Things were so bad for the Knicks on Wednesday night that the Cavaliers were playing the water bottle challenge before the game was even over. Cleveland ended up beating and embarrassing the Knicks 126-94 at Madison Square Garden, and New York ultimately remains unable to move beyond the drama that plagued it during the first month of the season. Namely, Phil Jackson’s big, dumb mouth.
The game marked the first time that James visited the Knicks since Posse-gate caused the NBA’s biggest stars, including Carmelo Anthony, to choose sides and columnists to predict Jackson’s return to Los Angeles. Earlier this week, James was even asked if he’d meet with Jackson to squash the posse-beef, and The King flat out said, “No.” Jackson, meanwhile, has barely addressed the issue and when he finally talked about it, he was shocked that this is even a thing. No “I’m sorry” or “My bad, you guys.” Above all, the divide between Anthony and Jackson hasn’t been publicly repaired, and now it’s only getting worse, thanks to comments Jackson made to CBS Sports on Tuesday.
“Carmelo, a lot of times, wants to hold the ball longer than — we have a rule, if you hold a pass two seconds, you benefit the defense. So he has a little bit of a tendency to hold the ball for three, four, five seconds, then everybody comes to a stop. That is one of the things we work with. But he has adjusted to it, he knows what it can do and he’s willing to see its success.”
Jackson was explaining how Anthony could benefit from the triangle offense, another point of contention for the Knicks this season, and he even said that his star player could “play that role that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant played” if he’d just take advantage of being the “weak-side man.” Anthony didn’t listen to or read Jackson’s interview, and he definitely didn’t appreciate being asked about it after his team was blown out by the defending champs.
“I don’t even know what was said. I just don’t want to get into it. I just don’t want to even talk about that, what he’s talking about exactly. I want to stay away from that at this point. My focus is my teammates and winning and playing great basketball. That’s the only thing I’m focused on. Whatever Phil said, he said it, I have nothing to say about that.”
As Anthony already implied last month, he simply prefers when Jackson says nothing at all.
