NYT: Now Starring at Power Forward: Carmelo Anthony
April 11th, 2012 by Jim Cavan | @JPCavan | Comments | Permalink |
The title’s pretty self explanatory:
Despite another efficiently high-scoring effort from Carmelo Anthony (29 points on 11 of 19 shooting), Tuesday night’s loss to the Bulls dropped the Knicks back to a mere one-game lead over the Bucks for the conference’s eighth and final playoff slot.
To call Wednesday’s showdown in Milwaukee a must-win would be an understatement, particularly for the Knicks, whose coming schedule includes games against current second seed Miami and the red-hot, division-leading Celtics. To escape Wisconsin with a W, the Knicks – still without the services of Jeremy Lin and Amar’e Stoudemire – will likely need another scorching performance from their star small forward.
Lately, however, it has been Anthony’s re-designation as the power forward that has helped keep the Knicks’ season alive.
Beyond his work for KnickerBlogger, Jim is a contributor to the New York Times Off the Dribble NBA blog, ESPN.com, and The Classical. He is currently working on a biography of Robert Silverman, titled "Clownin' and Astoundin.'" Follow him on Twitter @JPCavan.
Dare I say it?
Ruru kind of called this streak.
Nice article Jim. Beside the resurgence of Melo, his spot at PF is intriguing for the reasons you noted. I guess I was pondering Melo’s success and thinking that Stat should perhaps come off the bench at the 5 and set up the same match up dynamics with many, but not all, teams.This was shot down hard today by Woodson who says Stat is starting immediately when he returns. I think this is unfortunate. Aside from our major deficiency at the one, a second serious issue is the pair’s incompatibility, redundancy, inefficiency or whatever and it makes me want to keep Melo and Stat apart. I also can see Stat destroying back up 5′s, even on playoff teams. As you noted Jim, Melo is pretty darn effective at the 4, particularly with Beast at the 5.
Let’s worry about getting into playoff first before arguing who will start where. Remember if knicks lose tonight they’ll fall to 9th, and bucks will have advantage on tie-breakers at the end of season.
I for one am happy to see ruru vindicated.
What I don’t get if someone could explain is why other teams just don’t put a SF on him in defence if they.re worried their PF is too slow to guard him.
Hehe cuz hes too strong for most 3s.