That’s More Like It: Knicks Avenge Season’s Worst Loss, Win Third Straight by 26

NEW YORK -- Following the New York Knicks’ last game (a win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday), star forward Carmelo Anthony reflected on his team’s worst loss of the season -- an embarrassing and dispirited 41-point loss to the Boston Celtics on December 8.

“That’s in the back of our minds, so we understand the loss that we had against them last time, and we want to redeem ourselves,” he said.

Not only did Anthony’s Knicks (18-27) accomplish that, but they posted just their second wire-to-wire win (and first at home) of the year, in a dominating 114-88 victory over the Celtics (15-32) at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night.

More importantly, New York evened its record on a season-long, eight-game homestand after losing the first three games of that stretch.

Playing just 28 minutes before taking the fourth quarter off with three other starters, Anthony led all scorers with 24 points on 8-of-15 shooting while filling out the box score with nine rebounds, four assists and a game-high four steals.

Guard J.R Smith and forward Jeremy Tyler scored 17 points apiece, guard Tim Hardaway, Jr. had 16 and center Tyson Chandler added 12 points and a game-best 13 rebounds.

Boston had four scorers in double figures, but none more than forward Jeff Green’s 14 points, as the Celtics only shot 39 percent (32-for-82) while allowing the Knicks to make 53.7 percent (44-for-82) of their shots and match the 114 points that Boston scored at the Garden 44 days earlier.

Unlike that game, when the Celtics ran out to leads of 18-1 and 25-3, it was New York’s turn to start fast with similar advantages of 18-5 and 24-7, to jump start a 67-point turnaround from Boston’s last visit to MSG.

“That was an old-fashioned butt kicking,” head coach Brad Stevens said. “To their credit, I think they played really locked in, really engaged and really stuck together.”

With Anthony’s 11 first-quarter points (on 4-of-6 shooting), and six of point guard Raymond Felton’s eight assists leading the way, the Knicks (61.9 percent) shot more than 30 percent better than the Celtics (31.6 percent) in the opening period.

Motivated by payback, the Knicks mainly wanted to keep playing well, in general.

“It’s definitely one of these games we wanted to win for what they did to us the last time [at home],” Felton said. “This game was a little personal, but at the same time we still want to come out and get better and play the right way.”

Leading 31-15, New York started the second quarter on a 14-5 run to open a 45-20 edge on a dunk by Chandler, off of an alley-oop pass from Smith. Boston scored the next 11 points but the Knicks answered with a 14-6 run, to lead, 59-33, before taking a commanding 63-37 lead into the locker room.

The Knicks, who had 19 assists on 24 first-half field goals, coasted from there.

Two free throws by Hardaway, Jr. capped a 15-6 spurt that swelled the lead to 78-43, a little past the midpoint of the third quarter, and New York still had a healthy 86-59 advantage as the period ended.

Nine straight Celtics points trimmed the gap to 101-82, but Boston got no closer.

Sitting in third place in the Atlantic Division, four games ahead of the Celtics, 5½ behind first-place Toronto and a half-game out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, the Knicks are suddenly playing with a greater sense of urgency again.

“It seems to me that they’re more committed now,” head coach Mike Woodson said. “We don’t have a lot of room for error in terms of moving up in our division and trying to get in the playoff hunt… we’re playing better basketball right now and that has to do with the guys in the locker room.”

Although the ball has been moving well offensively, Woodson said it’s the other end of the floor which has led to New York’s recent success.

“Our defense has triggered a lot of it,” he said. “We’re getting stops early in the game and then our pace has really picked up. We’re back to playing small ball again, and the ball’s moving, guys are shooting 3s and feeling good about themselves, which is kind of nice to see.”

Those feelings have permeated the Knicks’ roster of late, but talking things out has helped changed the team’s focus.

“We are really locking in and playing for one another,” Chandler said. “We are happy and fun and enjoying the game. When you lose a couple of games, the team energy goes down and there is a cloud over the locker room. We had a couple of meetings and realized we love the game… and we are having fun again.”

Felton added, “We just came together and understand that this is how we gotta play to win games. We’ve got a lot of new guys on this team. At some point it was going to click for us, and hopefully we’re making that turn right now. The way we’ve been playing these last three games has been very fun.”

Not everything went smoothly for New York, however. Woodson was ecstatic that his reserves gave him good minutes, but not at the expense of yet more injuries affecting a club which has already suffered more than its share this season.

“Iman (Shumpert) sprained his shoulder," Woodson said. "How long he’s going to be out, I don’t know. Beno (Udrih) left the game with flu-like symptoms and he had to go home, and Kenyon (Martin) could have played if we needed him after rolling his ankle in the first half, but we elected to sit him because I thought Jeremy (Tyler) and Cole (Aldrich), along with Timmy, our bench was fantastic again tonight.”

Whoever has been on the floor for the Knicks over the past three games has been doing his job with much better effort, which Anthony noted, has to come from within.

“You cannot teach energy,” he said. “Lately we have been very consistent in that area and we want to build on it.”

New York will get two more chances to do that before hitting the road, while having a chance to finish its homestand with a winning record. 

Cleveland (16-29), which beat the Knicks by 15 points at home, two days after Boston’s big win at MSG, will come to the Garden on Thursday night. The two-time defending champion Miami Heat will then do the same on Saturday night, seeking retribution for a 10-point loss in New York on January 9.

Jon Wagner is a Yahoo Sports contributor covering the New York Knicks, New York Giants and New York Mets. He also covers the Knicks, Hofstra University men's basketball and the New York Cosmos for New York Sports Day. Follow Jon on Twitter, @JonathanJWagner, and visit his Yahoo Contributor Network page by clicking here.