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With their 120-99 victory over the Washington Wizards Tuesday night, the Knicks won their 13th straight game and, more importantly, captured their first Atlantic Division title since the 1993-94 campaign.
That team reached the NBA Finals.
“It says a lot, it says a lot about our team,” Carmelo Anthony, who notched 36 points, eight rebounds and six assists, told MSG after the game. “We reached one of our goals that we set at the beginning of the season. We been playing phenomenal, we came together as a group, we set our goals, we reached one of them and and we just trying to prepare ourselves for the postseason.”
The Knicks (51-26) appear headed to a postseason showdown with the Boston Celtics, who had won the Atlantic title the previous five years.
New York — which has won the most games in a season since 1996-97 — is 3-1 this season against Boston.
Iman Shumpert added 18 points and Chris Copeland had 17.
Kenyon Martin left the game in the fourth quarter with what coach Mike Woodson called a severely sprained left ankle, and Tyson Chandler sat out the game with a reoccurrence of the bulging disc injury in his neck.
Anthony, meantime, leads the NBA in scoring at 28.6 points per game and could become the first Knick since newly-minted Hall of Famer Bernard King to win the scoring title.
“It is great, wonderful,” Raymond Felton said of winning the division. “It was one of our goals we set early in the season so we are happy that we accomplished it. It is very special. I am very proud of our coaches, our teammates. I’m glad we accomplished it.”
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Photo: New York Times
