Davis Still Thinks He Can Lead Knicks to Playoffs GREENBURGH, N.Y. - Baron Davis has the résumé of a former All-Star and the bravado to go with it. But sometimes he still has to convince himself, like Stuart Smalley speaking mantras into the mirror. Is Davis - at age 32, just months removed from a devastating back injury - still good enough to lead the Knicks through their most perilous stretch of the season? Yes, he said Monday, although his answer veered into self-affirmation. "It's just a matter of just continuing to be patient with myself and knowing that I am an explosive scorer, and I am capable of dominating the basketball game," Davis said, emphasizing the "am" each time, as if he were selling the point. The Knicks have no choice but to believe the mantra. Jeremy Lin, their young point guard sensation, had surgery Monday to repair a torn meniscus and is expected to be out for six weeks. The Knicks are now wholly dependent on Davis and his ability to recapture at least a shade of his former dominance at point guard. The results to date are mixed, at best. In four starts as Lin's replacement, Davis has averaged 8.5 points, 5.5 assists and 4 turnovers, while shooting 33.3 percent from the field. His legs look heavy and his jump shot flat. He rarely gets to the basket or draws a foul. Nearing the end of his 12th season, Davis bears little resemblance to the swaggering, swift-footed star who once averaged 20 points a game and led the Golden State Warriors to a fantastic upset of the Dallas Mavericks in the 2007 playoffs. At the moment, he does not even look like the player who averaged 13.1 points last season, when he played for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Cleveland Cavaliers. "Definitely not happy with where my game is," Davis said, while vowing to keep pushing it forward. I definitely know that I can get back to my old self and doing the things that I've been capable of doing. I may have lost a lot of athleticism, but I can still pass the ball well and run a team, and that's where my focus is right now. The Knicks (27-26) do not necessarily need Davis to play like an All-Star again, or even to play like Lin. But they do need him to keep the offense humming over the final 13 regular-season games as they try to hang onto a playoff spot. The Knicks play at Indiana on Tuesday, holding a two-game lead over the Milwaukee Bucks. Expectations for Davis are necessarily modest. He did not make his Knicks debut until Feb. 20, after taking 10 months to recover from a herniated disk. A few weeks later, he strained his right hamstring, an injury that continues to bother him. The back issues persist, too, although they are manageable. Davis opted for rehabilitation over surgery, which means the disk is still herniated and still pressing on the nerves in his back. "At times, it does," Davis said. You'll see me on the court, like stretching and bending over and just trying to take pressure off the nerves. I still have some nerve pain and some uncomfortableness out there on the floor, but I'm able to continue to play with it. In deference to Davis's health, the coaching staff has tried to limit his playing time. He has played more than 30 minutes only twice and averaged 16.7 minutes in his 15 games as a backup. Since becoming the starter, Davis has averaged 28 minutes, including a 34-minute run in the Knicks" March 26 victory over the Bucks. Just three days earlier, Mike Woodson acknowledged that Davis would not be fully healthy this season. "I can't play him 30 minutes," Woodson said Monday. You just can't do it, because I just don't feel like he'll have much left. It might take him a day or two to recover. Woodson has no reliable alternatives. Toney Douglas, Mike Bibby and Iman Shumpert all failed at point guard earlier this season, opening the door for Lin to seize the job. The Knicks have no plans to sign another guard. Six months ago, Davis was not even sure he would play again. That he is now leading the Knicks toward the playoffs is its own reward. "It's just a joy to be able to be out there and to feel the way I do," he said, adding, "I just feel blessed and happy to be playing, considering that I was laying on the training table for four hours a day when I first got here." Amar'e Stoudemire, once the Knicks" most vocal and visible star, has all but disappeared since sustaining a back injury. He has not spoken to reporters in nine days and has yet to address the bulging disk that could end his season. The Knicks announced the injury on March 26 and gave a broad timetable of two to four weeks for Stoudemire to return. He was again unavailable Monday, despite repeated requests from the news media. The extended silence is unusual for Stoudemire, but the Knicks are secretive about player health. The team waited five days before publicly disclosing Jeremy Lin's torn meniscus last week, while Lin avoided reporters. Stoudemire's back is said to be responding well to the epidural injection he received last week. He traveled with the team to Indianapolis. Players with back injuries generally avoid long flights.