Frazier made the point tonight that Dwight Howard works relentlessly in practice to improve his free throw shooting. I have heard this countless times. I have heard announcers go on and on how Shaq hits all his free throws in practice. I get it. STOP TELLING ME ALREADY HOW THESE AWFUL FREE THROW SHOOTERS WORK SO HARD ON IT! I get it. Howard and Shaq shoot free throws like Chauncey Billups during practice but these two are just unlucky during the games. I am sure this is true.

Why can’t any announcer just admit that Howard and Shaq probably suck at shooting free throws in practice too? And, just because the announcer once saw one of these awful free throw shooters hit a couple in a row in practice does not mean they are really amazing free throw shooters when no one is watching.

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Yes, that is right, the team has decided to PRACTICE. “A good practice could go a long way to helping the Knicks fine-tune some of their issues at both ends of the court.” I am not sure if  what they need is called “fine-tuning” but I am shocked it has taken D’Antoni this long to try this.

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There is growing talk that the option for Billups will not be picked up.  Which is kind of interesting since only a few weeks ago Billups was being discussed as a long-term solution at PG.

Either way it seems fairly clear to me that Billups is not the long-term answer at PG and the team needs to really start moving forward next year.  In the short-term, Billups is clearly taking a while to adapt to D’Antoni and vice versa.  But, even if D’Anton and Billups end up on the same page, Billups is past his prime and his skills will only diminish over the next few years. A better solution would be to pair Toney Douglas up with maybe a less expensive veteran PG or with another developing PG who has the speed to keep up with the fast PGs the Knicks encounter night after night.

Of course, once the Knicks decide to buyout Billups this trade will look even more lopsided as they will have given up a young and developing  PG, Raymond Felton and received very little in return. The Knicks, however, need to be realistic and know when it is time to move forward.

The Knicks need to concentrate on building around Amare and Carmelo this off-season and if they keep Billups they will have little cap space to work with as Billups would get $14MM if his option is picked up. They would get $11MM off the cap if they let Billups go ($14MM – $3MM buyout for Billups) and they could use that money to add some much needed size and depth.

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The Knicks cannot even beat the Bobcats. Are they are going to win another game this season? Do they have a legitimate shot at an epic collapse? I think the only reason the Knicks are going to make the playoffs at this point is because with 9 games to go even if they lose every game they may still end up with the 8th seed. So here is a basic recap that you could use for any game lately:

• This game was close but then the Knicks lost control of the game in the _______ (insert quarter).
• _________  (insert name of superstar) had a really poor shooting night tonight and was noticeably upset at himself for how he played.
• The Knicks had a ton of trouble containing ___________ (insert name of mediocre player from the other team) who had one of his best performances of the season.
• Coach D’Antoni inexplicably gave _______ (insert name of crappy bench player) a bunch of minutes tonight while unexpectedly sitting ________ (insert name of crappy bench player) for much of the game.
• The Knicks overall looked confused on __________ (insert word: defense or offense) for long stretches tonight.
• Hopefully, the Knicks will be able to get their pizazz back in their next game against _________ (insert name of next opponent who will clobber them).

This is just getting awful. The only explanations that make sense any more is that the team is doing this on purpose to get rid of D’Antoni or that Ashton Kutcher, with the Knicks help is going all out for the new season of Punk’d.

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Man this team is tough to watch. It is like the same old awful show night after night. I don’t even know what to say. And, the 4th quarter was a disaster. So I am going to focus only on the positives. Here are 10 positive things about tonight’s Knicks game:

1. Not a single player died from radiation poisoning during tonight’s Knicks game.
2. If the Knicks keep playing this way they will have more time to spend with their families this April.
3. Bucks fans visiting MSG for their first time had a fun night.
4. Jay gets to update his Knicks Effect column (Brandon Jennings: season high 37 points).
5. Jared Jeffies only was allowed to play for 2 minutes tonight (I would knock the 18 minutes Anthony Carter played but he was +10 on the night).
6. Amare scored more than 13 points…YAY!
7. The Knicks defense held the Bucks to only 102 points which would have produced a win in most of the pre-Carmelo games so NICE LOCKDOWN D.
8. Knicks fans who missed tonight’s game didn’t really MISS tonight’s game (to rip-off Office Space).
9. With 13 total assists tonight, the Knicks refused to fall for the conventional wisdom that a good offense involves passing.
10. Anthony Randolph had 24 points and 15 rebounds tonight…way to finally show off that potential!

I GUESS THIS WASN’T AS POSITIVE OF A LIST AS I HAD HOPED…DOHHHHHHHHHHH

It is halftime in the Minnesota-Dallas game, Anthony Randolph has played 19 minutes and has 23 points and 6 rebounds. Thank you Mike D’Antoni. You are truly a coaching genius.

If the Knicks don’t pick up Billups and his 14MM contract then DeAndre Jordan would be a great guy to go after. He could clog the middle and really help us on the boards.  Who else would you guys like to see the Knicks go after?

The NY Post reports that the Knicks are confident their problems can be fixed. It would have made for a more interesting story if the Knicks said “yeah, there is no way we can fix this, we were thinking of just burning down MSG for the insurance money.”

While the Knicks are playing poorly right now it is pretty obvious that everyone is overreacting. But, we should all get used to article after article about this. At least, Lebron feels our pain. I am guessing this will be a rather long off-season with constant discussions about whether the Knicks are going to be able to fix their problems.