MIAMI -- Time for a March run that might determine whether clustering superstars together makes for championship-caliber teams -- or ill-fated buzz machines with more postseason hype than hope.
When the Knicks and Heat face off Sunday night, it'll be the final February game before a stretch that addresses the staying power of the Big Three against quality teams and the wisdom of New York having traded so much to land All-Star Carmelo Anthony.
"I think it is great for the NBA the Knicks are back," LeBron James told reporters this week after New York exchanged a bevy of young talent and draft picks for the 'Melo scoring machine. "The other teams are trying to compete (with us), and I think that is great."
Maybe, maybe not.
Friday night, the new-look Knicks — already playoff-bound with their original assortment of players — lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Teams recalibrated with new players need time to learn to play together. But losing to the hapless Cavaliers doesn't exactly instill confidence that Anthony is the answer to the Big Apple's basketball woes.
"I don't like to make any excuses; this was a game, regardless of how long we've been together, that we should have got," Anthony told reporters in Cleveland after the loss. "It comes down to everybody being on the same page defensively. We've only had four practices to get it together. No excuses."
LeBron said Friday it takes time for players like Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire to sort out how they'll work in tandem to make their teams better.
"When we figured that out, we started to play better basketball individually, and we started to help our team," LeBron said. "It's going to take games. It's going to take practices. It's going to take film sessions to understand how can we not only help ourselves, but this team."
That's the Knicks' challenge, one that will be accentuated Sunday in their game against the Heat. But LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh still have their own figuring out to do: whether they're a team that is truly among the league's best.
Which means beating really good teams, not just the bad ones.
Which means stepping up in March.
The Knicks, with the addition of 'Melo and all that does to team chemistry and continuity, may not be the most grueling challenge for Miami. But the rest of March will draw out of the Heat a clearer picture of what they're made of.
Games against the Lakers, Thunder, Bulls, Spurs, Hawks, Magic and Trail Blazers will test the Heat over a 10-game stretch unlike anything they've experienced all year.
Except for one game in San Antonio, all of those games are in the friendly confines of American Airlines Arena.
For the Knicks, March will be about showing that the Cleveland loss was an expected chemistry hiccup en route to a powerful sea change in big-city basketball, prompted by teaming up Chauncey Billups and Anthony with Stoudemire at the expense of depth.
March will tell the league and both teams a lot about the wisdom, or lack thereof, behind turning a team into a three-man show.
You can follow Bill Reiter on Twitter.
