Everyone should listen to their mother on Christmas. Al Harrington did.
After laying an egg in a Christmas afternoon loss to the Heat, Harrington tried to rectify it on Christmas night. On orders from his mother, the Knicks’ leading scorer went to the team’s Westchester practice facility Friday night and spent more than an hour shooting jumpers, with his parents rebounding.
It is quite a Christmas story for Harrington, as he navigates the first slump of what had been a terrific start to the season.
“At first I didn’t want to go,” said Harrington, who shot 5-of-20 in the Miami loss. “She said the way you shot the ball, you need to go back to the gym. We just had trouble getting someone to turn on the lights.”
Harrington arrived at 9 p.m. and didn’t leave the facility until 10:30.
“She came with me and my parents rebounded,” Harrington said.
Harrington said he also went in early yesterday morning to shoot with Allan Houston, an assistant to team president Donnie Walsh. Harrington has shot just 31.5 percent in the past six games and is 9-of-43 (21 percent) from 3-point range.
“I’m fine,” Harrington said. “It’s just my legs. I got to get more legs into my shot. I’m relying too much on my upper body.”
* The Knicks are trying to adjust to teams packing the lane and stopping their pick-and-roll, on which David Lee has been unstoppable.
“The last game they helped on the roll all the time,” Lee said. “We had plenty of open 3s and didn’t happen to hit them. I’ll live with Al and [Danilo] Gallinari having open threes. I think that’s something we can win a lot of games off of.”
* If the Knicks win two of their three remaining December games, they will post their first double-digit victory month since January 2005.
Guard Marcus Landry, whom coach Mike D’Antoni loves, hit five straight 3-pointers during yesterday’s scrimmage and may have leapt over Nate Robinson.