Knicks have come a long way already this season

Carmelo Anthony continues to plead amnesia about last season, but it's hard to forget everything that went wrong for the Knicks.

That's what makes their unexpected solid start to this season more gratifying for some of the holdovers from last season's 17-65 team, including Anthony.

The Knicks are 8-6 after beating the Rockets Saturday night, 107-102. Last year, they won for the eighth time on Jan. 23 -- in Game 44. It's also the latest the Knicks have been above .500 since the 2012-13 season. Anthony is the only player remaining from that 54-win team.

"I don't remember last year," he said. "I try not to. But we've come a long way since the first game of the season, this season. I can tell you that."

The Knicks opened this four-game trip with a hard-fought victory at Oklahoma City. They nearly squandered a 16-point fourth-quarter lead but held on to win their third straight game, matching their high for last season. The victory over Houston made it four straight.

It's no surprise that the Knicks are better. Anthony and Jose Calderon are healthy, but many things that were projected to happen that could slow the Knicks haven't as of yet.

Rookie Kristaps Porzingis is making an impact much sooner than most outsiders believed, and probably more of an impact than some inside the Knicks' organization expected.

Also, with three new starters and eight new players overall, it was believed it would take time for the Knicks to build chemistry and jell. Yet they are working hard together on both ends of the floor and getting results.

"We're a confident group of guys," Anthony said. "We kind of know that it's us against everybody else. With that mindset we go out there, we play ball, we have each other's back. We win together, we lose together.

"I think guys feel comfortable with knowing it's not going to be perfect, we're going to be in a lot of close games coming down the stretch, so we've got to figure that part out."

The Knicks began Saturday as the eighth-stingiest defense in the league, allowing 97.5 points per game. They were fifth in field-goal percentage defense (42.4) and were the best in three-point shooting defense (28.3 percent).

Anthony probably doesn't remember, but the Knicks were 21st, 27th and 30th in those three categories last season.

What's changed? Everything. Many of the players the Knicks have brought in have a defensive mindset and are team-oriented character guys. They've meshed well with the six returning Knicks, and it's helped this group look like a team.

"It's in our daily approach to what we're doing," coach Derek Fisher said. "Every guy that's on our roster right now has bought into it: coming to practices early, staying after, doing all the things necessary to take care of their bodies, their minds, to be prepared to play. It takes time to change those things, but we feel like we've done a lot of work in those areas.

"Players are smarter than people give them credit for. They can feel if you're invested in them and you're committed to their individual development. That's what we're trying to do."

The Knicks still have a long way to go and many things to clean up, and Fisher has to nail down his rotation. He's been playing 12 and sometimes 13 guys a game and hasn't had a consistent closing group. But everything to this point has been a complete turnaround from last season.

"The guys who were here last year, we know it was tough," Calderon said. "I think this team is growing. We're doing it all together. We're trying to help each other. One game it will be one guy, another day it will be a different one. But the important part is we want the Knicks to win and we understand that we'll be a really good basketball team."

By Al Iannazzone

al.iannazzone@newsday.comAl_Iannazzone

Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.