Tag: mike woodson

The New York Knicks are off to a 3-13 start, which is the second worst record in the entire NBA right now, ahead of the 3-15 Milwaukee Bucks. Guard J.R. Smith missed time early in the season, and center Tyson Chandler remains out with an injury and only played in four games. Still, even with injuries, the struggle has been serious. Here’s the New York Post with more:

Former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy, now the lead NBA analyst for ABC/ESPN, said he believes the Knicks’ troubles have nothing to do with embattled Mike Woodson but with the roster and the person who built it.

The Post reported in Tuesday’s editions owner James Dolan would consider Van Gundy as a future candidate if he had a vacancy. Van Gundy was until recently persona non-grata with Dolan because he quit on him early in the 2001-02 season.

“This isn’t a coaching issue,’’ Van Gundy said on an ESPN Radio show Wednesday. “This is a roster issue. The absolute most important position on any professional team is the people in charge of picking the players. They have to be talented enough and fit together and have an intangible. It’s a hard job but an important job. The last thing the Knicks have is a coaching issue.”

General manager Glen Grunwald built the roster and was fired four days before training camp.

Defense is half the game, people. That’s just your friendly reminder of something important that is somehow easy to forget. With that said, here’s a report from Marc Berman of the New York Post:

“We’re still not ready defensively,” Woodson said. “We got five, six days to get there and Friday we’ll play [just] our rotation guys. Overall, we’re competing, but we’re not doing what’s asked to be done on the floor before the game. We got off to a bad start. Even when we can’t make shots, we have to get it done on the other end. That has not been our team in the past. We got to get back to playing Knick defense.’’

The Knicks fell to 2-3 for the preseason, but this was the worst of the losses. Woodson railed in Manchester, N.H., 11 days ago when the Knicks were routed by the Celtics, calling the effort “embarrassing.” But that was mostly hot air: The coach didn’t play his starters in that game.