Suns-Knicks Preview

By MATT BECKER
Posted Jan 18 2012 12:42AM

Mired in a horrible shooting funk, a game against a Phoenix Suns team that has been unable to slow down anyone lately could be what the New York Knicks need to get their offense in gear.

The Knicks try to avoid losing a fourth straight game Wednesday night when they host the Suns, who are hoping to keep their losing streak from reaching six.

Carmelo Anthony returned to New York's lineup for Monday's game against Orlando after sitting out Saturday's loss to Oklahoma City with a sprained right ankle, but his shot was again absent, as the Knicks (6-7) fell 102-93.

The four-time All-Star misfired on 18 of 27 shots, but still scored 33 thanks to a 14-of-16 effort from the foul line. Toney Douglas and Iman Shumpert each scored 12 and Amare Stoudemire added 10, but those three finished 11 for 28 from the floor (39.3 percent).

"We're not making no shots right now," Anthony said. "It seems like we can't shoot the ball in the ocean right now. Everybody. We get stops and then at the other end we can't score the basketball. I don't know what it is."

Anthony has shot 37.5 percent or less in four of his last five games, and the Knicks are averaging 89.3 points on 39.7 percent shooting during their three-game skid.

"We've just got to get out of that shooting slump," Anthony said. "We've got to start making shots and it makes it easy on the defensive end. We are playing defense but when you can't score the basketball it makes it hard."

Phoenix (4-9), meanwhile, isn't playing much defense.

After allowing an average of 91.5 points in splitting their first eight games, the Suns are surrendering 106.0 during a five-game losing streak. In Tuesday's 118-97 loss to Chicago, they allowed opponent season highs in points and field goal percentage (53.4). The Bulls, who had 96 points through three quarters, managed to completely overwhelm Phoenix despite playing without reigning league MVP Derrick Rose (toe).

"We are not the Phoenix Suns of old. We need to slow down and guard them more closely," coach Alvin Gentry said. "We need to defend better, we need to be more physical especially on our rebounding. We also need to communicate better on our defensive rotations."

Steve Nash's play was the only bright spot for the Suns in the opener of a back-to-back. He finished with a season-high 25 points on 10 of 13 shooting and nine assists in 30 minutes as he was able to sit out the final period with Chicago cruising to victory.

The 37-year-old Nash is averaging 17.1 points on 63.0 percent shooting and 11.1 assists in eight games this month.

"Nash is one of the best," said Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni, who coached the Suns from 2003-08. "They run our offense, or we run their offense, either way you want to look at it. Maybe we'll learn how to run it."

Nash's former teammate Stoudemire is in the middle of New York's offensive woes, averaging 10.0 points on 36.4 percent shooting and 3.7 rebounds during the skid, but could be poised for a big game,

Stoudemire, who played for Phoenix from 2002-10, combined for 64 points in his first two games against his former team last season. The Knicks, who were second in the league in scoring last season at 106.5 per game, split those two games, scoring 121 in each.

Nash, Suns beat Knicks to end 5-game skid

By BRIAN MAHONEY
Posted Jan 19 2012 12:21AM

NEW YORK (AP) Steve Nash provided the beautiful point guard play that once made Mike D'Antoni's offense hum and now is sorely lacking.

Then, Shannon Brown crushed the Knicks with a 3-pointer that nearly bounced over the basket before bouncing in, a shot as ugly as this game.

"Probably about par for the course," Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry said.

Nash had 26 points and 11 assists, and the Suns snapped a five-game losing streak with a 91-88 victory over the Knicks on Wednesday night.

Brown and Grant Hill each scored 14 points for the Suns, who bounced back from an embarrassing 118-97 loss to a Chicago team without Derrick Rose a night earlier.

They got help with a lucky bounce on Brown's 3-pointer from the corner that bounced off the rim, then the top of the center of the basket before falling in to give them a five-point lead with 35 seconds left. Nash made it stand up with six free throws in the last 16 seconds.

Gentry said Nash, who shot 9 of 12, is playing as well as he did in his MVP seasons under D'Antoni. Nash said playing his former coach and teammate Amare Stoudemire, in the city where he lives in the summer, was "a homecoming in some ways" but denied any extra significance in beating them.

"Right now, we could have beat anybody and it'd be sweet," Nash said. "It's been a tough year, we've had a tough stretch, so for us, any win is a huge relief and hopefully will give us some confidence and maybe get us going a little bit."

Stoudemire scored 23 points for the Knicks, who have lost four straight and can't find answers for their offensive struggles.

"I know we're 6-8, I know we're in a little bit of a crisis here," D'Antoni said. "But we're playing hard, playing good defense. There's some good things we're doing. We've just got to figure out the one part and that's the part that should be easiest. It's become a problem, and if we solve it, we'll be pretty good. We just have to do it sooner rather than later."

Iman Shumpert added 20 points and Landry Fields had 17, but Carmelo Anthony, perhaps still bothered by a sore left wrist, shot just 5 of 22 while finishing with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Anthony did not speak to the media. A Knicks spokesman said he left because of a family issue.

Hill hit jumpers for the Suns' last three baskets of the third quarter, giving them a 64-61 edge. The Knicks then managed just two field goals in the first six minutes of the fourth, and Phoenix finally got some room when a 10-4 run, ending with consecutive baskets by Brown, made it 78-71.

Shumpert's 3-pointer cut it to 82-80 before Brown answered with his 3 from the corner that had to be reviewed.

"I got a good look at the basket. I feel it had enough air under it and it was soft enough where it hit the basket and went up and it fell in," Brown said. "I knew it was a big shot."

"Just trying to help my team win and today I was part of it," Brown added after scoring nine in the fourth quarter. "We lost a whole bunch in a row and it's good that we got a win."

Shumpert made another 3, but Nash kept hitting from the line, and it ended when Shumpert's rushed 3 from near midcourt was nowhere near the basket.

Tyson Chandler grabbed 17 rebounds for the Knicks on a night there were plenty of missed shots as both teams showed why they have been struggling so much early in the season.

The surprising culprits have been the team's offenses, with both struggling just to reach 90 points during their skids. That's particularly hard to imagine in Phoenix, where the Suns remained potent long after D'Antoni brought his high-powered system to New York, and comes just a year after the teams combined for 250 points here in the Suns' 129-121 victory.

"That's pretty ironic you know, because obviously most of the things we do is what Mike did when he was there," Gentry said before the game. "There's a few things that we've changed, but it's kind of a mystery to me. I can't put my finger on the fact that we're struggling to get to 100 every game. I thought that would be one of the areas where we'd have the least worries and it's become just the opposite."

Gentry shook up his rotation in an effort to balance things after noticing the Suns were 27th in the NBA in second-quarter scoring. Rookie Markieff Morris made his first start at forward and Ronnie Price got the nod at shooting guard.

Turns out he didn't the extra scoring, because the Knicks remained in a seemingly season-long shooting slump.

It was the sixth straight game the Knicks failed to reach 100 points, their second-longest streak under D'Antoni, according to STATS, LLC. They went seven games in a row early in the 2009-10 season, when they had little talent while clearing cap space for free agency.

Now they have All-Star talent in Stoudemire and Anthony, but the offense just isn't running smoothly without a veteran point guard. They are hoping that when Baron Davis finally is ready from a herniated disc in his back sometime around the end of the month that he can change that.

"We can't keep making excuses," Stoudemire said. "We need to start pushing forward and get over the hump offensively."

The Knicks wrap up their string of four homes in six nights with a back-to-back against Milwaukee and Denver on Friday and Saturday.

Notes: D'Antoni said C Jerome Jordan and G Jeremy Lin, assigned Tuesday to Erie of the NBA Development League, would probably return near the end of the month when Davis is back and the team will want to play 5-on-5 in practice. ... The Knicks played without reserve guard Bill Walker, who has a sore right knee.

Notebook: Suns 91, Knicks 88

By Adam Zagoria, for NBA.com
Posted Wednesday January 18, 2012 11:26PM

THE FACTS: Shannon Brown scored all 14 of his points in the second half and Steve Nash tallied 26 points and 11 assists, including six clutch foul shots in the final 16.9 seconds, as the Phoenix Suns snapped a five-game losing streak with a 91-88 victory at Madison Square Garden.

Grant Hill added 14 points for Phoenix, which last won Jan. 8 against Milwaukee and had surrendered 100+ points in four of five games during the losing streak.

Amar'e Stoudemire had 23 points, Iman Shumpert 20 and Landry Fields 17 for the struggling Knicks, losers of four straight.

QUOTABLE: "It's killing us. There's not a lot of flow, it's just not happening."
-- Mike D'Antoni on the offense.

THE STAT: Anthony, the NBA's third-leading scorer at 26.1 points per game, managed just 12 points on 5-for-22 shooting, although he did hit a 3-pointer to draw the Knicks within one point with 6.9 seconds left. He has been bothered by a sprained right ankle and sprained left wrist. Anthony tallied four assists in the first quarter, and none afterward.

QUOTABLE II: "He had the brace on, took it off, put it back on so he's having a hard time gripping the ball."
-- D'Antoni on Anthony

THE STAT II: The Knicks outrebounded the Suns 54-38, with Tyson Chandler leading everyone with 17 boards for New York.

QUOTABLE III: "He's another player. He's a great player, he had a great game."
-- D'Antoni on Nash

TURNING POINT: After Anthony drained a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 89-88 with 6.9 seconds left, Nash drained two foul shots to make it 91-88. Shumpert missed a desperation 3-point attempt at the buzzer.

QUOTABLE IV: "Right now, if we could've beat anybody we would be pleased. It's been a tough year, we've had a tough stretch so for us any win is a huge release and hopefully it will give us some confidence and get us going a little bit."
-- Nash

WHO'S HOT: Fields' 17-point output was just his third double-digit scoring performance of the season. The last time Fields reached double-figures was when he went for a season-high 21 in a Dec. 31 win at Sacramento. That's a stretch of nine games before he scored in double-figures again.

WHO'S NOT: The Knicks bench tallied just seven points and continues to lack scoring punch. Josh Harrellson, Mike Bibby, Toney Douglas and Jared Jeffries are not consistenty giving the Knicks much of a punch, though Harrellson has reached double-figures four times. In those game the Knicks are 3-1.

QUOTABLE IV: "We're just going to have to start clicking earlier in the fourth quarter."
-- Chandler

NOTABLE: D'Antoni continues to say point guard Baron Davis could debut "end of January, give it a week, take a week or whatever. ... It's getting closer." Davis could play next week, and the coach thinks he will be able to improve the Knicks' struggling offense. "He knows how to play," D'Antoni added. "He's watching what we're doing. He knows what we're doing. I think he'll be able to fit in pretty quickly ... I don't know how rusty he'll be."

NOTABLE II: D'Antoni was asked about Stoudemire not making the 20-man U.S. Olympic finalist roster while Anthony and Chandler were. "I hate it for Amar'e if he wanted to [play]," he said. "They give a lot of preference to those guys who played the Olympics and the World Games. I'm happy for Tyson and for Carmelo, I think that's what they want to do. Then-Knicks GM Donnie Walsh pulled Stoudemireout of consideration for the 2010 World Championship team because of his uninsured contract related to repeated knee surgeries.

INSIDE THE ARENA: Cuba Gooding, star of the new film "Red Tails," was in the house, as were Jake Ballard and Tyler Sash of the New York football Giants.

UP NEXT: For the Knicks, Friday vs. Milwaukee, Saturday vs. Denver, Tuesday @ Charlotte. For the Suns, Friday @ Boston, Monday @ Dallas, Tuesday vs. Toronto.

• Suns: --
• Knicks: Davis, Jordan, Lin

• Suns: Gortat
• Knicks: --

• Lead Changes: 19
• Times Tied: 10

• Arena: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
• Officials: #10 Ron Garretson, #25 Tony Brothers, #66 Haywoode Workman
• Attendance: 19763
• Duration: 2:15