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- Star forwards David Lee of Golden State and Carmelo Anthony of New York will suit up tonight. Lee missed one game with a right knee contusion, while Anthony sat out three contests due to a stiff right knee. Carl Landry will go back to the bench for the Warriors, and Kurt Thomas will do the same for the Knicks.
- The memories are obviously still fresh from Stephen Curry‘s 54-point explosion against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden on Feb. 27. New York coach Mike Woodson said he’s hoping that the presence of Lee and center Andrew Bogut — both of whom missed the Warriors’ MSG appearance — will make Curry less aggressive this time around. “We’ve just got to make sure we’re up on screens on the pick-and-roll, and if we’re knocked off, we’ve got to make sure that we’re up and we switch correctly,” Woodson said. “There’s a lot of things that come into play when he’s on the floor after what he did in New York.”
- Warriors coach Mark Jackson was trying to stay focused on his own game, even as his son, Mark Jackson, Jr., vied for a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament. The younger Jackson and his teammates on sixth-seeded Manhattan are playing fourth-seeded Iona for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s automatic NCAA bid.
- This contest opens the Knicks’ longest road trip of the season, a five-gamer that also bounces to Denver, Portland, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.
- With 15 3-pointers for Houston and 13 by Milwaukee, the Warriors have allowed at least 13 treys in back-to-back games for the first time in franchise history. That streak could easily reach three straight, given that the Knicks rank No. 1 in the league in attempts behind the arc (29.28 per game) and second in makes (10.83, just 0.01 behind the Rockets).
– Geoff Lepper
