The ascent of the New York Knicks back into national relevancy (not manufactured relevancy) hit a road bump early on this season. With Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler in the front court, New York had some girth on the front court to go with the offensive genius of Mike D’Antoni.
New York’s start has been less than fast. For D’Antoni it must be excruciatingly slow. And New York made things worse as Memphis completely tore apart New York on Thursday on national TV. The Knicks are 6-5 now and do not look like the heirs to the Celtics throne in the Atlantic Division. They shot 37.3 percent from the floor and gave up 26 points to Rudy Gay and 18 to O.J. Mayo off the bench.
It was your typical New York Knicks offensive performance. Lots of standing around, few assists, little ball movement and frustrating offense. Just look at Iman Shumpert’s line score — or the whole post John wrote on him earlier.
This is not what Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire imagined when they made their way to revitalize The Big Apple.
The frustration is starting to seep over as the Knicks continue their slow start. After the Knicks got off to a 2-4 start, Carmelo Anthony had a simple message for his team:
“Just stick with it,” Anthony said to Ian Begley of ESPN New York on Jan. 5. “It can’t get no worse than this.”
Things got worse for Melo and company in Memphis. Not only did the team lose the game withou much of a fight, Anthony rolled his ankle and left the game in the third quarter. He is listed as day-to-day. it appears he is likely to miss Saturday’s game against Oklahoma City. But, in this shortened season, nagging injuries will last a bit longer with the constant playing and games.
Even with the team’s overall struggles record-wise since the trade last semester, the Knicks need a healthy Carmelo Anthony to get where they want in the postseason.
The team is certainly down following the slow start out of the gate. Carmelo Anthony has been pressed into playing point guard with Iman Shumpert and Toney Douglass platooning there as well. New York spends a lot of the game without the point guard that was necessary to run Mike D’Antoni’s offense efficiently. Anthony has never been the best passer in the world — although his assist rate is up to 28.2 percent this year, an incredible number for a high-usage player like Anthony (he still has a 34.5 percent usage rate).
New York is seemingly biding time until Baron Davis gets healthyso the team does not have to rely on that platoon and Mike Bibby to run the offense. That will get things going in the right direction for New York. The Knicks will not get anywhere unless the team’s surprisingly decent defense — they are seventh in the league in defensive rating — keeps up and the team gets going offensively.
Without a point guard and with Anthony nursing an injury, it might get worse before it gets better for the Knicks.
