After winning back-to-back games this past week to end their 9 game losing streak, in blowout fashion by 30 over Brooklyn and 38 over the Magic, many Knicks fans were finally given some hope that the underachieving Knickerbockers were finally turning their season around following losing All Star center Tyson Chandler to injuries.
As the tradewinds are swirling around shooting guard Iman Shumpert and the writing is on the wall for GM Ernie Grundwald to eventually replace coach Mike Woodson with former player turned executive Allan Houston, the Knicks were supposed to have an easy home game against the rival Boston Celtics Sunday afternoon, that should have easily seen the Knicks cruise to a 3 game winning streak.
Except for one problem. The Knicks forgot to show up, getting behind 18-1 early and never coming back, getting shellacked by a pedestrian Celtics team led by Jordan Crawford(23 pts) and Jared Sullinger(21 pts) by an embarrasing 41 points on their home court.
Guess all that wishful thinking was just a pipe-dream as the Knicks fell to an Atlantic Division worst 5-14, while the Celtics not are the leaders of the division at ahem…….10-12. So much for tanking.
Starting Knicks guards Felton and Shumpert were a combined 0-12, Andrea Bargnani was 1-7, and Carmelo Anthony, who finished with a respectable 19 points, shot a miserable 5-15. Ouch.
To make matters worse, the Knicks were a black hole like -40 with Melo on the floor. Should the Knicks still be considering giving Anthony a $120 million deal?
The 41 point loss was the NBA’s biggest margin of victory on the season, surpassing the LA Clippers’ 38 point rout of the Bulls earlier this season.
Carmelo Anthony simply calls the loss “embarrassing”….
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen has also provided content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, Cleveland.com, CSN Philly.com, Buckets Magazine, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
