Toronto - For Jeremy Lin, there was no exchange of chest bumps, no
screams of joy. Instead, it was get even time for the Toronto Raptors,
whose 96-79 rout on Friday snapped a five-game New York win streak.
When Lin and the Knicks were last
in Toronto just over a month ago, he made the National basketball
Association game-winning three-pointer.
But he was held in check this time, finishing
with six points, hitting on just three of his nine shots. And, while
hundreds of fans cheered Lin with signs and Taiwanese flags, many
Toronto supporters booed whenever he touched the ball.
'They did a good job
defensively, took us out of our rhythm, gave us something we haven't
seen in a while,' Lin said. 'And we didn't hit shots. We passed up open
shots. It was just a tough night.'
What Toronto did to upset the Knicks was to
use a zone defence that crowded the paint for most of the night, forcing
the visitors to rely on jump shots.
The results were not pretty. New York shot just 32 for 85 (38 per cent) and no Knicks player made more than six field goals.
Amare Stoudemire scored 17 points, Steve Novak
had 15 and Carmelo Anthony 12 for the Knicks, who went in having won
six of the seven games against the Raptors, including three straight in
Toronto.
'Everybody struggled to make shots, and I mean
wide-open shots,' New York coach Mike Woodson said. 'And defensively we
couldn't get stops. That's a bad combination.'
Lin added: 'We didn't necessarily attack as
much as we should have. It's something we really don't have a lot of
plays for, so we kind of just float around the outside and end up
settling for a lot of jumpers.'
The Raptors, who had lost seven of their 10
games before the Knicks encounter, never trailed. They led by as many as
22, avenging a 87-106 loss at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.
DeMar DeRozan was the star for the Raptors with 30 points while Andrea Bargnani had 21.
Gary Forbes scored 19 points, one shy of his
career-high, and Jose Calderon had 10 assists as Toronto snapped a
three-game skid.
Forbes revealed that the Raptors 'played with a chip on our shoulder', saying: 'They kicked out butt in New York.'