The buzzer groaned, though it was hard to hear it cut through the swirling din — two fan bases, two boroughs, 17,732 voices belonging to 17,732 people who had stayed for every second of another beautiful basketball game.
As he saw the red light glow on the backboard, signaling to his eyes that the game was over, that the Knicks had stolen this 100-97 wrestling match with the Nets, Carmelo Anthony lifted a pair of weary fists toward the roof, accepted a hug from Jason Kidd, accepted a handshake from his coach, Mike Woodson.
“We claim to be a good team, we want to be a great team,” Melo would say later, his voice raspy, his lip bloodied. “Well, a good team finds a way to win a game like that.”
The Knicks, across 21 games, have established their credentials as a good team, occasionally have looked great, but rarely have looked as they did last night: utterly dependent on their franchise player. The Nets raced to a 17-point lead in the first quarter. The Knicks came back. The Nets ran back out to a 10-point lead in the third. The Knicks came back.
They came back because Carmelo Anthony had one of those games an extraordinary player has to have every now and again, a reminder that when a team happens to have the best guy on the court, no deficit is insurmountable, no chasm too steep. He scored 45 points, shot 15-for-24, refused to let the Knicks lose.
“He’s the MVP, guys,” Woodson said, and he wasn’t the only one tossing those three letters around when the night was done.
“That’s why he’s the MVP,” Tyson Chandler said. “This is a game we lose if we don’t have Melo. I didn’t do anything tonight, Ray [Felton] didn’t do anything tonight, nobody did … but we had one guy to carry the load.”
Chandler shook his head.
“When he plays like that,” he said, “he’s second to none.”
Yes, it was Jason Kidd who made the winning shot, who splashed a 3-pointer even as Jerry Stackhouse was flagged for roughing the quarterback and sending him to his back, capping a brilliant 18-point, six-assist night from the only other Knick who seemed completely engaged.
But even that play was an indication of how far Anthony has come as a player, how completely he has embraced the reality that even on a night when you score 45 points, your biggest contribution can be your selflessness.
“The way he was playing,” Kidd said, “he had every right to hold the ball and take the last shot.”
And there have been plenty of games in Anthony’s tenure as a Knick when he has done just that. Not this time. He was content to stay out top as a decoy, content to watch J.R. Smith flip the ball to Felton, who whipped it to Kidd.
Who sent Barclays Center into a confused tizzy, Knicks fans and Nets fans all yelling, their voices colliding, a second time in two games at this brand-new gym where we got the very best of the city game. And, this time, the very best out of the city’s best player.
“I didn’t want to lose this one,” Anthony said.
Sometimes, a special player can play a signature game and it’s that will, as much as anything, that’s enough. Well … that and hitting, as Chandler said, “shot after shot after shot after shot …”
Woodson: “Sometimes, I think he’s misread. He wants to win in the worst way.”
Anthony has been saying it for years. Across 21 games he has done quite a bit more than that. Ask the Nets. Ask the Knicks. Ask Barclays Center. Maybe it’s too early to declare anyone an MVP. But it’s never too early to nominate one.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com