For a while there at the start, anyone could have called Carmelo Anthony an overrated ballhog who will never win an NBA championship, because it was Anthony and J.R. Smith against the Boston Celtics, and only Smith was putting the ball in the basket.
But by the time Game 2 ended Knicks 87, Celtics 71, ended with a standing ovation and chants of “MVP, MVP, MVP” from the Garden, even Anthony’s harshest critics must have reached this conclusion:
That it may very well be he will never win an NBA championship, it may very well be that he will play Patrick Ewing to LeBron James’ Michael Jordan. But when Round 1 ends, Carmelo Anthony will be champion of the Boston Celtics.
“The playoffs is not going to always be perfect for any player,” coach Mike Woodson said. “But at the end of the night he was still there at the end making the plays that we needed him to make from an offensive standpoint.
“He figures it out. The great ones do that. He just kept playing, and things started to fall his way.”
Melo missed 12 of his first 15 shots. He made eight of his next nine shots in the second half. He finished with 34 points. It gives him 70 for the series.
If you’re the Celtics, you can’t wait to get back to Boston. But your worst fear is that the best of Anthony is yet to come.
“I’m just playing basketball,” he said. “I’m trying to take advantage of what they’ve been throwing at me. I’ve been missing some shots that I feel like I can make. I missed ’em, both games, some open shots that I normally make, but my teammates been giving me a lot of help offensively … defensively, we’ve been having each other’s back but … I’m just taking it one day at a time.”
He figures it out. The great ones do that.
“I can’t tell myself that I don’t have it tonight, especially right now in these playoffs,” Anthony said. “Throughout the course of a game, my mentality is if something’s not working, just make adjustments. Maybe it’s an adjustment to a shot that I’m taking, or not using my legs enough, or not keeping my follow-through up. “
It was Woodson who made the first adjustment, chastising the Knicks at halftime: “They’re playing harder than you on the defensive end!”
Defense wins championships, but lousy offense can lose championships, and Woodson’s offense was lousy in that first half.
The Knicks got the message,
Iman Shumpert drained a pair of 3s. Raymond Felton (16 points) attacked, penetrated, refused to turn the ball over, quarterbacked the Knicks the way the Jets wished Mark Sanchez could quarterback them, his intensity infectious.
“He changed the game in the third quarter,” Woodson said.
“I feel like he was the X factor,” Kevin Garnett said.
The Knicks outscored the Celtics 32-11 in the third quarter.
“We buckled down on the defensive end and it opened up our offensive game,” Melo said.
It sure did. Even Tyson Chandler, the sleeping giant, awakened, converting a three-point play for his first points of the series, making like Bill Russell swatting away an Avery Bradley drive with his left hand.
Then Anthony drilled a 3 and a turnaround J and a pull-up J and it was over. The Celtics made a feeble run to close to within 76-67, but Melo hit a 12-footer and then a 13-footer, and Doc Rivers was left crying about the fouls.
“Melo is going to get the bulk of the points and he’s going to get the bulk of the touches,” Garnett said. “Great scorers are going to find ways to score.”
Toward the end, Kenyon Martin (11 rebounds, four blocks) was listening to the Garden chant his name.
Melo is 24-of-53 shooting in the series. Now the Knicks go for the jugular Friday night.
“It’s not going to be just a one-man show,” Woodson said. “He’s got it going right now, but there’s going to be times where he might struggle, and other guys have got to step in and do their part.”
If they do, if Melo starts making the shots he usually makes, no one in New York will be calling him an overrated ballhog. Maybe no one anywhere will.