Report: Carmelo Anthony frustrated with losing, Knicks' slow pace
Carmelo Anthony is having what's been far from the best year of his career. Still, the Knicks have been better than people thought they would be, even in the midst of losing seven of nine.
The 10-13 Knicks have been competitive in most of their games until recently. Wednesday night, they got waxed by the Jazz in Utah. And now, Melo is reported unhappy with both the losing and the style of play.
From ESPN's Ian Begley:
Let's do some digging. The Knicks currently rank 23rd out of the NBA's 30 teams in pace, so Melo's not wrong in that sense. With all the viscous guards on the roster, New York is playing a slow game. One of the common misconceptions about today's NBA, though, is that you have to play fast to win. Of the seven teams ranked behind New York in pace (Memphis, Toronto, Miami, San Antonio, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Utah), only the Bucks find themselves below. 500. Actually, those seven teams have an impressive combined winning percentage of .589.
“Losing is frustrating,” Anthony said after the Knicks’ loss to the Mavericks on Monday. “I don’t want this to be an ongoing situation or an ongoing feeling where we have to come into the locker room and explain why we’re losing basketball games.”
Anthony hasn’t offered many specifics, publicly, for why he thinks the Knicks (10-13) have struggled lately. But, privately, sources say Anthony has expressed frustration to teammates with the Knicks’ slow pace of play.
After a recent home loss, Anthony told teammates that the Knicks needed to play faster in an effort to get easier baskets in transition, sources say.
“He felt like they were stuck in the half court too much,” one source said Thursday.
All seven of those squads, however, do rank higher than the Knicks in fast-break points per game, as does the entire rest of the league. At 7.7 a night, no one is scorer fewer fast-break buckets than Melo's squad. But here's where some of the hypocrisy comes in: Anthony is a major reason for the Knicks' slow pace.
It's important to get on the run on occasion. It's more important to get into your sets early. Anthony often hinders the Knicks from accomplishing the latter.
Especially late in games, Anthony loves slowing down sets. How often do we see him get a rebound or an outlet pass and simply walk the ball up the court, not even starting the Knicks' set until there are 12 or 13 seconds remaining on the shot clock? It happens all the time, and the Knicks, by no coincidence, play an even slower pace in the fourth quarter, when Anthony is commanding and handling the rock more, than they do during the first three periods. So, maybe Melo needs to search internally for the answer on this one.
