Knicks 125 - Cavs 93

NEW YORK (TICKER) -- Latrell Sprewell and the New York Knicks taught the Cleveland Cavaliers a lesson in unselfish basketball.

Sprewell scored 20 points and handed out a season-high 11 assists as the Knicks sent the shorthanded Cavaliers to their 15th straight defeat, 125-93.

New York had season highs in points, assists (33), baskets (45) and 3-pointers (10) en route to its season-high third straight win. It improved to 4-3 since Sprewell returned to the lineup and had three players with 20 or more points for the first time.

"In a game like this, you want to play as well as you can," Sprewell said. "You don't want to play to their level. Then you find yourself in a really close game and that is not something we wanted to be involved with."

Anything that was bad did happen to Cleveland, which is on its longest skid since losing the final 19 games of the 1981-82 season.

The Cavaliers were without Ricky Davis (team suspension), Darius Miles (knee) and Tyrone Hill (sprained ankle), saw two players foul out and surrendered 65 points in the first half, a season high by the Knicks.

"We're really young," Cleveland coach John Lucas said. "It's no fun. We would have had a hard time with all of our players."

Allan Houston led New York with 29 points, including four 3-pointers in the third quarter. The Knicks were 10-of-23 from beyond the arc and took advantage of porous defense by the Cavaliers that allowed plenty of open shots.

"I had a lot of open looks," Houston said. "Once you hit one, you just wait for any daylight and that's what I did."

Sprewell nailed two 3-pointers in a 14-2 run in the first quarter that gave New York the lead for good at 26-16. The lead was 28-19 after one quarter.

The Knicks blitzed the Cavaliers with the first nine points of the second to quickly extend to 37-19 on two free throws by Shandon Anderson with 10:13 remaining. Clarence Weatherspoon made four straight free throws for a 52-26 cushion with 5:27 to go and the lead was at least 21 points thereafter.

"They are wounded big-time," Knicks coach Don Chaney said. "(Their) team not only has a lot of injuries, but they are also very young."

A free throw by seldom-used Travis Knight with 3:15 remaining established the biggest lead of 121-85.

The lone bright spot for Cleveland was the play of a pair of rookies. Dajuan Wagner led the way with 25 points and Carlos Boozer fouled out with 18 and seven rebounds.

Wagner was playing his first NBA game at Madison Square Garden, where he led Memphis to the National Invitational Tournament title a year ago.

"We've got a lot of young guys," Wagner said. "We've just got to keep learning and working hard."

Kurt Thomas scored 22 points and blocked a career-high six shots, including four in the first quarter. Point guard Howard Eisley turned in a solid floor game with 10 assists and Anderson and former Cavalier Michael Doleac combined for 21 points off the bench.

New York's 53 percent (45-of-85) shooting was just shy of its season high of 54 percent in a 117-107 loss to Boston on November 2. The 32-point win was its biggest victory since a 101-65 rout of Atlanta on April 13, 2001.

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