Knicks Fail Once Again

The New York Knicks weren't able to defeat the Toronto Raptors after losing to the Houston Rockets at Madison Square Garden the night before. Their losing effort against Toronto gives them a 9-26 record, and the Knicks remain in last place in the Atlantic division.

Raptors forward Chris Bosh lead with 40 points and 11 rebounds. Bosh was forceful in the paint, and was two points shy of his career high.

"We know that their two bigs in the beginning of the game, we had an advantage over them with our quickness moving laterally and up and down the court," Bosh said. "So I just wanted to kind of exploit that and get going a little early."

Bosh put pressure on the Knicks, and used the New York fans as an advantage.

"We wanted to put the pressure on them," Bosh said. "We knew that the crowd wasn't going to be that friendly if we jumped on them quick and that's kind of what happened."

Raptors guard Anthony Parker and forward Jamario Moon had 13 points each, but Parker added 8 rebounds and Moon had 9. Parker said he wants the Raptors success to continue, and they'll need to learn from mistakes.

"It's important that we start doing that on a regular basis," said Parker. "Against Cleveland, we had a couple of points where we had an opportunity to put the game out of reach and we didn't do it. We wanted to try and correct that tonight."

Bosh averages 21 points and 9 rebounds this season, and Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell seems to be proud of Bosh performance this season. "He took the ball to the basket strong and got to the free throw line," Mitchell said.

Knicks head coach Isiah Thomas wasn't happy about his teams performance against the Raptors, and he believes a foundation needs to be built. Thomas told his players there's lots of work that needs to be finished, and he gave an interesting example.

"We need to build a culture here. We need to build a foundation. That's our job, that's this group's job," Thomas said. "I've tried to put it in terms, I've told them we're kind of the concrete layers, we're the cement layers. When you move into your house, the guy who poured the concrete never really gets a chance to live in that beautiful house that he built. And our job right now is to make sure that we lay the concrete and we lay it correctly."

Knicks guard Jamal Crawford had 27 points, but suffered from 6 turnovers. He played 42 minutes and shot 9-17 from the field, and 2-9 from three point range. Knicks guard Nate Robinson finished with 24 points and zero turnovers, he played 42 minutes.

Knicks guard Stephon Marbury added with 13 points, and 8 assist. He played 38 minutes, and was 1-4 for free throws. Knicks forward David Lee only scored 6 points, but lead the Knicks with 10 rebounds.

Knicks forward Zach Randolph only played 9 minutes, and couldn't score. Knicks center Eddy Curry had 6 points, but both players weren't given comfortable minutes. Randolph showed his unhappiness, and said he wanted play. "Any player would get upset because they want to play," Randolph said. "I want to play. I love playing. I want to be out there."

Thomas believe Curry and Randolph didn't have the speed to compete against the Raptors, and he started players that had quick speed, and could compete with their (Raptors) level . "I thought he and Eddy both were just having problems with the foot speed of Toronto tonight and it was just a tough game to match up particularly for those two," Thomas said. "I just tried to go with quicker people and try to get us back in the game."

Thomas understands Randolph frustrations, and knew he wanted to play. "I'm sure he's frustrated, just like we all are frustrated, and the one thing I know about him is that he wants to play," Thomas said of Randolph. "Every player wants to play. No one likes to be taken out of the game. And so we'll just move on."

He'll never quite, and Thomas will continue to coach until the Knicks win an NBA Championship. Thomas said he'll put his time into this team, and wants to make things right. "I've never given it that thought. I only think about how fix it, how to make it right," Thomas said. "That's all my time and energy is focused on and until I do that, I'll be here trying to make it right."

Thomas doesn't believe Knicks owner James Dolan wants to fire him, because he comes to work everday puttting the effort into fixing the Knicks problems. "I think the fact that there hasn't been a change will let you know that when Mr. Dolan wants to do something, he does it," Thomas said. "And I show up for work every day and I said to you before, you're not going to find a person who's going to work harder at this than I am to try to fix it. And I'm hellbent on fixing it and I don't like that we're in this situation, but we are and I don't plan on leaving it."