AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Amare Stoudemire scored 22 points and Mike Bibby added 16 to lead the New York Knicks to an easy 103-80 victory over the Detroit Pistons on Saturday night.
Carmelo Anthony scored 13 points in three quarters for New York, which led 64-42 at halftime and by 29 after three. The Detroit fans had little to cheer about — except when highlights of Lions touchdowns from their playoff game in New Orleans were shown on the big screen.
Brandon Knight led the Pistons with 19 points.
Bibby has scored 27 points in his last two games after scoring seven through New York’s first six.
Detroit guard Rodney Stuckey sat out with a groin injury, and the Pistons were also without forwards Austin Daye and Charlie Villanueva, who had sore ankles.
Knicks rookie Iman Shumpert made his first career start, replacing Toney Douglas. He finished with 11 points, including an alley-oop dunk late in the game that made it 99-73.
New York led by just a point after the first quarter before breaking the game open in the second. With the score tied at 32, the Knicks went on a 26-4 run, highlighted by a one-handed dunk by Anthony over Detroit big man Greg Monroe that made it 52-35.
Moments later, Bibby made a 3-pointer to push the lead to 20, and he added another shot from long distance at the shot clock buzzer to make it 58-36.
Bibby led all scorers in the first half with 14 points, making all four of his 3-point attempts. Detroit gave the Knicks far too many extra chances in the half, turning the ball over 11 times and allowing nine offensive rebounds.
The Pistons finished with 20 turnovers. They’ve lost three straight, each by decisive margins. Chicago beat them by 16 before Philadelphia defeated Detroit 96-73 on Friday night.
New York was playing the second game of a back-to-back set as well, having edged Washington 99-96 the previous night.
The Pistons haven’t been drawing well this season, although Saturday night’s announced attendance of 12,044 was mitigated by the fact that the Lions were playing their first playoff game in a dozen years at the same time.
The area’s basketball team has a ways to go if it’s going to reach the postseason. The Pistons looked disoriented on defense throughout, allowing several easy dunks and doing little to slow the Knicks.
After an alley-oop from Anthony to Tyson Chandler and a dunk by Stoudemire, New York led 79-53 in the third quarter. Josh Harrellson, the Knicks’ 6-foot-10 rookie, added a 3-pointer to make it 82-55.
NOTES: Anthony was called for a technical foul in the third. … Greg Monroe scored 15 points for the Pistons. … The Knicks committed a defensive 3-second violation 15 seconds into the game.