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The Knicks and Nuggets will face each other tonight for the first time since the Carmelo Anthony trade last February.
The Knicks may have gotten the best player in that deal, but judging by their recent collapse, they don’t have the better team, something they proved in stretching their losing streak to five games with a 100-86 loss to the woeful Bucks at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s not a beautiful feeling right now, with us losing five straight,” said Amar’e Stoudemire, who finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds. “We’re not taking care of home court. Offensively we played well in the first half, but in the second half we went back to what we didn’t want.
“We’ve just got to figure it out.”
The terrible showing wasn’t lost on the fans, who serenaded the Knicks with loud choruses of boos throughout the second half, with some “Fire D’Antoni!” chants sprinkled in for good measure.
“I don’t blame them,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said. “Half my family is probably doing that. That goes with the territory.
“We’re not playing well enough not to be booed.”
Anthony managed to score 35 to lead the Knicks, but once again struggled with his shooting. After going 11-for-26 last night, he has gone 25-for-75 from the field — 1-for-15 from 3-point range — in three games since returning from a wrist injury.
Anthony also was ejected late in the game for picking up his second technical foul after jawing with Bucks guard Brandon Jennings as he went to the line to shoot free throws.
“At this point, we’ve got to just man up and play,” Anthony said. “One positive thing we can take from this is we play against [tonight]. We can put this game behind us, this losing streak behind us, and try to get a win.”
But the Knicks don’t look like a team which will be able to get things turned around any time soon, especially after failing to beat a Milwaukee team that not only had gone 0-8 on the road before last night’s win, but was without one of its best players, Stephen Jackson, who was inactive after missing the team bus to a shoot-around in the morning.
“It’s the whole team,” D’Antoni said. “We’re just not sharp. It looks like our legs are deader than the other guys. It looks like they’re running circles around us a lot of times.”
No one made the Knicks look slower than Jennings, who single-handedly dismantled them. He sliced and diced through the Knicks defense at will, finishing with a game-high 36 points to go with five assists and two steals.
“I thought [Jennings] hit some big shots, but I don’t think that had any effect, as far as the guys’ psyche,” said Tyson Chandler, who had 11 points and 12 rebounds. “He hit some big shots, but I don’t think we did anything necessarily to knock him out of rhythm, either.”