The Knicks' famed depth is taking a hit.
Amar'e Stoudemire, diagnosed Monday with a bulging disk in his lower back, is out indefinitely. Jeremy Lin, slowed by a sore left knee, is listed as "questionable" for Wednesday's game against the visiting Orlando Magic. Carmelo Anthony has a strained groin, and if that sound familiar, it should: He missed seven games in February after injuring the same muscle.
With 16 games remaining in the regular season, the Knicks are a banged-up bunch. Even some of the players who are "healthy"—and we're using that term loosely—are something less than that. So we had scenes like we witnessed Monday, when the Knicks somehow engineered an important victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.
There was rookie forward Josh Harrellson wielding his 275-pound frame with the finesse of a bulldozer even though he said he was still working to get his "legs back" after fracturing his right wrist earlier this season. And there was veteran guard Baron Davis coming off a strained right hamstring to play 34 minutes and finish with seven assists and nine turnovers—a less-than-ideal situation. "A little banged up, tired, exhausted," he said.
Coach Mike Woodson, who is spinning things forward, has limited options. The question now is whether the team can sustain its recent strong play amid mounting injuries. "I feel good about the guys who are in uniform," Woodson said, though he did acknowledge that they are a dwindling lot.
Monday's win was the Knicks' seventh in eight games under Woodson and put 2.5 games between themselves and the Bucks for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Players clearly are feeling the effects of a compressed schedule that was the result of the lockout. Lin said his knee only started acting up over the weekend in the final two games of a stretch that featured four games in five days—a grind that's been fairly constant this season. Others are hurting, too. Jared Jeffries, one of the team's most reliable defenders, has sat out the past three games with inflammation in his right knee.
"It just seems like it's not stopping," Tyson Chandler said of the string of injuries. "You get that bug, and it seems like it transfers from one guy to the next."
Stoudemire spent Tuesday in Florida undergoing additional tests on his back, which he also injured during the playoffs last season. The hope is that he can avoid surgery. Happy Walters, his agent, said via email that Stoudemire wants to see if there is a "short-term remedy." One reason for optimism is that a bulging disk is far less severe than a herniated disk, which forced Davis to miss the first 32 games of the season and imperiled his career.
Still, Stoudemire's return doesn't appear imminent. Without him, Anthony asserted himself as the alpha against the Bucks and finished with 28 points by working extensively in the post and drawing fouls. (He was 12 of 12 from the free-throw line.) He aggravated his groin late in the third quarter when he tried to spin his way to the basket but felt his right leg give way. He was able to return to the game in the fourth quarter.
"It's not nearly as bad as it was the first time," he said.
Asked if he could handle more minutes at power forward in Stoudemire's absence, Anthony said: "I ain't got no choice." He used an iteration of "stepping my game up" three times in a seven-minute, postgame session with reporters.
There's no question that the team will miss Stoudemire, the team's second leading scorer at 17.6 points per game. It will be difficult for the team to compensate for the loss of that offensive production, but Woodson said there is a solution: defense. "It has to be there every night," he said.
He was encouraged by his team's effort against the Bucks—at least in the second half. The first half was something close to a disaster: Bucks forward Mike Dunleavy went bonkers, scoring 24 points on 9-of-10 shooting. "Guys didn't know who was guarding who, and that can't happen," Woodson said.
Everything changed in the second half, when the Knicks limited the Bucks to 28 points.
"Some nights you're not going to be able to score the ball," Chandler said, "but you can always play great defense."
0 意見:
Post a Comment