J.R. Smith stars as New York Knicks defeat the Los Angeles Clippers 99-93 – NBA Recap
Four starters for the New York Knicks made sizeable contributions on the night to help them defeat the visiting Los Angeles Clippers with a score of 99-93 at the Madison Square Garden. It was however a reserve that stole the limelight.
Clippers started the game without their star point guard Chris Paul, who was resting to gear up for the playoffs. Knicks charge was led by J.R. Smith, who came off the bench to rack up 21 points in the game.
Five other players for the Knicks finished the game with double digit scores as everybody got their fair share of scoring. Carmelo Anthony, who only played for three quarters in the game, signed off with 17 points on the night.
Amar’e Stoudemire was also not far behind, scoring 10, Tyson Chandler contributed 11 and Baron Davis scored 12 points in the game. There was one other player who came off the bench to contribute a significant number of 14 points,
which was Steve Novak.
The Clippers relied much on only two players for scoring throughout the night. Blake Griffin racked up a game high of 29 points while Randy Foye was not far behind, finishing the game with 28 points.
However the rest of the Clippers line up failed to impress with none of them getting more than 9 points individually.
Even though the Clippers held an upper hand in the rebounding aspect 40-36, but that did not weigh the tie down in their favour as both sides were pretty evenly matched throughout the night.
There was not much to differentiate between the two teams, with both sides trying very hard to get ahead in the game. The largest lead any side was able to achieve was off 4 and at the 1:41 mark Knicks were ahead by 1.
In the remaining time of the period, Knicks were able to score 4 unanswered points to lead by 24-19 after the first quarter.
Knicks were able to extend their advantage up to double figures early in the second quarter, extending it to as much as 11 at the 7:31 mark. But the visitors were not going out easy, who responded with a 12-2 run to chip the lead
down to 1.
However the Knicks were able to put an end to that rally by responding with an 8-0 run to close out the half, the score at the halfway stage was 48-39.
Clippers came out strong in the second half, starting off on a 15-7 run to get the advantage down to 1, once again. It was end to end stuff for the next several minutes but the Knicks came out top in that affair and were able to
get an 8 point advantage which they took into the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter, it seemed as though both sides were taking turns to go on runs, Knicks started the period with a 16-6 of their own but this one coming at a more important time of the game as it gave the Knicks an 18 point
advantage.
The game went on following a similar script with the Clippers adding 16 points to their tally while holding the Knicks to only score 1 to make the score 88-91.
It seemed as though, this one would go down to the wire as the scores were 93-94 with Griffin getting a hook shot to put the Clippers in that position. However in the remaining seconds of the matchup, the visiting side was unable
to add to their score while the Knicks added 5 points to their tally.
In that span, Clippers inability to control their turnovers seemed to be the prominent factor to their downfall which enabled the Knicks to take this game.
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