New York Knicks vs Philadelphia 76ers
February 26, 2017
Knicks 110, 76ers 109

Written by Eric Weinstein – @ericcweinsteinn
flagrant2blog.blogspot.com

Melo to the rescue… I guess?

The Philadelphia 76ers strolled into MSG tonight to face the struggling New York Knicks in an Atlantic Division matchup that turned quite interesting. New York had a 17 point lead in the third quarter, but squandered it and needed some late game heroics from Carmelo Anthony to defeat the 76ers, 110-109. We had another vintage Melo game tonight, and he led the way with 37 points to go along with 6 rebounds. Derrick Rose, who was not in Chicago like he joked about yesterday (not cool Derrick), finished the game with 18 points. The heavily shopped Jahlil Okafor had an excellent game with 28 points and 10 rebounds. Dario Saric, another talented young 76er, finished with 19 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 assists. That guy can ball. The Sixers have a ton of young talent, and we didn’t even see Joel Embiid tonight, who was out with an injury.

Joacim Noah and Kristaps Porzingis were out as well.

This game was Carmelo saying he wont go down without a fight. He knows that this season went south real fast, but he is going to do whatever he can to get this team into the postseason.

Here’s the problem, the Knicks had to beat an Embiid-less 76ers team on the last play of the game. Without Embiid, this team is just what they’ve been over the past four years, and that’s bad. A game winning shot is nice and all, but to blow a 17 point lead against this team? Not good.

There were some bright spots in this game, of course. Willy Hernangomez and Kyle O’Quinn proved to be an effective front court pairing once again, and Lance Thomas filled in admirably for the injured Kristaps Porzingis. Lance had one of his better games tonight, and he even had a four point play. Mazel Tov, Lance. As well as those guys, Justin Holiday hit some big shots down the stretch, and he continues to bring solid defense off the bench. Holiday is playing himself into a tie contract from the Knicks, but I bet the Knicks let him go to sign Jerry Stackhouse or something.

This was a nice win, and it was cool to see Carmelo once again put the team on his back like he’s done so many times before. I know we’re all firmly on the tank bandwagon once again, but a win every once in a while could be fun. Not that we would know that, since we like the Knicks.

The Knicks take the Garden floor on Monday to take on the new look Raptors in another Atlantic Division matchup. This will make the tank enthusiasts happy, as the Raptors continue to prove that they are one of the elite teams in the Eastern Conference. Talk to you all on Monday. 24-35.