Tonight the New York Knicks suffered their first home loss of the season. The Houston Rockets really used their up tempo style to their advantage as they punished the Knicks with countless inside scores. The Rockets would score 52 points in the paint and that was way too many for them.
The Knicks really struggled to run a smooth offense and really forced the issue tonight. They committed a season high 17 turnovers tonight which proved that they were stagnate on offense. Those turnovers mostly came on bad passes. All season long the Knicks have made smart plays, but tonight really struggled to get past the Rockets defense to get passing lanes.
The Knicks did have a positive sign in Chris Copeland tonight. He scored a career-high 29 points in 28 minutes of action. Copeland really showed tonight that he could 
be a very nice scorer for this team. He and Pablo Prigioni really had a nice pick and roll working tonight. The Rockets did a nice job guarding the pick and roll all night, but with Prigioni and Copeland really had some nice plays tonight.
This was a very tough loss for the Knicks, who have played well at home all season. Without Carmelo Anthony tonight the Knicks just couldn’t do what they wanted to do.
Jeremy Lin in his return to Madison Square Garden, Lin scored 22 points and dished out 8 assists. He was very effective getting to the basket. This was a very nice performance by Lin tonight. The Rockets have to be excited with what Lin did tonight. He was much more aggressive and used his speed to his advantage.
With the Nets game coming on Wednesday night, the Knicks really were outplayed tonight. They have to get back to playing solid defense and then getting back to a more fluid offense. The Rockets stayed up on them tonight and they really struggled with that. Tonight the Knicks were outplayed, but this is just one loss, they’ll bounce back. The Rockets defeated the Knicks 109-96.
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