Carmelo Anthony's 26 points and nine rebounds helped the New York Knicks bounce back from their first loss of the season, with an 88-76 win over the Indiana Pacers Sunday. Two days earlier, the Knicks had lost their unbeaten record to the Memphis Grizzlies.
"Last year we (would have) let this game slip away," the Associated Press quoted Tyson Chandler as saying. "It's definitely the maturity of the team and obviously the maturity of the players. We got a lot of vets around here that understand that these games add up.
"These are the games at the end of the year when you are in that dog fight and jockeying for position, these are the games that put you over or under."
Other star performers for the Knicks were JR Smith, who scored 13 points and Raymond Felton, who added 11 points.
The Knicks took a substantial lead right from the start of the game and maintained it until the end. But despite the win, the game also exposed their weakness in converting shot attempts to points. They shot less than 40 percent from the field.
"Today was one of them days where we had to do it on the defensive end," Anthony said. "Offensively we were trying to find it, shots that we missed that we normally make.
"But on the defensive end for us to be in sync the way we are right now, especially this early in the season, that's a good thing. We want to keep building on that."
For the Pacers, Paul George scored 20 points. He had four out of seven attempts from the 3-point arc. The Pacers made 28 shots from 71 attempts while the Knicks converted 33 out of 90.
"We turned the ball over way too much," George said. "When you look at it, we got 71 attempts and they got 90 attempts and when you are playing a team as dangerous as New York is, you give them 20 more shots, of course you are going to get the results you got."
Only George and David West finished with double-digits for the Pacers -- West had 14 points. The Pacers were without Danny Granger, who could not play because of a left knee injury.
"Our defense, you know, we've been No. 1 in the NBA right now defensively," George added. "We knew we could rely on that, but again, we've got to get more shots, better looks, more attempts and take care of the ball."
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