The New York Knicks locker room is fracturing, specfically Amar'e Stoudemire and J.R. Smith after the streak-shooting swingman took his mates to task earlier this week for what he described as not showing enough "heart."
Following the Knicks latest debacle, a 109-90 loss to the Chicago Bulls Sunday, Stoudemire shot back "you have to look at yourself in the mirror before we make statements. We got to make sure you're playing hard first. You take care of yourself and then everyone else will follow suit. Until you do it yourself, then you can lead by example.''
According to the New York Post, Stoudemire has been the behind-the-scenes leader of the Knicks locker room for the last two years, but given his limited role this season his influence has waned just a bit. Still, coming a solid 14-point, six-rebound game against the Bulls, Stoudemire now felt compelled to speak out.
"Defense is the problem," Stoudemire told The Post of the Knicks woes. "I've been saying it for years."
Like the entire team, it's been a more down than up season for Stoudemire, and he remains unable to compete on the back-end of back-to-back games. But with the Knicks struggling as they are and their faint Eastern conference playoff hopes all but gone, he told newspaper he will "probably'' will try to play Monday in Detroit.
"I feel great,'' he said. "But we started the year off, the plan was not to play back-to-backs at all. That went down the drain. I want to stay on track to what we set at the start of the year.''
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