Are the Knicks just not getting a lot of sleep? It is as if this team fell asleep once again in the 4th quarter. Throughout the first 3 quarters the Knicks seemed to have their act together. They were not making as many mistakes on defense, they actually moved the ball on offense (well some of the time) and Ronny Turiaf actually shot the ball FIVE times. Then the 4th quarter started and the Knicks started rushing shots on offense and just playing sloppy defense. Some points from tonight:

• While Turiaf is clearly no match for Dwight Howard, he is still their best guy covering him, so why did he only play 19 minutes?
• Was Amare imitating Carmelo’s Detroit game? Though in the 4th Carmelo and Amare had a couple of pick and roll plays where they looked completely in sync and Knicks fans could only dream of the possibilities.
• I am thinking of putting a picture of the pre-Carmelo trade Landry Fields on a milk carton.
• The Magic had 14 more rebounds than the Knicks tonight. Knicks google phrase “boxing out”.
• Billups slow tempo style on offense is not to be watched while operating heavy machinery.
• Why does Jared Jeffries even put his hands up on offense?
• Does Stan Van Gundy tell Hedo Turkoglu and Brandon Bass that they played awesome tonight or does he rip them for ONLY having very good games against the Knicks?
• At least the Knicks are clearly the best sub-.500 team in the NBA this side of Cleveland.

Check out the box score from last night’s Wizards game. What happened to the roster. You have to feel a little bad for John Wall.

Howard Beck from the NY Times has written an interesting piece about the Knicks lack of a real roster.  It is fairly obvious to anyone that takes a glance at this roster that the Knicks do not have a full roster. Not even close. While I am happy to have Carmelo on this team, there is no way you can trade half of your roster for him and expect to immediately start winning.  Essentially, the Knicks traded 4 players (Moz, Felton, Chandler & Gallo) for 2 players (Melo & Billups, and this is an aging Billups). The Knicks already had the depth of Sarah Palin prior to the trade and now they are at least 2 players weaker. Most of the other players acquired in the trade should not even be on the roster next year and the only one that should be on the roster next year (Corey Brewer) was released in a rather baffling move.

This team has some good building blocks with two stars in Melo and Amare. Landry has been a fantastic find and he is just a rookie who will continue to develop. Toney Douglas is also only in his second year and it looks like he will continue to get better. Billups can provide some veteran leadership and should continue to help Douglas (though I would argue that they may be better served by cutting him and using his $14MM to help build up the bench). After that, there is not much on this roster. One of D’Antoni’s goals for the rest of the season should be to figure out what else he has on this roster but I think he is starting to worry too much about his job (and he has good reason to worry). Hopefully, Walsh or whoever runs this team next season can get us at least two thirds of a roster instead of half a roster or this team is not going to do much next season either.

The only positive about this game was that the Knicks would have won if the game was only 3 quarters long.  I am not even sure if the Knicks outplayed the Celtics for the first 3 quarters or if the Celtics had a bet going about how long they could toy with the Knicks before putting them away. Here are my tips for the Knicks going forward:

• On defense everyone gets a guy and you HAVE to stay with that guy unless there is a switch and then BOTH players must switch, NOT just one of the two players. And, when there is a switch at least one of those players should announce his plans to switch out loud.
• If your name is Amare (and sometimes Carmelo) and you are being covered by multiple players that means that MULTIPLE PLAYERS ON YOUR TEAM are open and you should probably try to find one of those open guys.
• When the other team shoots, no matter how pretty the shot is you can’t just stare at the ball, you HAVE to find a player on the other team and stand near him (even better if you can try and box him out).
• If Ronny Turiaf or Jarred Jeffries have the ball on offense within 15 feet of the basket and no one is covering them then they are required to shoot the ball even if they think shooting will result in an allergic reaction.
• The fans are no longer allowed to chant M-V-P at STAT until he plays defense for an entire game.
• When you are on offense and you pass the ball to a teammate PLEASE don’t then walk over to that teammate and bring your defender with you (I wish I was only talking to Amare).
• Every game a lucky fan should get to sit in Andy Rautins’ seat on the bench, wear his uniform and basically pretend to be Rautins. D’Antoni should not be told about this promotion and we will all wait to see how long it takes him to notice.
• Derek Brown should introduce himself to D’Antoni every game at half time.

So, Derrick Brown is annoyed because he has not had very much playing time. Not a shocker that he is upset. I guess when he signed with the Knicks he did not think to ask whether he would actually play. I am just really frustrated with D’Antoni.