Knicks bruised in tough loss to Celtics

This was exactly the environment the Knicks needed and exactly the kind of game they needed to win. But while the effort that had been lacking in a pair of ugly losses over the weekend was there, the execution down the stretch again failed them in a 96-86 loss to the Celtics Monday night in a bruising battle at the Garden.

Carmelo Anthony's two free throws tied it at 86 with 3:28 left, but the Knicks failed to score again. They played the final two minutes with Anthony on the bench with a bloodied left eye after a collision with Rajon Rondo that did not result in a foul.

"We just got to a point where I thought we panicked,'' Mike D'Antoni said. "We just have a lot of work to do.''

Anthony wasn't the only player to draw blood in the game. Ray Allen finished with a bandage over his eye after taking an inadvertent elbow from Jared Jeffries while going for a rebound in the third quarter. A foul wasn't called on that play, either.

"We loved the intensity of the game, the energy, the physicality,'' said Anthony, who needed five stitches to close the gash. "If they let us play like that, we'd be cool.''

But it wasn't cool to lose Anthony, who had 22 points, only five in the second half. That only compounded the issues with the offense down the stretch.

"This is what building team camaraderie is all about, when you have times like this when you can't get over the hump,'' said Chauncey Billups, who scored 21 points but also had five turnovers, including two in the fourth quarter. "The key is staying together.''

Kevin Garnett had 24 points and 11 rebounds and Paul Pierce had 21 points for the Celtics (50-19).

Amar'e Stoudemire added 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Knicks (35-35), who have lost three straight and six of their last seven. They are 7-9 since the trade that brought in Anthony.

Anthony was bloodied when he collided with Rondo going after a loose ball with 2:30 left, and it led to a layup by Glenn Davis that made it 90-86. Anthony stayed down and looked woozy as blood dripped from the corner of his left eye. After Davis made the layup, Rondo backpedaled right into Anthony and fell over him. D'Antoni had to use his final timeout with 2:22 left so Anthony could be attended to.

"I couldn't see nothing at that time,'' Anthony said. "Blood was coming out of my eye so I couldn't really see. I don't even know what was going on.''

Rondo then stripped Toney Douglas with 1:16 left for another costly turnover, and on the ensuing possession, Pierce hit a fall-back jumper to ice it. Douglas missed on a three-pointer with 44.8 seconds left, and the long rebound led to an easy score by Allen with 40.1 seconds left to make it 94-86.

The Knicks led by 15 points early in the third, by 11 with 1:01 left in the quarter and by nine with 7:26 left in the game. "I look at the first three quarters and say, 'That's who we can be,' '' Billups said.

But who they were was a team that watched the Celtics run off 13 straight points, including nine straight by Pierce, to take an 86-82 lead with 4:20 left on a jumper by Garnett just as the shot clock expired.

In the first half, the Knicks appeared to finally find their game as the ball moved, shots snapped the net and the defensive effort was strong. A team that looked so lost in road losses to the Pistons and Bucks over the weekend suddenly seemed to have it figured out.

"I think that first half, we showed how good we can be with the style of play that we play,'' Stoudemire said. "If we play that way for the full 48, we have a great chance of winning.''

After the final buzzer sounded, Anthony remained on the bench for a while with his eye dripping with blood and wearing a contemplative look.

"I was just sitting there thinking, this ship is going to turn right,'' he said. "I'm excited about it. I know it's a tough time for us right now losing games, but for the most part, I just want to stay positive about everything going on and just look ahead.''