I now bring before you Lord Carmelo Anthony of House Knickerbocker! As if the anticipation for season 3 of the critically-acclaimed hit series Game of Thrones isn’t high enough, HBO has linked up with the NBA for some cross-promotion. If you get a chance to check out the Youtube comments, you’ll see there’s a bunch of irate Game of Thrones purists (read — NERDS), who are highly upset at seeing the series “sullied” (wink wink to Daenerys’ special soldiers) by Melo’s appearance. Well, if you’re a Game of Thrones AND Knicks nerd like myself, you love this.
Game of Thrones has its season three premiere on March 31.
It’s been a long time since this squad had an “easy win.” Tonight, the Knicks got their best player in Carmelo Anthony back in the lineup, moved the ball around and played solid defense throughout to complete a season sweep of the Orlando Magic. Sure, the Magic are one of the worst teams in the league and were on the end of a back to back, but a win is a win, and the Knicks need plenty of them over the next month if they hope to hold off Brooklyn and win the Atlantic Division. With Knicks legends Patrick Ewing and John Starks in the house tonight, the Knicks are slowly bouncing back from that atrocious West Coast road trip.
EXCELLENT SHOOTING: The Knicks came out strong in shooting 58% in the first quarter (5-8 from downtown). With the bigs from both sides banged up, the Magic went with a three guard lineup while the Knicks inserted Kenyon Martin at center. Melo had 7 points in the opener and moved the ball quickly out of double teams to find guys like JR Smith (22 points) and Chris Copeland (9 points). The Knicks had a nice 10-0 run in the quarter and held a 26-15 lead after one.
THE ONE BAD QUARTER: The Knicks were outscored 31-25 in the second and a lot of that fell on lax defense and get outhustled to rebounds. Still, the three-point shooting remained strong with Melo and Shump draining treys to help keep the Magic on the wrong side of 51-46 score going into halftime.
3RD QUARTER DOMINANCE: The Magic really gave it a go, but the Knicks pushed back every run they attempted. JR Smith was aggressive in going to the rim, which either forced a foul or resulted in a layup. Pablo Prigioni kept up the ball movement (finding Kenyon Martin on a nice pick n’ roll to the basket), and the Knicks ran through the Magic defense to the tune of a 32-19 quarter and 76-60 lead.
STARTERS REST IN 4TH, SECOND UNIT CLOSES THE SHOW: Coach Woodson remained true to his word in trying to lower Carmelo Anthony’s minutes. He did so by only playing him 33 minutes and letting him sit for the fourth. Melo was efficient with his time of the floor in scoring 21 points on 7-14 shooting (3-5 from downtown). Most importantly, he looked healthy — Melo’s lift and first step looked the best they have in weeks. Iman Shumpert had 7 points but sat for the fourth as a precaution due to stiffness in his knee. Let’s pray that’s all it is.
Jason Kidd and JR Smith were two of the more important pieces that ensured the game remained out of reach for the Magic. Kidd’s stat line shows 3 steals, but he caused numerous deflections and had the Magic offense sputtering. JR didn’t go the rim as much in the final 12 minutes, but his jumper became deadly.
There was a few minutes towards the end where the players got lazy and the Magic pulled to within nine (95-86), but a Novak trey that pushed it to 101-88 pretty muched iced the game with under two minutes. Speaking of Novak, he contributed 11 points and nailed some nice momentum threes.
Is there any way we can just play the Magic for the rest of the season? Our next game is “Friday Night Knicks” against the Raptors, who we have the dubious distinction of losing twice to. If the Knicks bring the effort they did tonight, especially when it comes to the shooting, they’ll emerge victorious. But as we already know with this team, that’s a big if.
Hooray, the West Coast trip from Hell has ended! Thank God for the Jazz. They were the team we last won against over a week ago, and the Knicks got some welcomed relief facing them again last night and grinding out a 90-83 victory in Utah. Without Melo or Tyson, it didn’t come easy, but the Knicks fought through their offensive droughts and won this game on the defensive end.
SOLID DEFENSE, SUBPAR OFFENSE IN THE FIRST HALF: One of the trends on this road trip has been the Knicks coming out fighting hard, only to start slowly falling apart due to the offense having no one being able to consistently get their own shots.
With last night’s game, the Knicks were able to hang tough due to their defense and the sloppy play of the Jazz, who had 5 turnovers in the first quarter. That, coupled with Raymond Felton (9 points) and Chris Copeland (7 points) contributing, allowed the Knicks to have a small 23-21 lead.
The second quarter saw the age of the Knicks frontcourt working against them with Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin picking up a lot of early fouls. The Jazz were inconsistent at the line, but the Knicks shooting dipped to 42% and buckets were hard to come by in the final minutes. A few too many iso Chris Copeland plays lead to the Jazz going on a 8-0 run punctuated by an buzzer-beating jumper by Mo Williams to get them a halftime 44-42 lead.
TOOTH N’ NAIL 3RD: The Knicks really fought hard in the third quarter. This was great to see aS this West Coast losing streak has displayed bad thirds. JR Smith had a great quarter with 10 points and Jazz bigs like Derrick Favors did the Knicks a solid by bricking free throws. It was up and down, but for the Knicks to have a 66-63 lead going into the fourth was massive progress.
KURT THOMAS AND FELTON CLOSE THE SHOW: When you look at Kurt Thomas’s stat line (6 points, 3 rebounds, 3 blocks), it doesn’t begin to show how important he was last night. Old man Kurt gave the Jazz bigs fits, causing deflections and being able to hold his ground and keep them from truly taking advantage of the size and youth mismatches. In addition, Thomas gave good screens on offense that lead to a key JR Smith trey to extend the Knicks lead to 78-72.
Felton stepped up his game too by being aggressive taking it to the rim and hitting outside jumpers. He had 7 points in the quarter and even found Kurt Thomas rolling to the rim for an easy layup.
The Jazz refused to go away (Mo Williams had 5 straight points to get the Jazz to within 81-84), but the Knicks met every run with either a key basket or free throws.
In other needed good news, Carmelo Anthony’s knee is feeling better and Tyson Chandler is also on the mend. If all goes well, we should have both back by the end of the week. And in the meantime, the schedule is less taxing in the coming days. Next up, the Knicks go for another sweep when they face the Magic on Wednesday.
Well, at least we didn’t get blown out by 20-plus points. The Knicks’s losing streak has extended to three as they remain winless on this five-game West Coast swing. JR Smith urged the team to find their hearts after getting drubbed by the Nuggets on Wednesday. While the team did fight, there were some key bad stretches to put this game out of reach.
IT STARTED OFF WELL: The Knicks came out with lots of energy and ball movement courtesy of an inspired Raymond Felton, who was returning to Portland for the first time and got greeted with boos every time he touched the ball. He penetrated often and Kenyon Martin was the main recipient in notching 8 first quarter points. The isolation plays that did happen were for Chris Copeland, who made sure to take it to the rim. He had 6 points and the Knicks nursed a 30-22 lead after one stanza on 62% shooting.
The big bright spot for the Blazers was Damian Lillard, who had a few three-pointers to keep his team in it. The Knicks’s second unit did a strong job with Pablo Prigioni working the pick and roll to perfection with Marcus Camby, who got about four easy layups inside. In addition, Camby crashed home a putback dunk that had me checking the calender, as it was straight out of his ’99 form.
NO ADJUSTMENTS: Unfortunately for New York, once Portland stepped up their defense and clamped down on the pick and roll, the Knicks offense degraded into shambles. The Knicks led by as much as 13 (41-28), but Portland went on a 8-1 run to get back in it, and then a crushing 13-0 burst to close the quarter and go up 51-48 at halftime.
The Knicks spent way too much time on the perimeter during this stretch and there were costly turnovers. Coach Woodson, for whatever reason, kept Copeland on the bench which hurt our opportunities to score with Steve Novak completely off from three-point land.
3RD QUARTER OFFERS NO RELIEF: Over this losing streak, the Knicks have had at least one quarter where nothing goes right. I have no qualms with anyone picking the second, but for me it was the third. The Blazers outhustled them badly for rebounds and loose balls. There was zero guard penetration for the Knicks and the Blazers reeled off another game-changing run (11-2) while the Knicks’s shooting dipped to 42%. Overall, the Blazers outscored the Knicks 27-14 in the quarter and took a big 78-62 lead into the fourth.
THE LAST STAND: You can’t say the Knicks didn’t make a go of it. Copeland hit a three followed by two more from JR Smith and a layup that brought the deficit to 80-73. Prigioni’s energy was essential during this climb back — he made two key steals, one of which was converted into another Smith three to bring the Knicks within 4 (80-76) with about seven minutes left.
Prigioni’s decisions weren’t all good — he had a fast break on the first steal but opted to reset on the perimeter with the defense closing in, and had a turnover on a bad pass. But Woodson made a mistake pulling him, since as soon as Felton came back in, Lillard burned him for a three-pointer.
Felton, much like he did in the games against Jeremy Lin, got caught up in trying to prove himself and his decision-making lead to more turnovers. The ball movement relied on long jumpers which were cold while the Blazers sizzled behind the arc with the likes of Nicolas Batum going off. By the time the barrage ended, the Knicks were down 78-95 with just four minutes remaining.
As a fitting conclusion, Felton bricked a three-pointer for the Knicks’s last possession.
ANOTHER INJURY: As if matters couldn’t get any worse, Kenyon Martin left the game with what was later diagnosed as a bone contusion in one of his knees. No word yet on if he’ll miss any time.
Right now I’ll say the Knicks are at the lowest point they’ve had all season. There is no identity on defense or offense, and the team’s confidence is suffering for it. We can only hope they’ll focus on the good play they had in the first quarter and early part of the second for the next game (Clippers in LA on Sunday).
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.
Amar’e Stoudemire’s productive comeback to the 2012-2013 season is now over with the confirmation that he will miss at least six weeks to have another knee debridement surgery.
Stoudemire missed the first two months of the season following the November 1 procedure on his left knee for a burst cyst. The pending surgery will be on his right knee and was discovered when Stoudemire complained of soreness in both knees following the Knicks’s 95-94 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Stoudemire has come off the bench since his January 1 return, but saw a marked increase in minutes after Carmelo Anthony went down with a sore knee in a March 4 win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Stoudemire had been on a 30-minute playing cap per his last surgery.
Stoudemire was averaging 14 points and 5 rebounds while shooting 57% from the field.
At press time, the Knicks are expected to open the rotation back up to include additional role players like Chris Copeland.
Absolutely devastating. Per the tentative timeline, Stoudemire could be back in the playoffs by the end of the first or sometime in the second round if the Knicks get that far. But do we really want to risk playing Stoudemire fresh out of surgery in the grueling, physical atmosphere of the playoffs? This news pretty much declares to me he’s done for the year.
This puts all of the scoring load back on Melo and JR. When they’re hot, it will be thrilling stuff. When they’re not, it’ll be like watching a cat playing with a mouse (ie. a slow death). That goes for the rest of our squad — we are truly living and dying by the three-point shot for the rest of the year. This is the second player we’ve lost to injury (Rasheed Wallace being the first), and our star player in Carmelo Anthony has already missed 10 games from the wear and tear of heavy minutes and playing at power forward for most of the year. Coach Woodson said he planned on trying to get Melo’s minutes down to 35. For that to happen, someone has to step up big and I mean Linsanity-like big.
The Knicks front office have some tough decisions to make this off-season.
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.
Nothing comes easy for this Knicks team, even when playing a banged up Detroit Pistons with only eight available players. New York got some scares throughout the night, but this one was decided in the end by talent and execution. A win is a win, but we better see a massive improvement tonight if our team hopes to be competitive against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
WHITE AND THOMAS STARTING?: When I saw James White and Kurt Thomas in the starting lineup, I expected a long night. They played for a combined 12 minutes in the game, so there wasn’t too much damage from this. But when you see Kenyon Martin still languishing on the bench, you wonder what could possibly be going through Coach Woodson’s head. Marcus Camby got six minutes, so at least there was some progress made in opening up the lineup.
STAT EATS UP DETROIT: The Pistons only had two players (who happened to be rookies) 6’10 or taller in the lineup last night, making it a feast on the inside for Stoudemire. Stat bullied his way to 10 points in the first quarter and 17 at the half. Woody made a misstep in taking Stat out with a few minutes left in the second. That, combined with the horrid ball-handling (15 turnovers), lead to a Pistons 13-2 run to get within six (44-38).
Stat started the second half, but the Knicks were more interested in chucking long jumpers than really working through Stat again. He would only post five points over the second half, but contributed solidly on the boards (9 rebounds, 6 offensive).
CHANDLER OUT OF SYNC: Tyson Chandler was mentally out of it on defense and offense for most of this game. The interior defense, which starts with him, was inconsistent and particularly bad in the opening quarter with Detroit scoring the majority of their points on layups and dunks. With Detroit’s lack of bigs, Tyson should have been feasting inside like he did to the Warriors last week in the absence of David Lee.
JR FEAST AND FAMINE: The Knicks kicked off the third quarter on the wrong side of a 10-2 run and a big part of that was due to JR chucking from the outside (4-16 early on). Brandon Knight got hot due to lazy defense and the run extended to 18-4 with the Knicks facing a 65-55 hole with just over two minutes left. JR then found his three-pointing (as did Raymond Felton) and helped erase the lead and tie it at 65.
JR nailed three treys in the fourth but his most significant contribution came when he got three big steals to help deflate Detroit.
FELTON CAN’T MISS: When Melo’s out, no other player on this Knicks squad decides to pick it up on the offensive end more than Raymond Felton. He did it in the December when he lit up the Heat for nearly 30 points and did again last night, going 10-15 from the field (4-5 from trey) for 26 points. How in the zone was Felton? The man caught a lob from Pablo Prigioni like he was Chandler.
MORE FROM SHUMP AFTER THE FIRST: I’m liking this trend of Iman Shumpert coming out aggressive and being…well… a shooting guard that actually shoots. He dropped 9 points in the first quarter off three treys but like previous games, his offense disappeared after that.
KNICKS SLOPPY BUT PISTONS “SLOPPIER”: The Knicks average a league-low 11 turnovers and had 20 last night. However, the Pistons also had 20 and theirs were way more costly with six of them coming in the fourth quarter.
WHEN MELO COMES BACK: Can we just cut the nonsense now, Woody? You’re getting a lot of deserved heat for the constant and unnecessary defensive switching and parading these crazy lineups out there. Our starting lineup needs to be Felton, Shumpert, Melo, Stat and Chandler. Mix and match as you please, but our Big Three needs to start and end games. They either prove definitively they can play together or they crash and burn. This team was put together to “win now” and that only happens with your best players on the floor.
No time like the present to get that lineup going tonight against the Thunder.
They do a lot of switching… a lot of stuff where you can get caught in laziness and hanging back. So we’re just moving and cutting and guys are cutting hard. And we got Luke Walton out there so it makes it easy. – Cavs guard C.J. Miles on the Knicks’s first half defense
As you can see from the above quote, the Cavs were feeling themselves in the first half against the Knicks. They had reason to be cocky on 68% shooting and at one point in the second holding a 22 point lead (52-30). The Knicks couldn’t make basic defensive rotations and Luke Walton was dishing dimes like a prime John Stockton. And to add to the misery, Carmelo Anthony had a Benny Hill moment in tripping over his own feet and badly hurting his right knee to knock him out the rest of the game.
But halfway through the second, the Knicks began showing signs of life and very gradually it seemed to dawn on them they were playing the Cavaliers. Without Melo, Coach Woodson was forced to do what should become a regular end-game lineup in playing both Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler.
MEET THE LATEST BENCH PLAYER TO TORCH NY: Center Marreese Speights got the start today and promptly began going to town with jumper after jumper. He hit his first 10 shots and had 15 points after the first. Whether it was Chandler or Stat, he was the Cavs’s dominate scorer in the first half. However, reality (and the Knicks defense) made him a non-factor in the second half where he only had 2 points.
MELO’S INJURY TRIGGERS RUN: The Knicks looked completely demoralized down 22 and the Melo injury appeared to signal this would be a blowout evening. The Knicks instead rallied with a 17-4 run to close the quarter and take a 49-61 deficit into halftime. In the third, the Knicks stormed out with a 10-0 run to pull within 59-61 behind tough interior defense that triggered jump balls, and solid shooting from Jason Kidd and JR Smith. Still, the Knicks couldn’t quite get over the hump despite holding the Cavs to just 1 point six minutes into the quarter and outscoring them 21-13 overall. Going into the fourth, they were still down 70-74.
LIVE BY THE THREE: The Knicks drilled seven treys in the fourth and everyone got in on the party. Novak rebounded from the horrid Sunday game against the Heat and had three treys in the quarter. Kidd nailed two crucial ones, and Raymond Felton added one of his own late. Kidd’s last trey in the final minutes put the Knicks up 97-91, which proved to be just enough breathing room down the stretch.
THE STAT N TYSON SHOW: For the first time in what seemed like ages, Woodson played our two elite bigs in the fourth to devastating effect. Guards Pablo Prigioni and Felton had Stat feasting on pick n rolls for easy dunks and Chandler was all over the boards. The game-changing plays in the last minute came down to this duo. With a slim 97-95 lead, Stat attacked the rim, got blocked and went back up strong to push the lead to 99-95. Later, a missed Stat jumper was tipped out by Chandler to Jason Kidd, leading to a free throw to push the lead to 100-97. And finally, Irving’s three-point attempt to tie was promptly blocked by Chandler to ice the game.
LOSING STREAK ENDS: For some inexplicable reason, the Cavs have been a huge problem for the Knicks even after the LeBron era. Before tonight, the last time the Knicks had won in Cleveland went back to November 2006. To put that in perspective, current Cavs all-star Kyrie Irving for 14 years old at the time.
At this time, we don’t know how much time Melo will miss. Even though the Knicks are claiming it isn’t serious, I don’t have much faith in an early prognosis from the Knicks medical staff considering what we’ve seen happen this year with Rasheed Wallace, Stoudemire and Camby.
Next up is the Pistons, so the Knicks should be able to handle that squad again without Melo.
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.
![[Video] Carmelo Anthony’s Game of Thrones Season 3 Promo](https://nykloyalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/screenshot_2013-03-21-20-23-09.jpg?w=825&h=510&crop=1)
NEW YORK KNICKS LOYALIST 