The game started with more weird rhythms on offense, as Amare and Carmelo strived to move the ball more rather than simply take turns on isolations, but they still weren't quite co-existing smoothly when it came to connecting to help the other one score. As a result, the ball moved to teammates when a star couldn't get his own shot, and Landry Fields was the beneficiary with 6 shots in the first 6 minutes, twice as many as any other Knick, on his way to 7 points in building a 16-7 lead. Late in the first, Melo got poked in the eye badly enough by Al Horford on a jumper for him to miss 2 free throws and generally look and operate out of sorts the rest of the game.

Carmelo was already struggling with his shot to start the game, but fortunately he was active in other areas and ended the first quarter with five assists and 3 rebounds even though he missed all his shots *and* free throws. Amare was very sharp with his jumper and inside moves, and the bench got excellent contributions from Shawne Williams, Anthony Carter and Roger Mason. I made a snarky reference to the extended minutes Carter and Mason were getting on twitter, but while they weren't exactly Pearl and Clyde, they held their own.

The real revelation beyond the opportunistic contributions from role players on offense was the defense, anchored by Jeffries, and helped significantly by Douglas' tenacious work on Hinrich and Fields on Joe Johnson (possibly Fields' best defensive job this season). Jeffries' best moments were his stints in the first quarter (where he capably guarded Horford, Smith, and Johnson on individual possessions), and in the second quarter where the Jeffries Zone made its return -- a holdover from the wasteland of last season that was worth bringing back to give this defense a different look (more on that later in the bullets). Best of all, Jeffries stayed out of foul trouble after two early fouls, an indication that he's starting to get his defensive rhythm back.

Offensively, the game was no thing of beauty, and the flip side of the improved defense was brutal offense -- after a shambolic, low scoring first half, the Knicks only scored two points in the first six minutes of the third quarter. The Knicks' defense kept the Hawks from building too large a margin, and they were helped by some of the Hawks' decisions, like Josh Smith's fondness for long jumpers, even in transition. More improbably, the entry of Anthony Carter sparked the Knicks' crucial surge ahead -- in the last 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter, AC scored 7 points on 3-3 shooting,  along with two rebounds, an assist and a steal. His presence also seemed to help Carmelo, who made two of his next 3 shots with AC at point after missing 4 of his previous 5 shots with 2 turnovers in the quarter. 

The craziness reached its peak in the fourth quarter. I've watched D'Antoni and the way he's managed lineups for over five years with the Suns and Knicks, and while people love to talk about smallball and make noise about some of he ungainly mismatches he creates, there's a logic to the units he employs that's easily discerned. Last night though, when I expected Anthony to return in the fourth quarter after his customary rest at the start, and expected Carter and Jeffries to play extended minutes to stabilize defense and the PG position (given how both failed so badly against the Cavs), D'Antoni instead rolled with an Amare-Douglas-Mason-Fields-Shawne lineup. A twist on the three guards-small forward-power forward lineup that I truly didn't expect.

After the game, the coach said he was going to bring Melo back eventually but once the lineup started producing to the tune of a 19-2 run spanning four minutes (including 3 pointers from Williams, Mason and Fields), he let them finish out the quarter. Smart move, with Melo clearly operating at half speed and another game in 24 hours. Bringing Douglas in to run the point, despite his still shaky issues with running the offense, worked fine (he hounded Hinrich most of the quarter, and managed Hinrich's defense against him alright), and Mason guarded Crawford better than AC. The offensive ball movement was excellent in getting the ball to Shawne for two of his deadly corner jumpers (and Mason for two of his own), and there was enough off the ball movement in and out of the lane to keep the defense from loading up on on Amare and gave him space to create.

It was a satisfying win, even if it doesn't settle much about what the team will look like by the end of the season. At this point, D'Antoni seems to realize that things are going to operate in a state of continual chaos relative to his preferred way of doing things as long as injuries are an issue. As a result, he'll use more players, he'll keep tweaking offense and defense, and he'll keep trying to get his stars to work together, point guard or no point guard.

Game notes:

*  A little more on the zone. D'Antoni has thrown the zone in spurts at the Hawks in the past, to nullify their athleticism inside and tempt them into jumpers with little ball movement. The zone was used on six Hawks plays in the second quarter, with all but the last play with Jeffries at the head of the zone. The results on the five with Jeffries: 1) Hinrich turnaround jumper over Douglas at the elbow 2) Joe Johnson long two point jumper over Jeffries on the right wing 3) A Joe Johnson turnover on a swing pass from Horford that was pressured by Jeffries at the high post 4) A defensive 3 second call on Landry Fields for drifting too far to the strong side and forgetting the shooter camped on the left wing behind the 3 point line 5) A forced Joe Johnson 3 pointer missed under heavy pressure. 

On the final play against the Knick zone, with Anthony at the head of the zone instead of Jeffries, the lack of communication was apparent immediately -- Jamal Crawford passed the ball to Horford at the high post, went around two screens and casually parked himself on the left corner while some activity started to build on the strong side, drawing the attention of all the Knicks who got lulled into their old habit of watching the ball. Since no one communicated about Crawford, a skip pass to him found him wide open, and Amare lunged at him and ended up gifting Jamal another of his patented four point plays.

Overall, it wasn't a sparkling debut for the zone -- three scores, a violation, a turnover, and a miss. Douglas, in particular, looked a little lost guarding an area instead of providing the usual tenacious ball pressure at halfcourt. But Jeffries excels at the head of the zone, and it's a useful tool for giving the point guards a break from getting crushed on high pick and roll screens (TD has to appreciate the respite from getting his bell rung as he typically does a couple of times a game). Expect to see more of the zone on a selective basis in the following games, particularly more limited three point shooting teams like the Bucks, Jazz and Grizzlies.

*  The Hawks, according to Synergy, typically get a bit less than half (48%) of heir opportunities on offense through running Isolations, Post-Ups, and Spot-ups. Last night, those types of plays accounted for nearly 60 percent of their offense (only 3 FGs made from the pick and roll), and the Knicks limited their productivity on Post-Up opportunities in particular, thanks to Jeffries' work on Horford. With much better rotations and communication, they were able to limit the Hawks on offense by generating turnovers on 21 percent of the Hawks' plays, considerably above their season average of 10.5 percent. 

The Hawks take (and make) a lot of long two-point jumpers -- averaging 10 of 22, with 68% of those assisted, according to Hoopdata. Last night they made 8 of 22 (Josh Smith, 1 of 6, ouch), but only 2 of the long jumpers were assisted.

*  One more wacky statistical artifact resulting from two ball dominant superstars, a point guard by committee arrangement, and low usage defensive specialists -- highly lopsided possession usage distributions. Melo had usage (percent of possessions used while on the floor) of 42.8 last night, Amare with 32.4, Jeffries with 3.9 (!). Most Knick fans won't mind that with Jared's significant limitations on offense -- one shot, 3 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 assist, and 1 drawn charge in 27 minutes is a characteristic line. The box score shows he had only one offensive rebound, but he seemed to influence several more through deflections and tap outs, and he tied up the Hawk frontline enough to allow Amare to sneak in and steal two offensive rebounds of his own.

* Amare was exceptional on long jumpers, and while I might prefer that 12 of his 20 shots last night weren't long two pointers, shooting 6 of 12, with 5 of the 6 makes being assisted, is very good. Especially when his counterparts Horford and Smith combined to shoot 2 of 9. 

Tonight it's the Jazz, and we may see a return of one or two of the injured crew that missed the Hawks game. The Knicks haven't been able to win two in a row since the trade, and their points allowed to opponents has gone: 108, 115, 86, 116, 88, 119, 79. The team's two best defensive performances of the season (in terms of defensive efficiency) have come since the trade, but to date the defensive focus has appeared on an every other game basis. Since this is a back to back at the Garden, there's like to be another relapse to the same old defense tonight, but against the post-trade Jazz, let's hope there's enough offense to avoid another Cav-like catastrophe.