Melo anything but against Raps
Anthony’s 37-point effort against Toronto helps Knicks punch their ticket to playoffs
Any basketball coach in the world will tell you he needs shot-makers on his roster far more than he needs shot-takers, and Mike Woodson is lucky to have one of the very best in the business on his New York Knicks squad.
There may be flaws to Carmelo Anthony’s game, but he can get baskets when you need them and his 37-point effort led the Knicks to a 99-94 win over the Raptors at the Air Canada Centre on Friday night.
Anthony’s evening —14-for-31from the field and 7-for-11 from the free throw line — clinched a playoff spot for the Knicks and showed once again the Raptors don’t have that one absolute go-to guy who can score in myriad ways.
“He played great,” said Woodson. “I talked about it at the top of the game, not playing him very big minutes (32 was the target, Anthony played 43 in his second game back after missing three with a sore knee), but this was a game we had to get. I feel bad about it . . . hopefully he’ll sleep tonight, ice up and be ready for (Saturday, when the teams meet again in New York).”
The Raptors knew full well that Anthony could explode at any moment.
“Carmelo’s going to do that, you know that. What you can’t do is overreact and then have someone else go off,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey.
But the Knicks really didn’t need much behind Anthony since the Raptors needed a career-night of 35 points from Alan Anderson to even make it close.
Toronto’s slow start — stop us if you’ve heard that refrain before — set the tone as the Knicks took control from the start.
“The thing about it is we were working our butts off, but we were getting open looks and missing open looks,” said Casey.
“You’ve got to make things happen. I thought we started looking for calls from the officials and the only way in this league that you’re going to get things done is make them happen yourself. I thought Alan Anderson did a heckuva job second half of making his own.”
Anderson only got significant second-half minutes because the Raptors lost Rudy Gay to his recurring back issues in the second quarter. Anderson started the second half, played 22 of the 24 minutes and scored 28 of his points. “He’s a veteran, he’s been through the wars, nothing intimidates him, nothing excites him,” Casey said of Anderson. “He’s seen every defence, nobody’s going to intimidate him, he’s not going to get overly frustrated and let some thing take him out of the game. That’s how he plays. In this league, that’s what wins.”
And what doesn’t win are the kind of repeated mistakes the Raptors are making defensively. The Knicks shot 54 per cent from the field, with a handful of shamefully open looks to go along with Anthony’s shot-making.
There are lessons being learned, but they’re hard ones.