[bigboydan]

What's next? Marbury comes to practice and tries to choke Brown? But this time the team let's him!

March 15, 2006 -- With the boxing gloves still off, Larry Brown delivered the knockout punch yesterday, flooring Stephon Marbury by raising the issue of each other's credibility. Brown pointed out the track records of each of them while also questioning Marbury's commitment to winning and defense.
It was by far the most thunderous hit Brown has laid on Marbury. The Knicks coach is still raging-mad his captain has challenged his authority in a relationship that appears irreparable.

Marbury was mum yesterday when the Knicks held an optional practice. Marbury, after the film session, elected not to join his teammates on the court because of an ankle sprain, or meet with reporters.

"I've been coaching how many years, a long time," Brown said. "I never left a team in worse shape than when I got them. Not once. Think about that. Think about me and think about the guy who's talking. I never left a team in worse shape. Never asked anything of my players any different than I'm doing right now."

That response came to the question of whether he and Marbury can work this thing out. Brown, in seven prior NBA stops, has lifted all his clubs from the doldrums to the playoffs. Meanwhile, Marbury will miss the playoffs for the sixth time in 10 seasons and never has won a playoff round.

Brown's biggest beef with Marbury's complaints that he needs more freedom in his restrictive offense is he feels he's looking at the most irrelevant issues on why the Knicks are an NBA-worst 17-45.

Playing host to Atlanta tonight, Team Titanic has been horrendous in all intangibles - collecting loose balls, getting long rebounds, blocking shots - none of which Brown senses his captain cares about. It's so bad Brown hinted Marbury's playing time could decrease if he doesn't defend better.



The most esteemed marriage counselor cannot save this Brown-Marbury union from eventual offseason divorce. Brown made an allusion to Allen Iverson, indicating he was more on the same page with his Philly feuding partner than with Marbury.

"The bottom line is, I want us to rebound, defend, share the ball, play hard," Brown said. "If you can't do that, if that's not important to you, it's not on me. And you owe it to your teammates to do that every night if you care about the right things.

"Look, I'll take my credibility. I ain't worried about my credibility. If you want to say because we don't have freedom, that's because we're losing. That's fine," Brown said, reeling off the squad's defensive problems - from fouls and turnovers (too many) to blocks (too few) and opponents' FG percentage (too high).

"You want freedom?" Brown asked rhetorically. "How are you going to have freedom with those stats? That means [he] ain't thinking about all the things that's relevant."

In his discourse Monday, Marbury wondered why Iverson never had the same constraints under Brown he has. Brown countered that Iverson played defense, played hurt, tried to win.

"You want to talk about the relationship with Allen Iverson and me," Brown said. "Philly got stops, got blocks, got steals. One of the best defensive teams in the league every night."

Brown said his feuds with Iverson centered solely on him not wanting to practice regularly.

"Never had things on the court," Brown said. "On the court, he tried to win every game. He came to every game trying to win, played as hard as he possibly could. Hurt, broken down. The guy competed every single night and he had a team around him who accepted what he could do and they all knew every single night he was trying to win the game."

As for Marbury, Brown took another dig, saying Jamal Crawford's "becoming our best perimeter defender."

"We watched the film today [of the Denver loss Monday]," Brown said. "It's amazing how badly we defended. A lot of it started at the perimeter. That will determine playing time. Whoever tries to guard is going to get minutes."

Isiah Thomas was at practice but declined to speak. Brown said he had not spoken to Marbury one-on-one, but may address the Marbury issue today as a team during the morning shootaround.

[isetcap]

I can't understand why Marbury was ever made captain of this team. He has the leadership skills of a lemming. This team is a car wreck on so many levels.

[Winston Smith]

He has the leadership skills of a lemming.

That's a great image.

[onlooker]

Marbury did live on the 4th floor above Telfair that was on the 3rd.

Sorry, I heard that on that bio of Telfair the other day and just laughed when he said that crap.

Maybe the Blazers could swap Telfair for Marbury. Make it a family affair.