Bandwagon Knick on Duhon vs. Durant

First of all, if you don't read/follow Bandwagon Knick, you're missing out, dutch. It's solid, solid stuff from somebody who knows the Knicks inside and out. (Literally. Rumor has it BK once went skinny-dipping with Dan D'Antoni.) The most recent post is of particular interest to those of us who were baffled at the deliberate mismatch posed by Mike D'Antoni in the Knicks' blowout loss to the Thunder. A lot of us scratched our heads at D'Antoni's decision to match 6'10'' superstar Kevin Durant with the relatively pipsqueak Chris Duhon, bringing doubles whenever Durant made catches. BK, brave soul that he is, gave the loss a second watching, and charted the Knicks' defense to properly analyze its overall ineffectiveness. I'll give you a snippet, but you oughta go read the whole thing:

Even when the Knicks effectively doubled Durant or kept another defender near him in the halfcourt, he was able to find cutters or open teammates on the wing very easily. And when the Thunder did miss, they frequently cleaned up on the offensive boards. The Thunder plan, like most every Knick opponent, was to take it hard at the Knicks in transition -- the result was 6 fast break points in the first 9 Thunder possessions, and 23 fastbreak points for the game (to only 13 for the Knicks). OKC typically plays at a modest pace of 95 possessions a game, but they were running at a 100 possession pace throughout to keep the Knicks on their heels.

Click through for numbers, charts, and more intelligent analysis than you'll find in a full year of P&T articles. It's great.

Philly game thread is coming soon.