There are dark clouds over Madison Square Garden right now (figuratively, the Weather Channel makes it sound like a normal fall day there).
The Knicks are 1-3 to start the season, lost to the Bobcats at home in their last game, and now will be without Tyson Chandler — one of the two guys they simply could not afford to lose for a stretch — for 4-to-6 weeks with a broken fibula. That is going to mean forcing Kenyon Martin into more action than he may be physically ready for (he was on a minutes restriction), same with Amare Stoudemire, it means more Cole Aldrich, and maybe worst of all more Andrea Bargnani. While you can make the argument this could be good for the Knicks’ offense if it forces Mike Woodson to go back to Anthony at the four, the defense is going to be awful.
On top of it all they even cut back on the dancers.
It looks like a tough month ahead for the Knicks faithful.
To stem that tide, Carmelo Anthony said he called a closed-door meeting after the Knicks fell to the Bobcats this week. Ian Begley at ESPNNewYork.com has the quotes.“We shut the door after the game and talked it out a little bit and tried to figure out what was happening,” Anthony said Friday…
“We’ve got to want it, we’ve got to want to do it. We’ve got to believe in ourselves, and right now we’re playing like we don’t even believe in ourselves,” Anthony said. “It’s just effort….
“You cannot turn the ball over if you want to be a good team in this league,” Anthony said. “Hopefully the conversation we had after that game made everybody realize that although it is early there are some things we need to fix and we need to fix now.”
Turnovers aren’t good, but that’s not been the Knicks biggest problem (they turn the ball over on 17.6 percent of their possessions, 12th in the NBA so far). The biggest issue has been their offense (23rd in the league) where they are not sharing the ball that much which is leading to contested shots, they are not getting to the free throw line, plus they are not getting many offensive rebounds and second chances.
Whatever Anthony said the Knicks need this meeting to work — the offense has to get better because the defense is about to get a lot worse. The Knicks have been almost 15 points per 100 possessions worse when Tyson Chandler sits, and now he is going to be sitting for a while. The offense needs to win the Knicks some games so they are not trying to dig out of too big a hole after Christmas.