Mavericks hold off Knicks; Win 95-85

Tonight the Knicks faced off against the Mavericks in Dallas for the first and final time of the season. Tyson Chandler was welcomed warmly and presented his championship ring from last season. Chandler had a very quite night as he scored 6 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. He was very effective in the paint and had a very nice block on Dirk Nowitzki.

Trailing from the start the Knicks would have to climb up hill and try to win coming back. The Knicks did come back into this game after they trailed by 19 points. They were able to grab the lead for just a moment before the Mavericks answered the Knicks 15-0 run with a 14-0 run of their own. This game had tons of questionable calls on both ends, but the Knicks continue to get the terrible calls.

Steve Novak was the “energizer bunny” again tonight as he scored 13 points and hit 4 three pointers in the Knicks comeback attempt. Novak for the fifth straight game has scored in double figures. He continues to hit three after three making the Knicks very tough to defend. In the fourth quarter the unit of Novak, Baron Davis, Amare Stoudemire, Iman Shumpert, and Josh Harrellson really worked. Mike D’Antoni made the substitution of bringing Jeremy Lin and Carmelo Anthony into the game, which really made the Knicks offense sputter. That was a very tough coaching decision that he had to make.

This game really was a bad one for Carmelo Anthony who scored just 6 points. The Knicks didn’t get anything productive from him tonight. In big games the Knicks haven’t received any good offense from Anthony. He has one good game and then has a terrible one. The Knicks have to figure out a way to incorporate Anthony and Stoudemire better. Stoudemire scored 26 points tonight and really played hard and physical defense. This was the best that Stoudemire has looked in a while and hopefully he can keep up that effort.

This game was a very tough loss for the Knicks simply because they had opportunities to win this game. Now the Knicks will have to face a tough San Antonio Spurs team tomorrow night. That game will be starting at 8:30 PM on MSG. The effort came way too late in this game and resulted in the Knicks losing 95-85 to the defending w World Champions.