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Crawford leads Knicks past Bulls for third straight win

Dec 23, 2006 - 6:47 AM NEW YORK (Ticker) -- Maybe Jamal Crawford and the New York Knicks needed a little fight in their life to earn their longest winning streak of the season.

Crawford scored 30 points and Eddy Curry added 20 as the Knicks posted a 103-92 victory over the Chicago Bulls.

Stephon Marbury had 19 points and eight assists and Channing Frye added 15 points and 12 rebounds for New York, which has won three straight games after its well-publicized brawl last Saturday vs. Denver.

"I don't know how to explain it," Frye said. "Something is clicking with us over these last three wins I guess. Whether it was because of what happened last Saturday or not, something's just going right. We really like the way we're playing and now we know what it feels like to win. The thing we're going to try and do is be consistent."

"It's a big win for us," Marbury said. "I think the most important thing was our defense tonight. We did a great job of containing their guards.

Crawford made 8-of-16 shots from the floor and scored 14 points in the second quarter when New York erased a seven-point deficit and took a 54-51 lead at halftime.

After the Knicks' lead was cut to 58-56 on a 3-pointer by Kirk Hinrich just 1:45 into the second half, New York went on a 16-4 run over the next 5:39 to take a 74-60 lead. Crawford capped the run with a 3-pointer with 4:36 left in the period.

"You hate to see an incident like the fight happen, but guys are coming together," Crawford said. "We just have to continue to roll with it."

Crawford and Curry had seven points apiece during the spurt and New York kept the lead at double digits until Ben Gordon's three foul shots made it an eight-point game heading into the fourth quarter.

"We know the Bulls are a great team," Curry said. "They were definitely going to come out on fire, so we kind of jumped on them first and then had a nice run and we were able to win the game."

David Lee had 12 points and corralled 14 boards for the Knicks, who outrebounded the Bulls, 57-36, snapping a four-game losing streak to Chicago.

"We pretty much got thoroughly outplayed in almost every area, especially in the second half," Bulls coach Scott Skiles said. "Their guards went by us at will. They were all over the glass on us. They dominated the rebounding and just in general it looked like they wanted it more than we did."

Gordon scored 27 points and Luol Deng added 20 for the Bulls, who had won five straight and 12 of 13.

"I just don't think we came out and played well tonight," Gordon said. "That's why we lost. We didn't have anything defensively that could stop them and that's pretty much why we lost the game tonight."

Andres Nocioni had 14 points and Ben Wallace added 11 and 10 rebounds for Chicago, which shot 41 percent (34-of-83).