KNICKS FEEL
Amar’e, Lin hurting
THE KNICKS entered their locker room at halftime Saturday night to photos of the Larry O’brien championship trophy over every stall, a classic “getting-ahead-of-ourselves” moment for a team that is still under .500 barely one week after forcing its coach to step down.
If Mike Woodson’s Knicks are even to make the playoffs — or to make any substantive noise if they get there — they clearly will need a healthy Amar’e Stoudemire and Jeremy Lin.
Stoudemire (back stiffness) and Lin (sore left knee) both sat out the fourth quarter of Saturday’s sloppy but breezy 101-79 victory over Detroit at the Garden. While Woodson believes “Lin is fine,” the coach admitted he’s “concerned about Amar’e.” Both starters said they expect to play in Monday’s pivotal home game against Milwaukee.
“I don’t think there’s a reason why I wouldn’t,” Stoudemire insisted when asked about his back, which hampered him throughout the Knicks’ first-round playoff loss last spring against Boston. “It just got a little tight so we took precautionary measures. ... Whenever it tightens I let the trainers know. But they did a great job with it and it feels much better.”
So do the Knicks, who had dropped a clunker north of the border one night earlier.
Woodson, in fact, clearly was still
unhappy with his team’s effort in a 96-79 loss Friday in Toronto, calling his first defeat after five straight wins as head coach “a bummer.” Mike D’antoni’s replacement reminded his players in a meeting before the game about the importance of not taking nights off, especially within such a condensed schedule.
“It’s one game. But these games are coming so fast, we just have to come ready to play,” Woodson said. “It’s just that simple.”
At the suggestion of Max (Big Max) Cayard, the team’s manager of player security, Tyson Chandler, who had 15 points and 17 rebounds, wore the championship ring he won last season with Dallas to the game to show to his teammates. The locker room then was affixed with the photos of the NBA championship trophy at some point during the first half, players said.
“If you don’t get motivated by that, I feel sorry for you,” rookie Iman Shumpert said.
“They’re inspiring, it’s motivating just to see that,” Carmelo Anthony said. “It gives us something to look forward to and to know where we want to be. But it’s a lot of work that we need to get there.”
The Knicks (24-25) weren’t crisp in the first half, committing 14 of their 22 turnovers. But runs of 11-0 late in the first quarter and 13-0 in the second were enough for a 49-37 lead before intermission.
Anthony’s shooting touch remained off in missing six of his first seven shots, but Woodson called two clear-out plays for Anthony to start the third. Anthony sank them both, hitting his first four shots in the second half and finishing with 15 points.
Still, other problems developed as the Knicks pulled away in the second half.
Lin, who finished with 13 points and just three assists with seven turnovers in 24 minutes, said he “could’ve played” upon returning to the bench in the fourth quarter after spending the final minutes of the third in the locker room.
Stoudemire, who led the balanced attack with 17 points in 25 minutes, never came back to the court after heading inside for medical treatment late in the third.
“It’s much better now,” Stoudemire said of his back after the Knicks’ sixth win in seven games under Woodson. “We started off slow, but the second half we just came out and swallowed them up.”
J.R. Smith kicked in 11 of his 14 in the second half — including a give-and-go alleyoop dunk from Shumpert during garbage time — as the Knicks extended their lead over Milwaukee for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference to 1½ games. The Bucks, who lost to Indiana at home Saturday, will visit the Garden on Monday.
“It’s obviously a very, very big, big game, right up there with our game (last week) against Philly,” Lin said. “If we can get that one, I think we’ll be in a good position.”