NEW YORK _ Carmelo Anthony had tried this once already, isolating near the left elbow against Michael Kidd-Gilchrist as the clock wound down in regulation. And that shot had spun out of the rim, putting any celebration on hold and sending the game to overtime.
But as the clock ticked down in overtime, the score tied again, Anthony wouldn't change a thing. He isolated on the same spot, milked the clock _ this time the shot clock _ to its final ticks. And he turned and softly lofted a shot over Kidd-Gilchrist again. This one slipped cleanly through the net with just three seconds to play and delivered the Knicks their third straight win, this one a 113-111 thriller over the Charlotte Hornets.
Anthony had already carried the Knicks almost singlehandedly back into the game on the offensive end, finishing the game with a season-high 35 points. But he did just about everything on this night.
Rather than the usual cries of, "M-V-P" after every basket, the fans were imploring the Knicks with chants of, "De-Fense," which mostly seemed to fall on deaf ears. But Anthony listened, swatting away a Frank Kaminsky drive, helping the Knicks turn a 13-point deficit into a five-point lead entering the fourth quarter. He did it again in the overtime, blocking a Kemba Walker drive.
But with Anthony it's usually the scoring that makes a difference and on this night, it did again. He delivered a pair of perfectly whipped passes to Willy Hernangomez for buckets late in regulation before trying to finish it off.
But after carrying the load on his shoulders for much of the night help finally arrived in the final minutes. Kristaps Porzingis, who had just five points through the first 42 minutes, came up with 11 late points and also rose to smother a Cody Zeller fast break drive and another on Kaminsky. And Anthony whipped a pass to Porzingis with 45 seconds left in overtime to find him open for a corner three-pointer.
Joakim Noah was back in the starting lineup Friday night, shaking off the effects of the flu-like symptoms that had sidelined him for the last two games. But maybe he hadn't shaken them off completely.
Less than three minutes into the game he drove to the rim to throw down a resounding dunk _ except he didn't quite make it, rattling the ball off the rim. The Madison Square Garden crowd groaned, the awkward missed dunk just seeming to accentuate what the fans who had spent the last two games cheering his replacements believed, that the Knicks were better off without him.
But if Noah didn't make the highlight reels with his offensive efforts, he did what it is that he does best _ crashing the boards, setting hard picks and mostly screaming in celebration at everything the Knicks did right and imploring them when they went wrong.
And he did eventually prove that, yes, he can dunk. With 1:11 left in the second quarter he drove again, this time dunking it and hanging on the rim as he rocked back and forth. But he still played just 18 minutes _ and not at all in overtime.
