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Tuesday night in the Continental Airlines Arena, the New Jersey Nets beat the Knicks, 99-81, and took a 2-0 series lead. Stephon Marbury finished with 23 points, seven assists and five turnovers. Here's what he had to say after the game:

Question: How much of an impact can you personally make on this series with two Knicks starters out injured?

Stephon Marbury: Somebody was just telling me I have to go out like Allen Iverson and start shooting the ball at a rapid speed. Not saying that's what he does on his team, but. I think right now for us right now our mindset has to totally change. We have to play totally different from how we've been playing the last two games. We can't go into the games playing how we've played.

Question: The technical fouls that you and Dikembe Mutombo got, they may have come at bad times in the game.

Stephon Marbury: No, I don't think so. I think they got guys to play. I think the refs started to see a little bit different. Sometimes you got to do things like that, pretty much wake the refs up, for them to open up their eyes and not just be watching the game and ref'ing, now they're paying attention to everything that's going on.

Question: Two 20-point losses, is it discouraging to have to bounce back?

Stephon Marbury: It's hard when you lose, period. No matter if you lose by one, no matter if you lose by 20, it's discouraging. If we was to lose by one point, we can't say, "Oh, we played well, we only lost by one." We still get an L. It doesn't matter.

Question: In the second half, again you started slowly. Was that a product of the defense, or you taking the time to get others more involved?

Stephon Marbury: Guys started hitting shots. Kurt started hitting, Penny got going, so it wasn't really for me to go out and score the ball. You seen at the beginning of the game, guys weren't hitting shots, weren't making shots, and I was probably the only guy that was really making shots, so that's why I kept forcing the issue. Once Kurt started to get it going we started going to him, we started trying to find Penny, because he started to get more aggressive, going to the basket.

Question: Was there a different feel on the court from a physical standpoint, because of the Tim Thomas injury in game one, and all that was said after it.

Stephon Marbury: I don't know what was said, but I think we came out and played hard. We came out and played the same way that we normally would play, when we're trying to bounce back after a loss that we had. Tonight it just didn't go our way. We cut it close a couple of times, got it to like 11 or 10. A couple of breaks didn't go out way, when they hit a couple of shots. But the best thing was that we continued to play.

Question: When Richard Jefferson fouled you on that breakaway, did you consider that a dirty foul?

Stephon Marbury: No comment.

Question: When you get double-teamed this much, should other guys be open at the basket?

Stephon Marbury: You got to make a play. We started to make plays, slowly, but we didn't make plays when we were suppossed to.

Question: How much of a difference will going to Madison Square Garden make?

Stephon Marbury: It's a big difference when you're playing in front of your home crowd, as opposed to playing on the road. Momentum-wise, you have everyone pretty much cheering for you. This is not really bad playing here, though, because when we score, we still get cheers. So, it's not as bad as you would think, if you were going on a road game someplace else.