Lebron Takes Over The 2nd Half At The Garden

I hate to sound like a broken record. And I don’t wanna be that pessimistic “the sky is falling” Knicks fan. But when you rely on the 3 ball its very, very difficult to close out games against big time competition. Today the Knicks shot under 30% from 3. 8-29. They also had an uncharacteristically high 17 turnovers. That is a recipe for disaster against an elite team like Miami. They played lights out in the first half. Opened up like a 15 point lead at one point. But over the course of a full 48 minutes against a guy like Lebron, a team like the Heat is gonna chip away at that. When you spend the 2nd half chucking threes and playing fast and loose, that lead can be erased in the matter of a few possessions. I don’t wanna be one of those old farts who thinks you can’t win games without hard nosed defense and high percentages shots, but a game like this is perfect evidence to support that theory. First half looks great when Carmelo drops 17 in the first quarter and Jason Kidd hits 4 straight threes – but when that slows down you need some solid half court offense and defense to try to hold on to the lead you’ve built. Otherwise a guy like Lebron just keeps doing what he does and before you know it you’ve been outscored by 20 in the 2nd half.

Its the same thing as being a baseball team who hits 250 home runs in the regular season. When push comes to shove and you’re facing the best competition in the league, sometimes you never hit that 3 run home run to bail you out.