Larry Brown Sports

After an impressive showing against the Boston Celtics in the opening round of the NBA playoffs, the New York Knicks barely put up a fight against the Indiana Pacers. The team was ice cold offensively throughout most of the series and lost Game 6 on Saturday by a score of 106-99, despite Carmelo Anthony’s 39 points on 15 of 29 shooting.

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, who coached Anthony during the Orange’s national championship season in 2003, is not surprised the Knicks were bounced from the playoffs. Simply put, he feels that Carmelo was doing everything by himself.

“Not on that team,” Boeheim told the Syracuse Post-Standard when asked if Anthony can win an NBA title. “He did what he can do. He played very well the final game. Everybody’s killing him but Tyson Chandler just didn’t try to catch the ball. He threw him the ball and Tyson Chandler (dodged it). He was wide open. He should have been looking for the ball right here. Kenyon Martin should have been looking for the ball. They both went like this (Boeheim dodged his head). Carmelo gets turnovers and the announcers aren’t smart enough to even think, ‘Well, the guy should try to catch the ball.’”

Boeheim took most of the Knicks to task, adding that JR Smith (who is reportedly sticking around in New York for a while) and Raymond Felton “weren’t great players” on their former teams and now the Knicks are asking them to do too much. But he seemed particularly frustrated with Chandler.

“Tyson Chandler claims he never gets the ball,” Boeheim said.” He doesn’t try to get the ball. He had two points and (Roy) Hibbert had 21.”

He wasn’t done there.

“In Miami the second and third options are Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh,” Boeheim continued. “Your fourth option is Ray Allen, who is still in good shape. Your fifth option is Shane Battier, who is still a good player. The New York Knicks have who?”

Boeheim said he told his son during Game 6 that Anthony would have to score 50 for New York to win. He also blamed the Knicks’ offensive scheme, saying Carmelo has to run an isolation offense and go one-on-one too often. He’s right. Anthony is a great player, but he’s not Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. The Knicks aren’t going to win a title with him taking 30 shots a game.

H/T NY Post

Kenyon Martin encouraged his New York Knicks teammates to wear black to Madison Square Garden to symbolize their plans to end the Boston Celtics’ season with a funeral, but they were the ones who got buried.

The whole funeral talk began because of an exchange between Martin and the Celtics’ Jason Terry before Game 4.

“The guy was mouthing off before the game,” Kenyon Martin told the New York Daily News after Game 4. “[Terry] told me, ‘You’re not dancing at my funeral today.’’’

In response, Martin told his Knicks teammates to wear black to Wednesday’s game, which they lost 92-86. JR Smith said after the game that they were the ones who got buried.

“Well we was going to a funeral but it looked like we got buried,” JR Smith said, via NJ.com. “It’s all part of being humbled and basketball is a very humbling game.

“I’m done with this black stuff,” Smith told NJ.com. “I’m a superstitious person. I’m going to go back to my old routine.”

Meanwhile, Martin refused to talk about the black clothing when asked about it after the game. He even flashed the look of death at the reporter after being pressed on it:

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New York Knicks owner James Dolan must have quite an ego. In fact, he thinks so highly of himself that someone recently almost lost their job for not knowing who he was.

According to the NY Post, Dolan was walking into Madison Square Garden’s Delta Sky 360 Club during Sunday’s game against the Boston Celtics when security guard Fiordaliza Hernandez stopped him and asked him for his ID. Dolan apparently never wears the badge since he pretty much runs the show, and he was reportedly offended that Hernandez didn’t know who he was.

“Do you know who I am?” Dolan reportedly snapped at the employee.

Hernandez then admitted that she did not recognize him, at which point Dolan told her he was his boss and paid her salary. He then asked her how long she had been working there, to which she responded “three years.”

“Give me your ID!” Dolan reportedly exclaimed. “You’re fired!

“I have to get new security in this building! I have idiots working here!”

Thankfully, Dolan reconsidered after cooling off, and Hernandez was supposedly back at her post on Monday night when the New York Rangers played the Winnipeg Jets. Perhaps somebody was in a bad mood when their ego went on a rampage. Unless he’s taking all of his employees out to a company dinner, I don’t see any reason why they should have to recognize him by face. If anything, he should have been pleased that the woman was doing her job by asking people who were entering the exclusive club to present their ID.

Then again, this is James Dolan. Firing an employee for not recognizing him wouldn’t be the strangest thing he has done this season.

H/T Deadspin

The New York Knicks have looked like one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference for much of the season, but they have struggled as of late. New York’s loss to the Toronto Raptors on Friday night was its fourth straight, which is the team’s longest streak of the season. The All-Star break doesn’t appear to have helped Mike Woodson’s club sort out their issues, but Amar’e Stoudemire believes he knows what the problem may be.

“We got plenty of swagger, we may have too much swag,’’ Stoudemire said after the loss, via the NY Post. “We got to get more greedy, from the standpoint of wanting to defend, wanting to win and having a sense of urgency. We have to want to win. We got to have the mentality to want to win. It don’t matter if it looks good or not. We just got to get it done. It’s not a great feeling right now.’’

The phrase “we need to get our swagger back” is probably one of the most overused in sports. The Knicks have oftentimes looked overconfident during their losing streak, which is likely what Stoudemire is referring to. The team’s shot selection has been poor, with Carmelo Anthony hitting less than 40% of his shots over the last four games. Worse yet, he is 3-for-20 from beyond the arc in the last three games.

All teams go through bad stretches. The best ones are able to respond. Eventually, the shots will start falling again for the Knicks. In the meantime, they need to bear down defensively and continue to show the type of improvement that was on display over the first half of the season.

Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

JR Smith has played an important role for the New York Knicks this season, averaging more than 15 points per game and giving the team a dangerous perimeter shooter. He has been one of the best sixth men in the league, but that does not mean New York’s coaching staff is overly thrilled with him.

On Wednesday night, Smith was ejected in the third quarter of a blowout loss to the Indiana Pacers. He drew a double technical foul after a dust-up with Lance Stephenson in the first half and was tossed in the second half after being called for an offensive foul and using a hand gesture to show his disapproval. Knicks head coach Mike Woodson was not pleased after the game.

“I’m not happy about how we played and how we carried ourselves professionally on the basketball court,” Woodson told reporters, via the NY Post. “We can’t do that. I’m not going to tolerate that. I’m just not.”

Smith also got into a somewhat heated exchange with Knicks assistant coach Herb Williams during a timeout in the first half. According to the Post, the anger between the two appeared to carry over into the locker room after the game:

As Smith talked to a media scrum, Williams walked over and ordered Smith to take his headphones off while he was addressing reporters. Smith’s headphones were draped around his head. Smith took them off and Williams shook his head in disgust as he walked away.

Smith may be playing particularly well this season (he dropped 26 points in a win over the Toronto Raptors just before the All-Star break), but as we know he has an incredibly unique personality. He said his improved play has been the result of toning down the partying, but it sounds like JR is also in need of an attitude adjustment if he wants to continue to have the respect of his coaching staff.

Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

The New York Knicks have been recording Carmelo Anthony during games, and the star forward says he is not bothered by it. Earlier in the week, we told you how team owner James Dolan had ordered someone to record every conversation Anthony has on the court. According to the NY Post, Dolan set up the audio technicians in response to ‘Melo being suspended for a game following his altercation with Kevin Garnett.

Dolan apparently wants to have evidence of the things opposing players say to Anthony should another similar situation arise. Carmelo said he isn’t bothered by the decision, but he doesn’t think it is going to change anything.

“I don’t care about the microphones,” he told The Post on Tuesday. “I wasn’t aware of it. I found out on the plane [ride]. I don’t think the mikes are going to stop what goes out on the court. But it was funny when I heard it. No, I wasn’t upset. Not at all.”

There’s only one problem: everyone knows Anthony’s conversations are being recorded, including opposing players. Is anyone really dumb enough to say anything incriminating when they know there is going to be evidence that they said it?

Perhaps that is the plan. If Dolan has an audio crew recording every exchange Carmelo has at Madison Square Garden for the rest of the season, maybe it will stop trash talkers like K.G. from telling his best player that his wife tastes like cereal. It’s an idea that just might be crazy enough to work.

New York Knicks owner James Dolan is reportedly interested in getting an up-close look at how his biggest superstar carries himself on the court during games. How close? According to Dave D’Alessandro of the Star-Ledger, Dolan ordered audio technicians to record every word that Carmelo Anthony said during New York’s game against the Chicago Bulls on Friday night.

Either by coincidence or not, it was the game after ‘Melo returned from serving a one-game suspension stemming from the altercation he had with Kevin Garnett.

Here’s what D’Alessandro reported in the Star-Ledger:

Two audio technicians were stationed at two corners of the court — one a few feet just behind the Knicks bench, the other diagonally opposite — and they were holding those umbrella-shaped contraptions known as parabola microphones, which fed the audio into a DAT recorder on the truck on the loading dock.

These guys had one directive from Dolan: Record every syllable Carmelo Anthony utters and absorbs while he’s on the court and on the bench, the Madison Square Garden CEO ordered them, and send the tape directly to me.

No one knows what Dolan’s motivation was behind the bizarre idea. D’Allesandro speculates that he could use the recordings to teach Anthony about controlling his temper on the court. He also wondered if they could be used to prove to the NBA that ‘Melo is a constant target of taunting from opposing players.

In all likelihood, this is an in-house matter and the public will never know the details. That doesn’t make it any less fun to speculate.

H/T Game On!