NEW YORK – Nearly halfway through their homestand, more than halfway through their season, and the only move the New York Knicks are making is backward.
Evan Turner scored a career-high 34 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, Thaddeus Young made a key 3-pointer on a play the Knicks admittedly botched, and the Philadelphia 76ers send New York to a fifth straight loss with a 110-106 victory on Wednesday night.
Blowing a favorable portion of their schedule, the Knicks fell to 15-27, a season after losing 28 games total in winning the Atlantic Division.
"This is the time right here to make up ground and we're not," guard J.R. Smith said. "We're playing better on the road than we are at home and it should be the other way around if anything."
Michael Carter-Williams and Young each added 19 points for the 76ers, who won for just the second time in nine games. James Anderson finished with 18 points as Philadelphia outrebounded New York 54-39 to snap a three-game skid.
"Our team was good tonight. We played good team defense and we ended it with rebounds," 76ers coach Brett Brown said. "So I'm happy that we came in here and found a way to get a win and it was through our defense."
Carmelo Anthony scored 28 points after a slow start for the Knicks, who were at least competitive after losing the previous four by a combined 75 points.
They are 0-3 on an eight-game homestand that matches a franchise record. But it's not helping the Knicks at all, as they started their second half with another loss after going 15-26 through the midpoint of their schedule.
With that in mind, Brown said he expected to see an "angry team" that wanted to fix things. Instead, the Knicks started slowly and finished poorly.
"I really don't know what it is, why we can't play well on our own home court," Anthony said. "This should be the time where we gain some momentum, gain some confidence as a team playing here on our own home court, but that don't seem like it's the case right now."
After trailing most of the game, the Knicks ran off 10 straight points to open the fourth quarter and take a 90-84 lead on Tim Hardaway Jr.'s three-point play. Philadelphia then held New York without a basket for more than 5 minutes and moved back into the lead at 96-92 on consecutive 3-poiners by Carter-Williams and Turner.
"Really big for us to come back," Carter-Williams said. "We stayed together, stayed as a team, shared the ball at the end and we executed down the stretch."
Smith ended the Knicks' drought with a 3-pointer, but baskets by Young and Anderson pushed it to 100-95. New York had one last chance when it got within two, but Young made a wide-open 3-pointer and Turner followed with a basket for a 107-100 cushion that sent fans for the exits.
The Knicks said they knew what the Sixers would do on the possession that ended with Young's open look from the top of the key, but coach Mike Woodson said they "botched it up."
Andrea Bargnani scored 20 points for the Knicks in his return to the starting lineup after coming off the bench Monday in a loss to Brooklyn. Woodson wanted to return to the bigger lineup similar to the one that beat the 76ers in the last meeting. But the Knicks also had Amare Stoudemire and Kenyon Martin for that game, and both are out now with sprained left ankles.
The loss to the Nets was a tumultuous holiday for the Knicks, as their blowout loss was followed by quotes from Anthony that seemed critical of his teammates' effort and Chandler that appeared to question coach Woodson's defensive strategy.
They probably didn't feel much better after this one, losing to a team they had defeated eight of the previous 10 times.
"We've got to believe that we can win a game," Woodson said.
Anthony missed all four shots and had just one point in the first quarter while the 76ers hit 56 percent for a 33-26 lead. He came back with 13 in the second, helping the Knicks pull to 61-56 at halftime.
NOTES: Sixers F Brandon Davies had surgery for a broken right small finger. The Sixers said Davies, hurt Saturday against Chicago, will be re-evaluated in two weeks, though Brown said he's expected to be out longer. ... The Knicks are worth a league-high $1.4 billion, according to a ranking in Forbes.
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