Lakers-Knicks Preview

By ALAN FERGUSON
Posted Dec 13 2012 11:30AM

On the verge of their longest losing streak since late in the 2010-11 season, the Los Angeles Lakers are looking for anything positive.

They might have considerable trouble doing so Thursday night when they visit Eastern Conference-leading New York in coach Mike D'Antoni's first game against the Knicks since his resignation in March.

When it hired D'Antoni on Nov. 11, Los Angeles was trying to come back from its worst start since 1993-94 and make a quick return to prominence. Instead, the Lakers (9-13) have continued to flounder, and a 100-94 defeat at lowly Cleveland on Tuesday was a season high-tying third in a row.

Los Angeles hasn't dropped four straight since a five-game skid April 3-10, 2011.

"We've got to stay focused and stay strong," center Dwight Howard said. "We can't let this break who we are as a team.

"We're not playing the greatest basketball. But there will come a day when we'll have the gun. Right now, we're rabbits. Once we get the gun, it's not going to be fun for everybody else."

Kobe Bryant had a season-best 42 points but only two other players scored in double figures for the injury-plagued Lakers. Los Angeles also allowed an opponent to score at least 100 points for the sixth time in seven games.

"We play at a very slow pace and we struggle. Maybe it shifts over to defense. Maybe we're slow. Maybe we can't do it," D'Antoni said. "It's my job to fix it - and that's what I'll do."

Before dropping to 4-8 under D'Antoni, the Lakers took some heat from Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, who questioned whether the coach's up-tempo style fit the team's personnel. Johnson added that he would like to see Pau Gasol get more involved in the offense when he returns from injury.

Gasol has missed the past five games with tendinitis in his knees and remains day-to-day. Point guard Steve Nash, who won back-to-back MVPs while playing under D'Antoni in Phoenix, hasn't played since fracturing his left leg Oct. 31.

If the Lakers can't get Gasol back on the court, it doesn't bode well for them against the Knicks (16-5), who have won seven of eight and are the NBA's last unbeaten home team at 8-0.

New York is among the league leaders with 102.6 points per game and has allowed an opponent to reach the century mark once in the last nine contests. The Knicks held Brooklyn to 18 points in the fourth quarter Tuesday while rallying for a 100-97 victory.

Jason Kidd hit a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 24 seconds left and Carmelo Anthony had a season-high 45 points, giving him 79 in two games since returning from a lacerated finger.

"He's had some pretty good games under my tutelage but I just think tonight he wanted it so badly, man," coach Mike Woodson said. "He made shot after shot."

Anthony was reportedly one of the main critics during D'Antoni's tenure in New York, which began in 2008-09 and ended with the Knicks accumulating a 121-167 record and one postseason appearance, a first-round sweep at the hands of Boston in 2011. The Knicks were 18-24 when he departed last season but went 18-6 after Woodson took over to reach the playoffs.

One of New York's wins under D'Antoni last season was a 92-85 home victory over the Lakers that snapped a nine-game skid in the series. Anthony missed that game because of a strained right groin, and the Knicks overcame his absence by holding the Lakers to a season-low 37.5 percent shooting.

Bryant's average of 34.6 points at Madison Square Garden since the beginning of the 1999-00 season is his best on any opponent's floor.

Howard, meanwhile, averaged just 9.3 points in three meetings against the Knicks while with Orlando last season.

Anthony scores 30, Knicks beat slumping Lakers

By BRIAN MAHONEY
Posted Dec 14 2012 12:27AM

NEW YORK (AP) Sensing a fellow shooter had become gun shy, Kobe Bryant had a message for Carmelo Anthony last summer.

Ignore the critics, he said. Stop worrying about fitting in and get back to a scorer's mentality.

"You have to do what you do best," Bryant told him.

That's what Anthony did in a spectacular first quarter Thursday night, and by the time he was done Bryant and the struggling Los Angeles Lakers had no hope of ending their slump.

Anthony scored 22 of his 30 points in the period, and the New York Knicks held on after he departed with a sprained left ankle to beat the Lakers 116-107 in coach Mike D'Antoni's return to Madison Square Garden.

"I was zoned in. I was locked in," Anthony said. "Tonight was one of those games where I had that feeling. I wanted to get it going and I had that feeling going early in the game. My teammates were feeding off of that."

Firing in 3-pointers and moving the ball to open shooters, things they often struggled to do under D'Antoni, the Knicks won for the eighth time in nine games and improved to 9-0 at home for the first time since the 1992-93 season.

"I wanted to beat them. I wanted to beat the Lakers, especially protecting our home court," Anthony said. "It had nothing to do with Mike. I wanted to protect our home court and win the basketball game."

Meanwhile, things are starting as poorly for D'Antoni in Los Angeles as they ended in New York. The Lakers, still without Steve Nash and Pau Gasol, were never really in the game while losing their fourth straight and falling to 9-14.

Nash has started running and the Lakers know things will get better once he's back, but that doesn't help right now.

"At this point I wish we had the Washington Generals on our schedule," Bryant said.

They're playing Washington on Friday, but it's the Wizards.

Raymond Felton scored 19 points, and Tyson Chandler and J.R. Smith added 18 apiece for the Knicks.

Bryant had 31 points and 10 rebounds for the Lakers. Metta World Peace finished with 23 points and Dwight Howard had 20.

The Lakers did cut what was a 26-point deficit to 113-107 when World Peace converted a three-point play with 1:27 remaining, but the Knicks took more than a minute off the clock while twice grabbing offensive rebounds on the next possession before Chandler made a free throw with 18 seconds to play.

Anthony, playing at an MVP level after he struggled last season under D'Antoni, made his first three 3-pointers, nearly reaching his NBA-leading average of 9.7 points per first quarter before 2 1/2 minutes were even gone. Bryant tried to keep pace but the Knicks couldn't be stopped, making 17 of 23 shots (74 percent) and building a 41-27 advantage.

"He's fun to watch when he's playing like that," Chandler said. "He's pretty much unstoppable when he's playing that way."

Anthony finished two shy of the franchise record for points in a quarter, held by Willis Reed and Allan Houston. And he was easily on pace to pass Bryant's building record of 61 points, though he didn't even get halfway there after playing just 5 minutes in the second half.

Anthony said his ankle felt sore and he didn't know if he would be available Saturday against Cleveland.

When it was over, D'Antoni shook hands with Mike Woodson, who replaced him on the New York bench, and a couple of Knicks players before walking off after another rocky night with the Lakers.

He's often been considered an offensive genius whose teams are poor defensively, but right now the Lakers don't really look good on either end.

The Knicks made 22 of their first 30 shots overall and started 8 of 10 behind the arc. Even when the Lakers tried to defend, it didn't work. Howard batted the ball away from Rasheed Wallace in the post, so Wallace simply retrieved it in the corner, buried a 3-pointer, and the lead ballooned to 58-32.

"We are having a re-occurring theme that the first quarter is just not good, and then the first half is not great and in the second half we seem to turn it on, and we need to solve that problem real quick," D'Antoni said.

It was 68-49 at the break, but the Knicks lost some of their flow when Anthony went to the locker room with 6:41 left in the third quarter and a 17-point lead. He had landed awkwardly after being fouled by Howard on a drive to the basket, and though he was able to stay in to shoot the free throws, Anthony was removed at the next whistle.

D'Antoni was booed loudly during pregame introductions, Knicks fans who appreciated the rugged defensive teams of the 1990s never truly embracing his offense-first style. D'Antoni said he enjoyed his time in New York and said earlier Thursday the Knicks, who lead the NBA in 3-pointers per game and fewest turnovers, were playing the way he'd like his team to play.

Sure enough, they made 12 3-pointers, right at their average, and turned it over just six times.

D'Antoni couldn't get the Knicks' offense going last season and tensions between he and Anthony seemed strained, though both denied it, when he resigned in March with the team threatening to fall out of the playoff race. The Knicks went 18-6 down the stretch under Woodson, who said he has kept aspects of D'Antoni's system while adding in some wrinkles of his own.

The result is a team that has shot to the top of the Eastern Conference with a 17-5 record.

NOTES: The Knicks opened a six-game homestand. They don't play on the road again until they visit the Lakers on Christmas. ... New York has won the last two meetings after dropping nine in a row. ... D'Antoni said he spent his off day in town visiting with his wife and son, who remained in New York after he took the Lakers job last month.

Notebook: Knicks 116, Lakers 107

Adam Zagoria, for NBA.com
Posted Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:47 PM - Updated Fri Dec 14, 2012 12:29 AM

THE FACTS: Carmelo Anthony sprained his left ankle in the third quarter but not before he went off for 22 of his 30 points in the first quarter as the Knicks cruised to a 116-107 victory over the Lakers in Mike D'Antoni's return to Madison Square Garden.

Anthony was fouled by Dwight Howard on a drive to the basket with 6:54 remaining in the third. His left leg bent back awkwardly as he landed and, after getting up slowly, he made 1-of-2 foul shots. He initially tried to walk it off and stay in the game, but then departed for the locker room and did not return.

According to ESPN, the last player to score 30 while playing 22 or fewer minutes was David Robinson in 1995.

The Knicks improved to a perfect 9-0 at home and have won eight of nine while improving their Eastern Conference-best record to 17-5.

The Lakers dropped their fourth straight, have lost six of seven and fell to 4-9 under D'Antoni, who was booed by the Garden faithful at the game's outset and serenaded with chants of "Mike D'Antoni" down the stretch.

Raymond Felton added 19 points and eight assists for the Knicks and Tyson Chandler and J.R. Smith had 18 apiece.

Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 31 points, Metta World Peace had 23 and Howard added 20.

QUOTABLE: "Right now it's just day-to-day, it's a slight sprain."
-- Anthony.

THE STAT: The Knicks entered the game leading the league in 3-point attempts per game (29.3). They continued to bomb away, going 12-for 25, with Steve Novak making 4-of-5 en route to 12 points.

TURNING POINT: Anthony picked up where he left off Tuesday night in Brooklyn when he went for a season-high 45 points in a 100-97 victory over the Nets. He had 22 on 8-for-9 shooting in the first period as the Knicks raced out to a 41-27 lead. He had 26 at the break when the Knicks led, 68-49. He has scored 75 points in his last two games, even with the injury.

QUOTABLE II: "I wanted to beat them. I wanted to beat the Lakers...It had nothing to do with Mike [D'Antoni]."
-- Anthony.

WHO'S HOT: Once an assistant to D'Antoni with the Knicks, Woodson improved to 20-1 at the Garden and owns the best record in the East.

WHO'S NOT: Playing in place of the injured Steve Nash, Chris Duhon, a former Knick, went 1-for-6 for three points and four assists. Duhon was coming off a two-point, two-assist, two-turnover outing in Tuesday's loss at Cleveland.

QUOTABLE III: "Carmelo was unbelievable in the first quarter. When Melo gets going like that, that's Melo."
-- D'Antoni.

NOTABLE: D'Antoni told reporters that he never said it was a mistake to take the Knicks job. "It was a mistake to leave Nash," he said. Of his time with the Knicks, he said: "I wish I would've did better, but it was good." Of the Knicks' start this season, D'Antoni said: "They're playing super. They're good guys...they're rolling right now."

QUOTABLE IV: "Obviously, we gotta get our guys back and right now we're struggling and hopefully tomorrow we can start our way back a little bit."
-- D'Antoni.

INSIDE THE ARENA: Former Yankee great Bernie Williams played the National Anthem on guitar. Patrick Ewing, Ben Stiller and John Legend sat courtside. Ewing received a huge ovation in the first quarter.

UP NEXT: For the Knicks, Saturday vs. Cleveland, Monday vs. Houston, Wednesday vs. Brooklyn. For the Lakers, Friday @ Washington, Sunday @ Philadelphia, Tuesday vs. Charlotte.

• Lakers: Blake, Johnson-Odom, Nash
• Knicks: Shumpert, Stoudemire

• Lakers: --
• Knicks: --

• Lead Changes: 0
• Times Tied: 0

• Arena: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
• Officials: #43 Dan Crawford, #20 Leroy Richardson, #40 Leon Wood
• Attendance: 19033
• Duration: 2:30