LeBron, Heat stumbling block for Knicks

When the party finally was over, the boos and the catcalls lay on the Garden floor like confetti, and the Knicks were snapped back to reality with a 113-91 loss to the Heat Friday night, the sobering realization was that this was only the beginning.

This Heat team, after some expected struggles to get on the same page in the first month of the season, is going to be in the way of anything great the Knicks hope to accomplish in their own new era, led by Amar'e Stoudemire.

Referring to LeBron James, Mike D'Antoni said, "Now he sets the bar for us because obviously, that's a great team or could be, or is, or will be. We've got to do our job now and Amar'e is a great step. We've got to keep going.''

If Stoudemire is the new Patrick Ewing, then James and the Heat are looking like this generation's Michael Jordan and the Bulls. The team that was maddeningly in the way every single year. The Knicks can only hope that James takes a few years off to try to play in the NFL.

The slugfest that thrilled Garden fans Wednesday night against the Celtics wasn't the litmus test. It was a challenge that this young team met to the final buzzer (and we can't forget that in the end it was a loss), but the standard the Knicks need to meet is being set right now by another old rival in South Beach.

The Celtics are old. The Knicks likely will pass them on the way up. But Miami, with James (25), Chris Bosh (26) and Dwyane Wade (28), is only just hitting its prime.

And like Jordan, James, with a triple-double (32 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists), is starting to make the Garden his personal stage. On Friday, he seemed to thrive off your hatred almost as much as he thrived off your love in those past visits, when the courtship still had hope.

Boos don't demoralize players of that level; they motivate. Kind of makes you think twice about the notion that James opted not to sign with the Knicks because he was intimidated by the glaring New York spotlight.

"There's not a spotlight I can't handle,'' James said. "There's not a situation I can't handle.''

And as he proved in this game, especially with that devastating 14-point third quarter that broke open the game, he heats up when the reception is cold. Recall that James dropped 24 points in the third to devastate the Cavaliers in his return to Cleveland on Dec. 2.

As in Cleveland, the Garden was demoralized in the fourth quarter. The momentum that had been building during the last two weeks of this delirious run came to a halt. And that's OK for D'Antoni, who doesn't want his team to peak just yet.

"We're playing well and people are fairly excited, but the hype is a little bit high,'' D'Antoni said. "We've got to get better as a team.''

Getting better is one thing, but adding the right amount of talent to challenge the Heat - just throwing it out there, but Carmelo Anthony historically does well against James - is the inevitable task if the Knicks have championship aspirations.

D'Antoni wasn't going to completely concede this game as a reality check - "We're good and we can be good,'' he said - and he made a valid point when he said the goal "is not to be at our best in December but to keep getting better into April.''

And when they get there, the goal will be to avoid being seeded seventh or eighth, which could set up a first-round meeting with the Heat. As much as the building has rocked like it was 1999, this time around, the Knicks can't bank on an upset.

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