We’re half way through “Hell Week” for the Knicks and, to no one’s surprise, they are 0-2. Even though there is nothing to get excited about when your team is not winning, I think there are a lot of good things to take away from the losses to the Lakers and Cavs.

No team could have overcome the games that Kobe Bryant and Lebron James had. Kobe broke the scoring record for any one who has played in this MSG arena with his 61 points, and Lebron nearly matched that total last night with 52 points – oh, and King James also grabbed 10 boards and dished out 11 assists. This is part of the curse of being a Knick; opponents get excited to play in MSG. There is not any other city in the country where athletes get more attention than in New York, so players like Kobe and Lebron always try to put on a show when they visit. I only wish those guys realized that Broadway is a few block east of MSG.

While it would have been phenomenal if the Knicks won either of these games, I think both performances showed how far this team has come since the beginning of the season. In their two previous games against the Cavs, for example, the Knicks lost by 17 and 26 points. Even though they only grabbed the lead for about 25 seconds last night, the Knicks were in that game the entire time. That’s one thing I liked about both games; the Knicks never quit. They would struggle for a few minutes and find themselves down by 10-12 points, then battle back to get within five. A month ago, when this team got down double digits – especially against a good team – they rarely came back to keep it close.

The thing that hurt the Knicks the most in these last two games was their inability to work the pick and roll effectively. During the winning streak that they was broken by the Laker loss, Chris Duhon and David Lee were picking and rolling all over everybody’s face. The Lakers and Cavs stopped that – and look for the Celtics to defend it well tomorrow as well. The struggle for Duhon and Lee to execute the pick and roll showed in their poor stat lines, especially last night.

You can’t say that the Knicks played well defensively when opposing players are scoring 50+ points, but I would say that the Knicks put up a lot of effort. Lebron and Kobe are the types of players that score when they want to score. No player can D them up man-to-man, and when they are shooting well, both are nearly impossible to contain. As Walt Frazier pointed out during both games, the best strategy to defending players like that is to let them get their points but don’t let anybody else hurt you. That’s why I think the Laker that really killed the Knicks was Pau Gasol, who scored 31 points points and nabbed 14 rebounds. Gasol only averages 18 point per game this year, if the Knicks had a true center who could have held the “soft-served Spaniard” to 8-10 points less, that would have been a completely different game.

Against the Cavs, the Knicks did much better defensively. Lebron had his 52 but, again, there wasn’t much anybody could do about that. Unlike the Lakers, though, Bron-Bron’s supporting cast was shut down by the Knicks D. The real problem for the Knicks last night was that no one could score other than Al Harrington. I was a bit surprised that D’Antoni did not play Nate Robinson a bit more. He’s played very aggressively over the last two weeks and I thought he made some good plays, both offensively and defensively; plus, Duhon inexplicably disappeared last night.

My prognosis for tomorrow night’s game is a close one. I know the Celtics are on a 12 game winning streak, but I think the Knicks matchup well against them. The Knicks always struggle against teams with a true center, and the Celtics do not have one. If the Knicks play defense like they did last night – letting one player score and shutting down the rest of the team – I think they will win. I’d watch for Jared Jeffries to D-up Kevin Garnett and Wilson Chandler to smother either Paul Pierce or Ray Allen. None of the “Big 3″ score like Lebron or Kobe, the Celtics play more of a team oriented game. So the Knicks don’t have to worry about another 50 point outburst from anybody. If the Knicks can get their outside shooting going again, they will win this game.