AUBURN HILLS — The night began in absolute horror for Raymond Felton. By the end of the first quarter against the Pistons, when the Knicks had rung up a ghastly 11 turnovers, the point guard was charged with four of them. The count rose in such a way that Felton might have seriously considered changing his name to “John Doe” and moving to Anytown, USA.
“He was ugly early,” admitted coach Mike Woodson.
“Terrible,” said Felton. “He said ugly, I’ll say terrible.”
No arguments. Ugly and terrible was how the game started for Felton. It ended as a thing of beauty.
Sure, he tied his season-high with seven turnovers, but Felton also tossed in 26 points — one shy of his season best. That included the final seven points of the third quarter when the Knicks reversed fields on a potential major embarrassment, pulled even with Detroit and went on to an 87-77 victory last night, despite 21 total turnovers.
“I’m still kind of upset with myself for having seven turnovers,” said Felton who focused more on “mistakes” rather than “keyed big streak” afterwards. “Being a point guard, scoring is something I can do, but it’s not my No. 1 thing. It’s to take care of the ball, run the team and I had a lot of silly, silly turnovers.
“But at the end of the day, we still got that W in the column and that’s all that counts.”
Playing a woefully shorthanded Pistons team that was without its leading scorer plus its second and third top rebounders, the Knicks — also without their top scorer, Carmelo Anthony — were down 10 with 2:25 left in the third. Then J.R. Smith struck for a 3-pointer. Felton was next. In Woodson’s words, “he took over the game and got us back in it.”
Felton’s seven points came in the last 1:53 of the third to pull the Knicks into a 65-65 tie. He added seven more in the fourth quarter
“We needed someone because we always count on Melo to step in and take control of the game so it was good to see Ray take control,” Jason Kidd said.
“Just being aggressive, taking what the defense gives me. Instead of trying to over-penetrating, sometimes I have to just pull up and take that short jump shot and that’s what I did,” said Felton, who despite his late heroics, still recalls the turnovers above all.
“It was being overly aggressive, just trying to really get to the basket instead of reading what the defense is giving,” Felton said. “It was very silly and careless.”
Woodson sort of noticed.
“I kind of read him the riot act a few times,” Woodson said of the early debacle. “He responded which was nice, especially down the stretch. He made big play after big play.”