Notes From the Knicks 102-97 Victory Over Cleveland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ytOmUuA3Fs

Well it was an interesting night, to say the least. After coming out in the first half totally flat, and quite frankly uninterested, the Knicks were able to rally back in the second half behind a great performance from Amar’e Stoudemire. A vintage STAT game, Stoudemire scored 22 points on 10/14 shooting en route to victory. Carmelo Anthony went down with an apparent knee injury in the second quarter with the Knicks trailing by 5000 points. Stoudemire picked up the slack and led the Knicks to the win, playing a season high 32 minutes. Despite allowing Cleveland, namely Mo Speights and Luke Walton, to dominate the first half, the Knicks trailed by just 12 at halftime. New York completely dominated the 3rd quarter, holding Cleveland to 13 points. In the 4th, the Knicks scored 32 points behind Stoudemire and some timely three point shooting by Jason Kidd and Steve Novak. Cleveland had a chance to tie the game down three with six seconds remaining, but Tyson Chandler was able to deflect Kyrie Irving’s game tying attempt. Overall, this game wasn’t pretty for the Knicks and was incredibly frustrating, although predictable. Coming off yesterday’s emotional loss to Miami, it was expected the Knicks would have a let down game tonight. That being said, I thought the team showed great resilience to overcome Melo’s injury and an early onslaught of Cavalier offense. Given that Cleveland was playing without Dion Waiters and Tyler Zeller, the game should not have been as close as it was, but I was encouraged to see how the Knicks were able to keep fighting back and eventually did what they had to do to win.

Here are my notes from the game: More

Ex-Knicks of the Week

OnceAKnick

Matt Weiss (@ThanksRoy): Two ex-Knicks this week from me, because one is technically still a Knick. Even though he is still on the roster, for reasons unknown to me, but professed to be a “return in the second round of the playoffs” (how about we get there first) this week’s Ex-Knick of the week is Rasheed Wallace. I am a Carolina alum (hence the twitter handle, seriously, Thanks Roy) and so when Sheed was rumored to be coming to the Knicks I was even more giddy with excitement then most fans. Of course, Sheed is amazing and I was expecting hours of entertainment. More