6 Thoughts
1) Okay, look, there are worse teams than the Knicks. There's Sacramento, there's Minnesota, there's...okay, there's Sacramento and Minnesota. So you need to pummel teams like this, especially at home. Miami did, with minimal effort - got up 30 five minutes into the third quarter, cruised in for an easy, easy win. You only get 3 or 4 of these a season. 1-0. 81 to go.
2) Big news of the day. All offseason, signs pointed to second year forward Mike "Supercool" Beasley being wedged in to the lineup out of position at small forward. However, turns out, no, Mike started at his natural power forward position, newly acquired Quentin Richardson (less 20 pounds from last year) started at the small forward, and long-time Miami warrior Udonis Haslem went to the bench. This lineup allows Mike to play his natural position, Quentin Richardson to start the game on the opponents best perimeter scorer so Dwyane Wade doesn't have to, while still allowing Udonis to play plenty of minutes as the first big off the bench. Worked great tonight: Supercool dropped a relaxed 21 on 9-14 shooting, and looked aggressive off the dribble; Udonis played 30 minutes off the bench and had 9 rebounds, and Q...well, he only played 17 minutes, knocked in a triple, was a minor irritant defensively. It's the correct lineup to try first. If it doesn't work, fine, but you had to try this first. Good job by Coach Spoelstra.
3) Jermaino! Granted, the Knicks offered no resistance whatsoever - they offered all the ferocity at the rim of the "don't tase me, dude" guy. Still, Jermaine was efficient with 22 points on 10-12 shooting, and 12 rebounds. Last season, 12 rebounds was a week and a half for him. Knees seem to be feeling better - no braces. Let's knock on wood.
4) DWade essentially had the night off, never even breaking a sweat easing his way to 26 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists. That's three 20 point games: Wade, Beasley and O'Neal.
5) Far as we can tell, the Knicks game plan seemed to be predicated on moving as little as possible. Defensively, any time a Heat player cut to another spot on the floor, the Knicks switched men, playing a de facto zone. Primarily this served to: 1) create all sorts of weird mismatches that Miami was able to exploit (Udonis Haslem left alone to post up Knick point guard Chris Duhon for an easy layup), and 2) open all sorts of lanes to the rim, since no Knicks ever moved three feet on a defensive possession. All this conserved energy really paid off on the offensive end where the Knicks usually played one below average point guard (either Duhon or Nate Robinson) and four semi-interested power forwards, eschewing the other three positions on the court, and tossed the ball around the perimeter waiting for someone to fling up a three. One of the semi-interested power forwards, second year Italian Danilo Gallinari took 14 shots - 13 triples - and made 7. Three things about this: 1) 7 of 13 threes is really good shooting; 2) I have never seen a guy shoot more threes in proportion to doing nothing else on the court. He didn't pass the ball, he didn't steal the ball, he didn't really rebound, he didn't try to set a screen, he didn't try to guard anyone. Really, he didn't even run. Impressive. 3) The rest of the Knicks made 3 out of 26 threes. So, you know, that's not too good.
6) Just a quick update on Jon Plus Eight, much heralded in this space, although it turned out a couple of our readers - shockingly - not that familiar with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Learned yesterday his last name is actually "Gosselin," not "Plus Eight." This might be racist, but I thought, since he was Asian, "Plus Eight" made sense. Like on tv how Chinese people might call someone "Eldest Brother," or "Esteemed Mother." You know, "Plus Eight." Even if his name is actually Gosselin, he's still super cool.
Next game: Friday at Indiana Pacers, normally a house of horrors for Miami. Let's hope the Knicks show up instead...
