NEW YORK — A dejected Amar’e Stoudemire was in a state of disbelief following the Knicks 104-96 loss to the Houston Rockets Sunday night at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s a foreign land for me right now,” said Stoudemire, whose team has dropped five straight to fall to 3-7 and is about to embark on a brutal four-game Western swing.
His eight years in Phoenix could not have prepared him for this. After signing on with the Knicks during the summer for five years and $100 million, he vowed, “The Knicks are back.”
But now he’s openly questioning the team’s will to win after Kevin Martin and Luis Scola combined to score 52 points for the Rockets and the Knicks shot 3 of 16 from beyond the arc.
“I’m not sure if it’s the fact of maybe a winning mentality has never been here,” said Stoudemire, who scored 25 points on 10 of 19 shooting. “I’m used to winning. I’m used to talking about winning and having that confidence toward winning.
“We just can’t have guys complacent and comfortable with losing. I keep saying that.”
After scoring 16 in the first half, Stoudemire scored just three points in the fourth quarter. He said he has a “bruised thigh” because he was hit twice in the “exact same spot.”
“I was sore for sure, but I was alright,” he said.
Said Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni: “We are asking a lot of him. We have to do a better job of getting him open and we need to be a little more patient. I don’t think he is the problem…put it that way.”
Things don’t get any easier with Carmelo Anthony and the Denver Nuggets waiting on Tuesday.
“We have to stay together and see if we can turn this thing around,” Stoudemire said.
**Check out my NBA.com notebook on the game here.
(Photo courtesy Getty Images)
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