NBA

Stoudemire needed for Knicks postseason push

There was something missing. At the end of an adventurous week for the Knicks, at the start of another one, it wasn’t buzz, even though Madison Square Garden never quite sounded the way it had last week, Easter Sunday, an improbable comeback against the Bulls and two remarkable shots by Carmelo Anthony.

It wasn’t the Knicks, not really.

“We played hard,” Knicks interim coach Mike Woodson said, and they did.

“I thought we played them tough, that’s a pretty good team,” Tyson Chandler said, and the Knicks did, and the Heat are.

“Our effort was there,” Anthony said, and it was.

The players and the coach talked about a disjointed flow that kept creeping into this 93-85 loss to the Heat, and that was true, especially after the Knicks had surged to a 79-75 lead with eight minutes and eight seconds left in the game. They talked about not being as aggressive as they had been, about settling for jumpers, about missing those jumpers even when they were wide open.

“We missed shots that we normally make,” Baron Davis said.

“Frustrating,” said Steve Novak who looked shockingly human from behind the 3-point line. “You know you’re going to miss some good looks once in a while, but it’s still frustrating.”

All of that is true. All of that is fair. And all of it misses the point. It has been easy to overlook the fact the Knicks are a wounded team the past few weeks because they’ve been feisty, they’ve been spirited, they’ve rallied behind one scorching-hot superstar and ridden his coattails to the brink of the playoffs. And during the Knicks’ three victories last week — Bulls and Wizards at the Garden, Bucks in Milwaukee — that has been enough.

But in the two losses — at Chicago on Tuesday and to the Heat yesterday — the biggest missing element hits harder, mostly because one of those two teams will likely be waiting for the Knicks if they do make the playoffs. And if they want to have any hope of making their stay in the postseason last a little longer than last year’s — even if it’s only by five or six days — then there is one certainty the Knicks need to have.

They need Amar’e Stoudemire back in the fold. And they need him reasonably healthy, reasonably useful, reasonably reliable.

“Amar’e is a great player,” LeBron James said. “He’s another threat on the floor. Don’t take away what Carmelo did” — and nobody could, not after a brilliant 42-point splurge — “but they’re a better team with Amar’e in there.”

Added Dwyane Wade: “Amar’e is obviously a dynamic player, one of the best players in our game. He’s always putting pressure on the defense and on the rim, so no question they’re a tougher, better team with him.”

It’s not just that they’re better, Stoudemire makes them viable. And it’s funny: The same thing has encircled around Stoudemire that threatened to marginalize Anthony earlier in the year, when people were wringing their hands and wondering how Jeremy Lin could ever find room in his heart to play alongside Anthony. Absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder; around the Knicks it makes you invisible.

If you’re lucky.

You know what? Adding Stoudemire — and we’re talking about a passable facsimile of Stoudemire at his best, not some hobbling ghost — will make the Knicks more than challenging, but dangerous. You look at the way they lost to the Bulls and the Heat these last six days, that’s obvious. Yes, it would be nice to have a second source on offense — when J.R. Smith is your wingman, you’re going to need a vat of Maalox to keep up with the good and the bad.

But it also adds a big body into the mix, and against the Bulls and the Heat that’s as valuable as anything. Heroic as Tyson Chandler plays, there’s a reason why Chicago and Miami feast on second-chance opportunities against the Knicks. Even if Stoudemire doesn’t rebound in the numbers Chandler does, he is a force, a presence to be reckoned with. And you simply can’t underestimate how much that mere presence would help.

Or what his continued absence would mean.