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The Knicks engaged in monthslong trade talks to land Carmelo Anthony from the Denver Nuggets for moments like the one that arrived on Friday, when he could take the ball and decide a game that was teetering in either direction.
With seven seconds left and the Knicks trailing the Cleveland Cavaliers by 2 points, Anthony stuck his head down and drove hard to the basket. He flipped the ball toward the rim and heard a whistle. But instead of being rewarded with free throws, Anthony was tacked with an offensive foul as Samardo Samuels held his ground.

The Knicks lost for the second time in a week to the Cavaliers, 119-115 at Madison Square Garden.

Before Anthony’s drive, the Knicks encountered some other unhealthy signs. Seconds earlier, the team reached an unsatisfying answer to the question of who would take the deciding shot in a close game. With the Knicks collapsing late and the Cavaliers taking their first lead since the second quarter, Shawne Williams clanked a 17-footer with 29 seconds left as Amar’e Stoudemire and Anthony watched.

Baron Davis, in his first game with the Cavaliers after last week’s trade from the Los Angeles Clippers, followed with a 3-pointer. The Knicks still had a chance to win or force overtime once Stoudemire made a 3-pointer with seven seconds remaining and Ramon Sessions missed one of his two free throws after he was fouled by Toney Douglas.

But Anthony, who had 29 points on an efficient 16 shots, came up short on his final drive. The result also nullified Stoudemire’s huge effort of 41 points and 9 rebounds.

With or without LeBron James and with or without Anthony, the meetings between these teams end the same way: the Knicks have lost 11 straight games to Cleveland.

The Cavaliers are constant in only two ways this season: their many losses and the troubles they give the Knicks. Of their 12 wins this season, 3 have come at the Knicks’ expense. Anthony’s road debut with the organization came last week in Cleveland. The Knicks lost.

Point guard Chauncey Billups tended to a bruised thigh for the second straight game and watched from the bench. Ronny Turiaf, the occasional starting center, joined him in inactivity with a sore left knee. Coach Mike D’Antoni said he hoped Billups would return Sunday against the Atlanta Hawks.

Without Billups and Turiaf, two holdovers from an overhauled roster started. Douglas ran the offense, but he did not play as efficiently as he did in a victory against New Orleans and watched the final two minutes from the bench. Jared Jeffries, in his second game since his return to the Knicks, started in Turiaf’s place and anchored a defense that suffered without him after he encountered foul trouble in the second quarter. The Cavaliers were without Antawn Jamison, their leading scorer, who is sidelined indefinitely with a broken finger.

After last week’s loss in Cleveland, Anthony said that the Knicks owed one to the Cavaliers. He was limited by elbow pain in that game and missed a key free throw down the stretch.

“I hate for them to have to say that,” D’Antoni said before Friday’s game. “They shouldn’t have had to see that because we shouldn’t have had to owe them one.”

Anthony’s first half was his finest since last week’s trade. He scored 17 points on a tidy 8 shots while Stoudemire paced the Knicks with 19 points. But the Knicks did little to account for J. J. Hickson’s inside presence or Cleveland’s 3-point shooters and went into intermission with only a 64-58 lead.

The new and old rosters still need plenty of blending and their upcoming schedule is challenging, with games against Atlanta, Utah, Memphis and Dallas — all teams with winning records.

“They had some great games and when they’ve played well, they’ve really played well, I thought,” said Donnie Walsh, the Knicks’ president. “I knew there was going to be periods where they go down because they really hadn’t played with each other and that takes time.

“But generally, I feel really good about it, particularly about the future of the franchise because now we have a core of guys to go forward with and they’re at the highest level of the league.”