The New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors faced off in Montreal tonight. Both teams scored very easily early on in the game, but late in the game the Knicks really struggled to score.
The defense of the Knicks in this game was very weak. The interior was very poor at times and the Raptors were able to take advantage. The Knicks would lose this game after a very poor second half.
Carmelo Anthony was very solid tonight with his inside game. His shot from the outside was very poor. He missed all seven of his three point attempts. He did score 24 points in 33 minutes tonight. It wasn’t his best game tonight, but he was able to contribute nicely to the Knicks offense despite the poor outside shooting.
Amare Stoudemire returned tonight as he scored 18 points and grabbed 5 rebounds. Stoudemire was good at times and bad at other times. This was his first game so there still was a rust factor. He did make a couple of solid post moves in this game, which is somewhat important. On the defensive side Stoudemire was very late and seemed a bit a step behind at times. The Knicks need Stoudemire to get some sort of defensive mindset if they are going to have any success. But overall his performance was solid.
These two tonight were the only double digit scorers for the Knicks. Pablo Prigioni scored 9 points off the bench as he contributed nicely to the game. Prigioni also had five assists and two steals in this game.
The Knicks really couldn’t hit shots tonight, they had plenty of open looks, but nothing was falling. Overall this game really told the story of the poor defensive effort the Knicks had. They still have tons of work to do on that end of the floor before they can be a threat to the NBA elite teams.
This was the first loss for the Knicks in the preseason as the Knicks fell to the Raptors 107-88. The Knicks will face the Boston Celtics tomorrow night.
No comments:
Post a Comment