Knicks 95 Cavs 90: REDEMPTION!

The Knicks redeemed themselves tonight with a MONSTER win in Cleveland. Carmelo Anthony and company entered LeBron James‘ house and ruined his party. After an abysmal showing in Chicago last night, the Knicks made it a point to get Melo the ball early on and it payed off. Melo hit the shot to seal the game over LeBron, and it could not have been any more perfect. So many positives out of tonight’s game, and of course there are still some things to work on.

The Cavaliers never really seemed to get there offense going outside of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. LeBron James had a brutal game, going 5-15 with 8 turnovers. Give the Knicks defense some credit tonight as they swarmed the ball and got their hands in the passing lanes. The offense looked a bit more crisp tonight as the Knicks shot much more high percentage shots; unsurprisingly, the Knicks shot 53.6% from the field and 6-12 from downtown. Let’s take a look at some more notes from tonight’s game.

Some Highlights….

• Quincy Acy rewarded Derek Fisher for starting him by putting together a monster performance. First off, the beard was outstanding. Secondly, Acy had 10 rebounds, 6 of which were offensive boards. He gave the Knicks so many second chance points tonight, and they capitalized on them. The young power forward might have been the Knicks MVP for the night. Acy also hit some BIG shots. With the shot clock winding down late in the game, Acy had a fall away jumper to end a Knick scoring drought. He also had an epic put back dunk in the fourth.

• J.R. Smith was awesome. He was the go to game down the stretch, outside of Melo. He had a great stat line at 11 points, and a team high 7 assists for +6. Is it time to play Smith at point guard? He has more talent than anyone on this roster and showed he can distribute as well. Might be something to keep an eye on.
• Shane Larkin is making strides at the point. After finding out Jose Calderon is out 2-3 weeks, the point guard stepped up and had 9 points, 5 assists, and 5 steals. Where Larkin made his impact felt was on the defensive end. I can’t remember the last time a Knick guard had 5 steals in a game. If he and Pablo Prigioni (+10) can play like this all the time, the Knicks will survive the Calderon absence.
• Cole Aldrich was a difference maker. He was +10 as well and was active on the defensive end. The big man is slowly earning more minutes each game.
• Jason Smith gave the Knicks an offensive spark at 12 points on 5-6 shooting. It’s important to get him going for the second unit offense.
• Melo was Melo. Hit some big shots and had 25 points and 6 (!) assists. He outplayed LeBron James and that’s what the Knicks needed to win this game.

Some Lowlights…

• Tim Hardaway Jr. played 5 minutes. I really don’t agree with this move, but hey, it worked out tonight. It’s hard not to play your 23 year old shooting guard when he has boat loads of potential. It’s hard to play all three guys, and Fisher went with the hot hand in J.R. and Iman Shumpert. No knock on Fish, just hope to see more of Timmy soon.
• Down the stretch, the Knicks gave up too many easy and quick baskets. They got the big stop to end it, but they still allowed back to back threes in 12 seconds and then a Kyrie layup 4 seconds into the shot clock. While it wasn’t a problem tonight, it was still concerning.

Awesome win for the Knicks and Knick fans everywhere. Charles Barkley was sooooooo bent out of shape that Knicks won. He was cheering so hard against them in the first half. Relatively quieter in the second half, until the Knicks had one bad possession: “That possession is why the Knicks will not make the playoffs.” Oh yeah Chuck? We’ll see you in April.

Great win New York. On to the next one. Build off this!