The New York Knicks (9-9) and New Jersey Nets (9-9) meet for the first time this season tonight at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks have won six of seven, but are only 2-5 this season at home. The Nets won Sunday at Prudential Center, defeating Portland, but have lost five straight road games.
The two teams have, of course, been battling behind the scenes for months now as both franchises would like to acquire Carmelo Anthony from the Denver Nuggets. The New York Post opines today that the Nets are in a much better position to win the Anthony sweepstakes than are the Knicks.
The two franchises have also been going at it via the airwaves and billboards, with the Nets appearing to get an edge there thus far.
The Nets are also up big-time in the smack-talk department. No one from the Knicks organization has to come to matching, or is likely to match, the following smackdown from Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
"I don't think we want to be like the Knicks. I think we'd more like to resemble the Lakers."
So, in a lot of ways it seems like the Knicks have not done a great job of defending their turf so far this season. They hope that trend will begin to reverse itself tonight.