The New York Knicks aren’t completely healthy yet, but as the season hits the final stretch run, Jason Kidd’s New York squad is looking as strong as it has all season.
The Knicks won their fifth straight game on Tuesday night, defeating the Boston Celtics handily by a score of 100-85 in a nationally televised showcase at TD Garden in Boston.
"This is a team we probably could face in the playoffs," J-Kidd said afterward. "So to be able to know that you can go on the road and beat them definitely helps."
The Knicks beat the Celtics for their fifth straight win thanks to solid defense (Getty Images).
The victory propelled the Knicks back into the second position in the Eastern Conference and extended their Atlantic Division lead over the Brooklyn Nets to 2.5 games with just 13 left to play. If the season ended today, the Knicks would indeed face Boston in the first round.
"We want to beat them, let’s be quite frank about it," Carmelo Anthony said of the Celtics. "We always want to beat Boston. New York in anything wants to beat Boston. And when we do it, it’s a good feeling. It was a great road win for us, especially in this arena. Knowing how hostile it can get here, knowing how well they play here in front of their fans. It says a lot about our team at this moment."
That team is one that is still without big men Tyson Chandler and Amar’e Stoudemire, but proved even without two of their top players they have what it takes to compete with any team for 48 minutes and come away victorious.
"It’s not easy winning in Boston," coach Mike Woodson noted afterward. "We played a solid forty-eight minute ball game. Everybody that played contributed to it. And I thought our defense set the tone in terms of how we played."
Indeed the Knicks played the type of defense again on Tuesday night that had become second nature as they got out to a 18-5 start to the 2012-2013 season in November and December. Though the team hit a lull in the early months of the new year, the y’ve been back on track since ending a long road trip with a win in Utah eight days ago.
"We’re starting to play a little bit how we played early in the year in terms of letting our defense dictate how we play," Woodson said. "And then offensively we’ve been flowing and sharing the basketball."
Anthony led the way for the starters offensively with 29 points, topped only by J.R. Smith’s 32 off the bench. No other Knicks player scored more than nine points, but all but James White, who only played the last three minutes of the game, tallied at least one point.
Jason came off the bench to pitch in five points, six rebounds and a steal in the winning effort. Kenyon Martin, who played in his 12th game as a Knick on Tuesday night and spent four years with Jason in New Jersey remains impressed with the work of his elder teammate.
"The man turned 40 and from the looks of it, it still looks like he has his legs under him," Martin said. "He doesn’t have to play huge minutes. He’s a true professional, a first-ballot Hall of Famer in my book."
NEXT UP
Jason, Martin and the rest of the Knicks will see how they hold up in a back-to-back situation again on Wednesday night when they host the Memphis Grizzlies at Madison Square Garden.
The only other meeting between the two teams this season came back in November when the Grizzlies ended New York’s six-game winning streak to start the season with a 105-95 win over the Knicks in Memphis. The Knicks will be looking for a measure of revenge against a Grizzlies team that, like the Knicks, is fighting for playoff positioning having recently clinched a spot in the postseason.
"We’ve been playing for something," Woodson said. "We’ve been at the top of our division all season, and I don’t want to give it away. That is what we set out to do. I’m going to do what it takes to get that done."
Wednesday’s tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. EDT and the game can be seen locally on MSG.
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