They shot 9/21 from downtown (42.9%), four guys were in double figures (Gordon Hayward 24, Derrick Favors 20, Trey Burke 15, Alec Burks 10), and overall the team pounded the glass for 51 rebounds.
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Despite another sketchy finish, the Kings found a way to win one of those games I would file under “games they have to win”.
After opening this three-game trip with their most lopsided loss of the season, the Knicks seek a bounce-back effort against the Kings on Thursday night. “I guess he wanted me to rest for tomorrow’s game (in Sacramento)”. You have to win these. Anthony feels like the knee isn’t as strong as it is going to be when it is fully healed as he says he has the full strength some nights but on other nights it just isn’t there. “I’ve been working on my body a lot”. It can go two ways: It can go good for us or it can go bad for us.
Carmelo Anthony is having a down year for the Knicks through a quarter of the season. Darren Collison then lost the ball on the inbound pass with 4.6 seconds to play, but Anthony missed from near midcourt with the shot that would have won it. “I don’t want this to be an ongoing situation or an ongoing feeling where we have to come into the locker room and explain why we’re losing basketball games”. Forward Rudy Gay scored 10 points but made just 4 of 16 shots. They hit two or three threes in a row at the beginning to take the lead and we couldn’t get back to that. And the Jazz didn’t stop pouring it on until they had established a 31-point lead in the second quarter.
Utah Jazz forward Trevor Booker (33) dunks the ball against New York Knicks forward Kristaps Porzingis (6) during the second quarter of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, in Salt Lake City. They picked up +2 points in the third when the Jazz let them “kind of” back in the game, but it was a blowout and in the end the only thing people were anxious about was the Chick-fil-A status. It’s one worth being excited about, despite some of the issues that continue to plague this team.
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Now I know you could arguably blame Kristaps here for not being better at defending against Rondo once he gets to the rim, but I’m a firm believer that nothing is Kristaps Porzingis’ fault because he is most likely going to be the best part of my life for the next decade. He is as advertised. However, the turnaround in Rondo’s performance proved that a simple decluttering of the mind and focusing on the game could change a number of things. Beyond his impressive raw numbers, he was really pushing the pace tonight, catching the Knicks off guard in transition over and over and over again.
