As Derek Fisher’s New York Knicks learn tough lessons over a challenging season, they’re beginning to get better at picking themselves up after tough loss.

In a Sunday afternoon showcase at The Garden, the Knicks bounced back from one of their most disappointing performances of the season, a 103-82 loss to the Pacers in Indiana on Thursday night with one of their best games of the season, a 92-80 victory over Derek’s long-time team, the Los Angeles Lakers.

The victory was a double digit landmark, New York’s 10th win of the season, but the true achievement was that it was New York’s first wire-to-wire victory all season. It also continued a positive trend for the Knicks in the new year. Since ending the long drought that they began the year on, New York has now won five of their last seven games to pick up the slack and begin to rise back up the ranks of the Eastern Conference.

The Knicks have made the jump in large part due finally finding some consistency in their lineup after myriad injuries, and trades, forced Coach Fisher to alter his starting five on a near nightly basis. However in six of the past seven games, Derek has been able to roll out a starting combination of Carmelo Anthony, Langston Galloway. Jason Smith, Lou Amundson and Jose Calderon each night. That continuity has been a huge help for New York. 

“In my experience…whenever you’re healthy, you try and keep the same lineup. That’s always my preference,” Derek said. “The fact that we’ve been healthy in terms of those guys — for the most part other than Melo missing a couple nights — it’s been good to have those guys be able to start each game. You’re starting to see the benefits of seeing the same five guys out there to start each game.” 

New York got off to a torrid start in Sunday’s win, backing the Lakers into a corner from the jump, and the source of that early outburst was an unlikely one: center Jason Smith. Smith tallied all nine of his points on the evening in the opening frame, including the first seven of the afternoon for the Knicks. 

Once Smith got the ball rolling for New York, they became almost impossible for Los Angeles to stop. On top of Smith’s nine points, the Knicks got eight in the first from Galloway, six from Anthony and five from Calderon. Both Galloway and Calderon knocked down treys in the midst of a 13-3 NY run that lasted just over two minutes. Anthony then capped the run with a pair of buckets. 

The first quarter on Sunday was one of New York’s best of the season on both sides of the ball. While shooting 56 percent from the field on the offensive end, the Knicks played lockdown defense on the other side of the court, limiting the Lakers to just 25 percent shooting in the opening quarter. 

Amundson violently put the cherry on top of the incredible frame toward the end of the quarter when LA’s Jordan Clarkson tried to drive inside for a layup after making a nice move to penetrate the defense. Unimpressed, Amundson swatted the floating attempt into oblivion to the approving roars of his teammates and the Garden crowd. New York’s potent offense and stifling defense had them in complete control by the end of the frame, as they held a commanding 32-19 lead.

“The first quarters have been really solid for us on several nights recently,” Coach Fisher said. “If you can have a group that can be solid at the beginning and then those are five guys that you can finish a game with, that give you the balance offensively and defensively, I think it’s good for us.” 

The Lakers managed to claw back into contention in the second as the Knicks’ shooting cooled considerably. LA had New York’s lead down to seven when Anthony returned to the game, after playing nearly the entire opening quarter, and they cut it to five shortly thereafter. But late in the frame, Melo got the NY offense rolling. 

First he drew a foul and knocked down a pair of free throws to push a six-point lead back to eight. Then, on the Knicks’ next trip, Anthony pulled down a rebound off an Amundson free throw miss and eventually knocked down a turnaround fadeaway jumper to make it 44-34.

After the Lakers had cut the deficit back down to single digits, Anthony swelled it back to 10 with a highlight reel play the likes of which he hasn’t been able to execute much this year due to a lingering knee injury. It came with just over 30 seconds left in the half when Smith made his best pass of the season, tossing  the ball up from beyond the arc to an awaiting Anthony, who had plenty of time and room to go up and throw down a one-handed jam. Afterward, Anthony looked to the Knicks bench where his teammates were breaking out in smiles and laughs.

“They said they haven’t seen that before in a long time,” Anthony said of his teammates teasing after the dunk, “We had this conversation before the game today, so it was just one of those moments where I had to look at the bench and let them know that I’ve still got it.”

The dunk seemed to invigorate Anthony as well. After New York took an eight-point lead in at halftime, the star scorer broke out in the third quarter and poured in 18 of his game-high 31 points in the penultimate frame.

The quarter started with back-to-back buckets from Amundson and Galloway to push the lead to 13, and then Anthony started to cook. The Knicks star scored the team’s next six points and after a Jose Calderon jumper tallied the next 12 in-a-row for New York, 18-of-20 in all, to inflate the lead up to 19. After the game, Derek commented that things have started to open up for Anthony, who has averaged 26 points per contest in his last six games, due in large part to his commitment to creating for his teammates, which keeps defenses honest.

“He’s a better facilitator than he gets credit for or than we sometimes see,” Coach Fisher said. “Having been a guy that scores as easily as he does. That part of his game, a lot of times, is kind of on the shelf. But as we try to evolve and become a team that utilizes all five guys on offense, I think you’re going to see more and more of his ability to make plays for other people and not just put the ball in the basket himself.”

After Anthony scored the most points by a Knickerbocker in a single quarter this season, Fish rewarded him with a break in the fourth, and Melo only logged four minutes in the frame as the New York lead reached as high as 21 points and the team rolled to a 12-point victory. 

KNICKS BALANCE LONG AND SHORT TERM OBJECTIVES

The success of Anthony in his return from a six-game absence due to the knee injury, and the success of the Knicks as a whole since he came back, has left many to wonder whether Melo still plans to shut down at some point this season due to the injury, which has plagued him all year.

Anthony has stated that he plans to continue to play as long as he feels well enough to do so and Derek has pledged to rest him when possible usually during one end of a back-to-back. But Fish also noted after Sunday’s game that, despite New York’s run of success over the last several games, the team must be cognizant of the impact allowing Anthony’s injury to linger could have in the long-term.

“We still have to be smart about his short-term and long-term future,” Derek said. “He’ll be the biggest advocate for just making sure that he’s healthy above all else. I don’t think that if we continue to win games that he’s going to decide to play out the last 30-plus games of the season. I think it all just depends on how he’s feeling and whether or not the knee is still good enough to play all those games.”

The Knicks continue to look at their future in the long-term with Melo in mind, at the center of their plans and his contributions as a leader on and off the court have been extremely important to the Knicks in this trying season, making him as much a focal point of their building plans as he ever has been.

With that in mind, Coach Fisher noted that there are few options to quickly build a championship caliber club and that the best avenue to do so in a methodical manner.

“I understand our fans and the city wanting to hurry up and get to a championship. We obviously want to win. That’s what we’ve done in our past. We still have to be smart,” he said. “A lot of teams in more recent years have gone the route of building a roster through the draft and free agency that won’t just make a splash for a couple, two or three years, and then those guys that you go get are in their prime and past it, and now you got to start over again.”

But Anthony made it clear he doesn’t expect the building process to linger too long, and he sees an opportunity for the Knicks to make moves in the short-term that will help them return to the playoffs as they continue to build toward that championship goal.

“The time is now. The time is now to kind of start building for the future,” he said. “I don’t think we can wait. Not just for my sake, just in general, I think the time is now. The window is now. I think we’ve got to take advantage of that.”

D-Fish concurred with that sentiment and he knows the balance New York must strike, both for the rest of this season and in the years to come, is a delicate one.

“I think you owe it to Carmelo to

[build] it the right way, but at the same time he just signed a contract for five years. He’s 30 years old. We don’t have 10 years to figure this out,” Derek said. “We need to do some things right away, as soon as we can. But at the same time, not necessarily put ourselves in the same position we’ve been in the last few years where we try to get a bunch of guys that don’t have favorable contracts that don’t allow you to plan for the future.”

NEXT UP 

Just five games remain before the Knicks get a long break for All-Star weekend in NYC. They’ll look to continue to roll into the break on Tuesday night when they host the Boston Celtics at MSG. 

The game will mark the second of four meetings between the two long-time rivals this season. New York won their first matchup back in December at Boston’s TD Garden, the Knicks’ only win during a span from late November through mid-January when they went 1-26.

The Celtics (16-30) will head to the New York looking for some payback and tip-off is slated for 7:30 p.m. ET with the game airing on MSG. 

RELATED LINKS 

• Fisher on Knicks’ win, Melo and consistent starting lineup (MSG, Feb. 1, 2015)
• Anthony scores 31 points as Knicks rout Lakers (Associated Press, Feb. 1. 2015)
• Why Carmelo Anthony had to stare down the Knicks bench (NY Post, Feb. 1, 2015)
• Anthony leads rout, reminding Knicks he’s at the core of their future (Newsday, Feb. 1, 2015)
• Carmelo Anthony scores 31 to pace Knicks to Super Sunday win (NY Daily News, Feb. 1, 2015)
• Carmelo powers Knicks over Lakers, says window is ‘now’ (NY Post, Feb. 1, 2015)