Carmelo Anthony scored 27 points but it was the Knicks defense in holding the hot Philadelphia 76ers offense down that led the team to an 85-79 win Wednesday night in New York.

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Jan 12, 2012 - Jump shots, turnovers and ugly execution ruled the New York Knicks 85-79 win over the Philadelphia 76ers Wednesday night in Madison Square Garden.
The premiere matchup of the night was the offense of Carmelo Anthony against the defense of Andre Iguodala. Sixers coach Doug Collins may admit as much, proven by his minute-for-minute matching of his star forward for the Knicks star forward.
The result was a back and forth battle between the two that saw Carmelo win the first and third quarters with a 9-16 success rate from the field, and Iguodala win the second and the fourth quarters, shutting Anthony out on field goals, 0-8.
Anthony did end up scoring 27 points to lead all scorers in the game, but needed those 24 field goal attempts to do it as well as eight made free throws, all in the second half. Anthony attempted 18 shots tagged 'jumpers' by Synergy Sports, nine of which were isolation plays.
It wasn't just Carmelo. The two teams bumped and slogged each other forcing a bunch of isolation sets, turnovers, and missed shots.
The flow of the game couldn't get rolling properly. The Knicks defense never let Philadelphia get into a ball movement habit, and the Sixers had only 10 assists for the night against 14 turnovers. Their shooting was poor as well, hitting on only 39.5 percent of their shots.
The Knicks on the offensive end were a smidge more effective in the assist category (13) and had plenty of opportunities to cash more in as the Sixers doubled Carmelo early on and Anthony and the rest of the Knicks did a nice job of moving the ball from side to side, even if their paltry 41 percent field goal percentage didn't allow for more evidence of the rotation.
The Knicks somehow overcame 21 turnovers through all of that ball sharing, though it did benefit Knicks rookie Josh Harrellson, who had 13 points in 23 minutes off the bench. Harrellson was the beneficiary of a few of those Carmelo double-teams, hitting on three of five from outside the three-point arc. Also, the steadying offensive hook shot of Amare Stoudemire(20 points, 10 rebounds) got the Knicks through a rough shooting night.
The Knicks had a pretty good lead built up into the fourth quarter until New York attempted four straight threes (Bill Walker, Iman Shumpert twice, Anthony) with the score 78-61 with nine minutes remaining and then saw their guests run off 10 unanswered points to make it close again.