Sixers Settle For Split With Knicks

NEW YORK (AP) — Amare Stoudemire matched his season high with 41 points, and the New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers 117-103 Sunday to split a home-and-home series.

Rookie Landry Fields added a career-high 25 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Knicks rebounded from a 100-98 loss Friday night in Philadelphia to snap a two-game losing streak and win for just the fourth time in 13 games.

Stoudemire, outplayed by Elton Brand on Friday, shot 17 of 21 from the field in his 17th career 40-point game. Raymond Felton had 13 points and 13 assists as the Knicks shot a season-best 59.7 percent.

Stoudemire scored 21 on Friday, but shot only 7 of 19 and was one of several Knicks who couldn’t contain Brand.

Brand scored 28 points for Philadelphia, which could have moved within a game of New York for sixth place in the Eastern Conference. But there was no late run, two nights after the Sixers rallied with a 15-0 burst in the fourth quarter.

This time, Fields hit three of the Knicks’ five 3-pointers that helped them stay well ahead in the final period.

Brand shot 10 of 14, two nights after finishing with a season-high 33 points and 16 rebounds in his best performance since the 2006-07 season. Lou Williams scored 19 points and fellow reserve Thaddeus Young had 16, but the Sixers had their three-game winning streak snapped and lost for just the second time in eight games.

The Knicks quickly extended a four-point halftime lead to double digits in the third quarter, opening a 15-point advantage midway through the period. Philadelphia cut it to three by the end, but the Knicks were up 86-80 after hitting 63 percent of their shots in the third.

Three-pointers by Wilson Chandler and Toney Douglas pushed it to 92-80 early in the fourth, and the Sixers never could put much of a dent in New York’s lead.

The Knicks seemed to be in control of the No. 6 seed — which could mean avoiding a first-round matchup with Boston or Miami — after their strong December, but the Sixers put together a 20-13 stretch with a young team that coach Doug Collins said “can be good for a long, long time” despite starting the season 3-13.

“We have some talent. That’s what I said when I took over this team,” Collins said. “We have some good young pieces and I didn’t know how long it was going to take for them to grow, but we’ve got a nice future.”

The Knicks shot 59 percent in the first quarter, with Stoudemire scoring 10 points for a 31-24 lead. He had nine more in the second, including a three-point play with 32 seconds left as New York led 55-51 going to halftime.

Notes: Knicks president Donnie Walsh, hoping to work out a deal for Carmelo Anthony before the trading deadline, doesn’t believe any deals are close but thinks he’s getting a better idea of what could be available. “I don’t think we have anything going, but at least we’re getting a feeling of possibilities, let’s put it that way,” he said. Walsh added he wasn’t any more confident of a deal, but “we have a better feeling for what’s going to happen.” … Danilo Gallinari missed a free throw while trying to convert a three-point play early in the second quarter, ending his streak of 37 consecutive makes. He had a streak of 43 in a row earlier this season and now owns the second and fourth-longest streaks in team history. Chris Duhon made 44 in a row in 2008 and Latrell Sprewell made 41 consecutive attempts in the 2001-02 season. … The Knicks are 10-5 on Super Bowl Sunday.