Carmelo Anthony on Nets: It's not a rivalry yet
Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks controls the ball in the first half against Joe Johnson of the Nets at Barclays Center on Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. Credit: Jim McIsaac
You can call it the Battle of New York. Or the Battle of the Boroughs.
Carmelo Anthony knows what he wouldn't call the Knicks vs. the Brooklyn Nets: a rivalry.
Not at the moment.
"It's not a rivalry yet," Anthony said Monday as the Knicks prepared to host the Nets Tuesday night in their second meeting of the season. "Although it's two teams in New York, we both have our own situations. We're not worried about Brooklyn. We're worried about ourselves."
The Knicks are 4-14 and have lost four in a row. The Nets are 6-9.
Does this count as a hot rivalry?
"It did at one point," Anthony said. "But it will. This is New York. At the end of the day, we still have something to prove. They feel like they have something to prove. We want to win. We're on our home court now. They beat us on their home court earlier. We want to get back on top."
The Nets beat the Knicks, 110-99, on Nov. 7 at Barclays Center. Neither team is where it wants to be, other than geographically.
"We're trying to win basketball games," Anthony said. "We're trying to figure out the type of team we want to be, our identity. We can't really worry about what Brooklyn is doing over there."
From coach Derek Fisher to Anthony, the Knicks are trying not to go into panic mode.
"That comes down to us as individuals, whether we panic or not," Anthony said. "Me being one of the leaders of the team, I'm not going to panic, so my teammates shouldn't panic. Right now, it's just a matter of us going out there and playing. Every day's a new day. [On Tuesday night] we've got another opportunity to try to turn this thing around."
Anthony is here for the long haul, so he believes the Knicks are going to turn around.
"It's going to happen," he said. "It's going to happen. One way or the other, we've got to will ourselves to a couple of these wins. Fix a couple of things down the stretch and we'll be all right. I believe it's going to happen.
"Overall, we're making progress. I think everybody is starting to feel a little better about what we're trying to do out there. The results are just not validating that, but like I said, I think we'll be OK."
Notes & quotes: Anthony said his back "felt all right for the most part" after he returned to action Sunday and played 41:14. "Just the ordinary soreness after a game," he said. Asked if he still is hurting, Anthony said, "I'm always going to be hurting for the rest of my career. That's just something I've got to deal with and play with." . . . J.R. Smith, who played only 5:34 Sunday, missed practice with flu symptoms. Fisher said Smith showed up at the practice facility and was told to go home after being examined. Smith's availability for Tuesday night is unknown.
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
