NBA

There’s no defense for Knicks’ effort

EFFORTLESS: Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks put up little fight against Eastern Conference bottom-feeder Charlotte, losing at home before a restless Garden crowd.

EFFORTLESS: Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks put up little fight against Eastern Conference bottom-feeder Charlotte, losing at home before a restless Garden crowd. (Anthony J. Causi)

It would be different if it was chemistry sabotaging the Knicks, or an inability to finish close games. Then, you could seek solace that they’ve played only six times, even if they’re now 2-4, even if the last two losses were at the Garden to the pedestrian Raptors and pathetic Bobcats.

Pedestrian? Pathetic?

Right now, those are adjectives the Knicks aspire to.

“We’ve got to build a trust with each other,” Carmelo Anthony said, shrugging his shoulders, as he allowed this crushing 118-110 loss to Charlotte to sink in. “We can’t let us get our heads down.”

It wouldn’t hurt to get those heads in a game one of these days, though. For a while, the chatter around the Knicks had switched, because the Knicks couldn’t seem to score. That was an ironic twist that even Mike D’Antoni noticed. “Thanks for talking about the offense,” he’d quipped before last night’s game. “I appreciate that.”

Yeah, well. That party’s over.

After this debacle, we can settle back into viewing the Knicks through a familiar old prism: as one of the most hapless, helpless, indifferent defensive teams imaginable. This effort — and use the term loosely — was shameful, and the Garden let them have it.

Are you kidding? At these prices the Knicks are lucky the floor wasn’t stormed by an army of “Occupy MSG” protesters.

“We play in spurts on defense,” the Knicks’ coach lamented when it was mercifully over. “Sometimes the rotation is there. Sometimes it isn’t.”

He sounds increasingly frustrated, a fair trade since it’s only taken six games for New York to throw its hands up with his basketball team, for those with Cablevision and Fios and Dish Network to envy their Time-Warner brethren who’ve been spared these back-to-back Garden humiliations.

The Knicks could certainly have used a fast start to the season to beautify the vibe around them, and the Garden, where patience is at a minimum and agitation rules the day. Look, the Knicks were 3-7 last year before finding their legs. We all know about how the Heat struggled early last year. Fine. If that makes you feel better, think happy thoughts.

Or you can watch the Knicks yawn their way through their defensive assignments, as they’ve done all year, just not as ridiculously as last night. You can watch Boris Diaw turn Amar’e Stoudemire into his personal chew toy, destroying the Knicks for 27 points on 12-for-15 shooting (one night after mailing in a zero-point, 18-minute worknight in Cleveland). You can watch someone named Byron Mullens look like a cross between Byron Scott and Chris Mullin, scorching just about anyone assigned to “guard” — pardon the gales of laughter — him.

It got ugly in a hurry at the Garden, the regulars raining down boos and venom, and it would have gotten even seemlier if not for the dynamic return of energy-bunny rookie Iman Shumpert, who was all over the floor, earned his own wave of chants and cheers, scored 18 points … and then wound up limping off the court late in the game, favoring the knee he injured opening day.

Turned out it was only a cramp. On this night, that passed for spectacular news.

“We know what we’ve got to do,” D’Antoni said, sounding a lot more confident than he looked. “We’ll solve the problem and we’ll get it done.”

More and more, D’Antoni looks like a man overwhelmed by the task of getting it done, possibly because he is. He is easily annoyed when anyone mentions how the Knicks barely maintain a passing interest in defense, recoils when he’s reminded he had a “defensive coach” in Mike Woodson thrust upon him (and we are ready to see Woodson’s Buddy Ryan effect any time now, by the way).

More and more, the Knicks look like a team on the precipice of something truly epic. Yes, it is early. Yes, there are 60 games left in the season. There are winnable games ahead of them. But there were supposed to be winnable games behind them, too.

“It can’t get any worse,” Anthony said.

Check back with us after you play the Wizards in Washington tomorrow night. We may need a second opinion on that.