The New York Knicks have looked like one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference for much of the season, but they have struggled as of late. New York’s loss to the Toronto Raptors on Friday night was its fourth straight, which is the team’s longest streak of the season. The All-Star break doesn’t appear to have helped Mike Woodson’s club sort out their issues, but Amar’e Stoudemire believes he knows what the problem may be.
“We got plenty of swagger, we may have too much swag,’’ Stoudemire said after the loss, via the NY Post. “We got to get more greedy, from the standpoint of wanting to defend, wanting to win and having a sense of urgency. We have to want to win. We got to have the mentality to want to win. It don’t matter if it looks good or not. We just got to get it done. It’s not a great feeling right now.’’
The phrase “we need to get our swagger back” is probably one of the most overused in sports. The Knicks have oftentimes looked overconfident during their losing streak, which is likely what Stoudemire is referring to. The team’s shot selection has been poor, with Carmelo Anthony hitting less than 40% of his shots over the last four games. Worse yet, he is 3-for-20 from beyond the arc in the last three games.
All teams go through bad stretches. The best ones are able to respond. Eventually, the shots will start falling again for the Knicks. In the meantime, they need to bear down defensively and continue to show the type of improvement that was on display over the first half of the season.
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