Recap: Trailblazers 102 – Knicks 91

The Knicks once again fell victim to another slow start. It seems the only thing that motivates them is the challenge of trying to climb up a mountain. Tonight, that mountain was Everest. The Knicks went down 22 in the first quarter to the red hot 13-2 Portland Trailblazers. Coming out of a hole like that against a team like the Blazers proved impossible. Not going down without a fight, the Knicks cut the lead to single digits at multiple points in the 4th. However, the opportunities were squandered by characteristically bad defense on the other end.

The trend continues for the Knicks who have now lost six straight games. Their only solid production came, once again, from star Carmelo Anthony. He put on an offensive clinic scoring 34 points on 13-25 from the field to go along with his 15 rebounds. Maybe the rest of the team should attend. Iman Shumpert put on a historically bad showing. He became the first Knickerbocker to have 0 points, 0 rebounds and 0 assists in 23 minutes of action. Really an impressive feat in a franchise with deep blood lines in the art of losing.

Post-game remarks from Iman Shumpert and Amare Stoudemire seemed to be directed at Carmelo Anthony, frustrated with a lack of ball movement on the offensive end. The ball movement issue looks to be more correlated with the lack of good point guard play than Carmelo. The Blazers played Matthews in single coverage on Carmelo for most of the game where he was unguardable. He passed out properly any time he was doubled. When Stoudemire learns to plays defense and Shumpert puts up a single stat, maybe he will pass.