Analysis: Knicks, coach grasping at straws

In March, with a different opponent constantly coming at the Knicks in waves of back-to-backs (six in all for the month), Mike D'Antoni has had his team in a confusing scramble of schemes and strategies that change by the night.

The result is a team ill-prepared to stop even the most pedestrian offenses in the NBA, such as the Bucks and Bobcats, who each dropped triple digits on the Knicks on consecutive nights this past weekend.

"I can't say it's preparation; we really never have time to prepare,'' Chauncey Billups said. "But when you're out there and you have to run two or three different schemes, you have to run different schemes for different [opposing] players, it's just tough.''

No one is having a harder time with the trade transition than D'Antoni, who admittedly is experimenting on the fly until he finds a formula that works. And it could take the entire cushion the Knicks built up just to protect that playoff berth.

"I'm grasping at straws a little bit,'' D'Antoni admitted after Saturday's loss in Charlotte, the Knicks' sixth straight and ninth in their last 10. "Hopefully, I can settle down and not do that.''

It's obvious to the players that their coach is just as lost as they are right now.

"When you're struggling as a coach or as a player, you're just trying to find the right mix,'' Billups said. "You're trying to find something that works. So Mike is just doing the best he can trying to find the right formula.''

D'Antoni has all but scrapped the thing that got him the job in New York: the high-scoring offensive system that star players are supposed to love. The pick-and-roll is almost nonexistent. Even when it is run, the play generally is just a means of creating movement more than an open shot. "Seven Seconds or Less'' officially has declined into "Several Seconds of Mess.''

But there is confidence among the team that offense won't be an issue. D'Antoni is working directly with Billups on that end and also is taking input from Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire.

Perhaps too much input. There comes a point when you have to set a standard and demand execution.

"I'm not worried about me trying to fit into the quote-unquote system that we're supposed to have,'' Anthony said, likely intending to mean he is confident he can fit in (though we've yet to see him willingly fit himself into D'Antoni's historically successful pick-and-roll sets on a consistent basis).

But while the offense has had confounding moments, especially in the fourth quarter, Billups said, "Our defense, at the end of the day, is going to make us or break us, I believe.''

Right now it's breaking them because their defense doesn't have a foundation of principles and an identity, which usually is established with training camp and a full season of adjustments.

"Yeah, exactly,'' Billups said. "Those are the kinds of things you develop in training camp and in the early part of the season. Then you come to the All-Star break and -- boom -- this is what it is, this is who we are.''

Things actually might get easier for the Knicks when (if?) they make the playoffs because at least they'll need to scheme for only one opponent at a time. And the Knicks will be a dangerous team in the postseason. After all, how do you scout a team that has no idea what it's doing?

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