Carmelo returns to spark New York Knicks to a 100-86 win over the Brooklyn Nets: NBA Recap
After two close encounters, the third game of the Knicks-Nets series turned out to be quite one sided. Carmelo Anthony returned on Wednesday night and showed no signs of the sprained ankle that had kept him out for the last two
games, hammering 31 points to lift New York Knicks to a 100-86 win over their intra city rivals Brooklyn Nets.
Nets started the season red hot but have now started to cool down and are 13-12 after this loss. Knicks coach Mike Woodson was all praise for Carmelo.
"There's no doubt in my mind [Carmelo Anthony is] an MVP candidate, and I know it's early, but he's playing at such a high level its scary. ... Everyone's benefiting from it. He's making guys around him better and the results are
wins. And that's all that matters at the end of the day."
There has been a lot of talk of rivalry between the two same city teams and Anthony made no effort to quench the rivalry talk
"At the end of the day, these are statement games, these are big games, divisional games," Carmelo said. "They're right across the bridge, so these games definitely mean a lot."
Tyson Chandler had a double-double for the Knicks. The big man finished off with 16 points and 12 rebounds for the night, and J.R. Smith came off the bench to add 19 points in the winning cause.
Deron Williams paced the Nets with 16 points and 10 assists, Joe Johnson had 17 points while Brook Lopez collected the second double-double for the Nets with 16 points and 10 rebounds.
Anthony started the proceedings for the Knicks with a basket from downtown; Kidd connected on one shortly afterwards to put Knicks ahead at 10-9. A 7 nil spurt put the Knicks up by 17-14 when Keith Bogans connected one from behind
the arc to tie the score. It remained close for most of the passage; the Knicks were leading 26-23 by the end of it.
The second period had a similar story and the Knicks were ahead by four points when an 8-0 run by the Nets switched the lead. The Knicks forced their way back though and were leading 52-48 at halftime.
It remained close for a while in the third period, but Knicks increased their scoring later in the passage. A Williams’ layup had the Nets trailing by 67-75 at the end of the quarter.
The Knicks did some serious damage in the fourth period and raced to an 89-76 advantage early. Smith nailed a three pointer to put them up by 14 points and an Anthony layup pushed their lead to 98-80 with 2:33 left on the regulation.
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