This was supposed to be the intra-city rivalry for the ages, pitting the traditional Manhattan favorites against a recent transplant to Brooklyn. Instead, the Knicks and Nets find themselves stuck near the floor of the Eastern Conference. They faced each other Thursday night on TNT in a pity party at Barclays Center, and one New York team actually won.
The Knicks whipped the nosediving Nets by 30, 113-83, snapping a nine-game losing streak and looking like they did last year when they spread the floor, shared the ball, actually showed some movement on offense and energy on the defensive end. Amar’e Stoudemire even met Joe Johnson at the rim like Tyson Chandler had inherited his body through osmosis on the bench.
And when J.R. Smith is teaming with Andrea Bargnani to knock Shaun Livingston to the floor when Smith crosses over Barg’s pick, then you know things are going right.
Carmelo Anthony led six Knicks players in double-figures with 19 points on 8-for-12 shooting, 10 boards and 6 dimes (the latter matching his season-high). Brook Lopez was the only Net that came to play, scoring 24 and grabbing 9 boards in 34 minutes. Jason Kidd is currently suffering through another sleepless night, but at least one New York team finally won.
Let’s hope this spurs one or both of these teams to actually play some winning basketball for a change.
What do you think
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