Knicks have no answer for Mavs' Nowitzki
New York Knicks center Amar'e Stoudemire (1) looks at the crowd during a break in the game action during the first half against the Dallas Mavericks at Madison Square Garden. (Feb. 2, 2011) Credit: Christopher Pasatieri
The Knicks were beaten at their own game by a team that simply does it better. Dirk Nowitzki played like a true MVP candidate and the Mavericks drilled 11 three-pointers Wednesday night to hand the Knicks another blowout loss at the Garden, 113-97.
It wasn't anything like the 50-point loss the Mavs hung on Mike D'Antoni's Knicks last season, but it was a dominant performance all the same. Nowitzki had 29 points and 11 rebounds for the Mavericks (33-15), who have won six straight games.
"They outran us," D'Antoni said. "They played hard."
And the Knicks? They played hard some of the time, but not nearly enough.
Amar'e Stoudemire had 21 points for the Knicks (25-23), but went scoreless in the second half as his shooting touch disappeared. "I think he ran out of steam," D'Antoni said of the battered All-Star. Of his five misses in the second half, Stoudemire even missed a dunk attempt in the third quarter.
"It wasn't really nothing they did," Stoudemire said of his tough second half. "I wasn't in a great rhythm out there . . . They were good looks, I just didn't quite make them. There's some nights like that where I was missing shots. But I think the collective energy in the second half wasn't great."
Danilo Gallinari had 27 points, his fourth game in the last six with more than 20. But most of his scoring was done in two segments of the game. Otherwise, he disappeared in the offense for long stretches, which has been an ongoing problem this season. If the Knicks can't figure out how to keep Gallinari in the flow of the offense while also getting Stoudemire his touches, how would Carmelo Anthony fit in?
"It's really not finding him," Raymond Felton said. "In our offense, you may not touch the ball for five or six minutes. It happens that way. You never know who is going to get the ball, that's why you always have to be ready."
Felton will find out Thursday night if he is an All-Star when the reserves for the East and West teams are announced. With a left hand that has been bothering him for more than a month, Felton struggled from the field (4-for-14) and had 11 points and nine assists.
Jason Kidd had six points and 10 assists for Dallas, but it was J.J. Barea who shredded the Knicks with 22 points off the bench.
Just after Justin Bieber settled into his seat along celebrity row - right next to Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist - Nowitzki had eight points in a 26-6 run for the Mavericks to open the third quarter and take a 82-58 lead. D'Antoni had to call two timeouts in the run.
But just as the game appeared to be getting away from the Knicks, they rediscovered Gallinari, who didn't get any looks on offense after he scored 11 points in the first quarter.
Gallinari stopped the Mavericks' run with a driving dunk with 4:17 left in the third to spark a 13-0 surge that brought the Knicks within 82-71. Gallinari had eight points in the run, including a three-pointer and three free throws while being fouled on a three-point try. He had 10 points in the quarter, all of them coming in the final 4:17. Those two segments made up all of his offense. He took 14 shots and 12 free throws in 38:50.
"I just try to take every chance that comes to me," Gallinari said. "I thought we played well late in the third quarter. But before that, once we didn't play defense, our offense slowed down."
Timofey Mozgov, who delighted the Garden crowd with a big game in Sunday's win over the Pistons, didn't have nearly the same impact in this one. He had four points and one rebound in 16 minutes, most of it coming in garbage time.
The Knicks played without Wilson Chandler, who missed a third straight game with a sore left calf.
