Carmelo Anthony’s shooting woes continue in Knicks’ loss to Magic
Carmelo Anthony, who attempts shot in the first half, shot only 6-for-17 from the field in loss to Orlando Magic at Madison Square Garden on Monday, Jan. 2, 2017. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The ball isn’t dropping for Carmelo Anthony. Not only is he missing three-pointers, he’s missing uncontested 15-footers, the sort of shots he once seemed capable of making with his eyes closed.
Anthony hasn’t made more than 44 percent of his shots in a game since Dec. 20 against Indiana, and not so coincidentally, the Knicks are 1-5 in that stretch. In Monday night’s 115-103 loss to what should have been a very beatable Orlando Magic team, Anthony’s shot looked completely off-kilter.
With Kristaps Porzingis watching from the bench with a sore Achilles and the Knicks’ defense nonexistent again, Anthony (19 points) shot 6-for-17, including 0-for-4 from three-point range.
“I just missed them,’’ he said. “I gotta get some more arc on the shot. I don’t know. I just have to keep shooting it and working it.”
He was particularly feeble in the third quarter, when the Knicks tried to come back in a game they had trailed from the get-go. Anthony was 2-for-7 in the third, twice missing jumpers that would have cut the Magic’s lead to three.
It was the fifth straight loss and eighth in 10 games for the Knicks, and one reporter asked coach Jeff Hornacek how he deals with the fact that his “star player hadn’t shown up at home.” Hornacek bristled a bit at the question.
“Well, Carmelo had an off night shooting, but tonight it wasn’t just him,” he said. “ . . . They collectively across the board outhustled us.”
Anthony told Hornacek before the game that he had a sore knee but would play. Anthony originally hurt the knee in a collision with Dante Cunningham in Friday night’s loss to New Orleans. He made it through only the first half of Saturday night’s loss in Houston and finished that game shooting 3-for-11.
“I think being banged up is probably part of it,” Hornacek said when asked if he is concerned about Anthony’s recent shooting troubles. “As a shooter or scorer, sometimes you go through four- or five-game stretches where you’re making some and you’re missing some. I’m sure with Carmelo, he’ll all of a sudden be hot and be 12-for-17.’’
Hornacek did acknowledge that the cold streak is hurting the team. “It’s hard when he’s not shooting the ball well and you don’t have [Porzingis] out there to pick up the slack,” he said.
Hornacek does not buy into the theory that he might get more production out of his stars, Porzingis and Anthony, if he reduced their minutes.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just being more fresh. Melo plays 34 minutes. And 34 and a half. I don’t know if you’ve sat through these timeouts. They’re like five minutes long. I don’t think they should be tired. You should be able to play 35 minutes a game with the amount of timeouts and the length of timeouts.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
