FanPost

Why do we need a Center anyways?

Ever since the new rules in the NBA, you don't really need Shaq like big men anymore. 3 second violations, easy foul calls, can't dislodge players or barrel through means that it's more important to recover lanes rather than being physically bigger. On offense, you can't do the Shaq post up, and everyone traps now anyways so big men are going to turn it over.

Center forwards are suppose to protect the high post and offensively hang around the enemy's high post. They catch the most passes from the point guard as they are probably the closest to the PG.

The 3 - second rule is perfect for small quick PGS like Lin. The way to exploit is to pass to a Forward in mid post, and have the forward pass to the perimeter when the doublet team comes, forcing a 3 second recovery. So in that space, that becomes an isolation play.

If Chandler gets a hook shot, he can create something in those 3 seconds. If Amare gets faster, he can do that too.

So what the Knicks need are 2 forwards that can do that. This probably why Jeffries does well. He's quicker than Amare. And he's quicker on the PNR offensively, and quicker on the PNR recovery defensively. Tim Duncan is a great power forward but he's slow. Even though the spurs are doing great, the spurs give up a lot of points on isolation plays and their rotations are slower. Because of Duncan.

So if we are going to get better, we need Chandler and Amare to become true power forwards. As far as rotations go, we can't have Amare and Chandler start at the same time as it slows down our recovery on defense.

The fact is, Amare is too expensive to let go. He'll have to develop a hook shot but if he's on the floor, we got to swamp the boards with faster players ala Spurs style. Either start him or Chandler.

As far as the full court press on Lin--carmelo needs to hone in on that help pick and roll the full court defenders into tiredness. If the Heat are willing to wast 2 players on hard defense like that, we've got to be able to dedicate a 5th man to help Lin bring up the ball so he can expend more energy driving into the post. Because they guard the passing lanes so well, the best way for Lin to fight the Heat would be to DRIBBLE more. Which is exactly why they spent so hard destroying his dribbling confidence in the first half.

Nash would just outrun his defenders but Nash is smaller/quicker. Lin can take more punishment driving through and he's got great balance so he doesn't get injured like Wade usually does.

I think if our offense was working, we could take the Heat down. Key point, as always, is Lin.