Late Comer

Last Thursday marked the end of the lockout shortened NBA season. Only 66 out of the normal 82 games were played but in no way did it take away from what was a great season. I’ve never understood why 82 games was the number chosen, it seems so arbitrary. The NHL plays the same amount of games as well so there must be some significance to it. A simple Google search would most likely put an end to this nonsense spewing from my fingers but if, at the end of this, you take the time to look up the answer then it means at least some of my piece was thought provoking although forcibly so.

Moving on, the point I was getting to actually dealt with how much I enjoyed the season, and how the lack of games was hardly noticeable once the season was underway. Now it’s playoff time and the excitement from the regular season should multiply tenfold. All of the hard work put forth this season was to get to this point and now the 16 best teams in the league will duke it out in order to crown a king. Some of the teams still in the mix are a surprise to most NBA fans. The Indiana Pacers came out of nowhere to claim the 3^rd seed in the East after an impressive season where they won their most games since the 2003-2004 season. Even with the short season, they had by far their best run in almost a decade. Other teams, like the New York Knicks, with legitimate championship aspirations had to play perfect down the stretch just in order to make the playoffs.

Stoudemire (left) and Carmelo weren't exactly on the same page

March, 12th, 2012 was a big day for the New York Knicks franchise. After six straight loses their record was an abysmal 18-24 on the season. Nothing was going right for the team that had seemed poised to make a serious name for itself in the Eastern conference. Any roster that has big name players like Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony on it should not be six games under .500. Add to this the addition of defensive stalwart Tyson Chandler down low and the Knicks had their own version of the “Big Three”. Things were in place for this team to finally return to the glory days of the 1990’s, at least this is how it looked on paper. You could turn on a game , any game, because it didn’t matter who they were playing, and in less than five minutes you would find yourself nauseous from the amount of turnovers, horrible shots, and overall lack of defense that the Knicks provided. I think the best word for how they were playing would be atrocious. Yeah, that seems like the best word for the Knicks, well at least up until March, 12^th.

Why is this date so important? Why do I have this, the second Monday in March, marked on the calendar as to the single day that turned around the season for the New York Knickerbockers? The reason my friends is because this is the day that the coach of the Knicks Mike Dantoni resigned and, more importantly, when his assistant Mike Woodson took over. I said earlier that the Knicks were 18-24 on this day, and it seemed like they were destined to miss the playoffs for the 7^th time in eight years. With Woodson at the helm however the Knicks immediately seemed like a different basketball team. Over his first 11 games as coach the Knicks went 9-2 and found themselves right back in the playoff picture. Woodson’s presence was a breath of fresh air that rejuvenated Knicks players. Dantoni never saw the success that was expected from him when he took the job in 2007. His on and off relationship with superstar Anthony seemed to be at the center of his struggles. With ‘Melo, so goes the team and I don’t think Dantoni handled this situation properly. Woodson and Anthony appear to mesh perfectly. Under Woodson, Anthony has lead the league in scoring at just over 30 points per game, leading the Knicks to an 18-6 record down the stretch and the 7^th seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. For all of their success and hard work the Knicks get an unfavorable match up with the team most likely to win it all this year in the Miami Heat. The Knicks were 0-3 to the Heat this season losing all three games by double figures.

Woodson is pressing all the right buttons

As hard a matchup as the Heat will be, the Knicks have shown signs that they are a very different team than earlier in the season when the Heat’s trio of Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh mowed down the Knicks on their way to three easy wins. Under Woodson the Knicks play defense, allowing around 10 points per game less to opponents since the coaching change. Woodson has always been known for his defense first attitude and it has paid off dividends for the Knicks so far. We all knew players like Melo and Stoudemire could score points, but now they are showing they can shut opposing teams down too.

Mike Woodson has only coached the Knicks for 24 games, but in that small sample he has completely turned things around. In my opinion his efforts cannot be overlooked by the awards committee when selecting the NBA coach of the year. If I had a vote I wouldn’t necessarily cast my vote for Woodson, because it is hard to argue his case over some of the other deserving coaches that navigated their teams for an entire season but it would be nice to see his name on the ballot. How many other coaches could have done what he did with the Knicks? He took over a team that looked would have had a hard time beating my cousins middle school basketball team and transformed them into a team shaping that looks like a contender. I applaud Mike Woodson for the Houdini act he pulled in the big apple and it will be interesting to see how things play out from here.