highlights – Page 12 – NEW YORK KNICKS LOYALIST

Where Is Melo??? Nuggets Run Knicks Off the Court 117-94

You give a garbage effort, you get garbage results. This has been the case in the last two pathetic games: first the Warriors embarrassed the Knicks with a 30-point blowout, and the Nuggets added to the misery of Melo’s homecoming with a 117-94 defeat last night. It was a horrible game in all facets, including more serious injuries to two of our best players. When it rains it pours…

BLOOD IN THE WATER: Even though the Knicks were only down 5 points (26-31) at the end of the first quarter, the writing was on the wall. The defense was very porous with the Nuggets being able to outrun the Knicks in transition to get repeated layups. The Knicks repeated their folly the entire quarter — after every made basket, they were slow to get back as the Nuggets pushed the ball down their throats. The Knicks made a few treys to keep it close, but the energy level was alarmingly high in the Nuggets’ favor with the Knicks looking every bit like the older, banged up bunch they are.

2ND QUARTER MASSACRE: Nuggets coach George Karl told his team regarding their uptempo style that, “We run them, they don’t run us.” With Melo resting on the bench, the offense attempted to go through JR Smith to disastrous results. Smith missed a bunch of long jumpers and coughed the ball up several times. The stagnant offense was mirrored on the defensive end with the Nuggets going on a back-breaking 16-0 run. Novak couldn’t hit anything from downtown, and Wilson Chandler outran him down the court repeatedly for layups and dunks.

The Nuggets run extended to 21-1 and when the smoke cleared, The Knicks were looking at a 64-42 halftime deficit. To make matters worse, Tyson Chandler had to be carried off the court after banging his left knee on Corey Brewer and suffering a left knee contusion.

MELO CALLS IT A NIGHT: Melo’s right knee wasn’t much better than the previous game against the Warriors. He could only muster 9 points on 3-12 shooting before he headed back to the locker room. The rest of the team look bewildered at him leaving, and I’m sure that did nothing for their moral. The Denver crowd had booed Melo every time he touched the ball and have a great time even in his absence with chants of “Where is Melo?” and “Who needs Melo?”

[youtube http://youtu.be/9mtDxKoWDto]

COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE: Melo can be criticized in a few areas this season like taking nights off on defense and being erratic with his shot selection. But these recent games are a collective failure. Our guards can’t keep anyone out the paint and our defensive rotations are horrible. Our best paint defender in Tyson Chandler constantly finds himself switched out onto the perimeter. The offense consists heavily of isolation plays with lots of standing around. The accountability is not there. Just last night, JR Smith appeared to have free reign while Iman Shumpert, who had his best game since returning from ACL surgery (20 points, 8-10 shooting), was seen getting chastised by Woodson after one bad three-point shot.

We are in trouble, guys. With Melo possibly out for a game or two and Chandler for God knows how long, it would not be a surprise to go through this road trip 1-4 or 0-5. We could find ourselves in the fourth seed and out of the Atlantic division lead by the time we make it back to Madison Square Garden to face the Magic on March 20.

[youtube http://youtu.be/8pxAuUqxrp8]

Knicks Game-Winner Falls Short, Thunder Win 95-94

I’m not even mad at this one. Well, I’m not mad at the players. Coaching, that’s another matter. With Melo again sitting, no one gave the Knicks much of a chance to defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder last night. But for the entire game, the Knicks fought tooth and nail, putting themselves in position to take the win off a buzzer-beater from JR Smith, who spent much of the game lighting up whoever was assigned to guard him.

SURVIVING THE FIRST PUNCH: Coach Woodson started James White and Kurt Thomas again, but this time they contributed in their limited minutes. White hit two treys and Thomas hit a jumper and played decent defense. Nonetheless, the Thunder promptly began abusing the Knicks in transition to the tune of a 16-0 run to take a 23-13 lead. It was looking ugly, but the Knicks rallied behind their defense. Although they produced way too many fouls (10 free throw points), it kept the game from getting too out of hand, and the Knicks faced a 26-35 deficit after one quarter.

JR’s GREEN LIGHT: With Melo out, JR gunning was a formality. He delivered a scorching second quarter with 18 points. His shooting, which came on a nice mix of treys and drives to the basket, ignited the rest of the Knicks. Kenyon Martin was very physical with Kevin Durant, and K-Mart also supplied offense with a putback dunk and alley oop from JR.

THUNDER LIVES AT THE LINE: As hard as the Knicks played, their fouls allowed the Thunder to stay in it no matter the runs. Of course, there were questionable fouls. Other times, NY just made mental mistakes. A game like this is a perfect example of why Woody’s philosophy of constant defensive switching is bad news. On multiple plays, you saw Chandler and Stat isolated out on the perimeter against the likes of Durant and Westbrook. In all, OKC got 29 free throw attempts and made 25 of them. The most annoying pair came in the closing minutes when Woody took out Felton, who had just scored on a nice driving layup, to insert Martin on Durant. K-Mart promptly fouled in out 5 seconds, but gave up two free throws to Durant. You don’t want to pin a one-point loss on a random play, but that foul sticks out.

STAT HELD IN CHECK: We were all hoping for a big game from Amar’e, but OKC is not the Pistons. Serge Ibaka harassed Stat all night and turned him back at the rim no less than 4 times. Stat got a couple of good moves on him (including a nasty facial), but he never got a sustained rhythm, going 5-16 for 16 points in 28 minutes. On a positive note, Stat nabbed eight rebounds and made a concerted effort to crash the boards.

4TH QUARTER COLLAPSE, PART 2: Might be weird to read that considering the Knicks only lost by a point, but this was a slow death. No, it wan’t as dramatic as the damage the Heat did last weekend, but the same problems surfaced. The Knicks couldn’t score consistently (13 points in the quarter), who was settling for jumpers that were now off the mark. Going small with 3-4 guards only truly works if said guards can create their own shots, and the length of the OKC on the perimeter made that increasingly difficult. Still, the fact that the Knicks seemed content on jumpers with nothing going to the hole was frustrating to watch. And even with that, the Knicks got two stops in the final minute to get a chance to win it with 7 seconds left.

A TOUGH FADEAWAY JUMPER?: Of his 29 shots, the only one that truly baffled me was the long fadeaway JR took to end the game. His shot had been off for most of the fourth, so a drive to at least get him facing the basket for a better look would have been ideal.

As I said in the beginning, this loss doesn’t bother me much. K-Mart got significant playing time (which hopefully has opened Woody’s eyes), the team played with excellent effort, and nearly won a game they had no business even being in without their best player. Onto the next one, which is a home game against the Jazz Saturday night.

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Knicks Implode in Second Half, Fall to Heat 99-93

I needed 24 hours to cool down before writing about this game. For one quarter, the Knicks looked like the formidable team we saw in November and December — sweet passing, hot three-point shooting and our bigs rolling to the basket for easy slams. As expected, the Miami Heat made a second half run that was exacerbated by bad defensive rotations and head-scratching lineups down the stretch. No, yesterday’s game isn’t a sole reason to become irate as a Knicks fan, but it sure as hell was one to make you highly annoyed.

JASON KIDD RESURRECTED: Without question, the Knicks highlight of the game was Kidd retrieving his jumper from El Segundo. The man was on fire in the first half in nailing fourth straight treys. In addition, he nabbed eight rebounds, caused several deflections and got three steals. The Heat defense phased him out in the second half, but hopefully this performance will do wonders for his confidence.

REALLY ONE GOOD QUARTER: A lot has been going around over the last 24 hours about the Knicks playing really well over the first half, but it was really just the second quarter, where NY outscored Miami 37-22. In the first, no one could score outside of Melo, who had 17 of NY’s 22 points.

THE WALKING USELESS: James White got the starting assignment again and might as well have been wearing a Heat uniform. In less than five minutes, he had three fouls, one of which being a three-point play given up to Mario Chalmers on the Heat’s first possession.

Steve Novak had three open looks from downtown that he bricked. His biggest detriment was on defense, where he gave up a defensive rebound by being out-hustled by Ray Allen which lead to the LeBron James trey that tied the game.

Why these two got burn while Kenyon Martin and Marcus Camby languished on the bench was mind-blowing.

JR GUNNING: Jr Smith went 5-18 from the field and took 14 treys! Where was the leash for this man? Another Woodson blunder had JR still in chucking while benching Stoudemire, who had been giving Miami fits down low. JR was handling the ball way too much with his more blatant mistakes being two telegraphed cross-court passes that LeBron picked off (the last being the game-killer in the last 30 seconds).

MELO HURT AND SHUT DOWN: Melo had 24 points at halftime but injured his arm on a three-pointer in the second. He only went 3-11 in the second half which was combination of James, the Heat help defense, and Stat not being on the floor. When they did play together, Melo’s pick and roll with Stat lead to two easy dunks.

GET IT TOGETHER, WOODY: Coach Woodson is quick to give guys the Ice Cube early 90’s screwface when they mess up. He needs to give himself that face in the mirror. The Heat experimented with many lineups, but in crunch time their Big Three is on the floor, and that’s why they closed the fourth strong (outscoring the Knicks 26-16). On our end, Stat rotted on the bench while JR was cold and the Heat defense zeroed in on Melo.

And again, not playing K-Mart or Camby while guys like Novak weren’t scoring and getting the red-headed stepchild treatment is inexcusable.

CRYING AND GIVING UP POINTS: Sure, LeBron James did his share of complaining (and even gets caught on camera calling a ref a “bitch ass nigga..”). But guess what — King James doesn’t do it when the game is still in play. Raymond Felton did it at the end of the third and didn’t get back on defense, leading to an open three-pointer from Shane Battier that brought the Heat within four, 77-73. In the fourth, James got away with a foul on Chandler, who sat on his ass and literally threw a fit while James sprinted back, got an offensive rebound, and put in a layup to get the Heat up 91-87. Those two sequences where huge momentum swings and five important points the Knicks literally gave away.

The Knicks get to redeem themselves tonight in Cleveland against the Cavaliers. This is by no means a guaranteed win, as the Knicks have had a lot of problems winning up there in recent years going back to the LeBron era.

Have a Seat, Kidd — Knicks Clamp Down in 4th, Defeat Wizards 96-88

It took Jason Kidd shooting 19% from the field over the entire month of February for Mike Woodson to take away his starting spot before last night’s game against the Washington Wizards. Unfortunately, Woodson’s stubborness came back on display in the fourth quarter and for a while seemed like it may cost us the game. Lucky for the Knicks, the Wizards give you a lot of room for error and New York got themselves right to hold a three-game winning streak before facing the Miami Heat tomorrow.

NEW LINEUPS BUT SOME OLD BAD HABITS: James White made the start at small forward with Iman Shumpert finally getting moved to shooting guard. White didn’t supply anything in the way of offense, but he also wasn’t a defensive liability, which had been the problem with Kidd trying to defend faster guards. Unfortunately, Carmelo Anthony was off (1-6 in quarter), but JR Smith and Raymond Felton were aggressive looking for their shots and getting to the rim. And Steve Novak hit a nice bank shot and a trey to help the Knicks lead 26-23 after one.

With Pablo Prigioni out with back spasms, Woodson had Kidd man a new second unit of Kidd, Shump, Novak, Stat and Chandler. The defensive rotations were still off and Chandler was visibly annoyed at times, but at least a deficit wasn’t created. Things tightened up with Melo and JR coming back in and the Knicks took a 54-48 lead into halftime.

After a horrid third quarter where the Knicks went six minutes without a field goal and were outscored 29-19 to give up the lead (73-77), Woodson resumed his love affair with Kidd getting major minutes in the fourth despite bricking several open shots. He would keep him in there until the 3:21 mark. Stat had words for Woodson when he sat for most of the fourth after getting some good points in the post, and he wouldn’t come in until Kidd got benched. Shumpert got in when the game was all but already decided by the cold shooting from the Wizards.

Knicks fans can only hope Kidd doesn’t get this much burn against Miami tomorrow.

NO K-MART?: I would have really liked to see what Kenyon Martin could have done last night. I guess with the Wizards not having Nene, Woodson didn’t feel the need to play him. I feel his defense could have really helped stifle that crazy 21-6 run the Wizards had in the third quarter. K-Mart and Camby are expected to be available for Sunday.

CLOSING STRONG: Outside of the third, the Knicks closed every quarter with a run. They had shutout runs of 8-0 and 9-0 in the first half, and the Wizards were held to just three field goals in the entire fourth quarter (outscored 23-11 in the quarter).

MOMENTUM PLAY: The Knicks were down 75-77 early in the fourth when a steal lead to a Kidd fast break. Wall chased him down for a block that was ruled a goaltend, sending Wall into a brief tirade that earned him a tech. That three-point swing gave the Knicks a 78-77 lead, which they would not relinquish the rest of the way.

FELTON HITS A FLOATER?!: Hell has frozen over. Not only did Felton hit a floater, but it was the shot that iced the game. That shot has been broken all year, making this one of the most unintentionally funny Knicks-related videos of the season.

ANOTHER CAREER-HIGH: Surprise, surprise — another guard gets their career-high on the Knicks. Last night it was Bradley Beal scoring 29 points with 12 coming from downtown. Luckily he was off in the fourth with the rest of his team.

BACK IN 2ND PLACE: The Knicks are back in second place in the Eastern Conference, but the hold is very tenuous — a bad loss or two and the Knicks could be as far down as fourth place. That makes the Heat game on Sunday very important.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcj4V84MT4&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

[Video] Are You Not Entertained?! Curry & Chandler Post Career Highs, Knicks Win Thriller Over Warriors

Games like this will have you beside yourself. Warriors point guard Steph Curry walked into the Garden last night, became possessed, and put on one of the most amazing shooting displays I’ve ever seen. I think I speak for every Knicks fan when I say I’m thankful we only have to see this kid twice a year (We damn near got a repeat of the infamous “Double Nickel”). But luckily we had our own beast last night in Tyson Chandler, along with high-level scoring from Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith to pull out an important home victory. While the game wasn’t decided until the final seconds, the Knicks made some crucial adjustments to pull this one out.

CHANDLER HAS A GAME FOR THE AGES: With no David Lee to counteract him in the middle, Tyson Chandler was feasting from the opening tip. Our man in the middle had 13 rebounds in the first quarter along with seven points. He never let up throughout the entire game and snatched 10 offensive rebounds and ended up with a career high of 28 rebounds (the most by a Knicks player in over 20 years).

While we can’t expect Chandler to grab that many rebounds regularly, the team definitely needs that high energy as the defense begins and ends with him.

FELTON TAKES A BEATING BUT PROVES HIS WORTH: For most of this game poor Raymond Felton was getting the Ike-Tina Turner treatment from Curry. Sometimes it was Curry taking advantage of the Knicks’s overall poor transition defense and popping pull-up treys off fast breaks. Other times it was beating Felton off the dribble and getting to the rim or nailing short jumpers. At halftime, the kid had 27 points and was 4/6 from downtown.

Curry dropped 11 points on Felton’s head in the third and a three-pointer briefly gave them the lead (67-65) with over 7 minutes left. Felton responded with his own three that helped NY get back in front 77-73, but Curry continued blitzing from downtown. He had four more treys (one being an absolute dagger with just 4 seconds left on the shot clock to put the Warriors up 103-102).

At this point, you’d think Felton would have been sufficiently demoralized. But the man remained focused even after missing two wide-open momentum threes and bricking two free throws. On the other end, he finally succeeded in pushing Curry off the three-point line and forced him into a jumper he was able to block. The key defensive play resulted in a score off a JR Smith jumper to make it 107-105. Felton would later steal a simple inbounds pass to burn more time off the clock and even though he bricked two more crucial free throws, he secured his own offensive rebound to kill additional time.

His stat line overall doesn’t jump out at you (10 pts on 3/10 shooting, 4 assists), but Felton’s 4 steals were invaluable.

JR FROM DOWNTOWN: The only Knick consistently hitting from downtown last night was JR Smith, who had a great game on 10/19 shooting (6/11 from the arc). Smith is much better from the arc when he catches and shoots as opposed to a bunch of dribbling. He was quick with the trigger and seemed to have a timely triple every time Curry started feeling himself. And another overlooked contribution from JR was his five aggressive rebounds, several on them in the key fourth quarter.

STAT CORRECTS 1ST HALF WOES: Amar’e Stoudemire came in with a dunk late in the first quarter and promptly caught two cheap fouls. He picked up his third early in the second and got a tech for mocking the referee. Wasn’t solely his fault, but Stat’s problems were huge in the second unit going scoreless for six minutes. That allowed Golden State to make a run behind Curry’s hot hand to tie midway in the second and only be down 58-53 at halftime.

The third was a little better but Stat too often found himself switched onto the perimeter on defense. The fourth was different with Stat, Melo and Chandler playing at the same time. Melo made it a point to look for Stat when he drew double teams, resulting in Amar’e getting several easy dunks.

While the rebounding (4) could have been better, Stat ended up with a very solid 14 points on 6/7 shooting.

MELO’S 35 POINTS: Melo went 10/26 but there’s more behind those numbers. Yes, he took a few bad shots (two very ball iso ball possessions late in the fourth), but other times it was the result of the offense being stagnant and the guards passing to him late in the shot clock looking to be bailed out. With his shooting erratic, he got to the line (13-15) and moved the ball to the open man (Felton, Stat etc.) and notched 8 assists. Overall he made the right decisions, and his late three-pointer and post-up jumper are two of the baskets that took this game from Golden State.

WOODY’S HEAD-SCRATCHER: Coach Woodson left me dumbfounded with the decision to leave Felton on Curry. A few times JR got the assignment, but it wasn’t until Shumpert got on him that we got a breather from the three-point barrage. Granted, no one was going to be stopping Curry last night, but at least Shumpert would have made him work a little harder, as he did in the second quarter in being physical. Shump made his defensive presence known all the night to the tune of 6 steals and securing a key turnover late in the fourth — he and Chandler forced Jarrett Jack into a baseline trap resulting in a travel.

Outside of that, the most important decision Woody did right was making sure Jason Kidd and Novak had nice seats on the bench as their contributions were nil.

IT’S A TEAM GAME: In all the marveling about Curry’s 54 points, people forget that basketball is a team sport for a reason. The rest of the starters combined for 5 points at halftime and 13 points for the game. The team outside of Curry had 51 points. Once the ball got taken out of Steph’s hands down the stretch, the Knicks victory was sealed.

JASON KIDD IS MIKE BIBBY STATUS: I get no joy out of saying that, but Kidd should be in the doghouse for the foreseeable future. The man cannot hit an open shot to save his life — he bricked four wide open threes and couldn’t get anything going. I do think Kidd gets out of this slump, but for now he needs a mental and physical rest… on the bench.

K-MART’S WELCOMED DEFENSE: Kenyon Martin had a very limited 5 minutes of work in the second quarter. But in that stretch we saw why he should have a nice place on this team. He got switched off on Curry and forced him into a pass and later on covered up Novak getting burned with some timely help defense. If Woody insists on playing Stat and Novak at the same time, a guy like Martin can help tremendously in covering the defensive mistakes those two are prone to make.

The Knicks get to enjoy their victory today but need to get refocused on Friday when they face the Wizards, who embarrassed them earlier in the month.

No Execution, No Focus, No Win – Knicks Fall to Raptors 92-88

Guess all that talk about a great practice on Tuesday means that’s where the Knicks left their game — this 92-88 Raptors loss was probably the worst they’ve played all year. That’s saying a lot considering the cluster of bad defeats NY has suffered this year to teams like Houston and Chicago. There was no ball movement, defense and worst of all no consistent energy nor effort. And no, we simply can’t look at this as an aberration from a team looking ahead to the All-Star Break. This was just another example of the inconsistent play (and coaching) plaguing this team.

WHO WAS THE TEAM COMING OFF A BACK TO BACK?: Coming into last night, the Raptors were less than 24 hours removed from a grueling one-point road win against the Nuggets. Their fatigue showed early with them settling for long, contested jumpers. The Raptors shot an atrocious 4/19 in the quarter and scored just 14 points.

That would have been good for the Knicks, but their ineptitude was nearly as bad. The Knicks, coming off two full days of rest, could only manage 7/21 from the field for 18 points. Raymond Felton was aggressive at least, but outside of that it was bricked jumper after bricked jumper.

NOVAK THE EXPLOITER…AND THE EXPLOITED: Steve Novak came into the game early in the second and Toronto promptly reeled off six straight points on him. Guys like Rudy Gay and Alan Anderson drove right by Novak in embarrassing fashion. But to his credit, Novak contributed on the offensive end to the tune of three treys to help the Knicks get out to a 35-27 lead.

Suprisingly, the one game where Novak appears to be hot from downtown, Coach Woodson sits him for most of the second half when we were in desperate need for offense.

3RD QUARTER WOES: Even with the lazy all-around effort, the Knicks held a 42-37 lead at halftime. That was promptly erased in a third quarter where the Raptors outscored the Knicks 28-18. Melo couldn’t hit anything (including three straight missed free throws) and neither could any other Knick. Even the ejection of Kyle Lowry couldn’t help as John Lucas III and Alan Anderson continued destroying our Knicks backcourt.

MELO HURT AND NO ONE STEPS UP: As everyone has probably heard, Melo suffered a deep contusion to his right arm in the first quarter after a collision with DeMar DeRozan. His arm went numb and it affected his shooting the rest of the night. That didn’t stop Melo from shooting (to the tune of a horrid 5/24), but it’s not like he had much help elsewhere. Although JR Smith had 26 points, a lot of those points came with the game already decided. When the momentum hung in the balance, he missed key free throws and defensive close outs on the Raptors.

LOWER-LEVEL PLAYERS FEAST IN MSG ONCE AGAIN: This was the most distressing thing about the game. It’s becoming tradition for bench and role players to have career games at the Garden because of our bad perimeter defense. Alan Anderson was 6/8 from downtown (many of them wide open) and finished with 26 points. John Lucas promptly came in for the ejected Lowry and hit a three to set the tone. Late in the fourth, he iced the game with a fadeaway jumper.

TIME FOR ANOTHER LINEUP CHANGE: Jason Kidd is still a valuable piece to this team, but it isn’t as a starter. At 40 he does not have the foot speed to keep up with opposing guards and it’s one of the main reasons we have a lot of bad defensive switches and end up with mismatches. To make matters worse, he’s in one of the worst shooting slumps of his career — last night he had 0 points on 0/3 shooting.

What this team needs is a balance of offense and defense. The first experiment I’d go with is putting Iman Shumpert at shooting guard, moving Melo back to his natural position of small forward and Stoudemire back to starting at the 4. And giving Ronnie Brewer another shot at the rotation (Lord knows his defense is needed).

The good news is that even with losing 3 of their last 4 games, the Knicks still hold the #2 spot in the East. But I hope everyone on the team takes this break to do some soul-searching, get healthy, and gear up for a second half of the season that will require them at their best.

[youtube http://youtu.be/0eyLH7_c1yc]

[Video] Didn’t Need to be This Hard: Melo’s 36 Points Help Knicks Escape Wolves 100-94

This was way harder then it needed to be. With a little less than seven minutes in the game, the Knicks were down 11 points (76-87) to the lowly Timberwolves. Their guards, whether it was Luke Ridnour or Ricky Rubio, were looking like superstars blowing by Knick defenders. The prospect of back to back losses to sub. 500 teams had most Knick fans on Twitter going irate. Thankfully, the Knickstape woke up and did what they should have done all game in executing defensive stops.

MELO CARRIES THE LOAD: With the team dead in the water on offense and defense, Carmelo Anthony had to work through his shooting struggles to create something. Although he would take 26 shots, Melo found fire in the 4th to the tune of 12 points, including a game-sealing 20 foot jumper in the final minute. Melo was also strong on the boards with nine rebounds.

MORE STAT PLEASE: Amar’e Stoudemire went 5-7 from the field for 11 points. The Wolves tried to play him physical and got a few turnovers, but we would’ve have been wise to go into the post more, especially that atrocious third quarter that saw us get outscored 18-31. However, we have to remember that Coach Woodson is big on defense and the lapses made by Stat at times did him no favors. Not to mention, Stat got a stupid technical for ref complaining at the beginning of the fourth. Stat had another nice block (he’s been getting at least one per game), but Woody and the rest of the coaching staff have to realize playing Stat and Novak together creates too many defensive liabilities when our guards keep getting beat.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n9P52d4kvU&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

WHERE ART THOU PERIMETER DEFENSE?: This is the biggest problem with our defense and frankly I don’t know for sure what’s the solution. We had better defense with Ronnie Brewer starting, but suffered on offense and constantly had to fight out of deficits after the first quarter. With Kidd starting, we get better offense (sometimes), but can’t keep the other guards out the paint. Felton has been back for 8 games and Iman Shumpert 11, so in theory we should still be giving them some slack about getting back into the swing of things (especially Shumpert coming off ACL surgery). But with February being very favorable schedule-wise, we cannot afford to be dropping games to trash teams. Leave that nonsense to the Nets (ha!).

One lineup we haven’t seen recently is Felton and Shumpert in the backcourt, Brewer at the 3, Melo at power forward and Chandler at the 5. But even this is problematic as Shumpert and Brewer struggle to finish at the rim and Shump’s 3 in not a consistent threat at this point. *Sigh* When are Marcus Camby and Rasheed Wallace coming back again?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2aQdA7Yecs&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

Knicks Complete Perfect Home Stand with 99-85 Win Over Pistons

Five and counting! The Knicks extended their winning streak to five games last night with a dominating 99-85 win over the Pistons. The Knicks are back to what they were doing in November and early December in destroying teams that aren’t on their talent level. Onto the game’s notable points.

NO FIRST QUARTER SLUMP: There was no slow start in this one as the Knicks held the Pistons to just 13 points, a record for their season thus far. Detroit was being out-hustled to every ball and their frontcourt of Andre Drummon and Jason Maxiell struggled to score over Tyson Chandler (a combined 4 points and 7 rebounds). The Knicks shooting was erratic (at times under 40%), but the defense and offensive rebounding gave them plenty of opportunities to the tune of six treys to take a 28-13 lead.

THE GAME ENDS: You know a team is doing well when they can laugh about an airball free throw (courtesy of JR Smith). Much to Coach Woodson’s chagrin, the team decided to turn this into a pickup game in spots with JR chucking threes and the team trying wild alley oops. However, the Pistons couldn’t take advantage with JR and Tyson crashing the boards and Novak getting hot from downtown. The half would end with the Knicks holding a 57-36 lead.

SECOND HALF SLOPPINESS: The Knicks mentally were clearly elsewhere no matter how much Woody yelled and glared. Chandler got lazy on defense and gave up easy layups to Drummond and Calderon early in the third. Melo, who had 19 points in the first half, also started slow in picking up his third and fourth fouls. Still, this is the lowly Pistons we’re talking about, and they could only get as close as 70-54 before some timely hoops by Stoudemire and Chandler helped to push the lead back up to 20 (76-56).

NOT MUCH REST: Since he was not pleased with the effort, it seems like Woody left the starters in for the fourth quarter to prove a point. The offense got bogged down in isolation ball for Melo and long JR treys. On defense, NY started getting beat a lot backdoor by speedy Detroit guards like Will Bynum. Nonetheless, three-pointers by Smith and Novak effectively iced the game at 91-75, and the starters were pulled at the 1:31 mark.

CHANDLER’ HISTORICAL MARK: Tyson Chandler had his third consecutive game with 20 rebounds, being the first Knicks player to do since Willis Reed 43 years. With the Wizards coming up next, he may just set a new record.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmnauL7YjY]

[Video] The Buck Stops Here: New York Knicks Defense Stifles Milwaukee 96-86

“If we played like this for entire games, we’d be #1 in the league.” – JR SMITH

J.R. Smith is a wise man. While New York had a underwhelming first half in terms of offensive and defensive cohesion, there were a few things the team did good that served them well in a second half that culminated in a fantastic fourth quarter that saw the Bucks held to just 13 points. This was a game the Knicks couldn’t afford to drop and NY has now put themselves in position tonight to overtake Miami as the #1 team in the East.

BUCKS HOT 3 POINT SHOOTING: The Knicks did an excellent job in keeping the explosive backcourt of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis under wraps in the first half. Problem was they couldn’t completely control the three-point shooting (6-13) helmed by Mike Dunleavy and Ersan Ilyasova. At one point their team was shooting over 60% from downtown, but the Knicks would go on a 10-0 late in the second to get it close and only be down 53-47 at halftime.

THE STAT N’ TYSON SHOW: Melo had 25 points but it was a very rough night shooting (7-22) and when it came to decision-making (season high 7 turnovers). However, our Big Three frontcourt showed its versatility with Tyson Chandler being an absolute terror on the boards (20 rebounds) and Stoudemire continuing to put that Hakeem Olajuwon camp money to good use by living in the post and contributing 17 points, 7 rebounds and 1 block in 24 minutes.

3RD QUARTER WAKE-UP: After the Bucks reeled off six-straight points in the third to go up by 12, the Knicks finally woke up for good. JR Smith would drill back to back three-pointers as part of a 10-0 New York run to pull within two. The Bucks would go on a 7-0 run to get some breathing room at 66-59, but the Knicks would outscore them 27-20 in the quarter to take a slim 74-73 lead into the fourth.

4TH QUARTER FINISH: The Bucks couldn’t buy a bucket in the final 12 minutes as their shooting dipped to 39%. Prigioni drew a crafty offensive foul on Dunleavy early on and Stoudemire continued to feast in the post. Iman Shumpert, who got burned backdoor on a few plays, got aggressive in causing two deflections and finishing two tough layups inside. The Bucks kept fighting, but two threes courtesy of Raymond Felton and Shumpert closed the book on this giving the Knicks a 92-81 lead with just a few minutes left.

After that heart-breaking game-winner the Kings pulled on the Knicks in December, New York should have revenge on their minds later tonight.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4QbrJff9AE&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8MBa15liCU&feature=youtube_gdata_player]

[Video] One for History: Melo Sets Knicks Record in 113-97 Win Over Magic

We started slow but ended strong at Madison Square Garden last night as the New York Knicks notched their third win over the Orlando Magic this season. Our prolific scoring leader Carmelo Anthony had a “quiet” scoring night by his standards with 20 points, but it was enough to put him alone in Knicks history with 30 consecutive games of 20 points or better, surpassing Richie Guerin’s 51 year record. With the rough month that’s been January, the Knicks showed improvements in crucial areas in the second half that will hopefully translate into additional easy wins during a favorable February schedule. Onto the game’s notable points.

MAGIC GUARDS ON FIRE: Once again, poor Raymond Felton found himself getting lit up by the opposing team’s point guard. Jameer Nelson went at Felton from the outset and got deep into the lane at will (19 points in the first half). Iman Shumpert fared no better in attempting to guard J.J. Redick, who drained numerous three-pointers for a 17 point first half.

Coach Woodson was irate at the defense which had the Magic shooting 63% at one point and the Magic guards accounting for 46 of the 51 first half points. Thankfully, the Knicks shooting was equally as hot with guys like Shumpert hitting their own threes and Tyson Chandler establishing his offense down low, which keep the game even after the first (31 all) and second (51 all) quarters.

PRIGIONI LEADS CHARGE: Pablo Prigioni once again provided a huge spark off the bench. He was aggressive looking for his shot (11 points, 9 from downtown), which forced the guards to stay with him on pick n’ rolls and allowed Amar’e Stoudemire to feat at the rim.

FRONTCOURT EFFICIENCY: We’re finally starting to see how devastating our Big Three frontcourt of Melo, Stat and Tyson can be. The trio shot a combined 25-35 from the field for 55 points, nabbed 18 rebounds (7 offensive), 11 assists and 3 blocks. Stat in particular went 7-7 (14 points) from the field and Chandler (21 points) really opened up the offense by driving to the basket and even shooting a jumper. And with the additional offense, Melo was able to be much more efficient and ease back on the Iso ball.

[youtube http://youtu.be/x1XXeFHdTI4]

DEFENSE STILL WINS GAMES: Even with the offense flowing in the second half, it was the defense that closed this one out. Jameer Nelson finished with 21 points but only 2 came in the second half. Redick had a game-high 29 points, but found it much more difficult to get open down the stretch. The Magic would end up shooting 46% compared to the Knicks 57%.

NOVAK FINDS HIS SHOT: Steve Novak had been in a bad shooting slump the last few games and finally opened up, albeit mostly in garbage time. Novah had 8 points but nailed two long three-pointers which we can only hope will get him going.

MELO NEW RECORD: Richie Guerin set the Knicks record of 29 straight games of 20 points or better back in the 1961-1962 season. Melo’s 20 points last night was his 30th to set the new mark, much to the happiness of the the now 80 year old Guerin, retired in Florida.

The Knicks will look to hold off our Friday night curse when we face the Bucks at home tomorrow.

[youtube http://youtu.be/iMwoct04VPA]

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[youtube http://youtu.be/A1IBXjku0Kc]

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RICHIE GUERIN MIX

[youtube http://youtu.be/weI0YJDXLww]

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