Ray gets a lot of attention.

Here’s how you know your squad is lacking star power: In the Sonics locker room before Knicks/Sonics last night (Dime was in the building), with Rashard Lewis out in the hallway chatting with former teammate Jerome James, every reporter in the room was left crowing around Ray Allen. That left guys like Earl Watson, Mike Wilks, Johan Petro, Andre Brown, Sear Sene, Mickael Gelabale and Damien Wilkins to sit there by themselves, while Danny Fortson walked around aimlessly and seemed to be scaring a lot of people … Ray was asked if he could remember his first game at MSG. “We played St. John’s,” he said, going back to his UConn days. “It was their home game, but we (UConn fans) filled the place.” … Coming out of the locker room for warm-ups, Jerome was spotted by a group of kids, starting a round of, “Yo, that’s Mike James!” “Mike James, can I get an autograph?” “Mike James!” Jerome ran with it, turning around and saying, “Where’s Mike James?” … Seattle jumped on New York early, leading by double digits in the first quarter. The only Knick doing anything was Stephon Marbury, who went into “Get Mine” Mode and dropped 19 in the first half with five threes. The critics will look at his zero first-half assists and roll their eyes, but you had to be there: no one else on the Knicks seemed to want the ball … And as good as he was in the first half, Steph went nuts in the second, dropping big threes, getting other guys involved and bringing New York to within one point with 2:30 left to get MSG rocking … With under a minute left, Ray blew past Jared Jeffries but had his floater blocked by Eddy Curry, and Steph got it to Q-Rich on the other end for a banker to tie it up. Rashard Lewis answered with a layup off a risky Earl Watson inbounds lob (Rashard got away with a push-off), and Starbury came right back with an and-one drive to give New York its first lead since the beginning of the game. After Ray (29 pts, 8 rebs, 7 asts) missed a quick jumper on the other end, Steph ran the clock down and missed a three. The long rebound went to Ray, who found Rashard (24 pts, 8 rebs, 7 asts) wide open for a three with 4.8 ticks left. Marbury got the call on the Knicks’ possession and got fouled with 0.9 on the clock to set up the finish … Steph stepped to the line and knocked down the first FT, giving him 40 points on the night. Then the second FT somehow spun out, giving the Sonics a one-point win. Just an incredible turn of events. One of the Seattle media sitting next to us said, “Man, that was like a movie!” … One very pro-Steph fan had been talking smack the entire game, especially during Steph’s second-half barrage, when he would go over to the media assembled on the baseline and glare at them like “Whut?” after Marbury would hit a big bucket. When Steph missed the free throw, though, dude just packed up his stuff. On the way out he said, “Well, he still scored 40.” … Q-Tip was in the building. In the second quarter, Q-Rich got a rebound and made an awful outlet pass that bounced right into Tip’s lap … Chris Wilcox caught a hard elbow from Petro across the forehead right in front of us on the baseline. Weezy looked like he was OUT, laying motionless face-down on the court. Wilcox eventually got up, but spent the rest of the game sulking on the bench with a bag of ice over his bandaged wound … The Mavs made it 16 in a row, holding off New Jersey at home and getting 24 points from Jason Terry and 22 from Dirk Nowitzki … Scottie Pippen was in the building in Dallas. Does that mean anything as far as his comeback? Probably not; if Scottie does end up back on the court, it’s most likely as a player/assistant coach for the Lakers … The Wizards cracked 100 on the Raptors before the third quarter was over and ended up winning by 20. We said in our latest NBA Hit List that we’d learn something about the Raptors from this game, and last night’s lesson was that if Toronto doesn’t rebound they won’t win. They got killed on the boards by a team that employs arguably the worst rebounding 7-foot center this side of Eddy Curry (that would be Brendan Haywood). Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison scored 25 apiece, while Caron Butler pulled down 12 boards. Haywood grabbed six bounds … Going into the fourth quarter of Spurs/Blazers, the Portland announcers were hovering between giddy and terrified, as the Blazers had the lead but you just knew a big Spurs run was coming. “You don’t beat the Spurs in three quarters,” one of them said. “You have to beat them in the fourth.” And sure enough, Manu Ginobili (23 pts), Mike Finley (20 pts) and Beno Udrich (8 pts) caught fire from deep and the Spurs overcame an eight-point deficit with four minutes left to win their 10th win in a row … With the way San Antonio has been playing D lately, giving up 94 points to Portland is like the Chicago Bears getting 40 dropped on them by the Browns .. The Wolves found themselves in a similar situation against the Lakers, only it was Mark Blount by himself who started knocking down treys to bring them back from a fourth quarter hole. After Blount (18 pts) went off, Ricky Buckets took over. He hit some big free throws to force overtime, then came up with a few clutch shots in the first and second OTs, including a tip-in off a KG missed free throw that was the go-ahead bucket in Minnesota’s win. Ricky D finished with 33 points, 10 boards and 8 assists, while Kobe had 40, 13 and 8. Mamba also had a sick behind-the-back pass in traffic to Andrew Bynum, and a left-handed swat of a Craig Smith turnaround J that was just embarrassing for the rookie … Not as embarrassed as Kwame Brown, though. Kwame went up once and got his stuff sent back by Marko Jaric … Did you hear Tyson Chandler on NBATV praising Byron Scott? “It’s hard not to play hard for a guy like him,” Chandler said. Was that a subtle swipe at Scott Skiles? … Chandler had 15 points, 18 boards and 4 blocks in NOK’s loss to the Nuggets, and he and Chris Paul (13 pts, 14 asts) are becoming one of the best alley oop combos in the League. Allen Iverson dropped 25 and ‘Melo 21 for Denver … We knew Jason Kapono’s ankle injury the other day looked bad. Turns out Kapono has a high ankle sprain and a bone contusion. He’ll be in a cast for at least 10 days … In all seriousness, what is this? Really. What happened to just rocking the t-shirt under the jersey? … Did you see that insane clip from the high school game in Oregon? This kid hit an over-the-shoulder, no-look, back-to-the-basket shot over two guys — from HALFCOURT. No lie. We caught it on the news very early Wednesday morning. We couldn’t find a video clip, but if you can find one, it’s unreal … We’re out like Steph’s biggest fan …