Carmelo Anthony’s frustration mounting as Knicks struggle
Carmelo Anthony looks frustrated during Knicks' loss to the Dallas Mavericks on, Dec. 7, 2015 at Madison Square Garden. Credit: Jim McIsaac
SALT LAKE CITY — Carmelo Anthony couldn’t hide his frustration during the game or after another Knicks’ loss.
The Knicks are trending downward again, with six defeats in eight games after Monday’s loss to Dallas. It’s a new team but this trend is all too familiar for Anthony and it’s taking its toll.
“Losing is frustrating,” he said. “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. Things that happened on the court, I probably thought should’ve went my way. That can be frustrating at times. It seems like it’s just starting to become repetitive now.”
The Knicks are 10-12 and Anthony’s shot is off. He’s shooting 36.6 percent in his last five games and has scored 20 or more just once.
Anthony shot 6-for-18 against Dallas. After halftime, he was 1-for-6, with four points, three turnovers and a technical foul. He exchanged words and shoves with Chandler Parsons and had to watch Kristaps Porzingis nearly single-handedly lead the Knicks back from a 23-point deficit.
Porzingis scored 28 points and helped get the Knicks within four in the final minute, without much help from Anthony.
“I know I want to be doing better,” Anthony said. “I want the team to be doing better. So all of that frustration starts setting in.”
Bad nights happen for all players, but it’s been a bad stretch for the Knicks, who open a three-game trip Wednesday against the Jazz.
The Knicks have trailed by at least 15 in five of the last six losses and 21 or more in four of them. The two wins were against the Nets and Sixers, who are 6-36 combined.
As frustrated as Anthony is, he’s not formally sounding the alarm although he said this trip that includes stops in Sacramento and Portland is critical.
“I’m not getting concerned,” Anthony said. “I just don’t like losing. I don’t want to get used to that feeling, coming in the locker room every day and have to explain why we’re losing basketball games. That’s a feeling that I don’t want to get used to.
“It’s hard to say what has to change. This road trip is a big road trip for us, that’s the only thing that I can say. It can either go two ways: it can go good for us or it can go bad for us. So we got an opportunity to do something good on this road trip.”
Derek Fisher has lamented the Knicks’ lack of activity in the last two games. Dallas, in the second half of a back-to-back, scored 63 first-half points. The Knicks came off an off day.
Fisher said the Knicks need more practice. But he then gave them off Tuesday, apparently feeling that rest would be better before they flew cross-country for the three-game-in-four-nights trip.
“We’re having a hard time just physically sustaining the activity and intensity that a game demands,” Fisher said. “We have to just continue to push through it and rely more on just our will and our grit and learning to win.
“Hopefully after this trip we’ll have more space to get some practices in and find a way to get better. I think we’ve kind of gotten stagnant and kind of leveled off. We have to find a way to get better.”
Anthony said he hasn’t looked at the standings yet. It would only add to his frustration. The Knicks began Tuesday 12th in the East.
“We don’t want to dig ourselves a hole,” Anthony said. “It seems like everybody’s playing good basketball in the East. So we don’t want to dig ourselves a hole. We have to start picking this thing up.”
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
