Very, very nice recovery for the Knicks on a night when a lot of basketball attention was devoted to the college world and March Madness. A terrifically energetic and rambunctious crowd, those green St. Patrick's Day uniforms, Toney Douglas' green day-glo shoes and NBA JAM-ish shooting...and yes, even some noticeable effort on defense generated a solid win over a Grizzlies team that fought for a half, but crumbled under the shooting onslaught.

This was a fairly slow-paced game (only 89 possessions), which makes the efficient offense seem even more ridiculous (135 points per 100 possessions) and places the improved effort and sub-100 point total for the Grizzlies in context (still a lot of work to be done if your defensive efficiency is 111 points per 100).

As for that defense: the effort continues to improve, even if the execution still leaves a bit to be desired. You could really see the focus move up a few notches beyond the previous two games against Indiana. In fact, the offense and rebounding suffered a little in the first quarter as a result of concentrating so much on properly rotating and defending the pick and roll, and trying to maintain effort and focus on off the ball movement as well as what was happening with the ball. As it was against the Pacers, rebounds and hustle plays helped give the Grizzlies a 29 point first quarter -- no testament to good defense there.

But if we can at least acknowledge small steps -- incrementally small -- all the talk about commitment to defense wasn't empty. Chauncey Billups made up for still limited lateral movement by selectively applying defensive pressure on Mike Conley and playing passing lanes to get a couple of steals and a few deflections. Toney Douglas' defensive pressure is always strong, and Amare actually made more of an effort to stay in some sort of proper defensive position when Conley would come around screens (he didn't get to the man popping off the screen, though, which I'll address in the bullets). Jeffries roamed well and all things considered, defended Randolph capably given the mismatch.

The Grizzlies are also (without Rudy Gay anyway) a better matchup for the Knicks than the Pacers -- Darren Collison's midrange game (12th among point guards in shooting from 10-15 feet) and explosion off high screens exploits the weaknesses in the Knicks' loose defense a bit more effectively than Conley's game (though Conley still had 16 points and 6 assists last night). The Knicks mostly resorted to doubling or keying on Randolph and giving some free rein to Marc Gasol, but Gasol was ineffective again, and Darrell Arthur ended up with the more effective minutes with his ability to make midrange jumpers.

One of the most applause-worthy possessions, if small steps are to be celebrated, came on the Grizzlies possession with 29 seconds left in the first half: the Grizz ran a high screen with Conley and Gasol. Douglas went over the screen, and Amare was actually in proper defensive position to meet Conley but account for Gasol rolling to the basket as well. Best of all, Carmelo ran over from his man at the wing (Battier) to swipe at Conley's dribble, then rotated back immediately to bother Battier's corner three pointer when Conley chose to pass to the shooter after nothing materialized in the lane. Too often, the pick and roll defense is left to just the point guard and big man, with little help from the other positions because of the fear of leaving shooters and (frankly) lack of effort at times. This was a very good defensive possession that didn't rely on a bail out block or a gamble to produce a stop. More of this please.

Overall though, as you might expect from a team with elite offensive talent at three positions but mostly average to below average defenders, the effort on defense improves when the offense is rolling. And the offense most definitely rolled with 20 three pointers, and very good ball movement (25 assists) and spacing. Those Toney Douglas three pointers are a thing of joy to watch when they're rifling in at the Garden. At this time last year, I attended two games where he shot 17 for 32, and the way his shots ripple the net when he's hot are something else.

Game notes:

*  Darrell Arthur was brought up in the post game by a reporter as someone who exposed the Knicks' lingering defensive issues. Mike D'Antoni responded by saying "well, he shot 5 for 11", the implication being that his shooting numbers weren't outrageous and that those sort of long two point jumpers are inevitably going to be given up the way they defend (focusing on defending 3 pointers and protecting the rim). That's a reasonable point, but if you break down Arthur's line, he shot 5 for 10 on long jumpers that came from the pick and roll, and all five were assisted. And if you watched the game, these jumpers were *wide* open -- Amare didn't even run out to contest.

Arthur is 33 percent on long jumpers this year according to Hoopdata, so it's possible that the Knick strategy was to keep Amare closer to Randolph and Gasol and take their chances with Arthur. However, given the fact that Tyler Hansborough torched the Knicks for 10-17 shooting on those same pick and pop opportunities the previous two games, it was curious to see history repeating itself against the Grizzlies. D'Antoni did acknowledge that if this continued to be an issue, he might look at bringing help toward the screener popping out for the jumper, but some of this is on Amare to get out on the shooter and then recover if necessary.

*  The 20 for 36 line on three pointers got all the attention, but 16 for 20 on shots at the rim was also very impressive -- Amare and Carmelo were 10 for 12 close to the basket. Carmelo had an especially breathtaking piece of footwork with 4 minutes left in the third: on the right block, he posted, faced up, ended up spreadeagled at one point against Tony Allen and seemingly about to travel, and somehow kept his pivot foot and went up and under for the layup.

*  Frequently quoted stat in stories diagnosing the Knick woes: Carmelo and Amare together on the floor since the trade: +1. Last night, they were +11 when on the floor together. It's a process.

*  Landry Fields still looks like the Knick most affected by all the adjustment issues, as important as he is. He did his usual work making opportunistic three pointers (2-4) but he missed 5 of 6 shots inside of 10 feet, usually because he was forcing an awkward floater when attempting to take advantage of temporary space created by the Grizzlies' focus on Amare and Melo. He and Toney Douglas have been working with the coaching staff to improve the way they take advantage of those seams in the defense, but the challenge will be improving the shot selection while minimizing the turnovers.

*  Back to that sticky topic of defense: maybe the biggest sign that it has a ways to go was the continued fouling last night (20 fouls, 30 FTs for Memphis). This will never really go away because the Knicks are typically overmatched in the middle, but avoiding silly, lazy fouls (like a Carmelo elbow to the back of Battier cutting in the lane in the fourth quarter, or a couple of Amare's reaching fouls) would make a significant difference. Also, the Knicks allowed 22 assists on the Grizzlies' 35 FGs -- Memphis is one of the bottom five teams in the league in assist rate.

*  One of the most fun things about watching college basketball at this time of year is watching many excellent announcers and broadcasting teams (Bill Raftery, Gus Johnson, Mike Gminski, etc) bringing the stories of unknown teams and interesting matchups to life, with their own distinct catchphrases, enthusiasm and analysis. At the risk of sounding overly homer-ish,  I was glad to see that Breen and Clyde were in fine form themselves for a mid-March game (until it got to massive blowout territory) -- Breen called out Amare and Carmelo when their defensive shortcomings were on display, the analysis of officials' calls and play on the court was excellent, and the digressions and humor were enjoyable and not distracting.

Weirdest digression: Breen did the usual spoken MSG promo for Boomer and Carton during a lull in the action, and Clyde went into a Boomer Esiason impersonation that came out of nowhere and was shocking enough that Breen was temporarily silent, then said awkwardly (I'm paraphrasing) "Clyde, I don't know if I've ever hear you do impressions". Clyde then revealed that he thinks those guys are hilarious. My jaw dropped too.

*  Toney Douglas' postgame interview was delightful. Catch it if you haven't already done so. Toney's serious facade breaks a little bit to betray some giddiness. It makes me want to know if those rumors of him doing Ke$ha impersonations are true.


Tonight it will be the Pistons as the Knicks are in stage two of their four games in five nights brutal stretch. The Knicks haven't had too many problems with the Pistons this year, but they'll be much smaller this time and won't have the Moz to soak up rebounds the way he did the last time they met. Should be interesting to see how the defensive effort and commitment hold up -- on a back to back against a bad team in a (likely) empty arena,I have my doubts. Since the Pistons are a pretty bad defensive team themselves, we'll probably see a shootout.