| Knicks Avoid Season-High Skid, Defeat Pistons Authored by Mark Rowan - December 7, 2008 - 9:22 pm
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It wasn't all pretty at Madison Square Garden, however. Leading by 22 points at the half, New York stumbled out of the gate in the third quarter and let Detroit get as close as five points down the stretch.
"They may have been frustrated," said Jared Jeffries, referring to the second technical foul Richard Hamilton received in the fourth quarter. "But in the second half they played well. We got to focus on ourselves and not let leads slip away like that."
Jeffries played his second game of the season after coming back from a fractured left fibula.
The Knicks held on with a number of great performances, most notably 25 points, 9 assists and 5 boards from Chris Duhon, who played all 48 minutes of the game.
David Lee also recorded his eighth consecutive double-double with 12 points, 19 rebounds, which dates back to the day Al Harrington, Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley were landed in New York. Harrington added 18 points and 6 rebounds.
The Pistons were led by Tayshaun Prince's 23 points and 10 rebounds. Hamilton added 16 points in his ejection-shortened day, while Arron Afflalo picked up the minutes and the slack with 17 points of his own. Allen Iverson was held to 17 points and dished out 7 assists.
"Iverson is one of the best scorers to ever play," said Duhon. "I think he missed a lot of shots he would normally make as well. We just tried to make him shoot over our hands, contest his shots and it paid off for us."
Iverson has only scored over 20 points in one of his last twenty games with the Pistons, and is averaging 10 points less than his career average.
Iverson's average was also low in his first few games with the Nuggets this season as well. Duhon was assigned to Iverson throughout the game thanks to a nonexistent New York backcourt. Nate Roberson was out again with a strained groin.
"[Coach Mike D'Antoni and I] didn't even talk about it," said Duhon. "It was one of those things that we knew it was probably going to happen. Once I played the whole first half I kind of knew that I wasn't going to come out the game. Throughout the game he asked me if I was okay, and I just told him yes."
The Knicks start a five-game road trip on Tuesday, during which they will face off against D'Antoni's old team the Phoenix Suns, the Western Conference-leading Los Angeles Lakers and the division rival New Jersey Nets.
"This will be a tough road trip for us," added Duhon.
"Hopefully during that time we'll get some more bodies back, but if not we can't use that as an excuse and approach each game with the same energy and effort that we did tonight." |
