The list of iconic moments for Carmelo Anthony in a Knicks uniform is not particularly long. A few game-winners, a high-scoring playoff game and not much else. Well, one coach did resign because of him, but that's about it. On Sunday, against the Eastern Conference's best team, Anthony took perhaps the first step toward building his legacy.
Anthony scored 43 points as the Knicks beat the Bulls 100-99 in overtime, and the game was notable for two huge moments from the Knicks star. He hit a 3-pointer with 11 seconds left in regulation to tie the game at 91 and force overtime, and he made a game-winning 3-pointer with eight seconds remaining in the extra period.
Carmelo Anthony scored 43 points in Sunday's win over Chicago.
The Bulls, who missed four crucial free-throws late in the fourth quarter that would have iced the game, didn't have nearly the same magic. Star point guard Derrick Rose missed his shot in both of his chances to answer Anthony's plays.
"That was incredible. Incredible," said center Tyson Chandler of Anthony's performance. "The Garden was pumping."
The last few minutes of crucial makes masked an overall lackluster game by the Knicks: They blew a 21-point lead and made 38% of their shots, led by J.R. Smith, who made a mind-boggling six of his 22 shots and sank only two of his 11 3-pointers, though he finished with 14 points. Anthony, who started the game hot by making all of his first five shots, didn't thrive again until crunch time and finished with 16 of 31 shooting.
Knicks coach Mike Woodson, who called the win "unbelievable," said he set the game up to his team like a playoff series. That works on a few levels. For one, if the season ended today, the Knicks would play the Bulls in the playoffs. But these two teams also play again on Tuesday, making it a rare back-to-back set of games that plays out like it would in May. Then there was the playoff atmosphere that filled the Garden late. It shook when Anthony hit the game-tying three. When he hit the game-winner, he high-fived former Knicks star John Starks, who was seated nearby.
The under-the-radar stars of the game were the defensive standouts, namely Chandler, who had three blocks and 16 rebounds, and Iman Shumpert, who defended Rose admirably and stopped him from scoring on a potential game-winning drive to the hoop at the end of the fourth.
"Shump did a hell of a job defensively, trying to make it hard on Rose," Anthony said. "He kept denying him....When he got beat we had his back, and that's something that we've been trying to get better at."
Rose, who was playing for the first time in 12 games following a groin injury, finished with 29 points, but it could have been much worse. He had a four-point play with 5:04 to go in the game after he connected on a three before Shumpert stumbled into him. The play made it 88-80.
The grand joke, of course, is that the crucial four-point play came on the day when the Knicks hired former star Larry Johnson in their front office. Johnson had one of the most famous plays in Knicks history when he hit a four-point play in the 1999 Eastern Conference Finals. Johnson's official title will be basketball and business operations representative, but on Sunday afternoon he was just like everyone else in the stands at the Garden, roaring while Anthony won the game.
"They always play hard, but now 'Melo is in a groove where he is hitting a lot of tough shots, and they do a great job in finding him," Rose said.
The win was extremely important considering the Knicks' playoff battle. They entered the day in eighth in the East but could have fallen into a tie with Milwaukee for that spot if they had lost. Instead, they now have the same record as the seventh-seeded Sixers at 29-27. Boston, which leads the Atlantic Division, is only 2 1/2 games up of New York. The Celtics beat the Sixers on Sunday night.
Write to Kevin Clark at kevin.clark@wsj.com
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