New York struggles to regain Linsanity

As the New York Knicks lost their third straight game, head coach Mike D'Antoni attempts to rearrange his pieces to find a working unit.

 

Key players in New York's storybook run prior to the All-Star weekend are now out of the picture, as Tyson Chandler and Jared Jeffries are saddled with injuries while Landry Fields is taken out of the starting five.

 

Fields has since been replaced by Iam Shumpert, while Chandler is listed as day-to-day. To add to  the Knicks' woes, forward Jared Jeffries is also expected to miss the next game against Milwaukee Saturday morning (Manila time).

 

"Take a guess (how much it hurt not to have Chandler and Jeffries). They anchor our defense. Tony Parker is one of the best in the league. We didn't have our guys who could slow it a little bit," said D'Antoni in his interview with NBA.com after the Knicks' 118-105 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.

 

The Kincks' defensive problems dodn't end in the paint as Jeremy Lin struggled to contain Tony Parker. The Frenchman scored 32 points on 12-of-19 shooting Thursday morning, with the Lin and Amar'e Stoudamire struggling to contain him and Tim Duncan on the pick and roll.

 

Lin scored 20 points in the game, but eight of those came in the final two minutes, when the game was already decided. — Reneé A. Fopalan/RSJ, GMA News