Fresh off four straight losses, the most recent of which was a rather dull one against the Rockets, the Knicks will face the Spurs tonight in San Antonio. These teams met earlier this month at Madison Square Garden and the Knicks registered one of their finest offensive performances of the year in a rousing blowout victory. Unfortunately for New York, much has changed in the three since that night. The Knicks are 2-5 since then, having followed the exciting win with a 2-2 Pacific road trip and two ugly home losses before heading southwesterly.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to break out of that slump, Mike D'Antoni will tweak his lineup for tonight's game (and, it seems, the foreseeable future). Ronny Turiaf will start in place of Wilson Chandler, adding some size, energy, and passing to a unit that has sputtered in the first quarters of each of the last three games. Oddly enough, the lineup with Turiaf and Amar'e Stoudemire in the frontcourt and Danilo Gallinari (not Chandler) at small forward has been quite bad in its brief exposure so far this season. Either way, Chandler will still get plenty of minutes with the second unit. Maybe-- just maybe-- D'Antoni is pushing the right button and we're in for another surprise victory over the league's best team. You never know!