Give us crowd noise. Cue participants. Annnnnd action …
It was another near-cinematic setting for Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks: Big deficit. Again. An even bigger night from Anthony. Again. And he was returning from injury. Again.
Plus, after carrying the Knicks all game with a season-high-tying 45-point detonation — 19 of them in the fourth quarter — in his return from a two-game absence due to a hyperextended left knee, Anthony had a 3-point shot lined up to tie the game against the Trail Blazers with 15.9 seconds remaining. You can’t make this stuff up.
Twice in the final minute, Anthony had cut six-point deficits to three. He did it with 57.1 seconds left with a 3-pointer and with 29.3 seconds left with a three-point play. But his 26-foot shot to tie bounded off to the left and the Knicks were forced to foul.
“I’ll take that any time,” Anthony said. “I was trying to get a quick one. If I make that shot, which I know I can, we tie the game up. If I don’t, we still get a chance to get the offensive rebound.”
Anthony showed little sign of the injury he suffered Christmas Day, but it wasn’t enough as Portland won, 105-100.
“I felt pretty good for the most part,” said Anthony, whose return was somewhat overshadowed by the season debut of Amar’e Stoudemire. “I didn’t expect to do some of the things I was able to do out there.”
He wasn’t expecting 45 points?
“When you’re playing, the adrenaline is flowing and you’re not really thinking,” he said. “When I got the and-one dunk, I forgot the knee was even bothering me a little bit.”
Anthony came away limping after the dunk got the Knicks within 103-100.
“It was just more on the takeoff,” he said. “Not just sitting out a week, not being able to do any strengthening exercises with it. It’s just a matter of how much pain I could take. … It was more aching than pain.
“I feel a little sore. Just trying to get my legs back underneath of me, get the power and the strength back into my left leg.”
Anthony finished shooting 14-of-24 from the floor, 12-of-14 from the free-throw line. He virtually put the team on his shoulders in the first half, when he scored 24 points.
“Carmelo’s a great player, and he had it going all night,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said. Anthony has missed six games — the Knicks are 3-3 in those contests — with three separate injuries (finger, ankle, knee). He did not get the go-ahead until just before game time, but took off immediately, delivering 13 points in the first quarter.
“I wouldn’t say I was 100 percent,” Anthony said. “But I don’t know the last time I was 100 percent, to be honest with you. At this point, it is what it is. It’s about getting better.”