Written by William Lee
The New York Knicks fall short on a comeback from an 18 point first half deficit to the “Grit and Grind” Memphis Grizzlies, losing 98-93 in their first game back from the All Star break.
In the first half it looked like the New York Knicks were still in vacation mode, getting off to a slow start, just content on jacking up threes. Knicks were a goose egg in the first half on their nine three-point attempts, and shot a dismal 34.1% overall from the field. As great as Carmelo Anthony was in the All Star game, breaking the record for made threes in the mid-season classic exhibition game with eight made threes Sunday night. Anthony like the rest of the Knicks was still in vacation mode as well, missing his first seven attempts from the field. Anthony got semi on track again afterwards, going 8/15 the rest of the way finishing with 22 points on an ineffective 22 attempts.
On the other end New York made the Memphis Grizzles with the nickname “Grit and Grind” look like they were an offensive juggernaut scoring 50 points, shooting over 50% from the field. The Grizzles were unselfish, sharing the basketball, collecting 14 assist on 21 made field goals in the first half, in which they had every player scoring at least a point. This is the same Memphis team that is the fourth lowest scoring team in the league at 94.7 points per game.
The Knicks started the second half trailing 52-37, as bad as they had played in the first half, that was how well they played the second half. New York stormed out to a 14-4 run to start to the third quarter to get within one possession four minutes into the second half. New York amped up their defensive intensity, forcing Memphis to shot 35% from the field, even causing a 24 second violation. The rest of the quarter though the Grizzlies were able to keep the Knicks at arm’s length, as Anthony got it to a one possession game again at the end of the third quarter, knocking down a jump shot, making it 66-64.
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