CLEVELAND — The Knicks refused to be anyone’s homecoming patsy on Thursday night, especially not LeBron James’.
The returning superstar hardly played up to a game he had billed as “probably one of the biggest sporting events ever,” and the Knicks pulled off a complete reversal from a season-opening stinker the previous night by spoiling King James’ first game back in Cleveland with a stunning 95-90 road victory, Derek Fisher’s first win as a coach.
“We got our party spoiled (Wednesday) night. It’s always good to return the favor to somebody else, especially on the road,” Carmelo Anthony said, referring to the Knicks’ 104-80 home loss Wednesday against Chicago. “Coming to a hostile environment like this, everybody’s excited, they’re creating something new out here. For us to come in and really lock in and focus in, to kind of steal this game — we’ll take that.”
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Anthony finished with an efficient 25 points on 9-for-17 shooting and six assists, including a key baseline jumper over James for a five-point lead with 25.9 seconds remaining.
James erratically missed eight of his nine shots in the first half and finished with just 17 points on 5-for-15 shooting, plus a game-high eight turnovers. Kevin Love registered 19 points and 14 rebounds in his Cavs debut and Kyrie Irving added 22 points.
“The way we bounced back was big,” J.R. Smith said. “We could have easily come in here and paid attention to all the hoopla and what-not. I’m just glad we didn’t and stayed focused for the whole four quarters. It started on the defensive end.”
Iman Shumpert and Jason Smith scored 12 points apiece and J.R. Smith had 11 with a team-high seven assists for the Knicks. And point guard Shane Larkin had another active all-around game while primarily running the triangle offense again in place of Jose Calderon (calf), contributing nine points, five assists and five steals in 28 minutes.
Fisher made several rotation adjustments following Wednesday’s loss. He started high-energy newcomer Quincy Acy (eight points, 10 rebounds) ahead of Amar’e Stoudemire (eight points) at power forward, while also giving extended minutes off the bench to Cole Aldrich and undrafted rookie Travis Wear at the expense of Tim Hardaway Jr. (five minutes) and starting center Samuel Dalembert (six). The 6-10 Wear even occasionally was matched up at the defensive end against James.
“To go from watching LeBron on TV to guarding him . . . it’s kind of a surreal experience,” Wear said.
After all of the pregame light shows, video tributes and confetti tosses were completed, James’ poor start in his first appearance with the Cavs following his ballyhooed free-agent return from Miami allowed the Knicks to stay within two points at halftime and nurse a 67-64 lead into the fourth quarter.
The Knicks, whose 30 assists exceeded their season-high of 29 from last season, extended the lead to nine with an 13-3 run midway through the period — highlighted by Acy’s putback dunk and Anthony’s corner three.
“I thought we did a great job of kind of embracing the moment, knowing what was happening, knowing all the excitement surrounding Cleveland, Le-Bron coming back,” Anthony said. “It was challenging for us before the game to really lock in on trying to win this basketball game.
“It’s a great win for us, a great road win at that.”
After Anthony took just 13 shots and scored 14 points the previous night, the $124 million All-Star insisted he wasn’t “embarrassed” by the Knicks’ 24-point home loss. But J.R. Smith ominously had charged that the overmatched Knicks “stopped competing” late in the game, and Shumpert claimed they “died” in the second half. Fisher also had admitted Wednesday night that “it’s going to be difficult to get wins” while his team adapts to Phil Jackson’s famed triangle offense. “I’m sure a lot of us were obviously happy that it couldn’t get much worse than that. It can only get better after (Wednesday) night and it sure did,” Fisher said. “When you work hard at something, it’s great to get even the smallest sign that you’re going in the right direction.”
