GREENBURGH, New York, January 16, 2007 -- This pesky playoff-race thing just does not want to get any easier, does it?
Next up are the much-improved Washington Wizards (21-16), with the beyond-sizzling Gilbert Arenas coming off of another 51-point extravaganza against Utah, already his third 50-plus punishment of the season. How do you stop, or at least slow down, a guy this good (30.2 ppg, second in the NBA) -- and this hot? “In the old days I could have guarded him, you could grab him, hold him, and if he makes two or three you hit him in the mouth,” Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas joked after practice at the team’s Madison Square Garden Training Center. But nowadays, under the new rules? “I don’t know,” Thomas shook his head. “A lot of things have been tried against him -- and none of them have appeared to work. He’s such a unique player right now -- he’s literally shooting it from the hash mark -- and he doesn’t use screens, the ball is always in his hand. I don’t think a player in the NBA ever had that kind of freedom, at least from what I’ve seen.”
“Steph (Marbury) will start on him, that’s safe to assume,” added Thomas. “And it’s also safe to assume that we’ll try a lot of different things – and hope some of them will work.”
“All you can do is try the unexpected, make him get out of his rhythm,” Jared Jeffries, who’s guarded Arenas a lot in practice while playing for Washington and might get serious face-time on him tomorrow, said. “Keep him guessing. San Antonio did a good job on him forcing him baseline. We’ll see.”
Jeffries is not happy with his impact on the Knicks so far -- “I could do better,” he stressed -- but Thomas disagrees. “He gives us athleticism, length, and flexibility,” said the coach. “We can now trap, rotate, and move people in and out in a way that we couldn’t do before. Strategically, that helps a lot. Yesterday’s was the kind of game we would not have won without that versatility. Right now, we have the athletes to keep up with the foot-speed of the other team on the defensive side.”
Jeffries still feels held back by his early–season injury, and the additional time missed due to his suspension. “I’d like to see myself not making mistakes and being more active,” he said. “Not really thinking when I’m out there, just playing with a natural feel. Whenever I play like that, I’m a whole lot better. Hopefully, the next couple of games I’ll get there.”
A day later, Thomas felt good about his decision of re-inserting Quentin Richardson into the starting lineup and have game-winning Jamal Crawford come off the bench. “You’ve got to be able to work your way through a game,” he explained. "With us playing the way we’re playing now, I want to get back to where our second unit really has an impact on the game. I thought that, in fact, they played well enough to win the game yesterday. We had a lot of guys that didn’t start for us out on the court in the end.”
Crawford, of course, was the main man behind the plan. “I’ve always been like this, both streaky and clutch,” he smiled. “In college, in high school, in the sixth grade. I honestly don’t know why. I forget the bad stuff pretty easily, I guess, and have the ability to just go on.”
“I like the balance that we have right now,” said Thomas. “We have six-to-seven guys we can go to at the end of the game, guys who have made shots. I like the way we’re developing, the way we’re going.”
“We’ve definitely gotten better as a basketball team,” added Thomas. “But I think everyone in the East is playing better. The first month or so, a lot of us were new teams trying to find ourselves while facing more established teams. Now New Jersey, Toronto, and us are playing better and Miami is getting healthy once again.”
“So I think from here on out every week that you’re still hanging around, still in the race…well, it’s a blessing, it’s just great. They are ALL crucial games from here on because I don’t see anybody breaking away from the pack.”
