Posts for category ‘New York Knicks’

John Wall is going to attract a lot of attention from opposing defenses this season … this is plain and clear to see. It’s all about how he reads that attention and the decisions he makes.

Let’s take a look at some moving GIFs from Sunday’s second-to-last Wizards preseason game against the Knicks in New York.

One, Hilton Armstrong should be commended for the good, hard screen he sets here. Wall comes off hard and fast, giving poor Timofey Mozgov a couple changes in direction, and attracting FOUR Knicks to him in the paint, thinking he will drive left, when Wall kicks it out to an unguarded Yi Jianlian at the three-point line on the right wing. Yi misses the jumper in this instance, but it’s about as open as he’s going to get. Wall is going to change Yi’s career if he can knock down that shot with consistency.

Here the Wizards get a chance to re-set their offensive possession.

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China vs. Puerto Rico highlights – August 15, 2010

I woke up Sunday morning thinking I was going to see two Washington Wizards play in the Madison Square Garden World Basketball Festival exhibitions leading up to the FIBA tournament.  Center JaVale McGee was going to go against France (after not playing in Saturday’s scrimmage against China), and Yi Jianlian was going to lead the Yao Ming-less Chinese team against Puerto Rico.

I may as well have went 0 for 2.

First,  McGee announced via twitter that he had been cut from Team USA (for the second time) along with Oklahoma City Thunder forward, and former Georgetown Hoya, Jeff Green.  Then, Yi channeled his inner John Starks, an shot 3-for-15 from the floor, en route to an 11 point, six rebound performance.

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A bit of everything happened in Friday night’s 118-116 overtime loss to the New York Knicks. Guys played hard. The effort was there. The Wiz kids did some good things, and they made some mistakes. Some crucial calls did not go Washington’s way, one in specific for which some referees should be penalized. And as exciting as the game was, it was just bad basketball (about 4:45 into overtime, the score was 2-0 Knicks). But those are the breaks.

In any case, the run-down is a tad messy, so let’s go over in bullet points:

• JaVale McGee was removed from the starting lineup because he was late to the morning 10:30 am shoot-around. Head scratcher. Prominent media members in the locker room before the game wondered how, one game and two days removed from getting absolutely abused by Marc Gasol, McGee could conduct himself in a such a manner.
• Of course, McGee also often got abused off the dribble by Al Harrington (37 points off the bench). Yes, that is a bad match-up problem, but breaking down in a defensive stance and showing a bit more moxie wouldn’t hurt.
• But hey, the guy worked hard and finished with a more-than-respectable 18 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots, some of them huge.
• Flip Saunders indicated that the longer McGee plays, he hopes that his inconsistent efforts will be fewer and further in between. So, don’t worry McGee fans, he will get chances going forward. Just worry about if he will take advantage of them.
• James Singleton, who started for McGee, got hurt early in the second quarter and would not return. After the game he said he came down funny and that he had a mid-foot sprain. The Wizards really missed both his energy and playing ability. Yes, James Singleton. He had three blocks, two against David Lee, within a four-minute span in the first quarter.
• Mike Miller fouled out with 40 seconds left in regulation. He led the Wizards with a plus/minus of +15. His sixth foul was of an offensive nature as he drove to the basket, but jumped to pass with nowhere to go. He often jumps to pass to his team’s detriment. Miller is a main guy on this squad. But it seems like he has an issue with being a main guy. That is a problem.
• Al Thornton was second in plus/minus with +11. He fouled out with a minute left in regulation.
• The Wizards obviously also suffered when those guys had to sit with five fouls and not just when they were out of the game completely.
• The only other Wizards with positive plus/minuses were Andray Blatche +3, Quinton Ross +3 and Earl Boykins +2. We’ll get to Blatche in a second, but Ross also fouled out with 1:47 left in OT. Boykins only played 12 minutes. I’m not sure why he didn’t get more time in OT when both teams were extremely tired and the Wizards were struggling to score.
• Shaun Livingston, in his first action since December 19, 2009, which came with the Oklahoma City Thunder, played just two minutes and managed to commit a crucial gaffe. With the Wizards down 114-112 and 45 seconds left in OT, Livingston was taking the ball out of bounds and drew a 5-second violation.
• Nick Young hit a huge/crazy three-pointer with 6.5 seconds left in OT to tie the game. But otherwise, he looked listless and could not make a mark on the game in any regard. And he received plenty of chances with others in foul trouble.
• “We’ve brought guys in who have played with a great amount of energy,” said Saunders. “What happens is when you don’t play with energy, it becomes magnified. Because you’re out there with guys flying all over the place, and if you’re not flying all over the place, it looks like you’re lost.” This was Flip’s answer when I asked him about Nick Young. Less and less, Young is looking like a guy who won’t stick around in the NBA, much less the Wizards. Hustle/energy and basketball IQ are two areas in which he severely lacks development.
• Andray Blatche had a career night. He put up career highs in field-goal attempts (21), minutes (51), defensive rebounds (15), total rebounds (18), assists (6), and of course, turnovers (8). Hey, with a bunch of guys gone, somebody has to put up numbers.
• “He still has the tendency … when things don’t go right, he gets down on himself. If you’re going to be a main guy … you can’t do that,” said coach Saunders about Blatche.
• Randy Foye played well (22 points, 10 assists, 3 turnovers, 8-11 FGs), and hit a big shot with 25 seconds left in regulation to send the game into overtime, but his point guard skills have a long way to go. I’ll have more on that to come.
• After Foye’s shot, the Knicks got the ball back with 25.5 seconds left. Wilson Chandler went to the hoop and McGee made a game-saving block … 24 second shot-clock violation, right? Nope. For some reason, the Wizards were only left with two-tenths of a second to make a play. It should have been 1.5 seconds. Referee fail.
• The refs also made a horrendous loose-ball call against Mike Harris after JaVale McGee missed the second of two free-throws with the Wizards down 114-113 and 13 seconds left in overtime. The Wizards would have recovered the loose ball rebound, but again, a horrendous call. Guess the NBA’s headquarters in New York wanted to end the Knicks’ eight-game losing streak. Good job guys.
• David Lee hit the final nail in the coffin at the end of overtime. With only about 1.5 second left after he made the shot putting the Knicks up 118-166, and with the Wizards out of timeouts, not much could be mustered. McGee tried a length-of-the-court pass to Blatche, but he was unable to recover the ball to get off a shot.
• And that was the game. Despite a lot, the Wizards didn’t give up and they fought until the end, and that’s something you got to respect.

This Wizards team has gone through a lot of adversity this year, some of it unimaginable. Poor them. People are dying around the world and not by choice. These guys get paid to play basketball. Suck it up.

More and more this team is playing like they just don’t care. It’s not the first time this has happened. Probably won’t be the last. But Wednesday night’s game against the New York Knicks seemed like more of a disgrace than efforts we’ve seen before.

I’ve said that Ernie Grunfeld can’t make drastic change fast enough. The associated anxiousness continues to mount by the day and will continue to do so up until the February 18th trade deadline, unless something happens before then.

When it goes down, how will I find out? Twitter? Text? G-Chat? Will Ric Bucher’s shiny doll hair pop up on my HDTV to tell me that it has all come to an end? Will I wake up one morning to find Marc Stein whispering in my ear, “Caron Butler for Marcus Camby and Antawn Jamison for Zydrunas Ilgauskas, both straight up” followed by him punching me in the mouth?

These are the things that haunt my slumber and twist my stomach. And they all feel plausible.

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Prior to the Wizards-Knicks game, Rashad Mobley of Hoops Addict and myself stopped to chat with Jonathan Bender of the New York Knicks, a man on a long-shot comeback attempt. Rashad has his piece posted on Hoops Addict, mine is posted below.

Jonathan Bender broke Michael Jordan’s McDonald’s All-American game scoring record when he dropped 31 points in the 1999 game, besting his Airness by one point.

That performance was on the stage Bender needed to forgo his verbal commitment to Mississippi State University and enter the NBA draft, becoming who I believe is the first modern-day high school player to jump to the NBA after actually committing to a school. They say Kobe Bryant would have gone to Duke, but he never offered his commitment. Today, despite being called one of the 20 biggest busts in modern NBA draft history by Sports Illustrated in 2005, Bender doesn’t think twice about the choice he made over 10 years ago to follow in the prep-to-pros footsteps of those such as Kevin Garnett.

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Mike Miller doesn’t want to be your team’s leading scorer. And he doesn’t want to listen to others who have implored him to be more aggressive on offense, including his coach.

This season, almost as much as Miller has said, “It is what it is,” if not more, he has pragmatically relayed, “I pick my spots,” as if it were ingrained into his basketball dogma.

Miller should be lauded for his selflessness, on top of his constant willingness to be first off the bench to support his teammates coming into a timeout or him being a primary proponent of hustle on the court. Passing is the “right way to play basketball” says Miller. Nothing wrong with that school of thought. Dude is honorable.

But as good as his intentions are, Miller’s methods have, at times, served as a detriment to his team. The drives ending right at the rim only to kick the ball backwards to the perimeter. The passed up open shots where Miller, the best shooter on the team, makes the extra pass just to get the ball “poppin’.” Players with his skill shouldn’t be such delegates.

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This fan, or maybe he’s not a fan, aided by his lower-level seats near the Wizards’ locker room tunnel, took the necessary steps to make himself noticed at the Wiz-Knicks snow game on Saturday night.

Some might have approached this guy to take stock of what angle he was playing with his customized jersey. Was he simply stating the fact of Arenas’ plea? Is wearing the jersey of a guilty man an act of defiance? What does the bottom treatment a la Fred Flintstone’s moo-moo signify? Is he or is he not an advocate for Gilbert Arenas? All good questions. I’d like to think that the distinguished Dan Steinberg would have sought this fellow out for blog fodder. Me? I figured that whatever this guy’s jersey meant, it was best left unknown, like the Arenas situation itself.

Furthermore, scenes from pre-game warm-ups …

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Here’s a vision of Wizards team president Ernie Grunfeld on Christmas day 25 years ago. Notice his semi-festive tie? Then again, Grunfeld is Jewish, so it probably wasn’t that festive. Here, Grunfeld is a ripe 29 years old, in his third season with the New York Knicks, which was also his second to last in the NBA.

So what’s Grunfeld doing? He’s checking out Bernard King score a Christmas day 60 points, albeit in a 120-114 loss to the New Jersey Nets, while sitting on the bench in street clothes, out with an injury.

For more on King’s 60-point game, check out the article, ‘King gifted 60 points on Christmas day 25 years ago,’ by Steve Aschburner on NBA.com or a recent quick Howard Beck interview with King on the New York Times’ NBA blog, Off The Dribble.

I’ve also written historically about King and Grunfeld on this site before. One post was about the time I saw King score 44 points as a Washington Bullet against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. And another post was about when Grunfeld was on the court for Patrick Ewing’s debut as a Knick (which I did not see in person).

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Most know about the time Ernie Grunfeld spent in the New York Knicks front office. And many probably have an idea that Madison Square Garden was Grunfeld’s home court for the final four seasons of his nine year NBA playing career. But did you know that Big Ern was on the floor the night Patrick Ewing made his NBA debut?

After playing his first two seasons in Milwaukee, and his next three with the Kansas City Kings, Grunfeld began his tenure in NYC in ’82-83 with the likes of Bill Cartwright, Bernard King (Grunfeld’s teammate at Tennessee), Paul Westphal, and one of my all-time favorite NBA names, Rory Sparrow. Grunfeld was 10th in minutes per game on a Hubie Brown led, 44-win Knicks team that made it to the Eastern Conference semifinals. But the Philadelphia 76ers, with Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Mo Cheeks, swept the Knicks, advanced to beat Sidney Moncrief‘s Milwaukee Bucks in the conference finals, and swept the LA Lakers to win the ’83 NBA title.

Grunfeld and the 47-win Knicks fell short in the ’84 playoffs as well. This time going down in seven games to the Boston Celtics led by Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and the Chief Robert Parrish. Just as the 76ers did the previous season, the Celtics subsequently beat the Bucks in the East finals, and won the ’84 NBA championship, taking the Lakers in seven.

Tough times found the Knickerbockers in ’84-85. Cartwright missed the entire season and King only played 55 games. Not even Darrell Walker, in his second season and averaging a career-high 13.5 ppg, could help. A mere 24 wins and a frozen envelope later, Patrick Ewing magically landed in the Big Apple.

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Happy Inauguration Day Ya’ll! Up in the morning and about to take the metro bus (at least as far as I can get) down to the National Mall to partake in the day’s events. I’ll be Twittering observations and the occasional photo with my B-Berry Storm if you want to check it. Yes, this is a Washington Wizards-ish blog, but DC is my city and I put on for it.

If you’re looking for something involving the Wizards, check the pictures below from last Friday’s win against the New York Knicks, a match which was attended by yours truly and Jake The Snake of Bullets Forever and Gilbertology fame.

Enjoy.