Here's why the Knicks lost to the pacers:

1) JR Smith collapsed after the Jason Terry fiasco. He shot 29% from the field in the 8 games after his suspension. JR was the Knicks' 3rd best player that season. #JustJRThings

2) Woodson responded to the Knicks' 1-2 deficit by abandoning the system that had propelled the Knicks all season. He went big, inserting Kenyon Martin into the starting lineup. The Knicks' two stretch fours, Novak and Copeland, were marginalized, combining for about 35 MPG combined during the regular season, MORE minutes during the Knicks' huge win streak at the end of the season.

The Knicks traded for Bargnani (who hadn't been effective from three in 3 seasons) to go big and play a more traditional offense. 54 wins ----> 37 wins. If anything was exposed on the playoffs, it was that the Knicks had played above their talent level all season long because they embraced the three point shot. When you don't have a a lot of talent, you have less flexibility in terms of how you can win, and in the playoffs, teams force you to make adjustments.

That 2012/13 team was so successful for a lot of reasons, the biggest of which was luck. There were probably a half dozen bench players who emerged to help the team way more than you could have expected. Numerous players had career years -- Anthony, Felton, JR Smith...

But what they were doing as far as their system goes is proven. Kidd was coaching the team more than Woodson, and they were doing a lot of the same things Dallas did in their title team, which, not by coincidence, also featured Kidd and Chandler. Get the ball to the scorer, spread the floor, put strong ball handlers & passers on the perimeter so the ball finds the open man ASAP. It was effective for a talented Dallas team and slightly less effective for a less talented NYK team, but it was the same idea.

Woodson just abandoned it in the playoffs and then never went back to it once the Bargnani trade happened.