NEW YORK — The New New York Knicks came into the season with basically a brand new team from last year. In fact, mega star Carmelo Anthony who is still working out the kinks of his off his knee surgery he had in February, doesn’t have one teammate left from the time he was traded to New York in the 2010-11 season. He’s a lone wolf.
That being said, since Carmelo bull-rushed his way to New York he hasn’t obviously found the success envisioned. This year is supposed to be different. President Phil Jackson’s work in the offseason snagging Robin Lopez, Aaron Afflalo, Kyle O’Quinn and Kevin Seraphin off the free agency wire and drafting wunderkinds Kristaps Porzingis and Jerian Grant was supposed to pay dividends.
That very well may happen but in the early going of the season, the Knicks are 2-4 having lost their third straight home game. In fact, the two wins that the Knicks accumulated were at the expense of the Washington Wizards and the then depleted Milwaukee Bucks.
Speaking of the Bucks, last years darling of the NBA Playoffs after giving the Chicago Bulls all they could handle through five games before falling 120-66 in Game Six, they came to the Garden looking for revenge. The Knicks spoiled their home opener on October 28th with a 25 point whitewashing 122-97.
Said forward/center John Henson who had a game high 22 off the bench in the Bucks’ 97-90 win, “We stayed together, man. We had some tough parts where they tied and they went up one and we kind of just fought it out.”
The Knicks who came out flat in the first several minutes of the game and into the second quarter made the game interesting behind Carmelo’s 17 points and six assist and Porzingis’s 14 points and 13 rebounds. Porzingis who is still prone to rookie and first time around the NBA mistakes had two massive put-back dunks. He’s starting to make that a habit and even he know this as he mentioned, “sooner than later I know teams will concentrate on boxing me out more.”
Next up for the Knicks is a Sunday afternoon game against the Kobe Bryant led, Los Angeles Lakers. Will this be Kobe’s last ever game at the Garden?
Jerald L. Hoover
You can follow Jerald on Twitter @JerryHoover65