The threes bombed until they didn't but a trip dub from Carmelo Anthony helped make sure it didn't matter much when they stopped falling.

Recap coming later.

After three straight wins -- each where the offense scored over 100 points -- it's natural to think that Mike Woodson's system is better suited for these Knicks than Mike D'Antoni's. What's been interesting to see, though, is that the system hasn't changed much at all. Woodson's thrown some a new set or two into the repertoire, and he's certainly drawn up far more interesting plays out of timeouts, but the team is still utilizing D'Antoni's core plays.

The starters are still awkwardly figuring out whose space is whose. The bench is still running a 1-5 pick and roll with three players anchored behind the arch. And Carmelo Anthony is still getting the ball at the elbow. The difference is Melo's more engaged, Amar'e Stoudemire looks a bit springier, and Jeremy Lin isn't tasked with running 60 pick and rolls a game anymore.

And that may be the interesting wrinkle that emerges from this offense: Lin playing off the ball.

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Seth with a short recap later. For now, enjoy the sun more than you enjoyed this game.

This post was supposed to be about Jeremy Lin. Sorry if that's trite by now but I wanted to talk about how I think the offense would look with Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony coming back. Plus I wanted to make jaguar jokes cause I think that's how defenders must view him at this point.

Seriously, put yourself in the mind of a defender. Now picture Lin, similar to a jaguar the way he moves so fluidly. He dribbles in place. One dribble. Two dribbles. You've been in this position all night but you're still figuring it out. You're watching his feet now, expecting to feel the weight of Tyson Chandler any moment.

It hits you, left side, and you're pushing to get over it. Shit, you're trailing now but you see Lin hesitate. Wait, why'd he stop? Should you stop? Is that that new Michael Chabon book? And then he lays it up on you.

I wanted to talk about nonsense like that but as I checked the tape, I kept writing notes about Steve Novak instead.

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He tweeted about it early this morning, but the Knicks officially announced the signing of Baron Davis via their Twitter feed today:

OFFICIAL: Knicks Sign FA Guard, Baron Davis

There are some conflicting reports on the actual contract but Al Iannazzone reports it's for the room exception.

Free-agent point guard Baron Davis will sign a one-year deal today with the Knicks for the $2.5 million exception.

The team will have to wait a month before he's able to step on the floor but don't seem too concerned. Considering what's left of the free agent market, and for a one-year commitment, I wouldn't either.

Beard up, bros!

Update: Howard Beck now says that Davis will sign for the veteran's minimum, ($1.4 million) which would be most excellent. That leaves the room exception to be dangled for a free agent frontcourt player of some sort (Beck names James Posey).

Update: Alan Hahn:

Baron Davis will wear No. 85, as he did in Cleveland. It represents the street in Ohio where he lived with his grandparents.

A bit of research leads me to believe that this is the highest jersey number on the Knicks ever. This is Seth, by the way. <3.

After Chauncey Billups was waived under the amnesty clause to make financial room for Tyson Chandler, the biggest concern turned to re-filling that very point guard spot. After all, there's still doubt about whether or not Toney Douglas can run an offense and Iman Shumpert is cut from the same impure point guard mold.

Mike D'Antoni cleared up some of those concerns, saying that the offense would run through Carmelo Anthony, doing that whole point forward thing. That isn't ideal, nor is it particularly reassuring, but that's perhaps the biggest misconception about D'Antoni's offense. It doesn't require point guards so much as it requires playmakers. Whether said playmaker is 6'2 or 6'8 makes little difference. But with Douglas as the starter, in the first preseason game we saw the difference between Douglas' position and Melo's role.

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Baron Davis agreed to sign with the Knicks and a deal could be completed as early as today, according to Marc Stein's sources.

Baron Davis has committed to sign with the New York Knicks, according to sources close to the situation.

The deal could be formally completed as soon as Sunday, sources said.

Davis is still hurt and is notorious for often being out of shape, but we have to assume the contract is for the minimum so there's little risk. That and he improves the point guard rotation in spite of these issues. Oh, and Fear the Beard.

Mitch Lawrence reports on the Daily News that the Knicks might hire Mike Woodson as the designated defensive assistant coach next week:

In the past few days, Woodson had told two confidantes that he expects to join the Knicks. The move might become official next week, according to sources, when Garden and team executives return from vacation.

There hasn't been any word on other interviews or candidates since his interview so this perhaps shouldn't be any surprise. I'm sure owners will be eager to end the lockout to allow Mike Dubs to implement defensive strategies once his deal is completed.

David Aldridge reports that former Atlanta Hawk head coach, Mike Woodson, is meeting with the Knicks this week to interview for the designated defensive assistant coach position.

For his part, Woodson has moved on, interviewing for the Minnesota Timberwolves' vacancy. And a source indicates he'll be in New York early this week to talk with the Knicks about becoming their defensive coordinator, a job that management has mandated coach Mike D'Antoni, entering the final year of his contract, accept for next season.

The Knicks' options have been dwindling since Lawrence Frank took over as head coach of the Pistons but bringing in Woodson doesn't appear to be a terrible decision. Woodson's teams finished 23rd, 18th, 11th and 13th in defensive efficiency (the number of points a team gives up per 100 possessions) in his final four years in Atlanta. He finished in the top half of the league his final two seasons while the Knicks finished in the bottom ten in the last three. Of course, he can't bring Al Horford with him so we'll see just how creative his schemes are should he be hired to coach that side of the ball.

Thanks to hvino already fanshot'd this.

The Post broke a story yesterday about Amar'e Stoudemire launching a website in partnership with BigLeadSports.com.

The 6-10 power forward has struck a deal to launch his own website at BigLeadSports.com, The Post has learned. The 28-year-old all-star will focus his site on sports and fashion.

Stoudemire is expected to provide exclusive content for Big Lead, which was formed as a sports blog nearly five years ago, in exchange for a revenue-sharing agreement and small equity stake in the company.

The fashion angle shouldn't come as any a surprise considering the friends he's made in the industry in his first year in New York. He's already worked with designer Rachel Roy and sat front-row with Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour, at a Tommy Hilfiger show. Really, it's a climb up the ranks only rivaled by Andy Sachs.

Now it seems he's ready to share his own thoughts on style with the masses and Posting and Toasting has his exclusive first posts.

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Back in The Internetz, Posting and Toasting enrolls all the Knicks in a progressive school with its own system of evaluation.

Anthony Carter was yet another addition from Denver that was expected to make little impact in the closing weeks of the season. How could he? He was on the wrong side of a certain age. He was stepping into the most difficult position of a difficult system. And he had three or four guards ahead of him on the depth chart.

What we didn't account for was how nothing phases men who've seen it all. See, AC was the OG captain of the starship -- I'm talking before Kirk and Pike. If he could pilot in warp speed, Mike D'Antoni's offense was totes like, "Whatevz, bro." Simply put, Anthony Carter is the man.

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Amar'e Stoudemire is still feeling soreness in his back which he injured in the Playoffs.

Stoudemire said that while he can move and bend over fine, his back is still sore and it's slowly healing. In fact, the court is the last place you'll find him. Try the couch.

"Right now, all I can do is rest," Stoudemire said. "There's no rehab right now -- no cardio, no weightlifting, nothing. They say the best thing for me right now is another three weeks of rest, nothing else."

This is something that none of us want to hear about the team's $100M big man but anyone with back issues can tell you that they don't just go away after a week. I pulled something in my back in April and the soreness only went away over the last month or so (and believe me, all I do is chill).

Let's all find something for Amar'e to do whenever he's not chumming with celebrities over the next three weeks. Should we chip in for an Xbox Live account?

This is a bit of old news but Hoopsworld spoke to Julyan Stone about his meeting with the Knicks prior to the lockout.

"I met with Donnie Walsh and Allan Houston," Stone told HOOPSWORLD. "I was able to talk to pretty much everyone within the organization. I talked to Mike D'Antoni for about a half hour. It was great and I got a really good feeling there. They want to win and basically they said that they have all the scorers they need. Now, they just need people who will play defense and they feel like what I do can help their team."

"They want me to come to training camp," he added. "They told me that there's going to be a lot of teams that want me to bring me in for training camp, but they said not to forget who wanted me first. They want me to talk to them before I make any decisions."

The endurance to follow a single team through an entire season of basketball, and if you're lucky enough, at least four games on top of that, takes a special kind of fan. Over the years, mediums like blogs and Twitter fostered this kind of fandom. Information is always available for us, as well as an audience to entertain our opinions. Because of that it's becoming increasingly easy to overstate both the struggle and success of teams. When your favorite one wins eight of ten in January, you can't help but fantasize about the kind of run it can make May. Or worse, when it loses those eight and your threshold for failure breaks, you talk yourself into wanting unobtainable players from other teams. It's not just us. Players lose perspective as they go through these waves, too.

If you've followed Rob Mahoney's rise as one of basketball's indispensable scribes, you've been treated to writing that doesn't lose perspective. He's blessed in that he's followed a team that's won 50 games a season for over a decade. He's seen the evolution that that requires. He knows what kind of team can play in June, but he's also seen it exit painfully early. He knows how fragile all of these things really are.

All of that understanding is present in Mahoney's first published book Mavericks Stampede. In it, he recaps each quirk that made the Dallas Mavericks' first championship possible. From standard preseason fodder like "The goal is a championship" to injury fueled setbacks to deconstructing expectations set by others, you come away knowing the Mavs just as well as your favorite team.

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Back in The Internetz, Posting and Toasting enrolls all the Knicks in a progressive school with its own system of evaluation.

Derrick Brown was a 2009 second-round draft pick of the Charlotte Bobcats who was reluctantly waived to make room for the Gerald Wallace trade. Claimed by the Knicks on March 1st, he sounded like your classic flyer. How fly was he? Derrick Brown was so fly he asked my lady for her number and I gave it to him. Also, he recited some fly-ass poetry while rockin' a purple robe (purple, of course, is the color of royalty). So naturally, on the court, flying was a big part of his game. But there are aspects of it that need much improvement - his jumpshot specifically. In fact, here's DB calling his shot.

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Back in The Internetz, Posting and Toasting enrolls all the Knicks in a progressive school with its own system of evaluation.

Delivered to New York in the same box as Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups was the mitigating factor of a deal that depleted the Knicks of all its assets. Considered the third head of yet another a big three after some nifty dribbling and timely scoring, Burps immediately experienced just how quickly this city can turn on anyone after some erratic play. His anagram:

Fill in that blank however you wish because to evaluate someone playing on one leg is to judge a four course meal on the first bite. This was just an amuse-bouche.

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The second release of the Clydes were made available for all yesterday and I was lucky enough to go to the release event at Concepts. From Complex:

The "Cali Canvas" Clydes pay homage to basketball legend Walt "Clyde" Frazier as well as the West Coast where Undefeated make their home. Same antimicrobial footbed and redesign as the original Undefeated Clydes, but this time the Formstripe was left alone.

While I rarely wear sneakers (monk straps whutup), I must admit that these are fresher than Maine clams. Click through for a couple of awful pictures and go pick up a pair if only to be a little more like Clyde.

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Back in The Internetz, Posting and Toasting enrolls all the Knicks in a progressive school with its own system of evaluation.

Renaldo Balkman is a pos-vibe emanator. When life gives him lemons, he volunteers at a fundraiser for cancer research. It's standard behavior on his part. His return to the Knicks was also fairly standard. Of course, standard for Humpty is sublime glory and that's precisely how we would describe his second stint with the team. Our deepest regret, and Mike D'Antoni's as well, is that he only did the basketball thing for 18 minutes. That small sample size is what makes it difficult to determine if Balkman is the best player in Knick history or merely the least worst defensive player of all time. His life season in anagram form?

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Back in The Internetz, Posting and Toasting enrolls all the Knicks in a progressive school with its own system of evaluation.

As we go through these report cards alphabetically, it's fitting that Carmelo Anthony is called up first, for no one, not even this team's best player, stole headlines and affected the final outcome of the Knicks' season quite like Melo. But before we go any further, we start with an anagram that best sums up his year in orange and blue.

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Alan Hahn and John Schuhmann both tweeted that Donnie Walsh is out as the Knicks' president.

Dolan: "Donnie Walsh and I have mutually agreed that he will be leaving his position as president... at the end of June.... will remain with the team as a consultant for the 2011-12 season."

I ... I just don't have anything to say.

Update from Hahn:

Glen Grunwald will run the team as interim GM for the time being as a search for a new president and GM.

Update from Ken Berger:

Glen Grunwald will serve as interim GM beginning July 1, and the team will begin the search for Walsh's replacement.

Not entirely sure what that means. Does Donnie still handle the draft if Grunwald is taking over in July?

It's difficult to overstate just how incredible Ray Allen has been through the first three games of the series. While the Knicks slowed him down for stretches early in Game 1, he's all but run amok since, making 15 threes and shooting an absurd eFG% of 84%. As the Celtics carpet bombed the Knicks from three-point territory in Game 3, Jeff Van Gundy was repeatedly befuddled by the amount of times Ray Allen got open looks. He and Paul Pierce seemingly hit every spot up opportunity that came their way and a quick look at the stats reveals just how accurate the bombings were. The Celtics had 28 spot up plays scoring 1.32 points per possession (PPP) while hitting 7 of 12 three-point attempts. They also took 12 shots off screens scoring 1.67 PPP and hitting 3 of 4 threes. I think we can guess who caused the damage considering Allen and Pierce were the only guys in green to make any shots from downtown that game. But it all starts with getting open and for that we go to the tape.

The Knicks aren't going to figure this Ray Allen problem out by this afternoon. The rest of the league hasn't got it down yet and it's been 14 years already. Let's just pray that he's drained cause getting up for a 3:30 tip should feel like waking up from the dead for Mr. Shuttlesworth.

Amar'e Stoudemire, who was essentially absent from Game 3, may sit Game 4 if his back doesn't improve.

Stoudemire started on Friday night but struggled throughout the game. He finished with seven points on 2-of-8 shooting and pulled down three rebounds. He estimated that he was playing at less than 50 percent. He said on Saturday that he has to feel better to take the floor Sunday in Game 4.

"It has to be better. I knew last night I wasn't 100 percent. I wasn't 50 percent last night. I was pretty much in pain the whole game, from start to finish. I just don't want to further injure the injury," Stoudemire said. "We understand how bright the future is here with the organization. ... We want to continue that success out here in the next few years. So we don't want to damage anything by overdoing it."

If Amar'e's health meter isn't filled to 80 at the minimum, there's no reason to risk any further injury with the team down 3-0 in the series. Game 3 was a matter of heart and competitiveness and he's shown that, but if he's still wincing with each step on Sunday, he should cryogenicaly freeze himself like John Spartan until the following season.