Practice Makes Perfect: Knicks’ Spirited Prep Leads to Rout of Melo’s Old Team

NEW YORK -- Carmelo Anthony admits that he still has fond feelings for the team that drafted him third overall in the 2003 NBA draft. But he still wants to win whenever they have a reunion.

New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony tries to get position
on Denver Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried at Madison Square
Garden in New York, NY. (Photo: Jon Wagner / February 7, 2014)

“My feelings about Denver, just knowing that’s where it all started for me, so those feelings will never change,” Anthony confessed. “But now it’s more, I want to win. I want to beat them every time I play them. It’s nothing personal against them, but I just got a different uniform on now.”

After scoring a game-high 31 points on 12-of-21 shooting, Anthony was able to take the fourth quarter off and enjoy watching the New York Knicks (20-30) end their three-game losing streak with a 117-90 pasting over the Denver Nuggets (24-24) at Madison Square Garden on Friday night.

“I’ll take them fourth-quarter sit-downs,” Anthony said. “Especially the amount of minutes I’ve been playing (averaging 39 minutes per game this season), any time I can have an opportunity to sit out in the fourth quarter… and get extra rest, I’ll take it.”

While Anthony has remained consistent as the NBA’s second-leading scorer after winning his first league scoring title last season, the Knicks again showed how unpredictable they can be.

A view of Madison Square Garden in New York, NY, from the Chase 
Bridge. (Photo: Jon Wagner / February 7, 2014)

Four of New York’s last five home victories have come by an average of 28.8 points and by no fewer than 26 points, during an overall eight-game stretch that included a three-point loss in Milwaukee, to the league-worst Bucks, who even with Monday’s win over the Knicks, have yet to reach double figures in wins this season.

The reason, this time, for another easy home win?

An energetic practice on Thursday that carried over to following night, according to head coach Mike Woodson and several of his players.

“We haven’t been able to run up and down, scrimmage and bang and do all the necessary things I think a team should do throughout the course of a season,” Woodson said. “Yesterday was a spirited practice, a very competitive practice… and it was a nice carry-over to the ballgame tonight. We need more days like that… where we’ve got enough bodies… to see if we can execute offensively and execute defensively.”

Of course, making shots didn’t hurt either.

“Whenever you make shots, it makes the game that much easier,” Anthony said. “And then guys start feeling good about themselves and their game, and it just trickled down to everybody.”

Shooting 56.5 percent (48-for-85) from the floor -- including 39.3 percent (11-for-28) from 3-point range -- to Denver’s 42.1 percent (32-for-76), the Knicks weren’t hurt by matching the Nuggets’ 23 turnovers. They also helped themselves by equaling their season-high in steals (against Chicago, on December 11) with 16.  

Nearly half of those thefts came from point guard Pablo Prigioni (six assists, four steals) and center Tyson Chandler (12 points, eight rebounds, three steals) during a game in which each team had nine different players record a steal.

Denver guard Ty Lawson (3) looks for space against New York's 

Carmelo Anthony (R) and Jeremy Tyler at Madison Square 

Garden in New York, NY. (Photo: Jon Wagner / February 7, 2014)

“Pressuring them, getting up in the passing lanes, getting our hands on the basketball, deflections, it got us in transition early,” Anthony noted. “Everybody played their part tonight. It was a great team win. We want to build off that.”

Anthony and Chandler were two of six New York players to score in double figures, with the other four coming off the Knicks’ bench.

New York Knicks forward Jeremy Tyler scores on a layup
against the Denver Nuggets at Madison Square Garden in
New York, N.Y. (Photo: Jon Wagner / February 7, 2014)

Forward Amar’e Stoudemire had 17 points and eight rebounds in 20 minutes, guard J.R. Smith scored 13 points, forward Jeremy Tyler had 12 points and a game-high 11 boards and rookie guard Tim Hardaway, Jr. added 10 points.

Although starting point guard Raymond Felton (nine points) barely missed being a seventh Knick to score in double digits, he led the Knicks with eight assists while committing a lone turnover.

All of that production helped offset the Nuggets’ scoring leaders, point guard Ty Lawson (24 points, seven assists); ex-Knick Wilson Chandler (17 points, team-best seven rebounds), who was traded to Denver when New York acquired Anthony three years ago; guard Randy Foye (13 points); and forward Kenneth Faried (12 points).

What the Knicks said they gained in practice the day before took a while to show, as the Nuggets scored 10 straight points to lead, 24-14, before holding a 26-20 edge after the opening quarter.

That margin was extended to 33-24 three minutes into the next period before New York tied the game at 44-apeice while closing the half on a 26-11, to lead, 50-44 at halftime.

Scoring the final six points before intermission was key for a team that is just 1-24 when trailing at the break this season, but which moved to 18-4 when leading at point.

Already on a roll, the Knicks, who outscored the Nuggets, 97-64, over the final three quarters, led by double figures for good when Chandler scored on a layup to put New York up, 59-48, less than three minutes into the second half.

“We made adjustments throughout the course of the game,” Anthony said. “At first, offensive rebounds was kind of hurting us a little bit. Them in transition was hurting us a little bit, and we kind of adjusted to that.”

A Stoudemire dunk pushed the lead to 73-57, before Lawson momentarily kept his team in the game with a layup that brought Denver to within 77-66. The Knicks scored the next six points, to lead by 17, as they took a comfortable 83-68 lead into the last quarter.

Consecutive 3-pointers by Smith capped a 13-2 run that gave New York a commanding 102-77 lead with 7:10 remaining. The gap never got lower than 21 points thereafter and reached as much as 117-88 in the final minute.

As far as that highly competitive practice helping the Knicks, Stoudemire backed Woodson’s earlier words, saying, “We really got after it. We had a very aggressive and intense practice, which helped us.”

Smith added, “It was a physical practice. I think it was more physical than the games.”

And Anthony said of the practice in relation to New York’s myriad of injuries over the season, “That was the first time that we actually got a chance to really go after it, [with] everybody being healthy… and it carried over to the game [tonight].”

Hero dog Orlando, with his owner, Cecil Williams, receiving 

a medal at Madison Square Garden, in New York, N.Y. 

Orlando saved Williams when he jumped onto train tracks in 

Harlem, N.Y., in December, 2013 (Photo: Jon Wagner / 

February 7, 2014)      

Trying to avenge one of their worst losses of the season (a 123-94 home defeat, without Anthony, on December 25), the Knicks will visit Oklahoma City (40-12), the best team in the Western Conference, on Sunday afternoon, before getting more of that precious practice time prior to their next home game on Wednesday night, against Sacramento.

New York, which sits two games out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, will then embark on a four-game southern road trip.

One thing that should be alarming to Knicks fans is Anthony’s assessment of his team’s erratic level of effort, 50 games into the season. “Sometimes, our inconsistency comes from not playing hard, not bringing the energy, not doing the little things on the basketball court to win,” he said. “Some nights we do [that], and some nights we don’t.”

Chandler believes that mentality has to start on defense. “It all has to be mental,” he said. “We have to make sure we mentally come in ready to lock down defensively [and] get after it. I don’t care about missing or making shots. I care about the other end because I know if you play hard defensively, eventually things will turn in your favor.”

Baseball great Ralph Kiner honored on the Madison Square
Garden scoreboard during the Denver Nuggets-New York
Knicks game in New York, NY (Photo: Jon Wagner /
February 7, 2014)

Jonathan Wagner covers the New York Knicks, New York Giants and New York Mets as a contributor for Yahoo Sports, where he was named one of Yahoo’s Top 100 Contributors for 2013. Jonathan also covers the Knicks, Hofstra University men's basketball and the 2013 NASL champion New York Cosmos as a credentialed writer for New York Sports Day. Follow him on Twitter, @JonathanJWagner.