Mike Woodson heard how Amar’e Stoudemire would have liked to have seen the ball go inside more last Sunday in Miami.
The Knicks coach believes his team has established an inside game. The coach just wants to see a little more balance with his team’s inside-out game.
Mike Woodson discusses the Knicks' status for Friday's game and their postseason hopes.
“We’ve been pretty good in this stretch in being able to mix up our threes and go inside out,” Woodson said after practice. “I know there was some bickering out there about we didn’t play inside enough.
“But for the most part we have established an inside game with Amar'e and with Melo [Carmelo Anthony]. And we’ve shot a ton of threes as well. So we’ve got to keep them in that range where it’s not so one-sided.”
J.R. Smith made 10 three-pointers and scored 32 points in the 102-91 loss to the Heat. But he launched 22 shots from behind the arc. Woodson said he would have liked to have seen Smith get to the line more after the shooter failed to shoot any free throws.
Stoudemire scored 12 points but took just nine shots. Anthony, struggling with a shoulder injury, shot 4-of-17 and finished with 13 points.
“We had a chance to win the game,” Stoudemire said after the Knicks’ loss. “They went small and we shot 3s.”
Stoudemire said “we didn’t take advantage of our size” and noted how Shane Battier was on him for several possessions.
Stoudemire said the team hasn’t discussed the big man’s observations about going inside more since that game.
“No, we didn’t talk about it at all,” Stoudemire said. “But we had a day off yesterday and we had practice today and we will get ready for Toronto here in the future so we will see what we will do in Toronto but we got to move forward.”
