INDIANAPOLIS — Carmelo Anthony has heard about Denver coach George Karl’s euphoric state since he left town — how happy he is with his new Nuggets, who are 8-2 since the trade.
Anthony repeatedly has said he is happy Denver is thriving but hasn’t heard many well wishes from Nuggetsville. Anthony can read between the lines.
“I really think they kind of don’t want me to have success in New York, the way I look at it,” Anthony said yesterday at Conseco Field House before the Knicks’ 119-117 loss in their rematch vs. the Pacers. “I try not to think about that. I’ve been in Denver 7½ years. For me to move on was a hard thing to do. This is a business, and I’ve cut my ties there.”
Anthony said he is trying to become a better teammate here in New York, and repeatedly talked about placing more emphasis on making his teammates better. If that means taking less shots, so be it. It was either a self-actualizing moment or the coaching staff has gotten to him.
Anthony, who scored 29 points last night, is averaging 25 points, taking a whopping 20 shots a game, and the Knicks are just 6-6 since his arrival.
Anthony, shooting 44.5 percent, is trying to erase the perception that Karl is creating about Anthony’s me-first attitude.
“For me personally, it’s a matter of trying to make other guys better,” Anthony said. “I think it’s a challenge I take upon myself to get guys like Shawne Williams going, Landry [Fields] going, keep Toney [Douglas’] confidence up since he’s coming off the bench now with Chauncey [Billups] back.
“It’s something I take into high consideration — to make those guys better. If that’s me taking 10 less shots and giving it to them guys and sharing it with them and making them feel comfortable, I don’t have a problem with that. That’s something I’ve been thinking about the last couple of days.”
In the latest Sports Illustrated, Anthony was depicted by Karl as a disgruntled superstar whose teammates stand on the fringe watching Anthony execute isolation plays. Anthony does not want that characterization to carry forward in New York.
“For me it’s something I think about all the time,” Anthony said. “How can I make other guys on my team better. When you lose, it’s magnified times 10. All those thoughts are going through your head. Whether those guys play well or not, is it because of myself?
“That’s something I think about, trying to make guys better and make guys feel like they’re a part of what’s going on. Throughout the game, if I’m shooting a couple of times in a row and guys start standing still and just watching, it’s something we don’t like, something I dealt with over the past couple of years.”
Anthony said he feels at peace despite the tumult of the past several months of being on the trading block, and it is becoming increasingly clear he and Karl despised each other.
“Mentally exhausting?” Anthony said, repeating a question. “I’ve dealt with the mental exhaustion part. That part is over with. The worst part is over with, the months I went through, how I went through it, each day having to deal with it. That part is over with. Now I’m in my new situation. This is what I have to focus on.”
Anthony’s ball-stopping ways doesn’t exactly fit with D’Antoni’s “Seven Seconds or Less” ball-moving ways. D’Antoni still talks about this new era as an adjustment period, even as the Nuggets soar to a 8-2 record since acquiring Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and Timofey Mozgov in the Anthony trade.
“We were going well on a team that was playing a certain way and in the playoffs,” D’Antoni said of his pre-All-Star-break club. “[Denver] was kind of up and down because the situation was there. One is like taking a strain off them and, wow, look at what we got. And ours is, we don’t know what we have. It’s different expectations.
“They’re great guys,” D’Antoni said of the former Knicks. “They did everything they could to make us successful and did a good job. We just saw an opportunity to get a superstar, and we [thought] it’s the right thing to do.”