There were no Amar’e Stoudemire spinning, post-up buckets or hard drives to the hole by Carmelo Anthony.
But there was plenty of spirited defense, 3-point missiles from Steve Novak and dunks from J.R. Smith as the Knicks destroyed the slumping Jazz last night, 113-84, at the Garden.
Stoudemire is out for the regular season with the announcement he needs debridement surgery to clean out his right knee, and Anthony missed his third straight game with a swollen right knee.
But the Knicks (38-22) didn’t miss a beat as they pummeled the Jazz with Smith pumping in 24 points and Novak collecting 20 points in 26 minutes. That makes 60 points for Smith in his last two games. He scored 36 in the Knicks’ 95-94 loss to the Thunder on Thursday night.
Novak drilled 7 of 12 shots, including five 3-pointers. Smith, with a series of ferocious driving dunks to go along with his perimeter game, shot 9-for-16. The Knicks are 5-5 in games Anthony has missed this season.
“Some games you come out after news like Amar’e’s down or you kind of rally and come together,’’ Novak said. “That’s what you saw. At first you get the news and you’re down. Then you rally together.’’
The Knicks led 75-45 with 4:15 left in the third quarter and went up 32 points late in the fourth. They held Utah to 38.5 percent shooting.
“Defensively, we just kept scraping and scratching,’’ coach Mike Woodson said. “Our assignments were pretty much on the money. I thought defense really won the game for us.’’
The slumping Jazz finished its four-game road trip 0-4. The Jazz fell to 32-31 and into an eighth-place tie with Mike D’Antoni’s Lakers for the final Western Conference playoff spot.
It was a big win for the Knicks’ psyche as they embark on a brutal five-game Western swing, where they face Golden State, Denver, Portland, the Clippers and the Jazz again.
Anthony’s status is officially “day to day’’ and Stoudemire is out six weeks.
As for the game, the Knicks defended the Jazz with panache, holding them to 17 points in the second quarter. Utah shot just 36.8 percent in the half — ice cold from the perimeter.
“I was more impressed not with our offense but our defense,’’ Jason Kidd said.
The Knicks took a 55-38 lead at halftime after Novak got hot midway through the second quarter, bagging three 3-pointers in a four-minute span. With Stoudemire out, the reliance on Novak’s 3-point shot will increase and the Knicks set nice, new back screens for their 3-point sniper.
“We’re not a better team without those guys, but we have to find other ways to score,’’ Novak said.