The first quarter started out as one of the better quarters played by the Knicks, but the cynical fan would be excused for thinking it couldn't last. The expected ingredients for a hot start laid themselves out: flawless execution on the pick and roll between Duhon and Lee, some unconscious shooting early from Al Harrington. (Unexpected: two early threes from Duhon which visibly boosted his confidence) The defense, unfortunately, didn't come along with the improved offensive efficiency, but the Knicks seemed determined to force their pace on the Nuggets, let Melo score his points, and challenge the Nuggets to keep up.

The second quarter, in particular, featured some of the best ball movement the Knicks have ever displayed this season, notable given the second unit lineups typically engage in a lot more one-on-one play. Noteworthy:

*  [11:42 2nd] Nate puts his head down for a drive starting at the left elbow against Ty Lawson, shot fakes Lawson into the air at the lower left block, and passes to Chandler cutting into the charge circle. Wilson is met by Chris Andersen who immediately leaps to cut off any shot or further penetration. Chandler deftly wraps a pass behind the leaping Birdman to Jeffries cutting in from the opposite baseline, who goes up, gets a basket and a foul, and completes a 3 point play. 33-26 Knicks lead. 

*  [11:13, 2nd] A play the Knicks have been running more often is to run a player off a low post screen on the weakside and have him cut baseline toward the ball behind the defense. This has been particularly effective with Gallo in recent games because defenses tend to assume (with justification) that he spends most of his time camping behind the 3 point line. In this situation, Gallo cuts across the baseline to the left block, where he receives a pass from Chandler behind Birdman, and easily gets the two handed dunk. (Gallo would score his only other basket on the same play at 7:14 later in the quarter) 35-29 Knicks lead. 

*  [6:44, 2nd]  Duhon, who (along with Hughes) had been killing the Nuggets with the screen roll, starts high and right on this one. Lawson, though, successfully slips the screen and nearly forces a turnover when Duhon starts the pass before realizing Lee is covered by Nene. Duhon retreats and the Nuggets appear to be anticipating a reversal to one of the shooters on the weakside. Instead, Harrington suddenly rolls into the lane from the weakside and is met by a perfect Duhon pass leading him past Birdman for the dunk. 46-42 Knicks lead.  (Seeing a pattern here? the Knicks used Birdman's aggressive help tendencies against him several times)  

The Knicks built their lead to as much as eight points at 56-48 and could have made it more, but Gallinari took a rushed 3 pointer at 4:05 that immediately led to a leaking Carmelo Anthony receiving a fastbreak pass for a dunk (Gallo was victimized by Melo's cheating several times this game). The Knicks would go on to relinquish the lead at halftime at 61-60.

The Nuggets tightened up their defense in the 3rd quarter and started packing in the lane more to cut off the pick and roll and dare the Knicks to shoot jumpers. Several times Denver looked like they would pull away as they mixed up a steady diet of Melo baskets with Billups' trademark 3 pointers in transition, but Larry Hughes kept the Knicks in the game with 10 points in the quarter, and Harrington took over at the end of the 3rd and for most of the 4th quarter. 

This is where the Knicks' resilience really stood out: the Nuggets had leads of 74-67, 87-80, 95-87, and 98-90, and seemed one dagger way from effectively ending the game. Even though the Knicks weren't exactly cranking out defensive stops, they kept putting on pressure with timely 3 pointers and trips to the foul line generated by Harrington. They finally took the lead at 101-100, and took it one more time at 110-109, but you had the feeling that they really needed to play almost perfectly and get a bigger lead and at least one more stop to put the Nuggets on their heels. It never happened, but the Nuggets in turn couldn't finish the Knicks until the final seconds.

In the end, we were all left with a very entertaining game with all sorts of back and forth gunslinging, and one of the Knicks' most efficient performances of the season (126.3 efficiency, 56% eFG vs 48% for the year, 29 assists and only 8 turnovers). The team held their own on the boards and got to the free throw line (though they only shot 71%, which hurt). It was also the first time all season they had more points in the paint (54 to 50) when allowing the opponent over 40 points in the paint, and was only the third time this season they won this part of the game, thanks largely to 16 offensive rebounds (way above the season average of 10).

Some other game notes:

*  Bad game for Gallo: outside of the 2 inside baskets mentioned above, he missed all 5 of his jumpers, got facialed two different times by Nene, allowed Melo to beat him downcourt for several transition baskets, and in general looked totally overmatched. After a decent first half against the Lakers in a game that barely seemed to matter to the team and the coaches, Gallo has had a lost road trip. I don't know how to say "got to get your s**t together" in Italian, but I trust D'Antoni does. And he'll repeat it in multiple other languages if he needs to.

*  Jeffries was an unsung hero of this game (no, really) in his 21 minutes -- didn't try to do too much, took 2 key charges in the 4th quarter to keep the Knicks within striking distance, and was active around the paint for garbage points and rebounds. In fact, when he was removed at 6:42 of the 4th quarter because of a cut above his eye caused by a stray Martin elbow (see picture above), I had a sinking feeling that could be a turning point. And it might have been, because...

* Larry Hughes replaced Jeffries, and though Larry was a big part of keeping the team in the game in the 3rd quarter, we know it's feast or famine with him in terms of his shot selection, especially in crunch time. Most of the time, his decisions were questionable or he simply blew open shots, and his defense (the main reason to have him in the game) let him down against Billups in the final minutes. On four of five possessions in the final 2:30, Mr. Big Shot blew past Mr. Please Don't Shoot in the open floor or fired a 3 in his face. In fairness to Hughes, he (like most of the team) was forced to be hyperaware of Melo -- on one Billups drive, Hughes' defense was so overshaded toward cutting off a pass to Anthony that Billups' driving lane looked like a wide open freeway. But it was still a disappointing individual effort, and I wonder if Jeffries might have been more effective had he stayed in the game.

*  To the Nuggets' credit, they have so many weapons that they are extremely difficult to defend at the end of a close game. JR Smith took advantage of all the attention to Melo as well and hit two big 3 point jumpers on weakside picks by Nene, when Duhon was caught cheating on help. Duhon, sore ankle and all, did manage to limit the damage after the 1st 2 threes, but it doesn't take much for JR to light on fire, and his baskets were huge.

*  Speaking of Carmelo Anthony, it was hard to believe this was his first 50 point game. Though Melo certainly beasted in this game -- he was beating double teams by Chandler and Harrington so casually, they may as well have been grade school children -- the most impressive game I've seen from him this year was a 41 point performance in a 97-94 win against Portland (a much slower paced team). I'm going to give it up for Melo anyway because he's been so consistently good this season. But his most impressive play wasn't a shot: at 10:02 of the 4th quarter, he caught a transition pass at the lower right block, turned around and had the ball blocked back in his face by Harrington. He then pulled it out, and everyone expected he would take it back one-on-one. Instead, he dribbled a few times, then found a streaking Birdman cutting into the lane for the and-1. *That's* an MVP-worthy play.

*  I caught the Nuggets announcing team on my League Pass feed for this game, and though they were pleasant and knowledgeable to start, they also ended up being annoying homers as it became apparent the Knicks weren't going to go away. Not homers on the legendary level of Tommy Heinsohn or Sean Elliott or Mike Rice, but pretty close. What compounded their annoying-ness was the production crew, which seemed happy to miss Knick possessions altogether if they could run another replay of a questionable call against the home team (they missed a Duhon jumper and a Hughes 3 pointer in the 3rd quarter to do this). The Denver color man was happy to characterize Harrington as selfish (OK, not exactly a controversial opinion), dismiss Gallo's prospects with "he'll have a good European League career", and regularly berate the refs by name ("Sean Corbin, what is HE THINKING?!"). Thankfully, they couldn't ruin such an entertaining game, but the whistle whining was almost as frequent as the dramatic baskets. Not good.

In the end, even D'Antoni couldn't deny that as empty as moral victories are, this game has the potential to be a very good building block toward much more competitive play in the middle of a brutal stretch of games. All the jokes about the Knicks center on their seemingly indifferent defense, but the offense has been the train wreck all season. Seeing the level of ball movement and player movement in this game, it was a whole new team playing out there, and arguably the first time we've seen real enjoyable D'Antoni-ball in months. The question now is whether the Knicks can sustain this level of play without needing 40 points from Al Harrington every time (or for that matter, 10 clutch fourth quarter points from Wilson Chandler). 

I feel pretty confident that we'll see a letdown against Orlando, whose defense has been erratic but should be more than enough to swallow up the Knicks. But what I'd like to see is more of the confidence and swagger the team showed against the Nuggets, and less of the slumped shoulders and stagnant ball movement. Can they do it at least one more time next week? Such is the nature of diminished expectations that I would be fine with one more game like this one in the next four (given the level of competition), and no more games like the one against Sacramento.