Live From The Garden: Knicks -v- Wizards

I won't be too hard on the Wizards fans, especially since my buddy Marcus came from DC to come to the game, but facts are facts...the Wiz basically just lost to the Knicks summer league team. Since the physicals for the trades are tomorrow, the Knicks were without their new teammates, but they still were able to pull out a victory against the lifeless Wizards.

The Knicks started the game with Chris Duhon and Nate Robinson in the backcourt, David Lee at center, with Wilson Chandler and Quentin Richardson at the wings. All 4 starters were forced to play more than 40 minutes each, as there was only 2 available players off the bench, in Grandpa Malik Rose and youngin Anthony Roberson, who wasn't very helpful, going 0-5 from downtown and 2-10 overall.

New York jumped out to an early lead, led mostly by Nate's speed and Duhon's ball control. From the beginning of the game, till the end, it was Antwan Jamison who was tearing apart the Knicks offense and scoring repeatedly in the paint. We'll get into that in more detail later. Quentin Richardson exploded early in the game, finishing with 18 points in the first quarter (!), giving the Knicks a 35-29 lead after one. We didn't see much of Andray Blatche in the first half, hopefully because he was benched for his awful play last night against Yao Ming in the final seconds of the game. It was Dominique Maguire who got extra minutes in the first half, really making the most out of them. The Wizards D really stepped up against Q, allowing him only 2 in the second quarter after exploding in the first. That kept the Wiz in the game, and went into the half only trailing by two, 60-58.

The third quarter started with Chris Duhon and Nate Robinson using speed and hitting big shots, extended the Knicks lead. Caron Butler wasn't impressive most of the game, lookign hesitant with the ball. Caron finished with 23 points, but wasn't very impressive from the floor, shooting 8 for 18. Something's wrong with Caron because he can dominate games like this with ease when his mind is right. It seemed as though every time Antwan Jamison got the ball, they were getting either points in the paint, or good ball movement out of the double team.

This is where we didn't understand what the Wizards were doing. The last two games the Wizards have played, it's fair to say they've given up towards the end, practically handing wins to opposing teams. Tonight it was more of the same, and for reasons we could not come close to figuring out, Antwan Jamison wasn't getting any touches down the stretch, still finishing with 29 points and 13 boards.

Between Quentin Richardson's best night of the season (maybe the last two seasons, finishing with 34 points (!), 7 from deep, and 12 rebounds), and the Wizards reluctance to get more touches to Antwan in the final quarter, the Wizards fell to a very embarrassing 1-9 against a Knicks team with only 7 players. It looks great for Knicks fans, who can see that D'Antoni's system and style of coaching is keeping the Knicks competitive almost every night.

KNICKS 122, WIZARDS 117