Suns 113 – Knicks 95
PHOENIX – The good news for the Knicks is that Tim Thomas won’t need Tommy John surgery. The bad news is that Thomas missed the final 44 minutes of last night’s game after hyperextending his right elbow on the game’s first possession.
Just when Thomas was starting to emerge after his Sacramento breakout game the night before, the Knicks had to go without him against a hungry Sun team that had lost eight straight and viewed last night’s game against returning Stephon Marbury as its Super Bowl.
Falling behind by 22 points in the second quarter, the Knicks never gave the Suns a true fight and dropped their fourth straight game since the trading deadline passed, falling 113-95.
They never got within single digits in the fourth quarter.
Knick frustrations boiled over late, when Othella Harrington was ejected with 22 seconds left for arguing with officials.
Marbury, who got a nice ovation during intros, had a quiet night, finishing with 15 points and 13 assists, shooting 7-of-19.
On the first possession, Thomas banged his elbow while trying to set a screen. He kept playing for four minutes, seemingly dragging his arm around before asking to be taken out with 8:32 left in the first.
After a few minutes of being examined on the bench, he headed to the locker room to get X-rays, which came back negative. Thomas, who scored a season-high 33 points in the Sacramento loss, returned to the bench but not to the game, and it’s unknown if he’ll be ready for tomorrow vs. the Clippers.
Early in the fourth quarter, Antonio McDyess, playing his first game against the Knicks since he was traded, even rubbed it in, taking a Casey Jacobsen pass as he cut in the lane and jamming it home. In his third game since coming off the injured list, the former Knick had eight points in 15 minutes, shooting 4-of 6.
With Shawn Marion leaving for good with 6:01 left in the third after spraining his ankle, the Knicks got within 11 and trailed by 80-68 entering the fourth quarter.
The Suns broke it open midway through the first quarter when they went on a 16-2 run, snapping a 9-9 tie by killing the Knicks with transition baskets. Amare Stoudemire did the most damage.
The spree was capped after Dikembe Mutombo got blocked by Stoudemire, Joe Johnson picked it up and fed the length of the court for Shawn Marion, who laid it in, making it 29-15 with 1:05 left in the first quarter.
Stoudemire, the high-school stud the Knicks passed up in the 2002 draft to make the McDyess trade, raked the Knicks for 16 points, making 8 of 9 shots, all from in close. On one blow-by during the first-quarter splurge, Stoudemire zipped past Kurt Thomas, making him look like as stationary cactus in the Arizona desert.
