Valiant Effort by Knicks Falls Short vs. Suns

After a rousing comeback victory over Milwaukee on Friday night, the Knicks went up against a tough Phoenix Suns squad on Sunday evening at Madison Square Garden. This time, however, a big comeback attempt fell short. After fighting back from a 14-point deficit to tie the game, the Knicks seemed to wake up the Suns, who erupted in the fourth quarter en route to a 115-104 win.

Phoenix was led by Amare Stoudemire and Grant Hill, who scored 28 points apiece. Stoudemire ran up and down the floor, hit from everywhere and was the game’s leading rebounder with 12. Hill also chose The Garden stage for his best game in a Phoenix uniform, as he did a little bit of everything, and had seven assists and eight rebounds to go with his points.

Hill absolutely took over the game in the fourth quarter, as the Suns took a one-point lead going into the final period and went on a quick 11-0 run, during which the veteran NBA star scored nine points and dished the assist for the other bucket.

“We had a pretty decent game going,” said Knicks President, Basketball Operations, and Head Coach Isiah Thomas. “They made a run, we made a run. We fought our way back in the game. Grant (Hill) made a couple of shots … he had it going pretty good.”

Thomas was not the only coach impressed by Hill’s game.

“He is a seven time All-Star. Obviously he had a good game. He has done it his whole career when he is healthy,” said Suns Coach Mike D’Antoni.

“It was a lot of fun to see him go off,” Suns point guard Steve Nash said of Hill’s fourth-quarter spurt. “It was a lot of pressure off me. I didn’t have my legs tonight and he kind of took over. Obviously he is a great teammate. He is very versatile and skilled.”

Hill and Stoudemire were the keys to victory, but Nash had another quietly impressive game. Although Nash scored only nine points, his 15 assists allowed the Suns to run their fast-break attack. As a result of his efforts, and the heroics of Hill and Stoudemire, New York’s more balanced attack came up short on Sunday.

Balance was the story for the Knicks, as six New York players scored in double-figures and the team shared the ball very well, particularly in the first half where they had 15 assists. Nevertheless, their strong effort was not enough against the first-place Suns, and the Knicks fell in front of a raucous home crowd.

Eddy Curryand Stephon Marburypaced the Knicks with 21 points each. Curry hit 77 percent of his shots from the field and added eight rebounds, giving the Knicks a strong offensive presence in the post. Marbury played well also, as he led the team and forced Nash to give up his shot much of the time.

The Knicks were on top of their game for most of Sunday night, but they could not contain the inspired fourth-quarter spurt by Hill and the Suns.

“Against a team such as this you really have to play almost perfect basketball to beat them because every mistake you make they capitalize on it,” Thomas said. “For the most part we played pretty good basketball game with the exception of a three- or four-minute burst where they took off … and it was lights out from there.”

“We had a two or three minute stretch of bad shots, and they got it going,” Quentin Richardson said of the Suns. “We just got away from what we were doing a little bit.

Randolph agreed that the fourth quarter was the difference in terms of both teams’ level of play.

“They ran off on us,” said Randolph. “We know Phoenix is a good team, and we hung with them until the fourth quarter. Then we couldn’t score. We couldn’t get stops. They were executing, and Nash was making the best passes.”

Although New York was unable to pull off the upset win, the Knicks played solid, unselfish basketball, and their 23 assists was a season high.

“We don’t care about who scores. We just want to make it a team effort and it is hard teams to defend us that way,” said Jamal Crawford.

Point guard Marbury again drew Thomas’ praise for his role in the balanced offense.

“Steph (Marbury) played a good basketball game. I thought we played a good game for the most part. It just wasn’t good enough, because they were better,” Thomas said.