RECAP: Warriors 121, Knicks 107 - WESTSIDE til I Die!

We won, and on the road, no less… no trivial thing for this team the last several years. People played hard, and while the passing wasn’t the smoothest, there wasn’t a real selfish feel to the offense, other than from Jack. ’Buike had a great game, Maggette was pretty spectacular, and I was happy to see CJ get a moment in the spotlight.

On the other hand, the Knicks really, really stink. So did Nellie actually coach this game well? Let’s look at several components of his performance last night.

Offense. We had a stellar offensive night because the Knicks didn’t have anyone who could stop us from slashing to the hoop. That is the only reason why, because we used no offensive strategy whatsoever. These were our top five offensive sets of the evening: 1) Jack in isolation; 2) Monta in isolation; 3) Maggette in isolation; 4) ‘Buike in isolation; 5) CJ in isolation. People drove and kicked a little, but in dreadfully obvious ways that a competent NBA defense would’ve exploited; look for a couple “drive and throw it away” plays against Milwaukee tonight. One of the best three-point shooters in basketball got only six shots in 29 minutes… that’s partly on Morrow, no question, but he certainly wasn’t being found well, either. Stephen Jackson is still doing whatever he wants. Corey Maggette is still taking threes.

Defense. The Knicks shot pretty well… in fact, they recorded their highest field-goal percentage in any game so far this year. We played the passing lanes like crazy and picked off enough passes to win, and against a team this feeble, that’s a defensible strategy. But gambling on steals was the only defensive strategy we had last night. It won’t work against many other teams.

Smallball. It worked out fine… we won a game with Corey Maggette at center. You can only get so mad when a quirky lineup doesn’t cost you a win. But you’d have a hard time arguing that UltimateSmallBall is the reason why we won. Maggette has been getting as many scoring opportunities at the four as he did last night at the five (and while I guess it’s quaint to say this when we’re so far down the Nellie rabbit-hole, Maggette has had a little bit of success scoring at his natural position of small forward over the years). Jack didn’t do anything against fours he hasn’t been doing for years against threes. If Randolph had gotten time and Maggette had slid over to the four, we would’ve beaten this team by more than we did. We won despite smallball, not because of it.

Awareness Of Context. Coached like a playoff game, with 47 minutes for Jack, 45 for Monta and 40 for ’Buike. If there was a playoff atmosphere in the Garden last night, it escaped me.

Consistency. Law and CJ played 13 and 11 minutes respectively against Indiana; neither played all that well, but Law was a bit better. Last night? CJ’s minutes jumped from 11 to 27… Law’s minutes went from thirteen to zero. And on a night when we played with possibly the smallest lineup any NBA team will use all season, Steph Curry got three minutes. That’s not even mentioning…

Handling Of Anthony Randolph. Many Nellie defenders point to this as his big strength for the last year-plus, and I generally agree that he’s handled Randolph’s foibles well. But I can’t support how things went down last night. Randolph was coming off of two very good and fairly disciplined performances… he’s heading in the right direction. Even if you don’t think he’s yet earned the starting job (I think he has), he certainly has earned the right to play through a mistake or two, on a team that makes tons of them. There is merit in teaching a wild young player that he can’t play unless he plays smart. But at a certain point, when only one guy is being punished, and he’s being punished very strictly in an otherwise rules-free environment, it becomes arbitrary and alienating. Randolph is officially getting the Brandan Wright Treatment at this point. Nellie’s not teaching him, he’s picking on him.

Team Morale. Need we even go into this one?

Strategy During Timeouts. If actual basketball strategy was being discussed, Keith Smart was the one doing it. Nellie’s strategy was to just wander around and ignore the players.

 
To say that Nellie coached badly last night… well, I think he did coach pretty badly, but that’s not what struck me. Nellie essentially had a temper tantrum. He doubled down on the smallness that’s been killing us, he made a point of overplaying the two guys he’s having public issues with, he made lineup switches that were even more arbitrary than usual, and he humiliated two of our promising young players in the league’s premier city. He’s daring everyone to turn on him at this point. This wasn’t a phoned-in coaching job… this was like a bizarre cry for help.

I can’t even envision Nellie being on the bench this time next week. I bear the guy no ill will… he’s given us tons of great memories over the years, and I expect to remember him fondly, no matter how he goes out this time. But he is a runaway train, hurtling downhill. That was maybe the strangest coaching performance I’ve ever seen.