on D that is!  First the positives, of which there are many!  Great game against the Nuggets last night.  For those of you who missed it, you not only missed an exciting, come from behind (twice!) victory, but some fantastic performances complemented by a whole lot of solid ones.  Zach, welcome to New York, sure felt like a coming out party to me.  I’ve really liked Zach’s game for a while and will certainly tolerate the occasional poor shooting night, the occasional spliff, for more nights like last night.  Eddy, hell yeah, he said he had more fun on a basketball court than he has for a while, and I can see why.  The man was flat out dominant out there, on both ends.  Which brings me to my criticisms, only 2 of them this time…..1) Help defense - why don’t these guys know anything about this?  For some reason, the most fundamental defensive principles consistently escape the Knicks, such as defending the 3 point line and not giving a guy the baseline (which they did several times last night).  The thing is, they don’t even look clear as what they are supposed to be doing.  Over and over they are pushing a guy left, where he drives straight in for an easy 2, because there was noone there!! And then everyone looks around exasperated, trying to figure out who blew the assignment.  2) Mental lapses - This is a bit tougher to figure out, but it seems to me that this has been the main killer for the past several years.  Focus, consistency…every team struggles with this, but it’s largely what separates playoff teams from losing teams.  Let’s watch how they build off this great win and see if they can start stringing together more quality quarters without mental lapses, and for God’s sake, help each other out, will ya?!  Bring on Orlando