{"id":523742,"date":"2026-01-08T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/523742\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T01:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:00:12","slug":"carmelo-anthony-knows-where-blame-for-knicks-skid-lies-wheres-kat-wheres-og","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/523742\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmelo Anthony knows where blame for Knicks\u2019 skid lies: \u2018Where\u2019s KAT? Where\u2019s OG?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carmelo Anthony certainly knows what it\u2019s like to have to carry a Knicks offense on his back.<\/p>\n

But these current Knicks invested heavily in a supporting cast so that Jalen Brunson would have help. But during the four-game skid the Knicks carried into play Wednesday, that supporting cast went missing.<\/p>\n

And the Knicks became predictable as a result. It was glaring during their blowout loss to the Pistons in Detroit on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis got me tight,\u201d Anthony said on \u201cNBA Showtime\u201d on NBC<\/a> on Tuesday. \u201cI\u2019m watching the game, the late-game offense becomes so, so predictable. The shot creation, that burden on Jalen Brunson, it\u2019s too heavy on his shoulders from a night-to-night basis. The margins are very thin. Without easy offense, the Knicks miss shots that they turn into runouts the other way [for the other team]. You\u2019re just focused on Jalen Brunson and there\u2019s no movement, there\u2019s no offense, there\u2019s stagnation and, I don\u2019t want to say you\u2019re getting punked, but you\u2019re getting punked in a sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that loss to the Pistons, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns took just four shots apiece<\/a> and finished with five and six points, respectively. Mikal Bridges had just 10 points. Brunson, meanwhile, took 21 shots \u2014 more than double any of his teammates \u2014 and recorded 25 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching the game [Monday] night and I\u2019m, like \u2018Where\u2019s KAT? Where\u2019s OG? We can\u2019t rely on [Tyler] Kolek like that,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cWhat he gives us is a plus. He can get down, he can play off pick-and-roll, but on a night-to-night basis, who\u2019s gonna be the Knicks\u2019 second option? And the second option cannot be indecisive. \u2026 KAT can\u2019t have six [points] and one [rebound] and OG gotta step up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Entering the season, one of coach Mike Brown\u2019s primary missions was to take some of that exact pressure away from Brunson and let him play off the ball, giving more responsibility to others to set up the offense and facilitate. That, Brown believed, would create easier, more open looks for Brunson and lead to a more dynamic offense.<\/p>\n

It requires ball movement. For most of the first half of the year, Brunson did a good job getting the ball out of his hands and cutting off the ball. But, with Josh Hart sidelined with a sprained ankle, there are not many options to handle playmaking duties<\/a> and allow Brunson to do that \u2014 and to also create open looks for Anunoby, Towns and Bridges.<\/p>\n

\"JalenJalen Brunson and OG Anunoby of the New York Knicks look on during the game against the Detroit Pistons. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

That has led to a return to the isolation-heavy offense \u2014 with long stretches of the ball in Brunson\u2019s hands and little movement \u2014 that was common under Tom Thibodeau last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not getting off it like we were in the past,\u201d Brown said. \u201cYou gotta make quick decisions and as soon as you feel another body come to you, you gotta get off it. And right now, we\u2019re not doing it. We\u2019re holding onto it too much, trying to force the issue too much. We have five staples and we\u2019re not playing or adhering to what our staples are of late.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Hart, who will be reevaluated Friday ahead of a clash against the Suns in Phoenix, should return sometime soon. That should help get the secondary stars more involved.<\/p>\n

And Anthony is not yet panicking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Knicks are not broken,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re far from broken.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carmelo Anthony certainly knows what it\u2019s like to have to carry a Knicks offense on his back. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,3628,288,563,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,741,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-523742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-carmelo-anthony","10":"tag-jalen-brunson","11":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","12":"tag-knicks","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkknicks","18":"tag-og-anunoby","19":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115856777731600728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}