If Sunday’s All-Star Game in New Orleans comes down to the final minutes, East coach Frank Vogel may want to think twice about having Carmelo Anthony on the floor late in the game. Joe Johnson? That’s a different story.
It’s been a mindboggling theme across this disastrous Knicks season: As much as Anthony is putting up great numbers, rebounding better than he ever has and shooting 3-pointers to the tune of a career-high 41 percent at the All-Star break, he has been very shaky late in games.
The trend started in the season’s second game, in Chicago on Halloween, when Anthony launched a left-wing 20-footer down 1 in the final seconds that turned into a brick. One wonders if the whole season could have changed had he knocked it down and the Knicks started the season 2-0.
Anthony’s inability to close out games continued Wednesday in a 106-101 loss to Sacramento that puts Mike Woodson further on the hot seat, though it appears he’ll be walking in Memphis on Monday when the Knicks reconvene for practice.
Anthony went 0-for-5 in overtime vs. the Kings, blowing an uncontested layup on the first possession that set a terrible tone. Anthony took the blame for missing too many makeable shots, and said it would be tough to enjoy the All-Star Weekend after such a bad loss.
It didn’t have to get to OT. Anthony had a chance to win it in the final seconds, but couldn’t drain a 16-foot jumper over Rudy Gay. It wasn’t an easy shot. But great ones make them – at least once in a season.
The miss made Anthony 1-for-12 on potential game-tying or game-winning baskets in the final 30 seconds this season. His clutch stats were also poor last season, when he went 1-for-7 in those scenarios. It’s mystifying considering he was one of the statistical leaders in clutch-shooting categories when he led the Nuggets to seven straight playoff appearances.
Some of the blame might go to Woodson for playing him the entire second half and overtime. But in each of the last three losses — Portland, Oklahoma City, Sacramento — Anthony has collapsed late. In OKC, he was off his game all afternoon, finishing with a season-low 15 points.
The Knicks coach needed Anthony to be great at this stage of the Woodson Watch. Instead, he has fallen into the abyss of a nightmare season.
Another trend festered in the loss to the worst team in the Western Conference: Jimmer Fredette, the product of Glens Falls in upstate New York, is not the first player to notch his career high (24 points) against the Knicks this season. The former Brigham Young sharpshooter became the fifth player to do so.
Fredette, whom the Knicks desperately wanted to draft in the Mike D’Antoni Era, joined San Antonio’ Marco Belinelli, Milwaukee’s Brandon Knight, Philadelphia’s Evan Turner and Indiana’s Lance Stephenson.
Anthony theorized after the Milwaukee loss that many players get up for the Knicks because “we wear New York across the chest.’’ Certainly, Fredette and the Brooklyn native Stephenson would fall into that category. Fredette told me before the game he had a lot of his former coaches, friends and some relatives in the stands.
You wonder how much time Woodson spent on Fredette on the chalkboard. After all, he had scored nine points in the prior three games combined.