It’s been well documented that the New York Knicks are an awful team this season.
As it turns out, the Brooklyn Nets may be a notch worse than them after seeing the two teams duke it out on Thursday night. You know it’s bad when Andrea Bargnani is trash-talking to Kevin Garnett. Yes, that happened.
The Knicks embarrassed the Nets on their own floor by 30 points and showed that they are at least capable of playing some semblance of team basketball. The Nets? They may actually be more drunk on isolations than the Knicks, which is saying a lot.
To be fair, do the Nets have much of a choice in the matter? Tyshawn Taylor, who recently replaced Shaun Livingston as the starting point guard because Livingston was playing terribly, was replaced by Livingston in the second half of Thursday’s game because he’s that bad. Neither appear to be capable of creating anything for anyone, and there is no quick fix at the point guard position for this team until Deron Williams returns. Jason Kidd may as well suit up himself since he can at least knock down a 3-pointer or two for his currently-sorry team.
See below for plenty of news in New York and more:
DERRICK ROSE STAYING POSITIVE:
For the first time since suffering a torn meniscus in his knee, Derrick Rose spoke to the media and answered questions about the injury and where is current mindset is. K.C. Johnson of Chicago Tribune has details:
That’s why Rose, wearing a red sweatshirt and steely gaze, was asked what he would say to anyone implying he can’t be trusted, is injury prone and that the Bulls’ moment with him as the franchise centerpiece has come and gone.
“What can I say to that?” Rose asked rhetorically, pausing for 13 seconds before continuing. “You can be a fool if you want to.”
Laughter followed — until Rose interrupted it.
“Dead serious,” he said. “I know I’m going to be all right.”
[…]
“The hard part that I had to go through in life, period, is living in poverty and not being able to get what I want,” Rose said. “I have everything that I want. I just can’t play the game that I love playing. I have my son. He’s going to be huge in this process.
“I don’t know if God wants me to slow down a little bit. … He has some plan for me. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t lose faith in him, just knowing that my story isn’t done yet. I’m going to try my hardest to get back on the court, and I know I should be out there pretty soon.”
[…]
In fact, reviving the will-he-or-won’t-he public relations nightmare from last season, Rose cracked open the possibility of returning if the Bulls made a lengthy playoff run.
“I mean if I’m healthy and the situation is right, I’m going to be back playing,” Rose said. “But if it’s something totally different and the outcome is not how I would want it to be, there is no need.”
[…]
“How I play is how I play and that’s hard,” Rose said. “I can tear it 10 more times. As long as I’m playing hard and giving the game my all, I can live with that the rest of my life.”
“I believe that I’m a special player,” Rose said. “I think people love the way I just try to play. I don’t try to impress anyone when I’m playing or anything. I just have a feel for the game.
“Of course right now, when you’re living in the moment, you just don’t understand certain things. But I think if I was to look 10 years from now, this is going to be minor. It’s something that just happened. I’m never going to stop. Never.”
CARMELO ANTHONY’S DENIAL:
On Wednesday, Stephen A. Smith said that Anthony would leave the Knicks once the season is over. On Thursday, Anthony denied even thinking of such an idea, from Marc Berman and George Willis of New York Post:
“I’m not even thinking about it at this point,’’ Anthony said. “I don’t know who [Smith’s] sources are. I’m not thinking about it at all. It’s not coming from me and it’s not coming from the people I talk to on a daily basis. I don’t talk to anybody about that on my crew, on my team, family. It’s not true.’’
“They pulled all the strings to get me here, and I wanted to be here,” Anthony said in the TV interview.
“And I want to retire in New York, let’s be quite frank. I think a lot of people jumped the gun when I said I wanted to be a free agent. And yeah, I want people to come to play in New York. I want them to want to play in New York. I want New York to be that place where guys want to come play in New York.”
If only the Knicks can play the Nets more often…
IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT:
Plenty are blaming Jason Kidd for a disastrous start to the season so far for the Brooklyn Nets. Stan Van Gundy isn’t one of them, and his reason has nothing to do with injured players, from Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk:
“I don’t think this is on Jason Kidd. Some people have really taken a lot of what I said about him as being critical of him but it’s not. I think if you look at Mark Jackson or Doc Rivers when he started, guys who have not been assistant coaches before they got their NBA head jobs, what they had was situations where at least in their first year the expectations weren’t that high. So you had the freedom to make some mistakes, sorta out of the scrutiny, at least the national scrutiny, of everybody.
“Jason Kidd entered a job with very high expectations, for a guy who never coached I think that’s really, really difficult. He may grow into a very, very fine coach — but no one is a great coach when they first start. I’m sure Doc Rivers would tell you in all honesty that he is a far better coach now than he was when he first started. Not to say he wasn’t good when he started but you get a lot better over time. Jason Kidd was expected to be great.”
OR IS IT?
After the loss to the Knicks, Joe Johnson declared that the Nets have no identity on the offensive end and questioned all the standing around the team does while Brook Lopez does something silly works in the post, from Devin Kharpertian of The Brooklyn Game:
“Offensively, we don’t really have an identity,” Johnson said. “We throw it down to Brook pretty much, and when there’s nothing there, we put him in a lot of tough positions. We just basically sit and watch. So we make his job a lot harder than it should be. Without us doing a lot of movement and cutting, we make everybody’s job hard.”
“At the end of the day, it’s basketball,” Johnson continued. “It’s not that hard. I think we’re making it a lot more complicated than what it really is. It’s on us as players to come out and play and work hard on what we’re doing because regardless if we’re getting beat by teams that are better than us, I’m sure they’re not 25, 30 points better than us in our own building. So that’s on us as players.”
“The East(ern Conference) is pretty bad,” he added. “So our chances are still high.”
Johnson says it’s on the players, but it’s also on Kidd to at least make an attempt at drawing up some plays that aren’t exclusively isolating Johnson and Lopez. If they’re not listening to him, it’s on him to call a timeout and yell at them to play the right way. That’s what good coaches do.
NOTABLE QUOTES:
– Prior to getting destroyed by the New York Knicks 113-83 on Thursday, Kidd had this to say about his team, from Mike Mazzeo of ESPN NY:
“We all feel confident we have enough to win,” Kidd said Thursday night. “This team was built with depth [to withstand injury]. We’ve asked guys to do a little bit more. They’ve accepted their challenge in that locker room, that confidence that we can win and we can turn this thing around.”
– George Karl was never more frank about Anthony than this:
Coach George Karl on Carmelo Anthony: “He’s an individual that produces individual success but doesn’t produce Championships”. @ESPNNBA
— Jay Williams (@RealJayWilliams) December 5, 2013
VIDEO OF THE DAY:
Bill Simmons and Jalen Rose got together again to discuss what has happened through the first 20 games of the season. These are always worth a watch:
OTHER NEWS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE: