The Knicks won over the Bobcats in blowout fashion, winning 111-78. Finally, it was the re-emergance of the team that we all thought we were getting in the beginning of the year, the team that had mysteriously disappeared after the Christmas showdown against Boston.

Gone was the offense which had become so stagnant we had to check its PH level.

Gone was the lack of touches and abundance of jumpers for Amare Stoudemire.

Gone was the Knicks practically using Carmelo Anthony as a “Get out of jail free “ card. For the first time in a long time, for as long as it could be 15 games into the season, the Knicks were a free-flowing unit.

So what changed?

Perhaps it was the crushing double OT defeat at the hands of the cold-blooded exes in Danilo Gallinari, Al Harrington and ::gulp:: Timmmmayyyy Mozgov which extended the losing streak to six straight. Or maybe it was the daily occurrence of career-nights by average players.

Whatever it was, it was gone tonight. It was a peculiar game where 13 Knicks played and it’s lowest scoring output was that from a relatively healthy Carmelo Anthony who had just one point. Despite that total, he contributed in other ways with four assists and a team-high 11 defensive boards. Oh, and perhaps his biggest contribution? He only took seven shots.

So maybe that’s the recipe: Less dependence on Carmelo’s scoring ability and more emphasis on penetration and getting the team involved. STAT, who previously could have moonlighted as a Ninja Turtle the way he had been a shell of his old self, brought the bench to its feet after several dunks dubbed by Walt Clyde Frazier as “Master Blasters.” He was not a timid jumps shooter; he was ferocious. Tyson Chandler showed his size and hustle all game long, nabbing 17 boards over the likes of Byron Mullens, DeSagana Diop and Bismack Biyombo – all guys he should be getting 17 boards over yet hadn’t been. And there was another important occurrence that will probably be overlooked by many: Mike Bibby played. For a team lacking on-court leadership yet still being superfluous with combo guards impersonating point guards, Bibby represents the only healthy guy on the roster who can keep the Knicks from falling into the 1-on-1 trap they love to fall into.  He proved just that, that he could get the Knicks offense going when he and Amare led the Knicks offense in the second quarter, getting Amare the ball in the position to score rather than in the position to create. And who would think that all that needed to happen for Bibby to play was for the Knicks to lose its backup rookie power forward, Josh Harrellson for a month and a half?

Whatever it was, hopefully these are the Knicks to stay for the rest of the season. And even if its not, at least it put a temporary stop to the bleeding, essentially all we need before the Baron Davis band-aid is thrown into the mix later this week.

This is not the Knicks of old, they’re losing in whole new ways.

The addition of Tyson Chandler truly erased the common misconception of D’Antoni-led teams devoid of defense. This team defends. Chandler flies around the court as if he was Ed Reed in the open field and he affects more shots than the statistics would indicate. Dwight Howards 8-point game shows just the effect he has on the team. But the Magic victory also shows that they are far from a finished product. The problem is that while they defend the top guys infinitely better, its the role players are killing them.This isn’t the YMCA. If you put all your efforts into shutting out the other team’s dominant player, NBA players can hit open threes. Hint: If the guy is white and standing behind the three-point arc, he’s going to kill the Knicks.

New Yorkers need to stop putting this all on D’Antoni’s shoulders. Agreed, said to possess arcane knowledge for offensive schematics, this team does look a lot like a bunch of chickens sans heads. I’ve seen 5-year old foreign children in Disneyland look less lost. But that’s exactly where the team needs a true point guard.

D’Antoni a point guard coach and this team lacks just that. Forget him for a second; what coach doesn’t need a smart point guard to be successful?

Toney Douglas is a backup. He scores in spurts, primary offensive weapon is three-pointers (well, last year he did), and plays solid defense, but doesn’t run an offense. Yep, that’s a backup.

Iman Shumpert looks as if he could be one of the best players out of the draft, but he’s no point guard. (Note to self: If the scouts call a guy a combo-guard it only means that they possess point guard handle with no point guard mindset whatsoever.) Still, it’s quite enjoyable to watch him fail so impressively.

Then there’s the beard, B-Diddy. If Baron Davis’s doesn’t hold up or worse, his back holds up but he transforms into the 3-happy cancer he has been previously then the Knicks need to make a move for somebody the likes of Nash or Andre Miller.

And only then can the Knicks really start to gel and start living out our wildest expectations.

New Yorkers are a product of 5-minute fast foods and 25-cent tabloid newspapers. To fans here, teams are either the 96 Bulls or the worst thing to ever happen to pro sports. (Apparently, the middle ground was a victim of the Bloomberg budget cuts.) All but six games into the Carmelo Era, a 3-3 record had the Big Apple already calling for Mike D’Antoni’s head like John the Baptist.

What if every job carried the pressure of instant glory? I mean that type of thinking seems to work so well in the Sudan. (Not) They ask, “Why not the Knicks?” as if New York had come to expect a certain degree of success because of its history of second round defeats and failed championship aspirations. Patrick Ewing is not rolling around in his figurative grave. (Although he would make a pretty good Frankenstein.) They’re not the Yankees.

Could we please cut D’Antoni just a little more slack? Wouldn’t you want your team to gain every ounce of knowledge they could from this guy? Whether or not the guy is the right coach, it is universally agreed that he is a top-tier offensive coach. And he’s coaching on a team with two top-tier offensive players. Not the Starbury’s or the Stevie Franchises or player X with a clever moniker and not so keen basketball IQ. In Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, New York has 2 premier scorers. Having an offensive playbook catered to their skills could fatten up their stats like Baron Davis on the Cavaliers. (Come back to me in a year…)

Systems are created to cater to its best players. In Phoenix, Steve Nash was the best player. Offensively, he was a genius; giving the assist a rebirth of sorts. He made it cool to pass again. Defensively, however, he might have had trouble guarding the life-sized standup of his opponent, much less the real-life breathing version. Amare came into the league looking to put up huge numbers on marquee players, admiring them so much he was nice enough to posterize them on more than his share of occasions. The point is, these guys didn’t come in to the league as Bruce Bowens, but the system won the games. You can’t turn around and push these circles into square pegs.

If the argument is that D’Antoni coached teams play poor defense then the argument starts to gain some steam, but I would counter with who on these teams were considered a good defender when D’Antoni wasn’t there? Did he make them worse? When Terry Porter, a defensive-guy stepped in, the Suns record was worse than under D’Antoni and Porter was shipped out like a used textbook on Amazon.

The statement “They never play any defense” seems to lose its grip when that same general New Yorker also claims that Derek Jeter is the worst defensive player in baseball history when defensive metrics clearly show that Chuck Knoblauch is. (Light up Applause sign here) Playing no defense would mean making no effort whatsoever. Playing NO DEFENSE would indicate that they just stand under their own basket the whole entire game – essentially a team of anti-Jared Jeffrieses. This just isn’t the case.

Two statements:

“If Robert Horry didn’t check Steve Nash into the stands, the Suns might have won the championship that year.”

“D’Antoni could never win because his teams don’t play any defense.”

It’s funny how it can be common rhetoric that two contradictory statements are true. (Like the Xenadrine commercial where Ronnie from Jersey Shore says “I like to keep it real.”) Whether or not you believed that the 2006-07 Suns were Disney World-bound is beside the point; you must admit they took it to the Spurs that year. It took seven games of the conference final to determine the better team, a team without Amare Stoudemire who was punished by David Stern for standing up. (The ability to stand up quickly always peeved Stern.) The system won them 62 games in 2005 and the Western Conference regular season #1 seed. The system could win with the right players in place getting hot at the right time. Period.

Opinions aside, D’Antonomics/the run-and-gun/seven seconds or less system (insert Dwight Howard “Pause”) carries with it several facts:

1. Emphasis on point guards make for significant increases in assists. Assists make other players better

2. Role players tend to have their roles increased thus multiplying their own value to their teams (See: Thomas, “That Bitch” Tim) and later making them enormous sums of money (then eventually enormous sums of debt. See: Walker, Antoine).

3. Matchup problems are created when fleet-footed dominant scorers are matched up with slower larger counterparts

4. The teams are always among the top 3 in scoring.

So often are innovators looked at as imbeciles. It’s become cliché to point at Christopher Columbus claiming the world was round when everybody said it was flat, but I’m going to do that anyway. While the defensive ideology is nice and would make sense among similarly talented players, that isn’t how the game works…

My personal system of rating a guy’s value is comparing them to the next available option. Show me the coach you’d rather have in New York. It’s just like when the Knicks fans called for a scoring center after the end of the “Wait, did he walk? Nah, he’s Patrick Ewing, they won’t call that.” era. Isiah Thomas brought you Eddy Curry and you suddenly realized that what was needed was an impact player: not someone simply possessing the silhouette of one. Firing D’Antoni and plugging in Terry Porter doesn’t put the Knicks any closer to where they want to be, it only sets them back. Show me championship pedigree and I will consider it but until then, the Knicks have in place a dominant coaching force. 62 wins proves that.

All those hard working kids that focused on getting their hands up? They’re making clutch stops in the semi-finals of their YMCA leagues.

But the NBA? It’s filled with those mustachioed 8-year-olds. The Knicks happen to have two of them. And they both happen to excel on offense. And they both happen to have a coach who pays his bills by maximizing such offensive talent. And while I know you don’t want to disappoint your 7th grade coach, in the real world the best defenses don’t always win championships, but the best teams almost always do. And if the Knicks fail to get to that level, at least the system they play makes it entertaining to watch them try.

Before I go further let me give you a “500 Days of Summer”-like forewarning: I should tell you from the outset, that I am no Heat fan, and as a New Yorker, I don’t know if LeBron James himself volunteering to play on my JCC basketball team would even get me to like him once again. (Obviously joking, I’m all about the 4 inch trophies baby!)

“Michael Jordan!” That was the name exclaimed as I watched my older brother ascend to new heights and throw down a monster dunk. Of course I was 4 years old and the hoop was about as tall as he was. But nevertheless, Michael became synonymous with the sport when he inherited the title from the hands of Magic and Bird (who just held it up high enough so that little 5’11 Isiah Thomas couldn’t reach it.) And ever since Michael gracefully walked into the sunset a champion (as it is now recently been revealed that Michael’s older, fatter, slower brother Kenny was in fact the one who played for the Wizards… Fact. Google it.) fans and beat writers and even non-basketball fans have been waiting in anticipation for the next great one; the next one to captivate our minds; the next Michael.

Then in 2003, this kid, beit a 6’8, 245 lb monster of a kid, came into the league with all these expectations on his shoulders. And for the most part, he attacked them head on like Jared Jeffries was the only one in the lane stopping him. But what LeBron, his yes-men, and I came to realize is that this was no Jared Jeffries standing in his way – this was more like Dwight Howard, Shaq, Kobe Bryant, Grant Hill, Kevin Garnett, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Harold Minor all standing in some sort of pyramid – the point is, he was never going to do it.

Then – the stroke of genius. This is when I point to the wrestling as the benchmark for society’s trends. Case in point: Hulk Hogan and Michael Jordan were almost treated that same and in very many ways they had a similar standing in society. For whatever reason, their records were squeaky clean, and the kids loved it. Then Stone Cold Steve Austin (and Willa Ford) came around and it became good to be bad. Suddenly to become squeaky clean was old, and the Hulkster had to look to the nWo to revive his career. And now look at him…. Err bad example…

The Decision comes along and suddenly LeBron James had his ticket. While he never could live up to the bar that MJ had previously set, what if he used a former champion (Dwyane Wade ← who btw just became the new Brett Favre with his spelling) and Avatar to stick the bar up the fans ass and on the way down give the Stone Cold ‘F U’.

The fans didn’t want a hero. Like what was said in Spiderman, they’ll love you for a while, then spit you out when they’re tired of seeing you. See, what the fans really want is drama. If LeBron goes and wins 10 championships in Cleveland, so what? He’d be mentioned in the same breath as Michael Jordan and Bill Russell. If he averages a triple double, he’d be mentioned with the Big O, (Oscar Robertson, not what Delonte West gave LeBron’s mom. Sorry couldn’t resist.) Now, by bringing all this, for a lack of a better term, Heat on himself he suddenly stands alone as the singularly most hated individual in the NBA … yes even more hated than Ron Artest, and he punches fans in the face.

Now every night LeBron faces crowds on the edge of the feet waiting for LeBron to brain-fart. When his team lost 4 in a row this week, 3 of them close (and one at the hands of my Knickerbockers!!!) suddenly the teary-eyed Miami locker room became the talk of the town. They’re failures are all over the back pages!

What’s missing in all this hoopla, is that this drama is bringing the casual fan back into the sport – even if it’s to sit 3 rows away from him and to curse him out.

He has become the new-aged hero. The one we love to hate. He gives us all the reasons to hate him and he vows to shove it down our throat for doubting him, but in the end, that’s all we ever really wanted.

Back to the story. It wasn’t until the next morning, back on that same couch when the “I’m Coming Home” commercial came on that it finally sunk in. When the “I know my kingdom awaits…” lyrics came on the screen and the helicopter view of the Garden was shown I started to get chills; and the good kind, not the kind that LeBron James gets when he tries to cross the street without Dwyane Wade holding his hand. What we were getting in Carmelo Anthony wasn’t a “Stephon Marbury.” Carmelo Anthony is a bonified scorer, someone who can create a shot in more than a variety of ways, utilizing his quickness with the best first step in the league; a post game that would make Dwight Howard jealous; or simply continuing on the NBA record for the most “long-lost art of the mid-range jumper” references by commentators in an NBA season. We’re currently at 639 this season.

And the so-called ‘costly’ package we gave up of Winky Chandler, Danny Gallinari, Ray Felton, Eddy Curry, Sir Anthony Randolph, Ivan Drago and some picks that probably won’t be useful since we fully expect them to be in the 25-30 range anyway are all great pieces, and while I loved them while they were here, let’s be real: they’re pieces to put around a player like Carmelo Anthony. By now I think you would know if Danilo’s career was leaning more towards the Dirk Nowitzki end of the see-saw or more the Hedo Turkoglu. I hated getting rid of Felton too, but it took all of 6 seconds into the first game for Chauncey Billups to look comfortable in the offense. Wilson Chandler? Yeah, I’d like to have him on my bench but you simply do not hold out on the opportunity to set your whole future up in an instant.

Yes, the roster as it is may seem as bare as Jared Jeffries without a shirt on, (Jared Jeffries insult #2 for those keeping score) but so what?! Role players are replaceable and the oh-so-needed defensive-minded big man are likely never going to have to cash an unemployment check.(Welfare, however may be entirely different issue) Lest we forget about the veterans a la Shaquille O’Neal, Mike Bibby, Big Z… etc, etc on the downside of their career interested only in experiencing the feeling of placing a ludicrously-oversized ring on those digits. You could be damn sure those guys weren’t coming here to play with Jared Jeffries (#3).

New York, why not concentrate on what we actually do have on this team now?

1. Two truly elite scorers in STAT and Melo. That means no more waiting for Eddy Curry to develop; No more pretending Stephon Marbury is a dominant force; No more blaming Allan Houston for never becoming what he never was; and no more hoping that Larry Johnson develops Wolverine’s mutant healing abilities. We now have 2 (probably 3) guys that could literally change the game at will, and even more so now because there just happens to be two of them and defensive minds can’t just send the hounds at them.

2. Two elite rebounders at their position in Carmelo Anthony and Landry Fields, albeit neither of them play a traditionally rebounding position, it makes a difference especially when you’re playing Ronnie Turiaf as if this was 2004 and he was still playing for Gonzaga.
3. A real leader of a point guard in Chauncey Billups, a guy who still has something to prove and was a #2 pick of the draft. Oh yeah, did we mention that he was the NBA Finals MVP? If come crunch time in a playoff game is there any other point guard you’d want with the ball in their hands? Which brings us to…
4. We now have 3 of the most clutch players in the NBA in our own Big 3. In one season we went from having question marks taking shots to legitimate studs… and while a question mark may have pretty decent form, they really don’t have too much lift on that period. (English humor…so sue me!)
5. Overnight New York went from being “The place you could make a lot of money and gain a lot of exposure since its a big market” to “a place that you could win a championship in a huge market.” See how much that makes Dwight Howard or Chris Paul’s spidey-senses tingle.

So in short, New York, get over your emotions. While you’re out complaining that we gave up too much, you’re missing out on the makings of a perennial contender. And for God’s sake, please stop calling for the Knicks to sign Troy Murphy or Earl Barron. That kind of thinking got Patrick Ewing traded for 75 Jared Jeffrieses (What’s that like #6? He sucks. Get it?!) The only advantage you guys have over Donnie Walsh is your assumed superior mobility. That’s it! Stop trying to band-aid a long term goal! Truly if the fans had it their way we might have ended up with Bosh Spice and Joe Johnson right now instead of STAT and Melo.

We’re well on our way, long-suffering Knicks followers. And as I see it, anything short of Carmelo or Amare suffering a freak accident slipping on a frozen draft envelope in practice, we just might have the team we have all been dreaming of for over a decade.

If you didn’t already notice by now, I don’t like cookie cutter systems. Cookie cutter systems are the ones that have me drafting Larry Johnson in fantasy football no matter how low I drop him. These are the systems that tell you that Jamarcus Russell is the can’t miss prospect despite the logical reasons to think the contrary. They’re also the ones that cause NBA GM’s to inexplicably sign and resign Tim Thomas, despite the fact that he hasn’t cared about actually playing basketball since his 11th grade. Generally, I prefer to use logic and if all else fails, NBA 2K10′s rating system (jk). So now, for the first time this year you will get the 2009-10 NBA Season in REview; and what better way to do that than to unveil the official and unofficial off-season awards.

MVP: The Most Valuable player is LeBron James. I’m sorry. There’s just no other way I could cut it. He is the best player in the league, and he will continue to be the best player for the next 10 years (or until his knee gives out, most likely, 3 minutes after signing with the Knicks.)

Rookie of the Year: Brandon Jennings… I even threatened to call this the Kenyon Martin Award or the Smartest Retard award for a draft class weaker than Kevin Durant but does Blake Griffin qualify for indirectly making his team better by inspiring the two guys he’d be taking minutes from to have career years? Jennings-mania has already caught on, with 102% of people calling him the next AI. The question now is, who is the next BJ? Tim Thomas, put your hand down.

NBA Finals Matchup: Cavaliers VS Spurs… Yes a return to glory for the San Antonio Slow-But-Steady- Spurs…

NBA Champions: Poppovich realizes that the only man on earth that could guard LeBron James plays for the Cavs and is named LeBron James. Ginobili pulls out the right side of his hair in Game 1 not-so-surprisingly easily, then shaves his head. LeBron confuses him for a smaller Ilgauskas and turns it over to him in the waning moments of Game 6, blowing the game and the series. During the Post-game interview, he tears his Cavs jersey down the middle to reveal a Knicks jersey he’s been wearing all along underneath, going on to proclaim that he is now the King of New York. An enraged Mike Brown hits LeBron with a steel chair and Al Roker, seated in the front row next to Spike Lee is arrested out of confusion. Somewhere, Vince McMahon smiled, but only as a side effect of steroid abuse.

OK. For all of you who wanted the Cliff’s Notes, this is where your article ends. But then again Cliff’s Notes sole purpose is to get you to pass English and if you were actually reading this for your English class, then perhaps your teacher should find a new profession. For all of you who are still awake , the awkwardly uncomfortable foreplay is now complete and we can finally get to the fun stuff. No homo.

The Michael Jackson Award – For the guy who just died all of a sudden, but really wasn’t all that surprising either: Stephon Marbury… career dropped off faster than Steve and Barry’s after releasing the Starbury 2. Hmmm…

The Stevie Franchise Award – For the guy who everyone thinks is great but then gets traded and all of a sudden loses all playing ability: Despite Elton Brand lobbying for the award this year claiming a ‘Red-Shirt’ for last year, he had no shot up against Hedo Turkoglu who realized that his open threes were mainly manufactured by the wildly overgrown child in the middle.

The Brian Scalabrine Award – For the guy riddled with limitations on the basketball court but really does one thing well and will always kill you for it: Eddie House. Very rarely do you get two award candidates on the same team and one of them actually takes the award but this is indeed the case, especially when theres “Eddie Houses” playing against you in every Men’s League nationwide, and you know exactly how the stumpy 3-point gunner plays.

The Shawn Marion Award – For the guy whose fantasy numbers trump their actual value to their real team: Andris Beidrins. He’s like a Dwight Howard… if he was skinny, white, and not dominantly athletic. Oh, and btw, that’s not a good thing. Apologies to Troy Murphy as he would have been a lock, had he been able to lift a lock without getting hurt.

The Curtis Martin award – For the guy who everyone says is underrated so much that everyone in the world says he’s underrated, thus making him overrated: Andre Iguodala… good defender, efficient scorer. That’s it. Getting 1st option money when he’s a 4th option at best.

The Leon Washington award – for the guy who everyone says is underrated, yet is still severely underrated: Danny Granger. Like 2004 fantasy Shawn Marion, only the real-life version.

The LaDanian Tomlinson Award – for the guy whose value made you love him but suffers an injury and never is the same player again, thus crippling your franchise: Well, Allen Iverson was the obvious award winner here last year, and he actually was a front runner for it again here this year if we didn’t completely see it coming. Ultimately the award has to go to Yao Ming, who after trying to come back way too soon from foot woes, had another ‘successful’ surgery mid-season.

The James Posey Award (Formerly the Jerome James Award) – for the guy who had one good Playoff last year and gets a ridiculous amount of money for doing so little, thus crippling the team’s salary cap: Marcin Gortat. Career backup big man. Didn’t the Magic ever watch footage of Jerome James? Apparently Otis Smith doesn’t know Youtube.

The Pre-Garnett Paul Pierce Award – for the player who is clearly a 3rd or 4th option on a Championship team, but gets overrated as a superstar because his team is terrible: Joe Johnson… come on… he’s a shooter who can dribble.

The Eddie Curry Award – For the player who with unlimited upside that the fans just started to realize will never reach that potential: Marvin Williams. Pains me to say it and I don’t hate the Hawks, for your entertainment. With him getting drafted over much better options, he has essentially become Joe Smith 2.0. Ironically, Joe Smith is now on the same team, perhaps serving as a mentor, as the Hawks wanted to ensure Williams remained remarkably average.

The Zach Randolph Award – For the player who undoubtedly will hoist up the worst shot at the worst possible time: Zach Randolph/Allen Iverson. Much like Stockton and Malone winning the Co-MVP for the All-Star game, there is no better combination than what the Grizzills decided to use to stunt the growth of their young team.

The Lazarus Award – The guy who was brought back from the dead: Last year Shaquille O’Neal ran away with the award. This year he was a candidate for the Michael Jackson. This year Manu Ginobili brought back Happy Days to San Antonio… and reminiscent laughs for fans of Balki from “Perfect Strangers”. His new nickname should be Nick at Nite.

The Jamarcus Russell Award – The guy who deep down in your heart knew was a huge draft bust, yet was drafted anyway and turns out to be even worse: Hasheem Thabeet… so many things I just don’t like… in particular a big guy lacking big guy skills.

The Lamar Odom Award – For the small forward who is a combination of size, ball handling skill, and 3-point shooting ability making analysts pee themselves claiming they have never seen such a combination: Carmelo Anthony.

So there you have it. Go place your bets! And remember, Marbury is a mortal lock for the Jackson.