Seeing the Knicks lose so many times over the last ten games was tiresome, but the forced narratives around why they were losing were every bit as tiresome. With last night's thrilling win over a depleted Orlando Magic team in overtime, the narratives don't go away. But they (temporarily) become easier to bear as the Knicks can manage to exhale and bask in the positives of a big win for a change.

The Knicks were operating with an advantage with the absence of Jameer Nelson and Quentin Richardson from the Magic lineup. Nelson has given the Knicks problems in every game they've played this season with his quickness, and Richardson is capable of defending Carmelo Anthony one on one. Additionally, both have shot the ball well enough against the Knicks to limit the defense's ability to swarm Howard in the post. Without them, the Knicks aggressively doubled Howard for most of the first half, and changed up the defensive looks they gave Dwight enough to confuse him and limit him to only 2 FG attempts, 4 points (all on free throws) and 5 rebounds in the first half.

The Knicks played the entire game with an extra skip in their step, a hunger that was evident in aggressive defense and more spirited attempts at rotating and running out on shooters. It wasn't always smart or pretty -- bad habits aren't unlearned in a single game, no matter how potent the fuel of desperation can be -- but the commitment shown by every one of the ten players who got time on the floor was impressive. It took a while for the Knicks to get an offensive rhythm, since the Magic are still a very good defensive team as long as they have Howard, and as a result the two teams slogged to an anomalously low-scoring first quarter.

In the second quarter, the ball movement and scoring efficiency improved from both teams, and most encouragingly, the Knicks got six assists in the quarter and Stoudemire made all four of his shots and had 11 points in the 2nd. Though Amare still doesn't look close to 100 percent (or even 80 percent), he moved well without the ball and took advantage of Orlando's reserves to score frequently inside. Additionally, Bill Walker provided welcome energy off the bench with two three pointers, two rebounds, an assist and a steal. The Knicks built a four point halftime lead, and even with the Magic short handed (which was compounded by a Duhon thumb injury that left Gil Arenas as the Magic's only PG), the Knicks had a vibe that was light years beyond the horrific second quarter played in Charlotte last Saturday.

The second half was where the real fireworks of the game took place, as Orlando spaced the floor better and created room for Howard to operate in the post. In a three minute stretch, starting at 10:30, Howard was responsible for 11 straight Magic points (eight of his own, and a kick out assist to Jason Richardson for a three pointer). He ended with 15 points in the quarter, engaging in a duel with Carmelo, who scored 19 points in the quarter, including 17 of the Knicks' last 19 in the period. Neither team could build a lead of more than four points because of the individual excellence of the teams' two stars.  (It's a shame that this electrifying portion of the game was overshadowed by all the crazy extracurricular activity that characterized the closing minutes).

In the fourth quarter, it was more of the same in terms of the back and forth between both teams. The fourth period has been the Knicks' bete noire during this losing streak, and they suffered a shaky first few minutes where the Magic got some traction with a peculiar "big" lineup of Anderson-JRich-Turkoglu-Bass-Howard that overpowered the Knicks' smaller perimeter reserves of Douglas, Carter and Walker. Carmelo was brought in earlier than usual (three minutes into the quarter, rather than his typical five) to stabilize the Knicks, and he continued his torrid shooting with 11 points in a six minute stretch to help the Knicks build their lead to 96-90.

It wasn't just Melo that was contributing, though -- to snap out of the fourth quarter blues against a good opponent, the team needed more, and it got contributions from Douglas, from Billups and from Stoudemire. Most surprisingly, Shelden Williams came in with the score tied at 89 and in just three minutes got a steal, a stop, and an offensive rebound to help the Knicks establish what looked to be definitive separation at 98-92 with a minute left.

The thing about teams on losing streaks though, is that demons seem to appear at the most inopportune moments to test a team's ability to get that crucial step past misfortune. And the Knicks failed the first test.

Two of the Knicks' "best" defenders had unbelievable lapses in the final 30 seconds: 1) Toney Douglas lost Gilbert Arenas on an inbound play that found Gil wide open for a corner three that cut it to 98-97. 2) After TD made up for it with a basket that was goaltended to get the lead back to three with 10 seconds left, the Magic inbounded the ball to Jason Richardson (who's made his share of memorable buzzer beating three pointers), and Jared Jeffries defended the play as poorly as he possibly could, providing no resistance on the dribble to JRich's left and even less resistance on the shot. Game tied 100-100, with Carmelo then barely missing a tip after a wild shot to send the game to overtime.

In the overtime, the Knicks deserve credit for continuing to play hard even when it looked like they might be deflated and exhausted. After the Magic took their final lead at 104-103 early in the OT, a huge three pointer by Billups and a fastbreak dunk by Melo after a terrific pass by Billups off a missed Hedo three pointer gave the Knicks a 108-104 lead that it wouldn't relinquish. Part of the reason the lead wasn't relinquished were two questionable calls (Howard's sixth foul on an offensive rebound attempt, and a tripping foul on J Rich where the second transgression was caught rather than the first) that effectively snuffed the Magic's chances of coming back. But maybe that was just the demons finally showing the Knicks some mercy.

Game notes:

*  The officials took (deserved) grief for the way they officiated the final minutes of regulation and overtime, but they had a tough game throughout. Howard is just like Shaq in his prime in how difficult he is to officiate -- in the first half, the refs allowed highly physical play inside (to the Knicks' advantage), then they started calling it closer in the second half. But it was never that simple. Sometimes the refs allowed Howard to get hit, other times they gave him free reign to swing elbows, or gave him the benefit of the doubt when a ball was lost out of bounds. It seemed like the officials were constantly behind the tenor of the action and judiciously trying to award make up calls to remedy earlier errors, rather than establish a consistent pattern of officiating. It was very frustrating to watch for fans of both teams, I'm sure.

*  Mike D'Antoni played ten players significant minutes, and to my eye, managed the lineups and substitutions very well for someone with a reputation for preferring compact rotations. As unpopular as Jeffries is, and as bad as his final possession defense was on J Rich's three, I liked the decision to play offense-defense with Amare and Jeffries in the closing seconds. The fact is, Amare is a terrible defender out on the perimeter, and it's possible D'Antoni feared Amare being caught on a switch. This move may have caught Amare's attention, because in overtime (with the Knick lead still only 3 points) he had a sneaky good sequence where he crowded Hedo and contested his jumper well through all of Hedo's fakes and shimmies -- it's the best defense I've seen Amare play on a perimeter player in quite a while.

*  The glory that was Shelden Williams: First quarter (4:40) --  2 fouls, 1 steal, 1 turnover, +4. Third quarter (7:58) --  2 fouls, 0-1FGs, 1 rebound, +1. Fourth quarter (3:11) -- 2 fouls, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, +2.  With Jared Jeffries still struggling to regain his defensive form of last year, and Turiaf's ongoing health issues, Shelden becomes Mr. Intangible for now, and his post defense was the best the Knicks have seen from a center since Turiaf held down Aldridge in Portland back when the Knicks were a totally different team.

*  The guards are as crucial as ever and as hit and miss as ever -- Toney Douglas and Chauncey Billups still missed plenty of three pointers and had their shaky moments, but only one turnover between them and (mostly) good shots taken in the flow of the offense was good news. Billups was very good in limiting Richardson when he tried to post up, and Douglas likewise harassed Arenas into a dreadful shooting and passing game.  Douglas deserves credit for not self-destructing on offense with dubious shots and turnovers as he's sometimes done late in games, even with Richardson shadowing him very well.

*  The Knicks had only 16 assists in a 102 possession overtime game -- only six in the second half and overtime. Everyone will point (rightfully) to all the isolation activity for Carmelo as he took over the game (the Knicks ran 27 isolations according to Synergy Sports, 17 of them for Melo). I didn't have a problem with this, because when you need a win, sometimes it's as simple as going with the hot hand, and Melo was on fire. You could definitely point to a few possessions where he could have passed off, but he was so hot that the Magic were swarming him with three defenders late, which was amazing to see. Melo did have an assist on TD's last basket in regulation and found TD for an open three that didn't go in earlier. I expect the coaches will point out with more film study and practice how his iso scoring prowess can be harnessed to find other shooters.

* The flip side of Carmelo's big scoring second half is that Amare had three shot attempts in the entire second half and overtime, while Toney Douglas had 10 shots in the same time frame. Some of this was simply the Magic defense being more keyed on Amare, but the coaches will need to keep working on enabling Carmelo and Amare to get better looks for each other when one is hot and the defense is tilted heavily toward them, rather than kicking out for three pointers all the time when their shot isn't there.


Next up is the Nets, which means more juicy narrative-mongering for the media to engage in with the Russian-owned rivals from across the river, and their new crown jewel, Deron Williams. At least the Knicks go into Wednesday's game with a win behind them, and the kind of effort they showed last night would be great to bottle up and throw out there again before a very welcome stretch of days off. The best way to kill spurious narratives is to win, and establish more positive narratives that demonstrate games like last night aren't a fluke.