After missing the first 30 games of the 2012-13 season following left knee surgery, Amar'e Stoudemire returned to NBA action on Tuesday night when the New York Knicks took on the Portland Trail Blazers at Madison Square Garden, as Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski first reported he would. And while New York's front office has reportedly worked diligently to move him elsewhere, the MSG faithful were happy to see him come home, as Stoudemire was met with a standing ovation when he checked in at the 3:31 mark of the opening quarter:
Unfortunately, the rest of the evening didn't go quite so smoothly for Stoudemire, who — somewhat expectedly — looked rusty on both ends of the floor, clearly didn't have his legs or wind back after so much time on the shelf and offered relatively little in the Knicks' 105-100 loss to the Blazers.
Shortly after entering the game, Stoudemire got his first touch on the left block, defended by Portland power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, and promptly turned the ball over by stepping out of bounds while trying to make a post move on Aldridge along the baseline. (Here's hoping Hakeem wasn't watching.) He got his first shot up two possessions later, hoisting a jumper from the left elbow that went wanting ... as did his next four shots, leaving him scoreless in 9 1/2 minutes of first-half action.
Things didn't go much better on the defensive end, where he routinely looked lost, especially on a second-quarter pick-and-roll possession on which he completely forgot about Blazers center J.J. Hickson, who cut behind Stoudemire unmolested to the rim to dunk a lob thrown by Portland reserve guard Ronnie Price. Not that Stoudemire was alone in his defensive lapses — Hickson torched the Knicks' frontline for 18 points (on 9 for 10 shooting) and eight rebounds in the first half, while sterling rookie point guard Damian Lillard toyed with older defenders Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni en route to 12 points and five assists at intermission.
没有评论:
发表评论