Carmelo Anthony doesn't think knee injury is serious

CLEVELAND -- Carmelo Anthony left Monday night's game with a right knee injury and revealed that the knee has been bothering him for a couple of weeks.

Anthony said he had an MRI a few days ago that was clean and added that the Knicks' doctors don't think "it's too serious." But he said he feels tightness in the back of his knee and that it hasn't been established why.

He will be re-evaluated in Detroit Tuesday and could miss Wednesday night's game against the Pistons, at the very least. The Knicks play Thursday night against Oklahoma City.

"[It's] just sore," he said. "No pain. Just sore, stiffness. But it's been going on for a while now."

On the play that ended Anthony's night, he reached back with his right hand for an outlet pass from Jason Kidd that was thrown slightly behind him, tripped over his own feet at midcourt and fell hard. Anthony stayed down for a little while, then limped to the locker room and never returned.

"Before the game, I felt like I was like dragging my right leg," he said. "And maybe that one particular possession, I didn't really have the control that I wanted of that leg and kind of tripped over my other leg."

The Knicks ended up beating the Cavaliers, 102-97, erasing a 22-point deficit without Anthony and with Amar'e Stoudemire carrying them. Anthony shot 1-for-5 and scored six points.

"Some days you wake up and you don't really feel right," Anthony said. "I came and I tried to warm up in warmups, and it still didn't feel right. I thought it was going to loosen up before the game. Some of the things that I was doing, it felt like I was dragging my leg, and then that one particular play as well."

With the Knicks' brutal schedule this month, they likely will be extra-cautious with Anthony. They play 15 more games in March, including five sets of back-to-backs.

Anthony said he didn't have any X-rays Monday night but that the Knicks' medical staff examined the knee. "They did manual tests, like ligament tests, things like that," he said. "But no problems like that. All the ligaments is fine. It's just real tight, real sore in the back."

Anthony said it's not tendinitis and tried to sound optimistic, given that the MRI "came back great." But there is concern because the cause of the discomfort hasn't been pinpointed.

"There's really nothing that we can figure out at this moment," Anthony said. "We're going to try to figure it out [Tuesday], give it a couple hours and see what happens."