The Portland Trail Blazers overcame Carmelo Anthony’s season high-tying 45 points and spoiled Amare Stoudemire’s season debut, beating the New York Knicks 105-100 on Tuesday night.
Nicolas Batum scored 26 points, Damian Lillard had 21 points, six assists and five rebounds, and LaMarcus Aldridge had 19 points and 14 rebounds for Portland.
Stoudemire finished with six points on 3-of-8 shooting and one rebound in 17 minutes off the bench in his return from knee surgery. Anthony shot 14 of 24 and nearly led the Knicks back from 19 points down after missing two games with a knee injury, but the Trail Blazers had too many options.
J.J. Hickson scored all of his 18 points in the first half as Portland won for the third time in four games.
Anthony had missed the previous two games with a hyperextended left knee. The Knicks are still without point guard Raymond Felton because of a broken pinky finger and struggled to get their offense going until too late, losing for the third time in four games.
J.R. Smith had 28 points and 11 rebounds for the Knicks.
Stoudemire had surgery on Oct. 31 to clean up tissue in his left knee and decided to play after going through a couple of practices this week, though adding he wasn’t yet 100 percent.
— Reported by Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press