Knicks win to swipe sixth spot from Sixers

'IT'S A thin line, a thin line between winning and losing."

After his interviews with the media were over, 76ers forward Elton Brand slipped on his unlaced sneakers, took a deep sip of his thirst-quenching juice, rose to his feet and echoed those words over and over to anyone who would listen in the filled locker room.

The Sixers have toed that fine line about as often this season as a Walenda does a tight rope during the circus season. More times than not, the Sixers have slipped and fallen.

It happened again last night in a wildly entertaining game, which brought even more electricity because of the massive influx of New York Knick fans. They roared in approval for much of the evening as their team was able to hold off the Sixers, 97-92, and leapfrog into sixth place in the Eastern Conference while shoving the Sixers down to the seventh slot. It was the third straight loss for the Sixers (40-39), the first time that has happened since Nov. 23-26. New York won its fifth straight in improving to 40-38. It is the first time since March 17 that the Sixers have been out of the sixth spot in the East.

The Sixers used a frenetic pace in the fourth quarter and gained an 88-87 lead with 2 minutes, 46 seconds to play when Jodie Meeks converted a steal into a layup. That ended a 17-5 run for the Sixers, who had trailed by as many as 19 in the third.

Then, the thin line seemed to get a little thinner for the home team. After Brand made a terrific block on a driving Carmelo Anthony with 2:20 left, Meeks got the ball just beyond the three-point line in the right corner, but passed up the shot. After the Sixers worked it around, Meeks again was open from the same spot. This time, he pulled the trigger, but the ball rattled out.

After the Knicks built the lead to 92-88 on five straight Toney Douglas points, Andre Iguodala (15 points) nailed a step-back three to cut it to one. But Anthony, who finished with a game-high 31 points, hit a tough three-pointer over Iguodala with 11.8 seconds remaining to seal the win for New York.

"I thought it was good," Meeks, who finished with nine points on 2-for-11 shooting, said of his shot. "Tough night for me but I thought it was good. They hit some great shots at the end. You have nights like that."

After Meeks passed up the first look, Iguodala shouted toward Meeks, telling him to make sure he shoots when he's open. After Meeks missed, Iguodala gave the second-year pro a thumbs-up as the team ran back on defense.

"I felt everybody rising up. I was the same way, but it went in and out," Meeks said. "I could see it going through. The first time I didn't feel it because everyone was running at me. I thought I wanted to pull it out and get a good shot. And we got a good shot, I just didn't knock it down."

Thin line.

The Sixers stayed close mostly because of the play of Thaddeus Young (25 points) and Brand (24 points, nine rebounds). But they also got themselves in a deep ditch because, aside from those two who both shot 11-for-16, the rest of the team made just 25.8 percent of its shots (16-for-62).

"I think, at times, it looked like our guys were just dead in the water tonight," said Sixers coach Doug Collins. "But typical of the 76er team of this year, fought, fought, fought. Somehow we had a one-point lead."

Mainly because of two things, defense and Young.

In the fourth quarter, the Sixers smothered the Knicks into just 5-for-17 from the floor and forced them into four turnovers, including two shot-clock violations. And when they rebounded, they did what they had done very little of all night - run. Young especially prospered, scoring 15 points in the quarter, all but two coming from either the foul line or inside the lane.

But Anthony, who smiled his way through much of the night, got the last laugh as his late 24-footer boosted his team a rung higher in the standings. His heroics played as much a part in New York's win as did the Sixers' woeful shooting.

"He made a great shot," Iguodala said of Anthony, who canned five of his eight treys. "We were kind of a step slow on defense. What we have to do is, when we do get stuck in a halfcourt set, we have to execute. We have to try to clean it up before next week [when the postseason] comes. We have to execute."

For the third straight game, the Sixers scored below 100 points and have shot just 40.3 percent the past three games. Last night, they missed 16 of their 18 three-pointers while the Knicks buried 11. The Sixers also struggled from the foul line, making only 14 of 22 shots.

Still, they somehow found a way to stay close, to toe that line.

"We got off to a slow start shooting the ball," Collins said. "I think that we had a little bit of a mental carryover [from a loss in Boston on Tuesday]. We haven't shot the ball well, but I told our guys to stop worrying about our shooting. Let's guard them and everything else will take care of itself. We did that, then all of a sudden we got some easy baskets."

But not enough, and when Meeks' game-changing shot rimmed out, that thin line seemed to disappear completely.

"It was just a matter of missing shots and facing a hot player," Brand said. "They played great. They made shots and we didn't."

Thin line.

Amar'e Stoudemire scored 18 points for the Knicks on 19 shots, a goal Sixers coach Doug Collins set for his club to keep Stoudemire's points below his shot total . . . Jrue Holiday totaled 11 points, eight assists and seven rebounds . . . The crowd was announced at 18,375.