user: IN: Jeremy Lin's 19 points, six assists and seven rebounds contribute to NY Knicks third straight win under coach Mike Woodson
Jeremy Lin controls the tempo in the Knicks second win over Indiana in as many nights.

NY KNICKS 102, INDIANA PACERS 88

INDIANAPOLIS — As recently as a week ago, Danny Granger would have been right on target to gloat that a home-and-home set against the Knicks over the weekend represented two “winnable games” for the Pacers.

But the Knicks under Mike Woodson suddenly are anything but the disjointed pushovers they’d been at the end of Mike D’Antoni’s tenure with the team, and they broke away in the fourth quarter to post their third straight win under their new coach — and second in as many nights over Indiana — Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

LUPICA: WOODSON WELL SCHOOLED FOR GARDEN

The green-clad Knicks used a balanced attack for a 102-88 victory that was considerably tighter than the previous night’s coast-to-coast rout in Manhattan, but it completed the two-game sweep and moved them a half-game ahead of idle Milwaukee for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

“I guess it was two winnable games. For us,” Carmelo Anthony said. “We’ll take that.”

And they’ll gladly take even a minor rebirth of Linsanity, which was alive and well in the land of the Hoosiers with backup Baron Davis nursing a hamstring injury. Jeremy Lin pumped in a team-high 19 points, with six assists, seven rebounds and just two turnovers in 33 controlled minutes.

DAVIS' INJURY NOT AS BAD AS EXPECTED

“I thought Jeremy Lin was great tonight, made a lot of great plays,” Woodson said.

“I’m just happy we got the win, and I’m learning to play in a less spread offense,” Lin said, comparing Woodson’s half-court style to D’Antoni’s more wide-open system. “A lot of stuff is still the same, but there are times when I won’t have as many opportunities.

“I just need to be selective when I go. I think tonight was a big step for me.”

Woodson, an Indiana native, expected “a hostile environment” and got it after his team one night earlier built a 30-point lead en route to a comfortable 15-point win.

But Indiana got to the basket with greater ease inside its house, and built a 35-33 lead through one quarter.

“We allowed them to score 35 points, and that’s too many,” said Anthony, who matched Amar’e Stoudemire with 16 points. “We settled down, adjusted to the game and we got rolling after that.”

Woodson continued to rely more on his deep bench to provide a defensive spark. Led mostly by the reserves — including two threes from Steve Novak and five points from Mike Bibby in his return to the rotation in Davis’ absence — the Knicks opened the second quarter on a 20-6 run. They hit intermission with a 60-51 lead, with Lin taking only three shots but hitting all of them, including two drives right at 7-2 center Roy Hibbert to close out the half.

“They were fantastic. They’ve been great in this whole stretch,” Woodson said of the bench. “They have to continue to do their thing. We believe in them, I believe in them.”

The Knicks (21-24) led by as many as 14 points in the third quarter, but Hibbert (game-high 24 points) drew the Pacers back within 82-79 with barely eight minutes remaining in the fourth.

Woodson thought the Knicks got back to “playing ugly” on the defensive end — a compliment in his estimation “that lets me know that we’re ticking and our hearts are right in it.”

Despite taking several hits from the Pacers, Lin scored eight of the next nine points to push the lead back to 11 at the 5:15 mark, and Indiana never got within 10 points again.

“We dug down today. We had a horrible defensive first quarter…but we kind of wore them out with our depth,” Lin said.

“Bad teams are going to crumble and go the other way, but we didn’t do that. Our defense just took over at the end. It was kind of stifling,” Woodson said. “The beauty about tonight, we kind of lost our composure, probably bad coaching a little bit, and we were able to hang in there and our defense brought us right back.

“When I see things like that, that’s a wonderful sight.”
What is a short summary of the above article?

OUT: The green-clad Knicks’ balanced 102-88 victory was considerably tighter than the previous night’s coast-to-coast rout in Manhattan, but it completed the two-game sweep and moved them a half-game ahead of idle Milwaukee for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.


IN: Selena Gomez & Cara Delevingne -- Just a Friendly Pap Crush (VIDEO)
are back from their sun-drenched trip to St. Tropez and when they arrived at LAX Thursday ... they received a welcome home crush.

The pair, now famously photographed

, are the hottest "couple" around these days ... even if they aren't ... ya know. Selena was nuzzling with a muscly guy during the trip.

Anyway, they were bombarded with questions about their friendship, but they remained tight-lipped.

Fellas, the dream lives on ...
What is a short summary of the above article?

OUT: Selena Gomez and Cara Delevingne are back from their sun-drenched trip to St. Tropez and when they arrived at LAX Thursday ... they received a welcome…


IN: Photo shows Martin Luther King statue in Donald Trump hat
Updated: Monday, April 11, 2016, 11:59 AM

We have a nightmare: A Martin Luther King Jr. statue sullied with one of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign hats.

And thanks to a pro-Trump student group, we now have a picture showing exactly that — timed right for the anniversary of King’s death.

The “students4trump” Instagram account posted a pic last Tuesday showing the defiled statue, which sits on the University of South Florida campus in Tampa, according to WPTV.

The picture shows a Snapchat caption declaring: “MLK KNOWS #Trump2016.” On Instagram, the group wrote in its caption: “Pretty self explanatory. #StudentsForTrump #TrumpTrain #Trump #TrumpTeam #MakeAmericaGreatAgain #Trump2016.”

Apparently there wasn’t room for “#shameful.”

The photo went online the day after the 48th anniversary of King’s assassination. Since then, it has scored more than 2,500 likes.

It’s unclear who took the photo and when it was taken. The Florida chapter rep for the Students for Trump group didn’t immediately return messages from the Daily News, nor did reps for the college.

Trump won the Florida primary and lured about 10,000 followers to a rally at the University of South Florida's Sun Dome facility, where the flock chanted: “Build the wall!”
What is a short summary of the above article?

OUT:

assistant: We have a nightmare: A Martin Luther King Jr. statue sullied with one of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats.