NBA

Knicks strong play impresses Heat

For a short period of time Friday night, the city was able to forget about Hurricane Sandy and the disaster around it and focus on a stellar performance from the Knicks.

The Heat, the defending NBA champions, knew they would be an emotional ride, but stood no chance against passionate Knicks.

Carmelo Anthon, who scored a game-high 30 points led the Knicks to a 104-84 romp over the Heat at the Garden. He poured in 16 points in the first quarter, and won his first showdown with LeBron James this season.

“They make a 3 at the end of the buzzer or you have one at the end of the first quarter like ’Melo … it starts coming, flowing, flowing, flowing one after a another,” James said.

James finished with 23 points, seven rebounds and five assists, and though it wasn’t his or his team’s best performance, he gave the Knicks credit.

“They played well,” James said. “It’s a good win for them.”

The roaring sellout Garden crowd of 19,033 also played a role in setting the night’s tone.

“Home opener man, they played with a lot of energy,” Dwayne Wade said. “You didn’t know how many people were going to be here, but [the energy] was great.

“We know the Knicks fed off that as well. It was an emotional game for certain people and the city as well.”

As if New York welcoming their Eastern Conference rivals wasn’t enough, the Knicks did their best to take the city’s mind off of the recovery effort resulting from Hurricane Sandy for one night.

“The energy in the arena was amazing,” Wade said. “You had the champs coming in as well. It was a great time to let the community, the fans and their families forget about things for a few hours.”

The Knicks were aggressive from the opening tip, jumping out to an early first-quarter lead they wouldn’t give up for the rest of the night.

“They had energy, disposition and quickness to the ball on both ends of the court,” Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They played very good basketball and got us on our heels pretty much the whole game and we weren’t able to recover from there.”