New York Knicks Schedule: Tough Week Ahead For Knicks

Coming off a thrilling, and entirely unexpected, victory Sunday in Miami over LeBron James and the Miami Heat the question for the New York Knicks is this. What happens now?

The Knicks (30-27) face a difficult schedule this week. They travel to Orlando Tuesday to face Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic (38-22), a game that will test the perceived interior weakness of the rebuilt Knicks. Following that are games at home on Thursday vs. the 35-26 New Orleans Hornets on Wednesday and the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday. On Sunday, the Knicks hit the road again to face the 36-23 Atlanta Hawks. So, four games in six nights -- three against teams with better overall records than that of the Knicks.

What can Knicks' fans expect to see? Perhaps the last two games, a stunning loss to the woeful Cavaliers and a stirring victory over the powerful Heat, provide a pretty good indication.

The Knicks are a work in progress as Amare Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups and the rest of what is really a completely different team than it was prior to the Anthony trade learn to play together. There will be glimpses of the potential for a terrific future, which the Knicks displayed Sunday against Miami. There will also be glimpses of the ugliness of a team basically starting from scratch, one whose players are not sure how they all fit together and still has a weakness at the center position, as Knicks fans saw in a brutal loss to Cleveland, the league's worst team.

What Knicks fans have to hope is that when the regular season ends in the middle of April there are a lot more nights like Sunday -- and a lot fewer like last Friday.