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GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Carmelo Anthony and his teammates know they are facing a must-win in Game 2 Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden or they could go back to Indiana down 0-2.
“We don’t want to do that, we don’t want to do that,” Anthony said Monday at practice. “We want to take care of business here on our court. We feel like we gave them a game yesterday, which we did. And we’ll redeem ourself tomorrow.”
Anthony said his injured left shoulder was “fine” and downplayed attention to his declining shot production.
In the last four games — including three losses — he is 35-for-110 from the field and 2-for-22 from the arc.
“As far as shots go, I’m not going to overanalyze that or start putting that under a microscope because the shots that I’m taking, I know I can make,” he said. “They’re just not going in at this point for whatever reason it is….I’m not thinking twice about the shots that I’m missing.”
Asked if he needed to attack the basket more, he said: “I have to, that’s what I do. That’s what we succeed at. We start from the inside out, especially when we not making jump shots and things like that from the outside. We have to attack the basket and try to take advantage of that.”
J.R. Smith has also struggled mightily for the Knicks. Since the suspension in Game 4 against Boston he has shot, 3-for-14, 5-for-14 and 4-for-15.
“It helps to get to the free throw line some,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. “They gotta continue to shoot in practice and when they [are] taking shots, they gotta try to take better shots.”
He added: “I think they’re capable of doing that, and only time will tell.”
Anthony also downplayed criticism of the officials, who appeared not to give Anthony the benefit of the doubt on several calls.
“Them guys, they officiated the game to the best of their ability yesterday,” he said. “I’ll leave it at that. As far as my mindset, I’m attacking. That’s my goal.”
Kenyon Martin suggested after Game 1 that Anthony should play more small forward as opposed to power forward so he doesn’t get beat up as much, but Anthony said it’s not a concern.
“I think K-Mart is coming from a concern standpoint as a teammate from me getting beat up so much, but we’ve been dealing with the same thing all year long,” Anthony said.
“I think I committed one foul on David West. I think David West scored maybe once or twice when I was guarding him at the power forward position….I don’t think they’re doing anything great other than they out-worked us yesterday.”
Asked if he was considering moving Anthony back to the three, where he spent part of Game 1 when he played alongside Tyson Chandler and Martin, Woodson said, “No, not right now. It’s too early in the series.”
He said he wasn’t concerned that Anthony was getting beat up by bigger defenders like West and Roy Hibbert.
“Melo’s played big guys all year,” he said. “The last I checked statistic-wise, we’ve been pretty damn good this year with Melo playing at the four spot so I don’t see any reason to change at this point now.”
Even with Amar’e Stoudemire eyeing a possible return in Game 3 Saturday in Indiana, the Knicks cannot afford to enter that game down 0-2. As things stand, they have already surrendered their homecourt advantage and now must increase their effort level to match the young Pacers in Game 2.
“It’s very critical,” Woodson said. “We can’t go back to Indiana down 0-2. We gotta do everything that we can that’s possible to win the game.”
