Either Melo or Lin has to go! The two can't co-exist

The Lakers have been losing to very bad teams. They lost to the Wizards tonight. Dallas soundly beat New York last night.

When I said Jeremy Lin played a bad game, going 8 for 24 with 6 turnovers for 20 points, you told me I was delusional. I wasn't hating on him, I was making a valid observation.

Now you think Melo was awful. He was 12-24 with 2 turnovers for 27 points. But surely he was awful in comparison!

Amare had a decent game on the offensive end. His defense is terrible.

I would be leery to single out only those two from the rest of the team.

 

Melo only shot 1 free throw.

Lin was average, but I don't blame him for Parker going crazy. He's been going off the whole season on every one.

 

I'm not placing blame on Lin. However, I do believe that the play of Melo and Amare don't account for the sole reason that New York is now losing.

Melo was inefficient, but that is who he always was.
Amare scored pretty efficiently and even rebounded well. His defense is terrible but thats who he always was.

 

Shumpert was guarding Parker for most the game - watch the game, boxscores don't tell the whole story

If I was Lin I'd be looking for a way out of the Knicks train wreck next year when he is a free agent

 

He's restricted; there's no way Dolan lets go of a cash cow now.

 

there is one sequence, melo kind of remind me TMac. Lin run fast break, both wing has been covered by spurs. Lin pull back and look for trailed melo. melo casually walk over middle court, then spurs big run pass him and get to defend position.

 

Why? What other system will give him this much freedom?

 

ray felton says hi

 

Yep. It will cost them their MLE and hold NY in cap purgatory, but there's virtually no chance he leaves Manhattan.

 

This is getting r****ded.. The two cant coexist? You want melo to defer to lin? Im sorry but melo is a multiple time allstar and 2 years ago he was the best scorer on the planet and hes a top 10 player, who the f*** is jeremy lin? A solid point guard with scoring skills and turnover prone! I know its a great story and all but melo and lin dont "coexist". Lin stays in his place and adjusts to melo, melo does not adjust to lin.. The better observation is that melo and stat canmot coexist

 

His last four opponents have outplayed/destroyed him. Williams dropped 38 on him making 7/8 three pointers, Rondo put up the the craziest line of the season on him 18 20 and 17 (good lord!), 50year old Jason Kidd outplayed him, and now Parker drops 32 and 6 on him. Let's not act like his defense isn't little suspect.

Anyone who isn't Spike Lee that is still on the Lin bandwagon is delusional. The kid had a nice run and he improved his game dramatically let's leave it at that and quit talking about him like he is a star player.

 

Being the best scoring on the Planet don't mean ****, lol... Hello, remember T-Mac i Orlando???
Before Melo in the Line-up: 8-1
Melo in the Line-up: 2-5, lol...

Melo is overrated plain an simple...

 

DWilliams I believe dropped 58 a few games later if I'm not mistaken and Rondo's triple double was like his 3rd of the season??
And how much did Rondo put up last night against the 76ers?? I guess he's exposed too right or was that team work that made Rondo play like garbage?? I guess we can just blame it on Lin as well, no harm in that...

 

team defense - Lin wasn't guarding Parker for most of the game

Basically it boils down to the fact that when both Melo, Amare, and Chandler are in there, Lin doesn't have the same room he had to drive. Melo and Amare don't move to give him passing angles, plus they are lazy and don't play team D. And there is no shooter on the floor to space things like he had when he went on his run in the starting lineup

It doesn't take a genius to see he's not playing the same way he did before in more ways than one since Melo returned, regardless of the opponent

 

Your logic is pretty bad here. You're suggesting that since Rondo had a bad game yesterday against the 76ers (the best defense in the NBA incidently) that that is proof that Lin is a decent defender? If it's proof of anything is that a decent defender (like Holiday/ Williams) can at least slow him down. You can downplay that triple dip but he didn't just outplay Lin, he walked all over him. He was getting whatever he wanted in that game. The Knicks even had the lead but were forced into ovetime because they couldn't guard Rondo.

Look, my aim isn't to hate on Lin, it's a great story and I hope he wins MIP. But the reality is that he is an average talent, he is not a top 10 pg in this league.

 

You may be right I didn't see the game last night, but I saw the Boston game Sunday and he had no hope of staying in front of Rondo. The Williams outburst was on him too because his primary defensive assignment had to be to keep Deron off the 3 point line (or it should have been after he went 3/3).

During the streak he was dominating the ball out of necessity and you may have a point about their spacing but it's ridiculous to think that the Knicks would be winning more games if they took out Carmelo and let Lin take over. You can blame it on chemistry but it seems pretty obvious that as he's faced better competition and some of the emotion/hype has faded so has he.

 

Without Melo & Amare, you had 4 other guys who were hustling, playing hard D, and constantly moving/slashing towards the basket.

With Melo & Amare everything goes much slower. Lin is running the ball up court with everyone else but Melo is casually trailing. What?

That said, Lin is not converting as well when he gets under the basket. And the Knicks are 'stuck' with what they have. So I do think Lin needs to just force feed it to Melo a lot more as the first option if they want to maximize Melo's contributions. If Melo plays smart half the time, he'll pass it back out when he realizes he can't make something happen, then let the rest of the team get to work. Very different from what they did before on transitions rather than half court sets, but it is the new reality of the Knicks.

Like I said before, this thing is a total mess any way you look at it. D'Antoni, Melo, Amare, & Lin all need to do some adjusting. Lin/Chandler pnr's were money. Amare & Lin need to work on getting it going too. Melo really reminds me of Tmac in a bad way the more I watch him.

 

That's not really correct. One big difference is KD can hit 3's. This allows KD to stay out of the paint and provide spacing for all the other players. Melo can't hit 3's accurately if his life depended on it, which means he has to stay in the paint in addition ISO-ing, preventing Lin from going in and making plays for everybody.

The fact is, players who just know how to ISO and can't hit 3's are a dying breed in the NBA. More and more people are starting to realize that guys like Starbury, Iverson and sadly Francis are just inferior b-ball players.

 

during the "lin streak" the knicks were a team with nothing to lose catching sub .500 teams off guard. played a lakers team who struggles on the road and struggles to guard point guards. it was a good story.

now they're playing better competition.

heat on the road
celtics on the road
mavs on the road
spurs on the road

people still need to remember that lin, melo, amare are learning to play with each other on the fly during a shortened season.

 

Melo and Billups -> Learning to play with each other
Melo and Iverson-> Learning to play with each other
Melo and Amare-> Learning to play with each other

Amare and Lin certainly didn't need to learn how to play with each other. When will people learn that Melo is the causing all these chemistry problems? He can't coexist with other people cuz all he knows is massage the ball and then work in the paint.