boutons
12-17-2004, 05:41 PM
Sports of The Times: Nuances of the Point Can Be Hard to Understand
December 17, 2004
By HARVEY ARATON
EVEN as he artfully conducted a symphony of scoring,
Stephon Marbury wore the aura of a player determined to hit
high notes of his own. Even as he assumed the persona of a
quintessential point guard, Marbury's eyes revealed an
assuredness that sooner or later would come the need for
him to light up Madison Square Garden all by himself.
"That's what I always tell him, that you can't forget
yourself," Lenny Wilkens, the Knicks' coach, said.
Wilkens meant that Marbury should never play passively,
never philanthropically reduce himself to mere role player.
Yet what separates the true lead guards from those who fill
the position is the acute understanding of just when to
step forward as the team's primary option, when to assert
oneself without disrupting the flow.
"It's an intuition thing, just something you feel," said
the Pistons' Chauncey Billups, another offensive-minded
point guard who alternately struggled and flourished under
Coach Larry Brown's tight rein last season, all the way to
an N.B.A. title.
Managing the position of supreme accountability on the
basketball court is like riding a surfboard, navigating a
wave. And give Marbury his due: this season, Marbury, the
player once castigated as the anti-Kidd, has more than
talked a heady game. He has seemingly embraced the role of
creating for others, stepped aside and allowed the newcomer
Jamal Crawford his spasmodic bursts of athletic genius. He
has relinquished the ball with the game on the line.
"He's been doing a really good job of distributing, and
we're continuing to stress it," Wilkens said. Loose
translation for a team in transition: Marbury remains a
work in progress.
Seldom in his eight-plus pro seasons has he been the tour
de force he was in the first half of the Knicks' 94-93
defeat to the Pistons on Wednesday night, even if there was
no way to know it from his statistical line: 1-of-3
shooting, 2 points, 4 assists. Yet the Knicks' offense had
a rarely seen purpose and rhythm, with Crawford dropping
3-pointers and Allan Houston coming off the bench to find
the midrange seams.
By the end of the half, the Knicks had a robust 56 points
and a 16-point lead against the defending league champs.
In evaluating close games, we typically dwell on the makes
and misses of the last two minutes, but you could argue
that the Knicks let this game slip away in the third
quarter, when Marbury became frustrated after a string of
Knicks turnovers, a couple of his passes fumbled away.
Wilkens called a timeout after an 8-0 Pistons run began the
quarter. Marbury threw his arms up in disgust as he walked
to the bench and complained about the turnovers with a few
choice words.
When play resumed, Marbury soon went on a personal run of 7
straight points, restoring the Knicks' lead to 73-61. Now
he and the ball seemed unwilling to part company, as he
dribbled and dribbled, drove into a crowd. He committed a
turnover and complained his way into a technical foul
(costly, in an eventual 1-point defeat). He launched a
couple of jumpers early in the shot clock, with Wilkens on
the sideline shaking his head.
By the end of the quarter, the Knicks' momentum and all but
2 points of their 16-point lead were gone. They found
themselves in a possession-by-possession dogfight - a game
the Pistons have a knack for winning and the Knicks do not.
With all due acknowledgement to a Detroit defense that
forces opponents into less desirable options, the Knicks
scored 37 points in the half that Marbury led them with 16,
and 56 points in the half that Marbury contributed 2.
"It's like we tell Chauncey all the time, if we play good
defense and we can get out and run, you can be as creative
as you want to be on the fast break," Brown said. "But
running the offense, you've got to get and keep everyone
involved.
"For Stephon, I think it's tough, like learning the game
all over again, because he's always been on bad teams that
needed him to score the ball. But when we had him on the
Olympic team last summer, he did everything we asked. He's
a great kid."
To Brown, everyone is a kid, even Marbury, now 27 and
playing for Hall of Fame point guards in Wilkens and Isiah
Thomas, the Knicks' president. If Marbury is ever going to
elevate his playmaking ability to the standard of his
Brooklyn schoolyard legend, the opportunity is before him,
as Thomas appears to be rebuilding the Knicks less on the
model of Joe Dumars's Pistons and more in the image of
small, athletic teams like Phoenix and Seattle out West.
It makes sense to play the hand you have. Thomas, no longer
conducting more public news updates than Peter Jennings, is
undoubtedly itching to land Vince Carter or some other
impact small forward to replace the shrinking Tim Thomas.
As Isiah's brief history as the Knicks' chief executive
would indicate, Marbury will soon have more deserving hands
to feed.
He'll have to deliver, or Wilkens will be more tempted to
run his late-game offense through Crawford, as he did in
the last half-minute Wednesday, the Knicks trying to expand
a 1-point lead. It was a tactical mistake, at least in
retrospect, as the impatient Crawford, in a broken play,
forced a jumper that Billups rebounded and improvised into
two winning free throws.
If Marbury had shown better second-half judgment, perhaps
the ball would have been in his hands. Tonight, it's on to
Philadelphia, where the re-education of the point guard
continues.
E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/sports/basketball/17araton.html?ex=1104323122&ei=1&en=08d8f4cb1dc554fc
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
December 17, 2004
By HARVEY ARATON
EVEN as he artfully conducted a symphony of scoring,
Stephon Marbury wore the aura of a player determined to hit
high notes of his own. Even as he assumed the persona of a
quintessential point guard, Marbury's eyes revealed an
assuredness that sooner or later would come the need for
him to light up Madison Square Garden all by himself.
"That's what I always tell him, that you can't forget
yourself," Lenny Wilkens, the Knicks' coach, said.
Wilkens meant that Marbury should never play passively,
never philanthropically reduce himself to mere role player.
Yet what separates the true lead guards from those who fill
the position is the acute understanding of just when to
step forward as the team's primary option, when to assert
oneself without disrupting the flow.
"It's an intuition thing, just something you feel," said
the Pistons' Chauncey Billups, another offensive-minded
point guard who alternately struggled and flourished under
Coach Larry Brown's tight rein last season, all the way to
an N.B.A. title.
Managing the position of supreme accountability on the
basketball court is like riding a surfboard, navigating a
wave. And give Marbury his due: this season, Marbury, the
player once castigated as the anti-Kidd, has more than
talked a heady game. He has seemingly embraced the role of
creating for others, stepped aside and allowed the newcomer
Jamal Crawford his spasmodic bursts of athletic genius. He
has relinquished the ball with the game on the line.
"He's been doing a really good job of distributing, and
we're continuing to stress it," Wilkens said. Loose
translation for a team in transition: Marbury remains a
work in progress.
Seldom in his eight-plus pro seasons has he been the tour
de force he was in the first half of the Knicks' 94-93
defeat to the Pistons on Wednesday night, even if there was
no way to know it from his statistical line: 1-of-3
shooting, 2 points, 4 assists. Yet the Knicks' offense had
a rarely seen purpose and rhythm, with Crawford dropping
3-pointers and Allan Houston coming off the bench to find
the midrange seams.
By the end of the half, the Knicks had a robust 56 points
and a 16-point lead against the defending league champs.
In evaluating close games, we typically dwell on the makes
and misses of the last two minutes, but you could argue
that the Knicks let this game slip away in the third
quarter, when Marbury became frustrated after a string of
Knicks turnovers, a couple of his passes fumbled away.
Wilkens called a timeout after an 8-0 Pistons run began the
quarter. Marbury threw his arms up in disgust as he walked
to the bench and complained about the turnovers with a few
choice words.
When play resumed, Marbury soon went on a personal run of 7
straight points, restoring the Knicks' lead to 73-61. Now
he and the ball seemed unwilling to part company, as he
dribbled and dribbled, drove into a crowd. He committed a
turnover and complained his way into a technical foul
(costly, in an eventual 1-point defeat). He launched a
couple of jumpers early in the shot clock, with Wilkens on
the sideline shaking his head.
By the end of the quarter, the Knicks' momentum and all but
2 points of their 16-point lead were gone. They found
themselves in a possession-by-possession dogfight - a game
the Pistons have a knack for winning and the Knicks do not.
With all due acknowledgement to a Detroit defense that
forces opponents into less desirable options, the Knicks
scored 37 points in the half that Marbury led them with 16,
and 56 points in the half that Marbury contributed 2.
"It's like we tell Chauncey all the time, if we play good
defense and we can get out and run, you can be as creative
as you want to be on the fast break," Brown said. "But
running the offense, you've got to get and keep everyone
involved.
"For Stephon, I think it's tough, like learning the game
all over again, because he's always been on bad teams that
needed him to score the ball. But when we had him on the
Olympic team last summer, he did everything we asked. He's
a great kid."
To Brown, everyone is a kid, even Marbury, now 27 and
playing for Hall of Fame point guards in Wilkens and Isiah
Thomas, the Knicks' president. If Marbury is ever going to
elevate his playmaking ability to the standard of his
Brooklyn schoolyard legend, the opportunity is before him,
as Thomas appears to be rebuilding the Knicks less on the
model of Joe Dumars's Pistons and more in the image of
small, athletic teams like Phoenix and Seattle out West.
It makes sense to play the hand you have. Thomas, no longer
conducting more public news updates than Peter Jennings, is
undoubtedly itching to land Vince Carter or some other
impact small forward to replace the shrinking Tim Thomas.
As Isiah's brief history as the Knicks' chief executive
would indicate, Marbury will soon have more deserving hands
to feed.
He'll have to deliver, or Wilkens will be more tempted to
run his late-game offense through Crawford, as he did in
the last half-minute Wednesday, the Knicks trying to expand
a 1-point lead. It was a tactical mistake, at least in
retrospect, as the impatient Crawford, in a broken play,
forced a jumper that Billups rebounded and improvised into
two winning free throws.
If Marbury had shown better second-half judgment, perhaps
the ball would have been in his hands. Tonight, it's on to
Philadelphia, where the re-education of the point guard
continues.
E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/sports/basketball/17araton.html?ex=1104323122&ei=1&en=08d8f4cb1dc554fc
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company