TORONTO — Energizing Knicks center Ronny Turiaf will make his return tonight from his latest knee sprain after a four-game absence, and it’s perfect timing. Kevin Love is invading the Garden.
This will be the first Love match for the Knicks since the Timberwolves’ glass cleaner posted his historic 31-31 double-double on Nov. 12 against them — the first 30-30 game since Moses Malone did it in 1982.
Turiaf missed that game, too, with knee soreness. But he doesn’t sound too worried about Love.
“I’m looking forward to winning a game,” Turiaf said. “I’m not looking forward to playing against Kevin Love. Kevin Love isn’t the guy who makes my heart beat. I like the way he plays. He does the dirty work. I’ll try to prevent that.”
Amar’e Stoudemire also didn’t give Love his due. He still claims his own foul trouble that night triggered the historic evening.
“I just don’t [want to] get in foul trouble,” Stoudemire said. “If I don’t get in foul trouble, it’s a totally different game.”
Turiaf is the Knicks’ leader in plus-minus, but they have learned to live without him, winning the last four games with Stoudemire at center and Wilson Chandler at power forward. Coach Mike D’Antoni plans to keep that starting alignment for now.
“It’s not an easy situation to be on the sidelines, watching guys have fun, because I want to have fun, too,” Turiaf said.
Turiaf speaks five languages but he is reticent about injuries, avoiding reporters the past eight days. When asked if the knee was 100 percent, the eccentric Turiaf said: “How can a human being realize how close to 100 percent anything in his body is. How would you know? Am I feeling better than I did yesterday? One-hundred percent? Yes. Better than the week before? Totally. But to put a percentage value on it, I don’t know how to do it.”
Responding to the Post’s report that Allan Houston
has a new title as assistant general manager, Knicks presdient Donnie Walsh
said, “This is the proper title for him within our present organizational chart and better reflects his position within that chart.”
Houston is third in command, behind Walsh and senior VP Glen Grunwald
. There is no GM, though Grunwald’s role is just that.
Landry Fields
posted his sixth double-double (15 points, 10 rebounds).