There have been occasions when the Knicks will be watching film and Mike Woodson will essentially shred Carmelo Anthony non-stop — a relentless critique of the Knicks star.
“After the film session, he’ll say, ‘Did you like that?’ ” Anthony said yesterday. “It goes hand in hand. But I accept that. Being one of the leaders on this team, you’ve got to be able to accept criticism.”
Anthony said he not only has zero issues with being criticized, but he encourages the interim head coach to dish it out. Is this just public lip service, and the private reality is that Anthony gets unhappy with the disparagement? Could be. But he insists he told Woodson he can handle it.
“When I’m messing up, he tells me. Even when he got the job, I told him, ‘Just hold me accountable,’ Anthony said. “If I’m doing something that he doesn’t like, just tell me.
“Regardless, I don’t have a problem with criticism. If I can do something to help better this team, let me know. And he’s been doing that.”
Woodson, Anthony and the Knicks enter tonight’s game against the Raptors 3-0 since Woodson assumed the head coaching job from Mike D’Antoni, and they have not only gone undefeated, they have demolished the competition — the Blazers once and the Pacers twice. First, last Wednesday the Knicks massacred Portland by 42 points. On Friday they blasted Indiana by 15 at the Garden, before drilling Indiana the next night by 14 on its home court.
The margin of victory may have decreased since their destruction of the Blazers, but going 3-0 and winning each game by at least 14 points is still impressive.
“We want to make our push,” point guard Jeremy Lin said, “and we want to make a push not only to make the playoffs, we want to make a push to win the division and that will bump us up even more in the playoff standings.”
Anthony has played fine during Woodson’s tenure, though he oddly hasn’t led the team in scoring in any of the three games. Since Woodson has been at the helm, Anthony has scored 44 total points (14.7 ppg). In D’Antoni’s final three games, Anthony scored 65 points (21.7 ppg).
Anthony has also only taken 37 shots the last three games, an average of just over 12 per night. For the season, he’s averaging nearly 18 shots per game.
Lin said because of Anthony’s scoring prowess, teams will double-team him and make it difficult for the star forward to get easy looks. Either way, Woodson dismisses Anthony’s low number of attempts, saying it’s not a priority.
“I’m not concerned about Melo getting a whole bunch of shots,” Woodson said. “I think there’s enough shots to come on our team with players that can make a difference. I like a team that the opposing team doesn’t know where it’s going to come from. But we know who our stars are on this team.”
Anthony said over the last three games, his focus “was to have an energy that I haven’t had so far this season.”
“Especially on the defensive end,” Anthony said. “Everybody on this team knows, everybody in the world knows I can score the basketball. It’s not that important to me. As far as on the defensive end, just showing my teammates that the effort is there, giving that extra effort and as a result, everybody’s been feeding off of that.”