After the Knicks gave up 142 points to the Warriors, I officially gave up on Mike D’Antoni’s players-like-me-so-much-because-this-is-an-extension-of-AAU style.
It was Marbury-esque to use the third-person in the title of this post, but now I’m going to take it a step further and quote myself:
Mike D’Antoni arrived in NY and sold his SSOL philosophy to the fans and media.
He promised a high-scoring offensive orgy of Roman proportions.
But after giving up an average of 107 ppg through the first 51 games, it has felt more like a one-sided fuck fest with our anus tagged as orifice No. 1.
Simply put: Playboy’s style won’t work here in NY.
From the beginning of the Pat Riley era in 1991-92 to the end of the Van Gundy era in 2000-01, the Knicks gave up an average of 91.7 ppg. Regarded as a team that embodied the city, NY finished as a Top 3 defensive squad seven of the 10 years and were inside the Top 6 the other three seasons.
In those 10 seasons, the Knicks made it to the NBA Finals twice, Eastern Conference Finals twice and the Eastern Conference Semis five times. We lost in the first round of the playoffs — a seemingly fictitious place that we got a peep show of once in the past seven years — just once.
Approximately five months later and we can deduce that Stephon has become an ardent reader of The Suave.
I mean, how else can you explain this?
“I wouldn’t want to play in that system,” Marbury told The Post. “That system can’t win championships. You can’t win championships if you don’t talk about defense. In Boston, the coaches even play defense.”
Warped minds think alike, I suppose.
