Sixers blow big lead, then beat Knicks in OT

"Well, that was some game," said Sixers coach Eddie Jordan. "Both teams really gave it their all, both gutted it out, both were determined."

The Knicks, down by 15 entering the last quarter, scored 41 points in the fourth.

"They shoot themselves out of games, and obviously they can shoot themselves in," Jordan said.

The Sixers improved to 2-1 and have a few days off before playing the Boston Celtics at the Wachovia Center on Tuesday night. The Knicks dropped to 0-3.

For the Sixers, so many things that had looked shaky through two games - Jordan's Princeton offense, Andre Iguodala's scoring, the team's ability to incorporate both fastbreak and half-court games - were remedied through three quarters by the Knicks' philosophy of "no defense, no shot untaken."

It was the same philosophy that jump-started the Knicks midway through the fourth quarter.

"We just stalled," Sixers forward Jason Kapono said. "We weren't really running our sets. Our offense got stagnant. . . . It was tough because we had a good flow there."

After trailing by as many as 23, the Knicks cut it to one on a three-pointer by Danilo Gallinari with 11.4 seconds remaining.

Gallinari finished with a career-high 30 points, including eight three-pointers.

One possession later - after a 1-for-2 effort from the free-throw line by Kapono - Knicks guard Chris Duhon tied the score at 122 with 5.9 seconds left.

Iguodala, who finished with 32 points, missed a fadeaway jumper at the buzzer.

"We were still pretty positive because we knew we had been successful for 36 minutes," Kapono said. "We knew if we went back to what we did for three quarters, we'd be fine."

The Knicks, who played a two-overtime game Friday night, could not match the Sixers in the extra period.

"At least we didn't go double OT," joked Jordan. "That's a positive."

For the game, the Sixers shot 60.7 percent from the field and 85.7 percent from the free-throw line. Point guard Lou Williams finished with 27 points, forward Thaddeus Young with 25.

The Knicks tried 40 three-pointers, making 14.

Between the first and second quarters last night at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks stood not in a huddle, but scattered along the sideline as if they had nothing to discuss.

Knicks forward Al Harrington, who finished with 42 points and fouled out in overtime, stood watching the dancers; guard Nate Robinson sat on the scorer's table, his legs dangling.

For three quarters, that's how the Knicks played: as if they weren't communicating.

For those three quarters, the Sixers looked scary good, the Knicks scary bad, on All Hallow's Eve in Manhattan.