On Anthony revival, hopes turn Bullish
CHICAGO — Carmelo Anthony and his teammates were all but left for dead less than a month ago and for good reason. The playoffs — playoffs? — seemed like a longshot while the odds of the Knicks imploding were fairly good.
But a lot has changed since March 11, when Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire were benched in the fourth quarter of a brutal home loss to Philadelphia. That low point was in fact a turning point. Within three days, Mike D’antoni would step down as head coach, Mike Woodson would receive a promotion and not too long after that Anthony started performing like the player the Knicks believed he would become.
The Knicks are now in the home stretch of the lockout-shortened season. With 10 games left, the Knicks sit in seventh place entering Tuesday’s rematch with the Chicago Bulls. They are in no way a lock to qualify for the postseason but with the way the Knicks have performed at both ends of the court under Woodson, they have a legitimate chance of winning the Atlantic Division.
A division title would mean either a third but most likely a fourth seed for the playoffs, which means they would avoid both top-seeded Chicago and secondseeded Miami in the first round. The Knicks are three games behind Boston, which faces the Heat in Miami on Tuesday and comes to the Garden next week.
The Knicks have their own scheduling issues, with road games in the next two days against Chicago and ninth-place Milwaukee.
The Bulls are still licking their wounds from Sunday’s overtime loss in which both Luol Deng and Derrick Rose missed a pair of free throws in regulaton with Chicago holding a three-point lead. Anthony made them pay by hitting a 3-pointer in the final seconds to cap a 10-0 run. Then in overtime, Chicago blew a late fourpoint lead and was done in again by Anthony’s 3-pointer with 8.2 seconds left.
“He is a great shooter,” Rose said of Anthony. “Everybody in the world knows that.”
Rose, appearing in his first game since missing the previous 12 with a groin injury, wasn’t himself against the Knicks. He made just eight of 26 shots, committed eight turnovers and missed those two free throws with 19.4 seconds left in regulation that likely would have sealed the win. The long layoff certainly contributed to Rose not being as sharp as he usually is, but Knicks rookie Iman Shumpert also made things tough for the league’s reigning MVP.
“It was unbelievable … the defense he played tonight,” said Knicks center Tyson Chandler said of Schumpert. “He was very aggressive. He wanted to take the challenge and he did a good job tonight.”
The Knicks are now 11-3 under Woodson, who is working under the title of interim head coach with the speculation about Kentucky coach John Calipari waiting in the wings to take over. The record will only help Woodson keep the job and right now his best ally is Anthony, who has benefited the most from the coaching change.
Woodson promised to feature Anthony more in the offense and with Jeremy Lin and Stoudemire both sidelined with injuries, Anthony is still the best — and sometimes the only — scoring option. He scored a season-high 43 against the Bulls just two games after setting his seasonhigh with 39 against Indiana.
Anthony is uncomfortable being labeled a coach killer and doesn’t want to be held responsible for D’antoni’s sudden resignation, although you don’t need to be a forensic expert to locate Melo’s fingerprints. In the NBA, the star player has leverage, for better or worse. Once the coaching change was made, the spotlight shifted to Anthony. He’s shooting more, scoring more and now the Knicks are piling up the wins. He’s come a long way in a little less than a month and there’s still plenty time to accomplish even more.