Baron Davis participates in first Knicks practice
Baron Davis cheering the Knicks on during the first half of a Knicks-Celtics game. (Dec. 25, 2011) Credit: Errol Anderson
GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Upon further review, Carmelo Anthony has not resolved to shoot less or otherwise change his spots. And Baron Davis, at last participating in a practice session Monday, still must work on "everything, everything, everything, everything," he said, before his rehabilitation of a herniated disc is complete and he can parachute into the lineup to be the Knicks' savior at point guard.
Stuck in the rut of a six-game losing streak, "everybody is questioning everything," Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni acknowledged. But both he and Anthony -- who wondered aloud after Saturday night's double-overtime loss to Denver whether he might be to blame for the 6-10 Knicks' offensive woes -- insisted that the problem isn't that simple.
"That was just me beating myself up," Anthony said of his reflection on having gone 10-for-30 in that game and 35-for-105 in the past four games. "If I'd have made some of those shots, I probably wouldn't have said that. That's just me being hard on myself.
"That was the other day, man. Maybe I was overthinking a little bit. I gotta play basketball, whatever that may be. We gotta win basketball games. Whatever it's going to take, that's what I'm going to do."
Anthony, D'Antoni said, "has just got to get through this. He can't take all the blame on himself. It's a whole team thing. I think everybody should be reassessing what they can do better. You can't get down, you can't completely change radically what you do. You've got to be yourself, got to have your ego intact and go forward."
D'Antoni said the Knicks must improve ball movement and spacing and not stand around so much on offense. And it is generally accepted that a veteran point guard such as Davis, in his 13th NBA season, should help facilitate that. But just when Davis will make his Knicks debut -- and how much court time he will be able to handle when he does -- remains uncertain.
After Monday's workout, Davis kidded that he was "so tired I can't talk." D'Antoni guessed that he will have to ease Davis into brief stretches of action, possibly four or five minutes at a time. "He's got to get used to his teammates, the system, the stamina, the timing," D'Antoni said. "There were signs it was good . There were other times it was a little rusty."
Davis admitted to a "high level of anxiety" before practice and that he "made a lot of mistakes, was very rusty, didn't play good. But a lot of instinctual things were there. It just felt good to be out there with my teammates; I had a smile on my face.
"There are a lot of expectations" about what he can bring to his new team, "expectations I've never had in my career," he said. "But I'm up for the challenge. We all want to work through this and treat our fans right."
