Crazy, overachieving game once again for the Knicks on Wednesday night against a quality opponent. Henry Abbott at Truehoop was at the game and felt the intensity was lacking, but watching on television, there was a great deal that was entertaining (from a Knick fan's view). Without question, the bench was the story of the game, specifically Nate and Danilo.  Noteworthy points:

*  The Bench -- It's funny to think about how the Knicks really haven't had a meaningful bench all season -- the last couple of games have been (relatively speaking) an embarrassment of riches with more than 7 bodies available for D'Antoni. As Henry pointed out, you rarely see a +/- stick out so glaringly in the box score in favor of the bench players as you did in this game, but the starters fell behind big early as Shaq asserted himself inside frequently. The Knick bench overwhelmed the Suns bench in this game (not a given, given that the Suns have some talented and energetic players of their own in Barnes, Amundson, and Barbosa) and came back from a big deficit to turn the game into an entertaining, back and forth scoring battle featuring several runs.

It's not just the extra bodies that made the bench more effective -- Nate Robinson had his first really good shooting game in 3 weeks, and Gallinari continues to boost his folk hero status with extremely efficient play (particularly on offense)....the over the top pronounciation of Gallo's name after a basket (D-A-N-I-L-O G-A-A-A-L-I-I-I-I-N-A-A-A-R-A-A-A-Y-Y-Y) is pure adrenaline-spiked cheese that fires up the Garden crowd.

Over the last month, the performance of the bench typically rose and fell with the performance of Harrington and Robinson (and Thomas to a lesser degree), and you had to take the good with the bad as both players tended to clog the offense and hold the ball for too long on certain possessions. In this game, though, Nate's energy alone seemed to galvanize the Knicks, and ball movement was generally very good.

*  Defense, or lack thereof -- As I've pointed out in the past, the Knicks certainly thrive against teams with poor defensive efficiency, and the Suns obliged by defending the pick and roll about as poorly as any Knick opponent has all season. The Knicks did not exactly defend the pick and roll effectively themselves (particularly with Jeffries out of the game), leading to the comical sight of numerous back and forth exchanges (especially in the second quarter) where both defenses constantly lost sight of the man going to the basket.

Where the Knicks did excel, though, was in having active hands that got numerous deflections and strips -- it's arguable that the referees were a bit lenient in allowing contact in this area, but nevertheless the swarming, switching Knick defense seemed to have the Suns baffled in stretches, and managed to offset their significant height disadvantage.

*  Tim Thomas -- Thomas' performance in this game was like one of those crazy subplots contained with a larger drama with the most emotionally charged plot twists. Thomas picked up fouls quickly, struggled to defend and be effective in general for 3 quarters, committed turnovers, picked up a technical, and was totally destroyed when matched up against Amare for several possessions. He was so bad that I was calling for him to be removed to save him from his misery (nevermind the Knicks needing to win the game). But he scored 8 of his 10 points in the fourth quarter, and D'Antoni (rightly as it turns out) kept him in for most of the 4th because he had the size and bulk to keep up with Shaq.

* Suns' Identity -- Much is made of the Knicks being a patchwork of odd pieces not always resembling a team, but D'Antoni has managed to mold the group into a competitive team most nights, and now with a fuller lineup of players,  the team is starting to look like it could be a more consistently competitive group. Knicks fans would still trade pretty much the whole team (except David Lee) for the Suns lineup, so it was weird to see a collection of talent like the Suns look so lost and so ineffective on defense for significant stretches. My guess is that the Suns are just going through the same mid-season blues that other good teams typically experience, but the Suns' substantial size advantage did not translate to any sort of rebounding advantage.

I hate to pick on Amare, but his commitment to defense and rebounding is especially atrocious, and David Lee looked so much more active and engaged -- reinforcing all the cliches about athletic superiority not translating to on court effectiveness. Steve Nash has arguably the quietest 19 assist game I've ever seen -- this is not the Nash of old, swishing and dishing, as most assists were of the dump it inside to Shaq category. Richardson played the best game against the Knicks and had several highlight worthy dunks, but Shaq tired at the end, and Grant HIll and the bench were largely invisible.

Great win against a very solid opponent, and now comes the trap game -- the Grizzlies at the Garden on Friday, which is almost screaming for the Knicks to let their guard down. I'll have a little more to say about this in the game preview coming up.