KOBE GRIEF: Kobe Bryant goes up over Danilo Gallinari for two of his 33 points in the Lakers’ 113-96 win over the Knicks last night in what likely was Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson’s final game at the Garden, where he played as a Knick in the 1970s. (Neil Miller)
Go get Carmelo Anthony.
That was Kobe Bryant’s message to the Knicks last night after he ransacked the Garden with a virtuoso performance — 33 points in 29 minutes — as the Lakers breezed to a 113-96 rout.
Feelings grew edgier on the whole topic of the Knicks’ chase for Anthony and another blowout loss did not help. One day after Mike D’Antoni said the Knicks are getting hurt by chants from the crowd for Anthony and chatter about a possible trade, Raymond Felton, the Knicks’ co-captain, went off after the loss.
“It’s starting to really get on my nerves,” he said of the trade talk.
Bryant, asked if the Knicks need to add another superstar, smirked and said, “Is that your way of asking about Carmelo?”
“They’ve got some really good pieces,” Bryant added. “The future is bright for them. But who we kidding? We’re talking about Carmelo Anthony. . . . [He] is a bad boy. So you figure it out?”
D’Antoni, Donnie Walsh and Felton agree the Anthony rumors are chipping away.
“These are my teammates,” Felton said. “I’m going to fight for my teammates. I love my teammates. You keep hearing all this extra stuff about your teams, yeah, it’s starting to really get on my nerves.”
Not even Rex Ryan showing up on celebrity row in a vintage blue Walt Frazier jersey could pump life into the fading Knicks and prevent them from sliding into mediocrity.
The Jets popular coach talked during halftime about winning the Super Bowl, but by night’s end he should have been guaranteeing a third straight Lakers championship .
Before a large contingent of Lakers fans cheering on their team, Bryant — who heard chants of “M-V-P!” when he shot free throws — set the tone early. Phil Jackson’s Lakers were comfortably ahead throughout after Bryant’s 19-point first quarter silenced the buzz in what had been an electric building.
“[Bryant] took our heart a little bit,” said D’Antoni, whose team slipped back to .500 at 26-26.
Amar’e Stoudemire scored 24 points with 10 rebounds for the Knicks, but had six turnovers and picked up his 14th technical foul for a prolonged argument after called on a charge when driving on Bryant.
Early in the third quarter, Pau Gasol torched Stoudemire. Gasol used a pump fake, got Stoudemire in the air and zipped past him for a rim-rattling uncontested dunk.
Bryant didn’t have to play the fourth quarter as the Lakers led by 17 after three and extended the advantage to 20 points midway through the fourth. The lifeless Knicks, who face the Nets tonight in Newark with a chance of falling to a losing record for the first time since late November, had no run in them.
“It’s a matter of getting our confidence back,” Stoudemire said. “We have a lack of swagger now. We have not had our swagger for the past two-and-a-half weeks. We have to get back to what we were used to doing, how we started the year.”
The Knicks have lost 11 of their past 15 games and look like they need to make a move for Anthony.
Danilo Gallinari had an awful 4-for-15 shooting night and was 0-for-6 from the 3-point line. Landry Fields was invisible (2-for-6, six points). These are the men team president Donnie Walsh wants to keep out of deal for Anthony, but the prospect of them being added is there. Wilson Chandler, at the center of trade talks, had another low-impact night and cut off reporters’ questions abruptly.
“We can’t worry about what we can’t control,” Fields said. “I don’t watch the stuff because you don’t want to cloud your mind with that stuff.”
The celebrity-studded crowd was quiet in the final minutes — but least D’Antoni got his wish. There were maybe a couple of dozen fans chanting “We Want ‘Melo!” for a few seconds in the third quarter, but it never materialized into the sing-song that rang to the rafters during Wednesday’s game versus the Clippers.
The Lakers were wearing their throwback home gold-and-purple, and the Knicks had on their road blues from the 1973 season. Right now, however, they are playing like the dead team from the 2000s.
“We got to regroup,” D’Antoni said. “Tomorrow we start a new game, and we have to find it quick.”
Ryan sat next to his wife and two seats from Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who is having Stoudemire do a photo shoot for the magazine. But this wasn’t a fashionable night for the Knicks, who fell behind 62-48 at halftime as Bryant lit up the Garden. Bryant had 19 points in the first quarter, clearly with a fire in his eyes, perhaps looking to get close to the 61-point night he put on the Knicks in 2009, setting the Garden’s NBA scoring record.
“I know if I knock down two, three shots in a row all of a sudden everybody is saying it is going to be one of those nights,” Bryant said. “That takes momentum away from them.”
Bryant had 23 points at halftime on 8 of 12 shooting, including three high-arcing, 3-point rainbows. Bryant ended his first-quarter rampage with panache, spinning at the foul line for a tough turnaround over Felton at the buzzer.
Stoudemire got frustrated late in the second half and nearly tackled Bryant on a foray to the hoop, sending him to the line. Stoudemire is two technicals away from a one-game suspension.
The second-most exciting player on the court was Los Angeles reserve guard Shannon Brown, who entertained coming to the Knicks as a free agent with the promise of being the starting shooting guard. But he rejoined the Lakers and the Knicks settled for Roger Mason, who does not play.
Brown executed one of the most artistic dunks of the season in the second quarter, leaping to the sky to catch a wayward alley-oop feed from Steve Blake with one hand and slam it down. The super athletic Brown was smiling even before he landed.
The Knicks need help.