Carmelo Anthony: Not a Superstar, Just a Star
About three years ago, I heard Charles Barkley on the NBA on TNT post game show make a statement about Joe Johnson, now of the Brooklyn Nets, when Joe was a member of the Atlanta Hawks.
“If Joe Johnson is the best player on your team, you’re not going far.” – Charles Barkley
Funny thing about that quote is Charles was right on the money. Fast forward to today and you could very well say the same can be said about Carmelo Anthony. In fact you can flat out say that at this point in his career, and there is nothing he has done to make this statement not apply to him.
Yes, Carmelo is definitely better than Joe Johnson, by far…..but his results/success makes you question that.
For a player who has been labeled a “superstar”, he has yet to do anything “superstar” like. His playoff record and lack of consistent “superstar-like” performances in the playoffs solidifies it.
Previous to this year, Melo had only gotten out of the first round of the playoffs just once out of 9 tries. Each time, …
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Carmelo Anthony and New York Knicks Isolated Themselves out of NBA Playoffs
Isolate. The dictionary defines this word as “to set or place apart; detach or separate so as to be alone.” Let’s key in on that word “alone.” How many times have you seen one player win a series of games on a continual basis, especially in the playoffs? It didn’t work for Michael Jordan when he would face the Detroit “Bad Boys” Pistons in the postseason.
MJ would win a game here or there, but he couldn’t shoulder the entire weight by himself to win a series against Detroit. He knew he needed to play as a team to get passed that looming obstacle that was in Detroit. Eventually, Jordan and his teammates worked together by using each player’s strength to win six NBA titles.
So if the best player in NBA history couldn’t do it “alone,” why did head coach Mike Woodson and the New York Knicks feel that this would work for them? The Knicks had a win now mentality since most of the team was looking to sign up for AARP benefits after the end of this season.
The team started out red hot in the months of November and December with a combined record of 21-9. Madison Square Garden was all abuzz with the notion that this could be the Knicks year to return back to the glory days.
Yet it didn’t happen that way. This past weekend New York got booted from the playoffs by the Indiana Pacers. The Knicks are the ones only to blame. They lived and died by the Carmelo isolation play. Yes, a select few other players did score and contribute. Even with Jason Kidd and Amar’e Stoudemire being nonexistent in the playoffs, there should have been a better game plan instead of just relying on Anthony.
Michael Marot from the Huffington Post caught up with Mike Woodson after Game 6 to get his feelings on why the Knicks are out of the postseason.
“It’s tough to go out this way,” coach Mike Woodson said. “I didn‘t make it happen for us and that’s what’s disappointing.”
Even in the series against Boston, the Knicks kept going back to the isolation play with Carmelo. Other Knicks players are running around, and he holds onto the ball and finally shoots a highly-contested shot.
Carmelo did his best, but one player does not a team make. It is like when you are playing XBOX and using the same play over and over again. It might work in the beginning, but once your opponent stops that play, you will lose. The Knicks failed to switch up the offense and made it easier for teams like the Pacers to defend them.
Iman Shumpert told ESPN’s Jared Zwerling that they need to be more productive on the offensive side.
“We need some more continuity as far as running something that everybody knows we’re in it — just something with more pace,” he said. “We have a lot of dead possessions where we don’t really have any cohesiveness. We’re just sort of out there and it becomes watching whoever has the ball.”
Shumpert has the potential to be a great player for New York. If the Knicks want to be Eastern Conference contenders, they will have to get younger legs on the court. Players like Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler could contribute for New York, but in a limited role. Certain changes need to be made if Carmelo looks to lead the Knicks to win a title.
The biggest change is that they need to have role players on the team to give Carmelo much needed support. New York has a few players that will become free agents, most notably J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin.
If the Knicks still feel they have a win now team, they must change up their offensive strategy or New York will be sitting at Spike Lee’s house watching the Eastern Conference Finals on TV.
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Carmelo Anthony Shouldn’t Be Scapegoat for Knicks’ Playoff Elimination
Suffice it to say, things could have gone better for Carmelo Anthony in the fourth quarter of Saturday night’s Game 6 loss to the Indiana Pacers.
The embattled forward finished with 39 points and seven rebounds in the Knicks‘ 106-99 defeat, but was continually unable to come up down the stretch. Facing a Pacers defense that increasingly shaded their help in his direction, Anthony shot 2-of-7 from the field and turned the ball over three times as Indiana broke open a game that was deadlocked through three quarters.
The final 12 minutes were an amalgam of everything fans deride about Anthony. He consistently tried making plays where they weren’t, attempting difficult passes out of pick-and-rolls and taking impossible shots with defenders—mostly Paul George—draped all over him. New York imploded as a result, the final few seconds draining down as disgusted faces adorned the Bankers Life Fieldhouse floor.
The loss sends the second-seeded Knicks packing and the third-seeded Pacers on to take on the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.
For a different team, a different city, this loss might be a time to reflect. To look back on how this team won 54 games in the regular season—its most since 1996-97—and how this ‘Melo-led bunch gave the Knicks their first postseason series victory since 2000.
The Knicks aren’t most NBA franchises, and New York City isn’t one to reflect positively on a second-round playoff exit. Instead, the focus will immediately shift to what went wrong—and that conversation will likely start with some jumping to denunciate this team’s controversial star. ESPN personality and notable contrarian Skip Bayless was one of the first—but certainly not the last—to say ‘Melo’s legacy will be hurt by this loss:
All it takes is a quick Twitter search of Anthony’s name to find plenty more where that came from. Even after nearly hitting the 40 mark and being sensational for the game’s first 36 minutes, folks are jumping at the opportunity to throw Anthony under the subway.
Why? Because blaming ‘Melo is easy. Blaming ‘Melo sells newspapers, gets clicks on a website and garners television ratings.
Blaming ‘Melo is also ridiculously lazy—especially considering how many people involved with this team underperformed versus Indiana.
Let’s start with Knicks coach Mike Woodson, who was pretty much played like a speed bag by Frank Vogel this entire series.
Throughout the series, Woodson failed time and again to find a set rotation—a playoff coaching 101. There was the miserable decision to start a Kenyon Martin-Tyson Chandler front line to counteract David West and Roy Hibbert in Game 4, a move that went against everything these Knicks did well this year. The lineup cratered as expected and was quickly abandoned.
Game 4 was also known as the game that Pablo Prigioni played just four minutes. As anyone who watched this series and the entire postseason knows, the Knicks became a completely different team with Prigs playing extensive minutes. They scored a full 16 points per 100 possessions more with the Argentine guard on the floor than they were with him on the bench heading into Saturday night, per NBA.com.
And keep in mind that while he played just 11 minutes in Games 5 and 6, Jason Kidd had to nearly decompose in front of Woodson for the loyal coach to sit him. The 40-year-old future Hall of Famer went scoreless for New York’s final 10 postseason games, all while averaging about 20 minutes a night.
Remember those glowing per-100 possessions stats we used to discuss Prigioni? The opposite is true for Kidd. The Knicks scored 89.1 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor this season, a rate that would have been far and away an NBA worst during the regular season, per NBA.com.
That’s all without mentioning Woodson’s inane refusal to play Chris Copeland until it was panic time. Copeland is a defensive minus, but his ability to play both forward positions stretches out defenses and gave a Knicks team desperately searching for points a spot-up option from beyond the arc.
Don’t get me wrong, Woodson did make some nice adjustments from Round 1 to Round 2. The iso-ball vortex that everyone complained about versus Boston was gone, replaced with some very nice ball movement before pick-and-roll sets.
But this series was a bad look for Woodson, who was very good during the regular season.
Speaking of those who performed well in the 82-game slog before falling off a cliff during the postseason, let’s discuss J.R. Smith. And let’s do so quickly because that’s all his performance merits.
If ‘Melo was bad in this series, Smith was an abomination. The NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year shot a laughably bad 28.9 percent from the field in this series while taking 15 shots per game. Smith’s struggles date back to his one-game suspension for elbowing Jason Terry in the face against the Celtics, and you could literally feel the life being choked out of the Knicks offense when he was on the floor.
Finally, let’s just credit the Pacers. Indiana was the league’s best defense throughout the regular season—arguably one of the best ever—and did more of the same against the Knicks. Paul George was suction-cupped to Anthony this entire series, fighting through a constant barrage of pick-and-rolls and off-ball screens. If George hadn’t already made an All-Star team, I’d be pounding on the desk for that to happen already. He’s a borderline superstar.
And while Roy Hibbert is already known as one of the league’s best interior defenders, he again proved so in this series. His block on ‘Melo Saturday night was arguably the turning point in the entire contest.
These Pacers are for real and may give the defending champs real trouble next round.
In essence, this series was a perfect storm. The Pacers, with athletes all over the perimeter and two strong big men inside, were the elixir to New York’s regular-season potion.
Did Anthony have the best series of his career? Of course not. He took bad, contested shots over great defenders. But that’s ‘Melo. That’s who he’s been his entire career, and the Knicks have hitched their wagon to him going forward. You can’t cherry-pick bad performances as being selfish and then laud him when the shots go in.
It’s fair to say Anthony could have taken fewer shots and looked to get his teammates into the action more. But blaming him for the entire elimination is lazy, shortsighted and frankly wrong.
Let’s be better than that in the coming days as Knicks fever hits its apex.
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Video: Carmelo Anthony lifts New York Knicks out of elimination
The New York Knicks live to fight another day.
After a week that has been rife with rumours of bickering and frustration, the Knicks managed to pull it together to get a 10-point win over the Indiana Pacers to force a sixth game on Saturday in Indiana.
Carmelo Anthony scored 28 points off 28 shots Thursday, pushing the Eastern Conference semifinals series to a 3-2 tally after the 85-75 win.
Despite Anthony’s solid offensive effort, the Knicks rolled up their sleeves and knuckled up with the Pacers defensively to get it done.
The Knicks forced 19 Pacer turnovers during the contest that saw them take a 12-point lead into the fourth period.
The Knicks role players also got back into the picture. J.R. Smith and Chris Copeland both scored 13 points off the bench for the Knicks and Raymond Felton had 12.
Paul George produced 23 points for the Pacers to go with six assists and six rebounds.
Video: Carmelo Anthony lifts New York Knicks out of elimination
The post Video: Carmelo Anthony lifts New York K
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Anthony has 28, Knicks beat Pacers to stay alive (Yahoo! Sports)
NEW YORK (AP) — For the New York Knicks, it was about playing harder, even if not really much better.
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Carmelo Anthony, Knicks stay alive vs. Pacers in Game 5
The loss of George Hill was too much for the stagnant Pacers offense in Game 5.
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Carmelo Anthony on Tyson Chandler and his comments
The New York Knicks fell apart against the Indiana Pacers in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinals series.
Now they continue to unravel publicly with Game 4 just around the corner.
Earlier today, Players View ran comments from Knicks center Tyson Chandler regarding his opinion on the Knicks lack of ball movement.
In that piece, Chandler put it all the way out there that certain players are hogging the basketball.
Since Chandler did not mention Carmelo Anthony by name, we did not use his name in that piece.
However, it was pretty obvious that Chandler was probably speaking about Anthony. Anthony has a new set of comments about what Chandler had to say.
Please click here to read/watch this story.
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Knicks’ Anthony plans to keep attacking in Indiana (Yahoo! Sports)
NEW YORK (AP) — Nobody ever really stops Carmelo Anthony. Not in his mind, anyway.
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NY Knicks’ Supporting Cast Picking Up Struggling Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith
Much has been made by media and fans alike of the struggles of the New York Knicks’ two biggest stars in the NBA playoffs. After playing some fantastic basketball to lead the Knicks to a 3-0 series advantage over the Celtics in the first round, scoring champion Carmelo Anthony and Sixth Man of the Year J.R. Smith have struggled mightily in the last five games.
After shooting a solid .46 percent from the floor and averaging 32 points in the Knicks’ first three playoff games, Anthony has really struggled with his shot, shooting under 32 percent from the field on an average of 27.5 shots per game from Game 4 in Boston through Game 1 against the Indiana Pacers. In Game 2 he rebounded, hitting 13-of-26 shots for 32 points in the Knicks’ 105-79 win.
Funny, because that was also the first time the Knicks broke 100-plus points in a playoff game since the Patrick Ewing-less Knicks defeated the Reggie Miller-led Pacers in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference playoffs in 1999, the year the eighth-seeded Knicks made their famous run to the Finals.
J.R. Smith is probably more to blame for the Knicks’ offensive struggles in the last few games than Anthony is. His elbow on Jason Terry in Game 3 in Boston got him suspended for the next game, which gave the Celtics some life. Since then, he’s played awful, shooting a putrid 26 percent from the field and averaging just 13 points in his last four postseason games.
In order for the Knicks to get to the promised land, Melo and J.R. will need to shoot better. What many people are ignoring is the fact that Anthony has been dealing with a shoulder injury which he sustained about three weeks ago against these same Indiana Pacers.
What has been keeping the Knicks afloat against Indiana and out of a 2-0 series hole is their supporting cast—Iman Shumpert, Raymond Felton, Kenyon Martin and Pablo Prigioni. They have all stepped up their game this postseason.
Felton has arguably been the Knicks MVP so far in the playoffs, averaging 16.9 points and 4.8 assists while shooting a strong 47 percent, including 36 percent from downtown. The biggest reason for his success has been his decision to drive more to the basket rather than settling for less jumpers—though he’s still been able to knock down the three-pointer. This has allowed him to penetrate and open lanes for his teammates.
Shumpert has been coming into his own in these playoffs. After returning in January from an ACL injury in last year’s playoffs, he struggled to reassert his athleticism. In these playoffs, he seems to have gotten back to form, averaging 10.0 points and 6.4 assists while shooting almost 47 percent from the field. He’s also knocked down 12-of-26 three-pointers after shooting just over 40 percent from downtown in the regular season.
Shumpert‘s defense has been absolutely stellar, as he completely shut down Paul Pierce in the first round (37 percent shooting). From Game 4 on, he’s been even better: 13.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals, while shooting 51 percent overall from the field and nearly 44.5 from three-point range.
Martin has proved to be a very invaluable back up big man since coming to New York around the trade deadline. He’s played plenty of minutes in place of Tyson Chandler, providing great defense, shot-blocking, rebounding, as well as putting in some points, with three 10-plus point games. If the Knicks are going to have a chance against Indiana, Chicago or Miami, Martin is going to continue to be a key member of their rotation and his toughness can help give the Knicks some cojones.
Lastly, Prigioni has been an X-factor for the Knickerbockers. Given a much larger role from Game 3 of the Boston series on, he’s been superb, averaging 6.5 points, 2.8 assists while being more aggressive in shooting (47.6 percent from downtown). He was a key player in the Knicks’ big Game 2 vs. the Pacers, 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting, four rebounds and four assists. Since the end of the regular season, coach Mike Woodson has unleashed him, and he’s become another consistent key player for New York.
The Knicks are not going to win the championship or even this series vs. Indiana if Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith continue to struggle, even with Amar’e Stoudemire set to return for Game 3 on Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. However, if they manage to return to form (and Anthony did in Game 2), the Knicks can beat just about anyone left in the playoffs, even Miami, because they have a very strong supporting cast on the bench and are ready to welcome Stoudemire back into the fold.
Consistency is key for the Knicks’ streaky shooters, but they have too much depth to be taken lightly or be beaten easily, as we saw on Tuesday.
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Playoff Putbacks: Carmelo Anthony gets his groove back
Everything you need to know from Tuesday’s playoff action.
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