As I sat in my living room last night and jumped up after Amar'e Stoudemire seemingly drained a three to win the game (which I realized was late even before the replay), the utter excitement of the game vanished. My frustration with the team I've loved and rooted for through the good—well I guess there wasn't much good—and the mostly bad, reappeared.
Here's the problem with last night's loss: Basketball is not a five-on-five game. It's a 12-on-12 game. And the Knicks play every night with six or seven guys, the shortest rotation in the league. Four starters played over 42 minutes last night—they keep this pace up, and they're going to be falling apart during the second half of the year. You even saw it last night; they couldn't close out. Their legs got tired, they got killed on the boards, and they settled for jumpers.
In the first three quarters, the Knicks had 24 free throws. In the fourth quarter, they had one. That shows a team is lazy or a team is tired, and knowing how hard D'antoni has these guys playing (a testament to him), it's definitely not the first one.
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Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NBA
Article written by Michael Perchick
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