The Greatest Man in the East

All last season, there was no "Amar'e Countdown" or "Amar'e Watch" in the New York papers. The fans didn't chant his name or drop on bended knee when his team, the Suns, played at the Garden. And when it came time to sign free agents last summer, he was far enough down the wish list that you needed to borrow his goggles to find him.

No, he wasn't The One They Wanted. Or even The Two They Wanted.

But after a franchise-record nine-straight 30-point game, and an MVP-like start, New Yorkers are glad to have him. Even better for the Knicks and their fans: Amar'e Stoudemire wanted New York, and how many free agents in any sport would gladly walk into the snakepit that he did?

Well, yes, the money helps. A lot. One hundred extra-large is enough to convince anyone to play anywhere and for any team -- even for the Clippers. Let's be clear about that. And yet, this is New York, which can be cruel, and these were the Knicks, desperate for a savior and by extension, a scapegoat if the misery continued. This wasn't a situation for the meek.

Apparently, it's a situation made for Stoudemire.

"This was the plan," Stoudemire said. "The plan was to have success."
Stoudemire isn't the answer to the whole puzzle, but a generous piece that the Knicks needed to become relevant again. With a 16-10 record, and a hunch that if nothing else the Dark Decade is over, the Garden is noisy again. Knicks games are an event; Wednesday night's thriller with the Celtics certainly was, and Friday's visit by Miami will certainly be. And there's someone worth paying to see, for the first time since Patrick Ewing.
"There's a reason he's balling this season," said Nene, the Nuggets' center. "Nobody's stopping him."
He came a split-second away from a special moment when he barely missed beating the Celtics with a game-winning 3-pointer Wednesday. Still, he was the best player on the floor, scoring 39 points with 10 rebounds and three blocks. Not even Ewing had a run like this, which is why there's a basketball awakening in New York.

Stoudemire so far has dismissed two myths: That he'd be less of a player without Steve Nash around, and that he couldn't elevate a dormant team. Instead, he's playing the best of his career away from Nash, averaging 26.2 points (up five points from his career average) and is having as good a season, if not better, than anyone in the NBA. That's including LeBron James, the player the Knicks and New York wanted last summer. That puts Stoudemire in the early conversation for MVP and the Knicks in the running for a top-5 finish in the East.

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Nine is not Enough: The Heat Won Their 10th Straight Game Over Cavs

LeBron James had few words for his former Cleveland teammates this time.

Dwyane Wade did more than enough talking with his play.

Wade scored 17 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter, James added 21 points and a season-high 13 rebounds, and the Miami Heat won their 10th straight game, holding off the Cavaliers 101-95 on Wednesday night.

"It was a good game," James said. "We executed enough plays down the stretch to help us win. Gut-check? I don't ever think it got to a gut-check point ... but for us, we're happy that we continued to win and we continued to get better."

The star duo was silent in on-court words, perhaps, but not in actions. James flexed his arms after getting fouled and scoring on a drive to the basket, Wade did his arms-flailing, "George Jefferson" celebration again, then looked down and screamed at his right hand after hitting a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter.

But those moments of joy aside, this one wasn't easy.

Far from it, as James' former team - which got rolled by 28 in Cleveland on Dec. 2 in the clubs' first meeting of the season - gave Miami all it wanted this time around.

"We got the win, we won 10 straight and that ultimately is the most important thing. I get it, OK?" Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "But we also want to make sure that the process that we've been talking about, whether we lost or whether we won, that we're playing to our potential. Cleveland played very well tonight and I do want to give them credit. They competed."

Chris Bosh scored 16 points for Miami, Mario Chalmers had 14 and James Jones added 11.

Miami failed in its quest to be the fourth NBA team ever to win 10 straight games by at least 10 points. Still, the 10-game winning streak - by any margin - matched the fourth-longest in Heat history. The try for No. 11 comes Friday night in New York against the Knicks.

"I've never won 10 games in a row," Bosh said. "So I'm happy."

Daniel Gibson scored 26 points for Cleveland, which lost its ninth straight. Anderson Varejao had 18 points and 15 rebounds, Antawn Jamison scored 15 points and Mo Williams added 13 for the Cavs.

"I couldn't ask for them to play any harder than they played," Cavs coach Byron Scott said. "I thought they were terrific effort-wise. They competed for 48 minutes."

Emotions were nowhere near as high as they were when James appeared in Cleveland for the first time as an opponent on Dec. 2, though there was some tension. At least one skirmish broke out in the stands - a rare occurrence in Miami - during the fourth quarter as Miami pulled away.

On the court, there was some flareups as well. Gibson wrapped up James on a fast break in the fourth quarter, the two friends not exchanging a word. And in the opening minutes, Wade was tackled by Joey Graham while dunking after an assist from James.

Still, this one was nothing like the hyped-for-months matchup in Cleveland two weeks ago that turned into a blowout.

"We had fight in us," Bosh said. "They had fight, too. We just grinded the game out."
Miami's 14-point lead was down to six when Gibson hit a 3-pointer with 2:09 left, and Jamison's free throws 36 seconds later made it 96-93.

That was Cleveland's last gasp. Gibson missed a 3-pointer over James with 46 seconds left, Williams missed a long try from the left side with 17 ticks remaining - he finished 1 for 10 from beyond the arc - and Miami escaped.

The mood when the players took the floor was noticably different than the game in Cleveland, when both James and members of the team he left behind were criticized for being, at times, a little too chummy with one another.

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Miami turns up Heat to Thrash Hornets 96 – 84 for Ninth Straight Win

The red-hot Miami Heat used an 18-2 second-half run to blow past the New Orleans Hornets 96-84 on Monday for their ninth straight victory.

Dwyane Wade scored 32 points, including the final six of Miami's second-half explosion that gave the Heat a commanding 94-77 lead midway through the fourth quarter.

Chris Bosh had 23 points and 11 rebounds while LeBron James finished with 20 points as the "Big Three" continued to find their form during a dominant stretch for Miami (18-8).

Miami lost to New Orleans in their last meeting on Nov 5, but the teams have gone in opposite directions since then with the Hornets (14-10) losing nine of their last 12 following a surprising 11-1 start to the season.

David West put up 26 points and 12 rebounds for New Orleans, which kept the game close until the Heat raced away with the contest beginning late in the third quarter.

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The Heat Is Finally On: LeBron Scores 33, Heat Bang Jazz for 6th Straight

SALT LAKE CITY – LeBron James scored 33 points, Dwyane Wade added 28 and the surging Miami Heat outscored the Utah Jazz by 14 in the fourth quarter for a 111-98 victory Wednesday night.

The victory extended Miami's winning streak to six, and avenged a 116-114 overtime loss to Utah at home on Nov. 9. The Heat improved to 15-8, while Utah fell to 16-7.

Al Jefferson scored 25 points and all five Jazz starters were in double figures by the start of the fourth. But it wasn't enough as the Heat pulled away with a 12-3 run to start the quarter.

Miami led by as many as 12, but the Heat found themselves trailing 78-77 entering the fourth after the Jazz mounted yet another rally. Last month, they came back from a 22-point deficit to beat the Heat.

In that game, Paul Millsap scored a career-high 46 for Utah. This time, he got going late and finished with 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting. Deron Williams had 21 for Utah but only four in the first half.

The loss continued an up-and-down season for the Jazz, who were riding a seven-game winning streak last week but lost Friday to Dallas.

Against the Heat, Millsap tried to spark the Jazz again. He grabbed the rebound off James Jones' miss and raced the length of the court for a layup at the buzzer to pull the Jazz within 28-27 to end the first quarter.

The Heat led by as many as 10 again in the second as Wade scored eight points in a 3-minute span, and James' driving layup with 4:27 left made it 49-39.

A three-point play by Andrei Kirilenko pulled the Jazz to 66-64 with 6:18 left in the third. Williams then passed underneath to Kirilenko for a dunk to tie it at 72 with 4:14 left, and Raja Bell put Utah ahead with a pair of free throws.

But the fourth quarter was all Miami, as the Heat outscored the Jazz 34-20.
Utah had held its last 10 opponents under 100 points, and the Jazz were 10-0 when entering the fourth with a lead.

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Bosh made 27 points - Heat outdoes Hawks

MIAMI – LeBron James' new fan base in Miami had a response.
So did his teammates.

Chris Bosh scored 27 points, Dwyane Wade added 26 and the Miami Heat scored 11 straight points in the final minutes to beat the Atlanta Hawks 89-77 on Saturday night — winning their fourth straight to move a season-high five games over .500.

"It's just a better feel in the locker room, away from the game, but also on the basketball court," Wade said. "We're starting to 'get it' with each other. ... It's making a world of difference."

James was quiet offensively for much of the second half, and it didn't matter. He finished with 22 points, and got serenaded by "Miami loves you!" chants — a nod to the "Akron hates you!" cries James heard when Miami visited Cleveland for the first time since he scorned the Cavaliers and joined the Heat in July.

Wade and Bosh did their part to keep the Hawks at bay, and then the reigning two-time MVP got his first field goal of the second half with 2:52 remaining — a fierce slam, followed by a scream, all giving Miami an 81-72 lead. Mario Chalmers hit an off-balance jumper with 1:38 left, the lead was back to 11, and Miami survived.

"We're figuring it out," James said. "We're figuring out what it takes for us three to be successful, and to have the team win."

Wade and Bosh each had 10 rebounds for the Heat (13-8), whose lead was cut to two at 74-72 with 4:39 remaining. Atlanta then missed its next six shots and Miami ran away.

"They're a tough team," Hawks coach Larry Drew said. "Anytime you have three guys that can potentially be 20-plus every night, you got your hands full."

Only a week ago, the Heat were reeling, calling a 40-minute players-only meeting after a loss in Dallas sent a team with championship aspirations to 9-8.

Four straight wins later, that all seems a distant memory.

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The Return of the KING

CLEVELAND – He tuned out the boos. He smiled at the derisive chants. He embraced all the negativity Cleveland could muster.

LeBron James wasn't fazed by anything.

He brought his talents back home and reminded everyone — even the haters — why he's missed.

Returning as a villain to his native state and the city he scorned this summer, James scored 38 points — 24 in a virtuoso third-quarter performance — to lead the Miami Heat to a 118-90 win on Thursday night, turning his hostile homecoming into another embarrassing moment for the Cavaliers.

By halftime, James was the one having fun. By the fourth quarter, he was watching from the bench as Cavs fans headed into the cold for a disappointing drive home.

This wasn't the payback they waited five months to inflict.

James simply wouldn't allow it.

As he did so many times during seven seasons for the Cavs, the two-time league MVP did anything he wanted on the floor. In the third quarter, he made 10-of-12 shots, jumpers from every angle and taunted Cleveland's bench after draining a seemingly impossible baseline jumper.

"I know this court. I've made a lot of shots on this court," he said. "Just wanted to be aggressive, just try to keep them out of the game. I knew they were going to try to make a run in the third quarter, but we were able to get stops and we were able to get some shots."

With security guards forming a human barricade to line his entrance, James came hopping out of the tunnel and into the electrically charged atmosphere inside Quicken Loans Arena, as more than 20,000 fans, the same ones who once adored him, turned their fury on James.

It was rowdy, but thankfully, not violent. There were a few minor incidents in the stands.

Just in case, Moondog, the Cavs' fuzzy mascot, wore a bulletproof vest.

Booed every time he touched the ball, James scored 14 points in the first half as the Heat opened a 59-40 lead, and threatened to turn the highly anticipated game into a blowout.
James quickly made certain of one.

Miami outscored Cleveland 36-25 in the third to open a 95-65 lead, prompting Heat coach Erik Spoelstra to pull his superstar. James spent the final 12 minutes as a spectator, glancing at the scoreboard and into the stands at so many familiar faces.

James remained defiant afterward, saying he didn't regret his decision to leave Cleveland.

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