Carmelo Anthony playing through ‘bad’ shoulder injury

New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony is dealing with a nasty shoulder injury, and it’s not going to go away unless he rests it.

Anthony admitted Friday that he’s dealing with a badly weakened shooting shoulder stemming from a bruise he suffered diving for a loose ball on Dec. 11 against the Lakers. The injury can be managed, but it doesn’t take much to aggravate it during games.

“It’s bad,” Anthony told Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News after Friday’s win over Milwaukee. “You know what it is, it’s an adjustment that you have to make on the fly. Like some days it feels good, some days it’s tight. Throughout the course of the game, certain shots, certain moves, you feel like the strength isn’t there. So it’s just a matter of figuring out how to play through it. What’s working? What’s not?

“It feels good during the game. And then you irritate it. And then you kind of have to work backwards again to get it back stronger. But I’m constant around-the-clock treatment.”

Anthony admitted that rest would be the only way to fix the problem, but he hasn’t thought of sitting out any games yet.

“Not yet. Not yet,” Anthony said. “Especially now when we’re in the grind and in the thick of things and we kind of have a chance to get back above .500. And we have some teams that we feel that are some winnable games. So that decision is. … they’re going to have to tell me to take a couple off. Cause I’m not doing it.”

Statistically, Anthony’s numbers have been mixed since the injury. He’s still averaging 21 points per game, but he’s shooting a modest 39 percent from the field since Dec. 11. It probably hasn’t helped that he’s dealt with some unwanted off-court distractions during that period as well.