NEW YORK -- Rasheed Wallace knows defense.

He won an NBA championship with a defensive-minded Detroit Pistons team in 2004 and he played on a Boston Celtics team that reached the NBA Finals in 2010 playing tough on the defensive end.

Now he's coming off the bench for a Knicks team that has held the defending NBA champion Miami Heat and the up-and-coming Philadelphia 76ers to 84 points apiece and leads the league in points allowed.