D’Antoni Will Find Minutes For Steve Novak

NEW YORK –– In the coming days and weeks, Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni will face a delicate balancing act.

With the returns from injury of Carmelo Anthony, Baron Davis and Josh Harrellson, combined with the addition of J.R. Smith, D’Antoni may now have 10 or 11 guys who require playing time.

One of them is former Marquette standout Steve Novak, who helped himself — and the team — big-time on Sunday by scoring all 14 of his points in the fourth quarter of a 104-97 victory over the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks at Madison Square Garden.

“He’s gotta play somewhere,” D’Antoni said of Novak. “Everybody will play some. He gets hot like that, he’ll play more.”

After Troubled Past, J.R. Smith Has A ‘Clean Slate’ With Knicks

NEW YORK — After all that he has been through across his troubled career, J.R. Smith now has chance for a fresh start with the Knicks.

After the driver’s license suspensions, the death of his friend Andre Bell in a 2007  car accident, the brawl with the Knicks, the former St. Benedict’s Prep star has landed in his dream spot and now has an opportunity to show everyone he can be a good citizen and can help take the Linsanity Knicks into a new era.

“It’s really a clean slate,” Smith said Sunday at Madison Square Garden after scoring 15 points off the bench in his Knicks’ debut, a 104-97 win over the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks.