Knicks eager to move past rocky March (AP)

NEW YORK (AP)—The hard part is just about over for the New York Knicks.

Heightened expectations and a demanding schedule created a draining month of
March. The Knicks complained of too much fatigue and too little fun, strange
timing for a franchise that was enjoying its best season in a decade.

April should be easier—at least until those playoff games the Knicks are
so close to qualifying for.

First, they close the month Wednesday with a visit from the New Jersey Nets,
ending a turbulent stretch they can’t wait to put behind them.

“It’s been maybe the hardest month I’ve ever played in in my career,”
All-Star forward Amare Stoudemire(notes) said Monday after a 113-106 overtime victory
over Orlando in a game that was rescheduled from November.

“So many games, so many back-to-backs, and then they threw in the makeup
game this month, so it was very, very tough. And on top of that, we’re trying to
get used to our new teammates. So it was a tough one for us, but hopefully we
can cap it off against the Nets with a win.”

The Knicks never could have imagined it would be so difficult when the month
opened. Just days after the blockbuster deal for Carmelo Anthony(notes), they went to
Miami and beat the Heat in their final game of February. They stood in sixth
place in the Eastern Conference and were even talking about moving up to fifth.

Instead, they went backward.

The Knicks are 6-11 in March and have tumbled into seventh place at 36-38.
Spring arrived in New York with cold temperatures and an even more frigid team
that lost nine of 10 games before outlasting the Magic behind 39 points and 10
rebounds from Anthony in his best game since the trade.

“We got that monkey off our back and now we focus on Wednesday’s game, and
now we need that same intensity,” Anthony said.

Problem is, the Knicks haven’t shown it against losing teams, and those are
what they face over the rest of this four-game homestand. They host Cleveland on
Sunday, trying to avoid an improbable and embarrassing four-game season sweep,
then close it out by welcoming Toronto on Tuesday.

Win just a couple of them and the Knicks, with a magic number of four, could
be back in the postseason. But they’ve curiously struggled against sub-.500
teams, one of many problems over the last month.

New York lost twice each to Indiana and Milwaukee during its 18-game
schedule that included six sets of games on back-to-back nights.

“Lot of games, lot of nights, lot of things, and who knows what causes it,
sometimes things sap your energy and you might not even be aware of it,” coach
Mike D’Antoni said after Monday’s victory. “But with efforts like this, the
team will come together and we’ll be better for it.”

D’Antoni has struggled to find answers during the swoon. He pointed to a
lack of practice time, yet then canceled the team’s last two scheduled practices
in favor of extra rest. He frequently changed his lineup, sometimes even from
half to half, and alarmingly said before Monday’s game that he was “not sure
who needs to play.”

At least he has Anthony, who had set his previous Knicks high two nights
earlier. Stoudemire is more of a concern, appearing worn out after carrying the
club for most of the season. The NBA’s fourth-leading scorer with 25.5 points
per game has been held to 16 or fewer in three of the last five games.

But the Knicks believe the three-day break between games after Wednesday
will help get some spring back in his legs.

“Both those guys will have big games and big moments, that’s what they
do,” D’Antoni said. “Again, I just keep going back, if we can keep the
intensity and the urgency right there, then we can get out of this slump for
sure.”

With Chauncey Billups(notes) appearing back in form Monday after playing poorly
most of the month following a bruised thigh March 1 that cost him six games,
plus a solid defensive effort that held Dwight Howard(notes) without a field goal in
the first half, the Knicks again had the look of a team that could cause trouble
in the first round.

They could draw Boston, a team that’s having its own issues adjusting to a
major trade. Or maybe it will be a Heat team they split with, including that
impressive victory in Miami before everything went so wrong.

“I don’t really dwell on what happened before,” D’Antoni said. “We’ve got
to take this and go forward, and again, we’ve been here before. We were like
this against Miami and then it slipped away. We can’t let it slip away.”