On November 12th, Leon said goodbye to his wife, said goodbye to Los Angeles, and flew back to Phoenix on a plane that meant a lot to him.

But as soon as he returned to Phoenix, he immediately put his mind on the team's next two games. After a two-week break, Stoudemire will return for a game against the New York Knicks on the night of Nov. 13, and it will be a small challenge for the Suns, who have played several games and are just getting used to the five-man lineup.

Stoudemire is not a Turyaf and would not have accepted to be a pseudo-starter, and Leon certainly wouldn't let him do it. Now that he has two very good lineups, it's up to him how he uses them.

When we arrived in Phoenix on the 12th, it was already afternoon, and the team's joint practice had ended, needless to say, everything was handled by D'Antoni again. On the morning of the 13th, Leon participated in the team's training and let Xiao Si rejoin the confrontation training.

He didn't give specific guidance on training, just let Xiao Si return to the starting line-up, and then play training matches between substitute starters, and he watched carefully from the sidelines. The Suns' bench and main lineup are playing fast, and the cooperation of the players is becoming more and more fluid and tacit. But it's just practice, and it's not comparable to a real game.

Leon observed Xiao Si's situation and preliminarily concluded that his condition was recovering well, there was no problem with running and jumping, and his physical condition was quite good. So Leon decided to put him in the starting lineup for that night's game, and tonight's opponent was the New York Knicks.

Leon doesn't look down on the New York Knicks, but according to the situation of the New York Knicks in the past two years, you just want to look up to him, and he doesn't want to give you this opportunity. Since Ewing left the Big Apple and entered the 21st century, when Fox Leon had just entered the NBA, the Knicks have started to get bogged down in the quagmire, and they haven't come out yet, and there is no sign of coming out.

In terms of the suffocation of the team's operation, the New York Knicks can compete with Cleveland, but Cleveland has LeBron James, and the Knicks only have Isaiah Thomas, who stands on the sidelines as a coach.

Since he left the Pacers, he came to the Knicks as a manager, brought in Larry Brown, fired Larry Brown, and now he is back in charge of the team.

Before the trip to Phoenix, the Knicks were 2-3 in five games, which wasn't particularly bad, but it was definitely not much better. You must know that in their lineup, there are Stephen Marbury, Zach Randolph, Quentin Richardson, Eddie Curry, Jamal Crawford, Jerome James and a number of other players who have played well on other teams.

Among them, Marbury and Richardson have also played for the Suns, and Marbury was still traded by the Suns for Kidd, and now they have Nash.

It is such a group of strong players who played a mess under the tutelage of Larry Brown in the first two seasons, and finally ended with Brown's resignation and departure, and the scene is not ugly.

Thomas's takeover did not allow these players to play at their original level, Marbury still couldn't take off his name as a "lone wolf", Big Q, Curry and Randolph were getting bigger and bigger, their bodies were getting fatter and fatter, and their defense on the court was basically none. Off the field, they were even more lost in the bright lights of New York, but when Thomas was the manager, he also signed them one stinky and long contract after another, so that the whole team could not see a glimmer of hope to get out of the quagmire through operation.

Such a team, whether in terms of combat effectiveness or fighting spirit, is far from being the opponent of the Phoenix Suns, plus the Suns are fighting at home again, and the generals are coming back, where will the Knicks be given a chance.

Of course, before the game started, there was a dozen verbal fights.

Back then, in the East, Leon and Thomas were a bit of a feud. Thinking about the original battle between the Pacers and the Celtics, Leon's pair of fists almost stunned the entire Pacers. At the same time, Thomas, who is the coach of the Pacers, his bells and whistles and flashy tactics are crushed by Leon's steely defense, so every time he meets Leon, Thomas feels very faceless.

This guy is a very grudgeful person, and Leon is from the Celtic family, so naturally his relationship with Leon will not be very good.

Thomas believes the team's recent form is recovering and they have the edge on the inside, and they will find a winning feel against the Suns, who play a small lineup.

Leon certainly thinks Thomas' words are farting, but in the pre-game training interview, he politely said that the Knicks are a team with talent, and there is no way for anyone to underestimate them in the game, and once they are underestimated, they will definitely be taught a lesson.

Leon concluded: "This is a heavyweight team that has always been uncompromising, and this is going to be a matchup between heavyweights and lightweights, and we will be careful. ”

This is naturally a joke by reporters, because judging from the weight of the players, if the Knicks put on a three-"giant" lineup of Curry, Randolph, and Richardson, even if there is one Crawford, there will not be too many teams in the league that can surpass them in terms of tension, let alone a light team like the Suns.

Needless to say, the Knicks' three-fat lineup is as wide as the sea on the defensive end, and in two of the three games they lost, opponents scored more than 110 points, and tonight is likely to be the third.

At nine p.m. Eastern Time and six p.m. Pacific Time, the Suns and Knicks game begins at the American Airlines Center arena in Phoenix.

Amare Stoudemire returned for this game, and the DJ gave him the loudest introduction to the entrance, and the fans in the stadium gave him the loudest cheers.

At the same time, this game was also Grant Hill's first home appearance in Phoenix, and it can be said that the Suns are full of morale, and they don't want to give the Knicks any chance in this game.

The game was in the rhythm of the Suns from the first quarter, and after two weeks of silence, Smalls resumed flying on the basket, and it looked like knee discomfort didn't dampen his passion on the court. Eddie Curry, who is opposite him on the inside, can't keep up with Smalls' offensive pace at all, and he doesn't even need to make fake moves, and he can throw the "Little Shark" behind him and go straight to the basket with an acceleration after the basket.

When it came to the basket, of course, Randolph would not make up for the defense, and watched Xiao Si dunk and score, and Xiao Si scored 11 points in the first quarter, and he was in a hot state. The Suns scored 35 points in a single quarter, leading the Knicks by 8 points at 35:27.

In fact, the Knicks' offensive talent is not very bad, whether it is Curry, Randolph or Richardson, Crawford, are all players with strong individual offensive ability, otherwise the Knicks would not be stupid enough to give them a big contract. But the problem is that when it comes to the Knicks, one, they don't defend, two, their offense lacks system, and three, and most importantly, it's a team that doesn't have cohesion, everyone plays on their own, clocking in and out every day.

How can such a team succeed in such a brutal arena as the NBA?

Isaiah Thomas stood on the sidelines, holding his cheeks and watching the performance of the players on the field with confused eyes, while Leon sat on the bench and entered a state of meditation with a calm face.