Following an inconsistent first two weeks of the season that had their fans calling for a new head coach, the Knicks may have finally found their groove. It should be noted that New York has not faced much of a challenge during its current four-game winning streak, but the Knicks’ defense has looked pretty solid. They still rank only 21st in the NBA in overall team defense, but New York is headed in the right direction. After a defensive struggle that resulted in an 85-79 win over the Sixers on Wednesday, Carmelo Anthony expressed how seriously the Knicks are taking defense this season.
“For me, personally, I’m on a personal vendetta,” Anthony said according to the NY Post. “I get tired of hearing it. We get tired of hearing it. And just bringing Tyson (Chandler) on made (our defense) that much better. The last five games we’ve been doing a great job.
“Once we got Tyson, everybody was saying Tyson is the key to the defensive changes, but it was going to start with myself and Amar’e to help him out. We can’t rely on Tyson to do everything out there. As long as I’m out there putting the effort forth and Amar’e is doing the same thing, going for loose balls, rebounding, talking, we’ll be a great defensive team.”
Against teams that can score unlike the Wizards, Pistons, Bobcats, and Sixers, that will be a bit more of a challenge. That being said, the Knicks have allowed opponents to score more than 100 points only two times in 10 games this season and have held opponents to less than 90 six times. Whether they have played poor teams or not, New York has improved defensively since last year. Whether or not that can be attributed to Anthony’s vendetta or the addition of Chandler really doesn’t matter at this point.
