Knicks’ Melo and Smith Not Best Bets to Close Out Celtics

What do 1-for-9 and 1-for-6 have to do with this season’s NY Knicks?  No, it’s not J.R. Smith’s game 5 box score.  Those numbers are Carmelo Anthony’s and J.R. Smith’s results for first round NBA playoff series.  Melo’s been in the playoffs in all 9 seasons before this one and only gotten out of the first round once.  J.R.’s been in the playoffs in all 6 seasons before this one and only gotten out of the first round once.

Those numbers are mind blowing.  And they’re also a great indicator that Melo and J.R. are not, unlike the regular season, the guys you want to go to with the first round playoff series against the Celtics on the line.

Consider this: in the first 3 games of this Knicks-Celtics series, Melo is shooting 36-for-78 (46%) from the floor, 8-for-16 (50%) from behind the 3-point line, and 16-for-17 (94%) from the free throw line.  In the last 2 games, the ones where the Knicks could have closed out the series, he’s shooting 18-for-59 (31%) from the floor, 0-for-12 (yes, 0%) from behind the 3-point line, and 22-for-26 (85%) from the free throw line.  Did the Celtics’ green suddenly become Kryptonite?  I don’t think so.

My belief is that their beliefs are messing them up, not that they’re choking.  To support my point, I’ll use an example from the 1999-2000 season, when I worked with Allan Houston and helped him make his first NBA All-Star team, and an example from my early coaching experience.  I’ll also use an acknowledged strength of Carmelo’s to bolster my argument.

If you’ve read any of the articles I’ve written or been interviewed for recently, you know that I frequently point to a player’s belief about his ability to perform, or not, as a major determinant of how he’ll actually perform.  When Carmelo has hit clutch shots in seasons past, what has he said about it?  “I do this.”  A strongly held belief, simply stated.

I believe that Melo is one of the top clutch performers in the NBA and stated as such, in different words, when I was asked about clutch players’ mindsets for a recent article.  More importantly, Melo believes he’s a clutch player and has a string of experiences where he’s hit clutch shots that support his belief.  So choking in the past couple of games most likely isn’t the issue.

There are a number of ways that beliefs are created but the one we’ll deal with here is through the identification of a pattern.  Melo goes to the playoffs and gets knocked out in the first round.  And he goes to the playoffs the next year and gets knocked out in the first round.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Again and again.

With 8 seasons of “one and done”, would you think that it would be reasonable for him to believe “I have trouble getting out of the first round”?  And what happens when reporters constantly point it out to him?  It reinforces the belief.

J.R.’s in the same boat, just with fewer years of failure.

Add to this that they’re playing for a coach who has a very poor playoff record (12-and-22 (35.3%) prior to this season).  And they’re playing for a Knicks franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series since May 2000.

Is there anything in that prior paragraph that makes you think, or would make them think, that first round success is just 48 minutes away?  I didn’t think so.

As I said earlier, I don’t think Melo is choking.  I think his belief that he won’t get out of the first round is impacting his play.  Our beliefs impact our emotions, our emotions impact our blood chemistry and our blood chemistry impacts how our muscles work.  So just a little emotional stress or a lack of confidence can translate to stiff muscles when taking a jump shot.  And that usually translates to a rebound.

In spite of Melo having proven on numerous occasions that he can make a big shot, he went 3-for-10 from the floor and 2-for-5 from the free throw line in the 4^th quarter of game 4 in Boston, a game the Knicks lost in an overtime they never should have needed to play.  Worse, in the last 3 minutes of the 4^th quarter, Melo went 0-for-5 from the floor (0-for-2 on 3s) and 0-for-2 on free throws.  If he scored just 1 point during that span, the Knicks would be gearing up for round 2.  This longtime clutch player didn’t choke; he lived into his belief of first round failure.

While I don’t discuss things that clients confide to me, the example of belief affecting performance from my time with Allan Houston is something that started with a newspaper headline.  During the ’99-’00 season, the Knicks’ record in the second game of back-to-backs was pathetic.  All the newspapers noted it and player quotes all confirmed it.

As the Knicks were getting ready to go west on a road trip, I saw that their game at Golden State, which would be Latrell Sprewell’s first trip back to Oakland since he’d choked Golden State head coach P.J. Carlesimo, was the second game of a back-to-back.  I spoke with Allan and told him that I didn’t think he could expect Latrell to score much in that game – he’d be too pumped up to have a soft touch – and that Allan was going to have to do most of the scoring.  Allan and I worked to change his belief that he’d play poorly in the second game of a back-to-back and, instead, installed a belief that he’d play well.

On game day, Allan shot well, was the Knicks high scorer (Latrell shot badly as predicted) and the Knicks won a rare 2^nd game of a back-to-back.  It’s just one example of how Allan and I changed a belief to improve his performance and, since it was Latrell’s first game back, is a noteworthy one.

Believing you’ll do well helps you do well.  Believing you’ll do poorly “helps” you play poorly.  And if you believe you won’t get out of the first round, you’re not the best person to carry your team into the second round.  The Knicks have Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd, who have both won NBA titles, and Marcus Camby, who’s gone to the NBA Finals.  These guys KNOW it can be done.  They’re not just hoping – they’ve been there.  Having them on the floor at the end of a close game 6 makes a lot of sense.

Keep the ball in J-Kidd’s hands at the end of the game and let him direct the offense.  Let him distribute the ball to the guys who will make the shots.  If it’s Melo or J.R. for a catch-and-shoot, so be it.  But it shouldn’t go to either of them if they’re going to try to create their own shot.

Once a negative belief has been broken, results can improve dramatically.  When I coached a very highly ranked women’s softball years ago, there was a team in our league that we always beat in the regular season but always lost to in the playoffs or post-season tournaments.  After a few years of this, we were down to them by a run with 2 outs in the final inning of a playoff game and had a runner on first base.  Our power hitter came up and hit a long, very catchable, fly ball.

As the right fielder ran to get under it, she tripped on a sprinkler that hadn’t been pushed far enough into the ground.  The ball dropped in and became a home run.  We won the game and didn’t lose to that team again in the playoffs or post-season tournaments for the next few years.  It took a fluke for us to break the negative belief but once it was broken, we played to the best of our abilities and won a lot more games.

It’s probably going to take someone besides Melo or J.R. to make the big shot if a big shot is needed.  They can avoid the need to hit a big shot altogether if they build and protect a double-digit lead.  But if they’re going to force the issue by giving Melo or J.R. the ball with the game on the line, they’d better hope there’s a sprinkler that a Celtic can trip over or the series may be heading back to MSG.

For Knicks, Celtics’ Honesty Is Best Policy

The Knicks’ game 1 win in their first round playoff series against the Boston Celtics was a great thing.  The Knicks have had previous playoff problems with the Celtics and losing a very ugly game at home would have most likely had consequences that would have rippled throughout the series.  A win is a win and the Knicks are up 1-0 on their longtime rivals.

At the same time, there were some major reasons that the game was so ugly and that the Knicks only scored 85 points and shot only 40.5% from the floor.  They’re going to need to remedy them if they plan to win game 2, because the Celtics are not likely to shoot as badly as they did in game 1.

Problem #1?  61 of their 79 shots (77.2%) were taken by three players (Carmelo Anthony, JR Smith, and Raymond Felton).  Although it’s problematic that they only connected on 25 of those 61 shots (40.98%) and that Smith and Felton shot a combined 2-for-10 (20%) from the 3-point line, that is only part of the story that the Knicks need to change going into game 2.

Problem #2?  No shots for Tyson Chandler in 20 minutes; no shots for Steve Novak in 5 minutes; 2 shots for Iman Shumpert in 21 minutes; 6 shots for Jason Kidd in 35 minutes.

When 3 players take such a high percentage of the shots, their teammates get cold.  Then, when the team needs the teammate to make a shot, he misses.  So Melo, Smith, and Felton need to keep their teammates involved if for no other reason than to help the teammates hit their shots when it’s their turn to shoot.

More important than that, however, is that when players like Chandler don’t get any shots for 20 minutes, it allows the Celtics’ defense to cheat.  Now they can double on Melo or get in Novak’s way during the very few minutes he played.  Running the offense in such a way, and allowing the defense to cheat without consequence, is a pretty sure way to lose a game.

Some may say that Chandler was injured and would have missed anyway.  That’s beside the point.  You get Chandler a couple of shots and you get him those shots early.  Even if he misses them, it tells the defense that they have to play D on Chandler.

You find a way to get Novak a shot or two (even if he goes back door for an “alley oomph”) because doing so forces the Celtics’ to keep a man on Novak.  And you keep Novak moving, because having him stand in one spot makes it easier for his defender to cheat off of him.

Doing this will  make it easier for Melo, JR, and Felton to score.  It’s probably no coincidence that the trio shot so poorly in game 1.  They were dealing with a great defensive team – and then some.

The ball must be spread around, early and often.  Not because the Knicks need to run a Socialist offense but because doing so will keep the Celtics honest.  And if the Knicks intend to win this series, honesty will be their best policy.

Knicks Wise to Avoid ‘Wisdom’ Against Celtics

The Knicks today kick off what the team and fans hope will be a deep march through the NBA playoffs.  The Celtics, longtime Knicks rivals, visit Madison Square Garden for game 1 at 3 pm.  And although the Knicks are the higher seeded team, they’d be wise to avoid some conventional wisdom as they take on their longtime nemesis.

The conventional wisdom that I speak of is the wisdom that says that you must shorten your roster for the playoffs.  No, that doesn’t mean you don’t play your tall guys, it means that you play fewer players per game than you played during the regular season.

With few exceptions, I don’t like this idea.  I’ve never heard any convincing rationale for the generality.  If sixteen playoff teams play fewer players for the playoffs and one of those teams wins the title, did they win it because they played a shorter roster?  I doubt it.  I’d love to hear that argued at SSAC (Sloan Sports Analytics Conference) sometime.

Often, coaches go with conventional wisdom blindly.  Baseball has a ton of conventions and sometimes little thought is given to what’s behind them.  One of their conventions is that you can carry a poor hitting player if he’s your shortstop.  It makes sense, since a great defensive shortstop is a key component to a solid infield and great defensive shortstops are hard to find.  So you give a little leeway on the offensive side to get the defensive advantage.

But about 20 years ago, I remember a major league team whose shortstop was hitting well over .300.  However, their second baseman, who was an incredible fielder, was only hitting around .200.  So they sent the second baseman down to the minors.  Why?  Because you can carry a weak hitting shortstop but you can’t carry a weak hitting second baseman.  Pretty foolish, in my book.

The result?  They were eliminated from playoff contention because of errors made by the replacement second baseman, errors that were on plays that the original second baseman would have easily made.  So much for blindly following conventional wisdom.

Back to the NBA – why am I against shortening the roster, in general, and against the Knicks shortening it, in particular?  In general, you want all the players focused on the team winning each playoff game.  If the coach played 9 players on a nightly basis during the regular season and they made the playoffs and then the coach decides to play just 7 players in the post-season, how do players 8 and 9 feel?  My guess is that they don’t feel as good as they would if they were getting playoff minutes.  Many players would handle it quietly, some wouldn’t.  As a coach, why introduce the chance for controversy or upset when you don’t have to?

This doesn’t mean that the coach doesn’t have flexibility.  If the 9^th man on the team catches fire in a game and hits 9 of 10 from the floor, do you sit him down because he’s not a starter and it’s time for the starter to go back in?  I don’t think so.  You’d want to ride the hot hand and, I’d guess, even the starter who was supposed to go back in would want to stay out and let the sub keep scorching the nets.

And the Knicks?  Well, they’ve dealt with a lot of injuries this season and really can’t afford to have many more of them if they plan on taking advantage of their #2 seeding in the Eastern Conference.  A shorter roster means more minutes for the other players.  Tired players get injured more easily.  It’s vital that the players continue to play as they’re used to.  That means playing X minutes, sitting Y minutes, and doing so at roughly the times in the game that their bodies are used to.

If the Knicks respect the Celtics and focus on the task at hand, they have a great chance to finally beat the Celtics in the playoffs.  And if the Knicks play the kind of basketball that “bookended” the regular season, they’ll win.  The Knicks played great ball at the start of the season and great ball at the end of it.  The best thing they can do is to stick with what’s worked for them.  And stick with who’s worked for them, as well.

Rocket Science: Intense Scrutiny of Lin Invalidates Analysis

A lot of eyes will be watching the Knicks play Jeremy Lin and the Houston Rockets tonight.  A lot of people want Lin to play well; a lot of people want Lin to play terribly.  Regardless of how you want the night, and the season, to work out for Lin, there’s something that you should know: the intense scrutiny of Lin will pretty much invalidate the statistical analysis of his play – tonight and all season.

That’s because of something called “Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle”.  Heisenberg, one of the great physicists of all time, discovered that measuring the movement of certain subatomic particles made it impossible to see them while seeing them made it impossible to accurately determine their movement.

What it boils down to is this: measuring something changes the thing that you’re measuring.  And, as I’ll show here with some non-quantum physics examples, this affects us in everyday life, not just at the subatomic level.

Many people who are reading this will not like to have their bosses looking over their shoulder while they’re working.  It stresses them out and they either make uncommon mistakes or do their work more slowly.  Measuring (the boss looking over the shoulder) changes what’s being measured (the employee’s work efficiency and/or speed).

For further proof, let’s go to an early master of this principle, Eddie Haskell of “Leave It To Beaver”.  Eddie was forever making snide remarks to or about Beaver Cleaver.  When he suddenly realized that Mr. or Mrs. Cleaver was watching him, Eddie would drastically reword his remarks.  One of hundreds of examples of this shows up on IMDB:

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Eddie Haskell: Wally, if your dumb brother tags along, I’m gonna – oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Cleaver. I was just telling Wallace how pleasant it would be for Theodore to accompany us to the movies.

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Being measured by Mr. or Mrs. Cleaver certainly changed what was being measured – what Eddie was saying.

Not only is Lin being measured by the fans and by advanced statistical analysis, he’s being measured by the media.  Any of these can change how well he, or anyone else, performs.

A few games ago, Ray Allen held the ball at the end of a quarter instead of heaving a 3 quarter court shot.  Why?  Probably because it’s almost a certain miss and would drop his 3-point percentage.  I’m sure Ray would have heaved it if the Heat were behind by a few points and it was the end of the 4^th quarter but that wasn’t the case.  So why hurt your percentages if you don’t have to?

A few years ago, it became apparent that then-Knicks player Nate Robinson played phenomenally well when Will Ferrell was sitting courtside.  Robinson loves Ferrell and he repeatedly shot the lights out when Ferrell showed up.  The best personnel move the Knicks could have made that year was to hire Ferrell to attend all the games.  Robinson went for high point totals at astonishing percentages when Ferrell was courtside but fell to Earth dramatically when he wasn’t.

As far as the media having an impact, it’s no coincidence that Gabrielle Douglas, one of the heroes of the US Olympic Women’s Gymnastics team this summer, was terrible for the remainder of the Olympics after an interview session with reporters.  One reporter (a Knicks beat writer wouldn’t you know) asked her about her parents’ divorce and her father being behind in child support.  The questions seemed to rattle Douglas enough that she didn’t recover before finishing all her events.  Her very poor performance showed that.

If Lin tries too hard tonight, he’ll play poorly.  If he stays within himself and does as much as he needs to do (and no more), he’ll play well.  It’s very much like a Chinese finger puzzle (shown below).

You put your fingers into both ends of the woven tube.  If you pull too hard or fast, the tube contracts in width while it expands in length and your fingers are trapped.  But if you slowly and gently pull your fingers away, you’ll escape the tube.  This puzzle is a great example that I’ve been using for decades (so anyone who thinks I’m using it because of Lin being Taiwanese-American, feel free to back off…)

Nothing will be resolved tonight.  If Lin is great, it may be because of the extra scrutiny.  If Lin is horrible, it may be because of the extra scrutiny.  If a Knicks defender doesn’t keep up with Lin and Lin scores points you think he shouldn’t have been able to score, it may be because Lin beat him.  Or it may be because he doesn’t want to look like he’s headhunting Lin by leveling him. 

Measuring affects everyone’s performance and so much has been made about this game and about Lin leaving the Knicks that there’s no way to guarantee that what we see tonight is what would happen in a closed gym with no fans and the Knicks and Rockets playing a full 48.  Although we may not walk away tonight knowing anything for certain, there are two things we can be sure of: one team will win and we can choose to enjoy the game.  Give my best to Heisenberg…

For Lakers – Coach “Right” or “Right Now”?

With the Lakers in a coaching search after the abrupt dismissal of Mike Brown just 5 games into the new season, they don’t necessarily want to get the best coach available.  If they’re going to salvage this season, it’s important that the coach they hire be able to work with the team as it exists now.  Since it’s almost guaranteed that the newly installed Princeton Offense will bear the brunt, along with Coach Brown, of the Lakers’ woes, it’s going to be necessary to get a coach for this season who can run a system that the existing team can learn in a very short time.  Otherwise, the Lakers will be out of the playoff race before a new system sinks in. 

This means that some names thrown out as great next choices, both Jeff Van Gundy and Stan Van Gundy for example, are most likely not the best coaches to take over the team right now.  There’s been little interaction between JVG and the current Lakers roster and a famous interaction (Dwight Howard) between SVG and the current team.  If the Lakers are to save this season, neither JVG nor SVG is the best fit at this time.  Plus, the Lakers hiring Jackson-antagonist JVG would be seen by many as a sure sign that the Mayans were right.  Panic would ensue.

My personal choice for a new offense, once it was known that Steve Nash would sign with the team, would have been Mike D’Antoni’s Seven Second or Less (not his name for it) offense.  My thinking was that instead of having all players learn the Princeton offense, have half the team learn SSOL and the other half get a refresher.  In addition, PG Nash has been playing SSOL for the past 8 seasons and won 2 NBA MVP awards doing so.  Why make him learn a new offense if you don’t have to?

But since SSOL wasn’t installed, bringing in D’Antoni right now to coach isn’t ideal.  Yes, SSOL has been used by the Olympic team and the Lakers have a handful of Olympians on their roster.  But one of those, Gasol, both starts for the Lakers and plays for Spain in the Olympics.  He has no experience with it.  If the Lakers’ first choice doesn’t work out, MDA is probably a good second choice, even though about half the team hasn’t played SSOL before and half of the Olympians haven’t played it in years.

This leaves us with current top choice Phil Jackson.  With Jackson’s resume, he’s the obvious choice for Coach “Right”.  But with at least 5 of the current roster having played the Triangle two years ago under Jackson (Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Metta World Peace, Steve Blake, and Devin Ewbanks) and Steve Nash still out while recovering from a leg fracture, the idea of shaking off the rust instead of having to learn an entirely new system may win the day.  And while Nash hasn’t played the Triangle before, he’s defended against it for most of his career.  With proper guidance, former-MVP Nash could be well on his way to mastery of it before the end of 2012. 

Not only is Phil Jackson Coach “Right”, he’s probably also Coach “Right Now”.  And it’s likely, after working out the details, that Jackson will be coaching the Lakers again soon. 

This brings us to two other areas: what to do with the roster and how to learn, or remember, the Triangle most quickly.

Roster-wise, any changes need to be less about getting rid of players and more about bringing in certain players.  Whether it’s Jackson or D’Antoni who’s hired, the Lakers need to have as many players who know their respective systems as possible.  Focusing on Jackson as the most likely hire, bringing back Derek Fisher to provide early backup while Nash heals and to provide season-long coaching to Nash to get him up to speed as fast as possible makes sense.  I’m sure the Lakers and other knowledgable NBA writers/bloggers will have some good suggestions as well.

As far as learning, or re-learning, the Triangle as quickly as possible, there are two things that can be used even before Phil actually runs a practice: old game film and visualization.  And if they’re used in combination, so much the better.

The old game film will be useful to the 5 current Lakers who already played in the Triangle for Phil and as an example to the other Lakers who’ve never run in the system before.  And visualizing themselves playing in the system, as explained in the “5 Steps to Faster Sports Mastery“, will help all of the Lakers, even the injured ones, learn or remember their roles in the offense much more quickly.

Only time will tell if the Lakers and Phil Jackson get a deal done.  Will the money be right?  Will the perks be enough?  Will the Lakers, in light of Colorado’s election results, be willing to relocate to Denver?  The answer to all but that last question is probably “yes”.  If the Lakers are going to get back on track in time to make a run in the playoffs, they need to make sure that whomever they hire fits the bill as Coach “Right Now” and they need to hire him soon.

As the Knicks Thinketh…

The Knicks’ game 4 win against Miami, their first win in seven games against the Heat this season and their first playoff win in over a decade, may help to improve the Knicks’ performance in game 5 tonight.  Although the Heat will be looking to crank up their play to avenge the loss and close out the series, it’s very possible that the Knicks will play better tonight than they did in their lone win.

That’s because what we believe impacts how we perform.  And when there is so much short term failure (the 0-for-6 the Knicks had posted this season against the Heat prior to game 4) and so much long term failure (the 0-for-11 seasons for Knicks playoff wins), it’s easy for a player and a team to believe they’re going to lose.  Believing that will limit how well they perform because we ultimately live “into” our beliefs.  And if we believe we’re going to fail, we’ll find a way to do so.

When I wrote about how easy it is for teams and players to pick up beliefs in “Knicks $1 Short in Quarter 3”, I said I’d eventually give some examples, based on my experiences working with Allan Houston during the ’99-’00 season, for how these beliefs take hold and how changing them improves performance.  Now’s that time.

When the ’99-’00 Knicks were heading out to play Golden State in Oakland, it was going to be Latrell Sprewell’s first game back since he’d tried to choke the Warriors’ coach.  It would be the 2^nd game of a back-to-back.  Not only were the Knicks horrible in the 2^nd game of back-to-backs that season, the tabloids had reported quotes from the players saying that they were horrible in those games.  Clearly, this was a belief that could cause the Knicks a lot of problems.

Allan and I spoke about it and observed that Latrell would be so full of adrenaline that he probably wouldn’t score well.  Allan would have to carry the load that night.  He was up to the task and we did a process to change his belief about how well he would play in back-to-backs from a negative one to a positive one.

On game night, Allan carried the team.  He was the high scorer and shot well in the 1^st, 2^nd, and 4^th quarters.  However, he went 0-for-5 in the 3^rd.  Still, Allan’s scoring helped the Knicks pull out the win.

After the game, I asked Allan about the 0-for-5.  He said that the team wasn’t scoring well in the 3^rd quarter.  As it turned out, the tabloids had run quotes from the players about it that very day but I was traveling and didn’t see the newspapers.  (It was the “olden” days, so I couldn’t just access the newspapers’ websites on my phone.).  The first time I heard about this new negative belief was post-game.

Needless to say, the next time Allan and I did a session together, we did the same type of belief change process on that negative belief.  And it the game after that session, Allan shot 3-for-5 in the 3^rd quarter.

If you go through the news archives for any major team in any major sport, you’ll see how often the players start to believe things, based on little evidence, because their teammates believe it too.  More research needs to be done on why this occurs but it does occur.  A lot.

But a formal “process” is not the only way that negative beliefs can be changed.  When I coached one of the top women’s softball teams in the country years ago, there was a team in our league that we beat every time we played during the regular season.  But, for some reason, we would lose to them every time we played in playoffs or tournaments.  They were the only team we lost to in those situations and that losing went on for years.

Playing them in the final game of a post-season tournament, we were down a run with two outs in the last inning.  With a runner on first, our cleanup hitter hit a very catchable fly ball to right field.  Collectively, our shoulders slumped.  We knew we’d lost to our nemesis again.

However, the groundskeeper had not capped a sprinkler properly and the right fielder tripped while trotting to catch the ball.  The easy fly out turned into a 2-run homer.  We won the game and the tournament, lucky thou that was.

The results of that win rippled through our next few seasons.  During that time, we still beat the other team every time we played in the regular season.  But we also beat them every time we played in a tournament or playoffs, too.  That freak win because of a sprinkler broke our collective belief that we couldn’t beat them in the post-season and our performance improved accordingly.

It was well known in the 1950s that it was physically impossible for a human to run a mile in less than 4 minutes.  Scientists proclaimed that a human body just couldn’t perform that well.  Everyone knew this to be the case, runners included.

But then Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4 minute mile and that belief in human limitation was shattered.  Over the next few months, many other runners broke 4 minutes as well.  They didn’t do that because they took a new supplement or did some type of intensive weight training that gave them speed they’d never had before.  They did it because they didn’t have a negative belief putting the brakes on their own potential.  Their belief in what was possible expanded greatly as Roger Bannister crossed the finish line weeks before.

Regardless of how much heat Miami brings tonight, the Knicks’ performance should be better than we, and they, have come to expect during the post-season.  Hopefully that extra performance will carry the day and the Knicks will bring the series back to the Garden.  Either way, we can expect better performances now, and in the future, because two long-term negative beliefs were busted in the Knicks’ game 4 win.  At long last and just in time.

Knicks fans must be rocket scientists to help team win

With the Knicks down 3-0 against the Miami Heat, today’s game is “must win”.  If the depleted Knicks are going to beat the well-stocked Heat, they need a lot of things to go right.  There’s a way that the Knicks fans, at the Garden and on Twitter, can help.

We often hear “it isn’t rocket science”.  But helping the Knicks today actually is.  Werner Heisenberg was a great physicist in the early-to-mid 1900s.  A lot of his work was used in “rocket science” and some in quantum mechanics. 

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle roughly translates to “when you measure something, you change the thing that you’re measuring”.  An easy example is that if you put a thermometer into a glass of water, you don’t get the temperature of the water.  You get the temperature of the water after it’s adjusted for the temperature of the thermometer.

Watching a game is “measuring” it.  So is writing about it for the newspapers and blogs.  Trust me, the results of most games would be somewhat different if the game was played with no one watching and then the results reported after the fact.

Here’s where Knicks fans come in: it’s been proven that blood chemistry changes for different emotions.  And it’s well known that athletes play better when they feel certain emotions and play worse when they feel others.

Being booed, justified or not, makes players feel badly.  That translates to bad blood chemistry and a worse performance. 

At the same time, being cheered makes players feel great.  That translates to good blood chemistry and a better performance.

Fans have a right to feel unhappy that things are where they are with the Knicks right now.  And if the fans at the Garden can put that unhappiness aside and cheer the team on, even when they mess up, there’s a much better chance of game 5 taking place in a couple of days.

How can fans on Twitter and not at the Garden help?  Keep your tweets positive until the end of the game.  Fans inside the Garden read your Tweets real time.  If we’re asking them to stay positive, let’s help them out by not giving them a lot of negative stuff to deal with at the same time.

Let’s face it, there will be a lot of negativity printed, blogged, and tweeted during the off season.  But if we’re willing to be rocket scientists for just a couple of hours right now, maybe the off season won’t start for the Knicks as early as it otherwise might.