mean that overhyped J.R.R. Tolkein book or movie, but the return of the Mistake on the Lake’s sport savoir – LeBron James. After sitting out for six games – all of which the ignominiously lost, James returned to the line up and lo and behold the Cavs win a game. The inability of the Cavs to effectively complete without their (super) star player is indicative of their over-achieving antics in last year’s play-offs. As a Cleveland native, and long suffering sports fan, just seeing the Cavs get to the Finals was stunning, but their abysmal performance was almost foretold.

The Cavs starting roster is chock full of players who probably wouldn’t even start on most other teams, even Larry Hughes would probably be a Sixth Man at this stage in his career – and inexplicably the Cavs made no off-season moves. I have to give Coach Mike Brown some props for getting this team to perform as well as they have.

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O Lucky Boy

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:31:34 PST

The Knicks settled their nasty sexual harassment lawsuit this week, and about time. What kills me is why Zeke is still at the reigns of this enfeebled franchise. He’s never made a franchise good, but maybe the Dolan’s have a twisted plan – every team Zeke has been apart of sucks rotten eggs while he’s there, but they perform a turnaround worthy of Lee Iacoca one he leaves – Raptors and Pacers come to mind. So maybe that’s what the Dolans are doing, seeing how they won’t be able to have a good team until 2010 anyway (see my other post).

The one thing about this lawsuits is, it costs the Knicks a huge some of money – upwards of $20 million dollars – and yet the chief culprit for this still has a valued place in the organization. I mean what company lets an employee run the company and its assets into the ground, then bails that self-same employee out of huge public relations nightmare and continues to let said employee have free reign during his duties?

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