It's very easy for Carmelo Anthony's performance Saturday night to go unnoticed. His effort against the Wizards is similar to the normal star performances that we've seen from him through the years. After all, what immediately stands out is his 37 points on 11-of-18 shooting. An efficient night for the Knicks gunner, but nothing really too shocking.
Unless you watched it.
For as often as I turn to metrics, for as much as I believe in evidence, there are moments when you realize that a digit in a box score means more (or less) than it indicates. A rebound can be a clutch, clinching collection that stifles momentum, or it can be a dude snagging a rebound that belonged to a teammate after a missed free throw which the other team had surrendered. A shot can be a crucial basket made when a player's team needs it most, or it can be a garbage lay-in off a random deflection. They count the same, but they don't mean the same.
Anthony's game Saturday night was filled with the same kind of numbers he always puts up. However, it was one of the best performances you'll see out of Melo, for reasons that go well beyond the box score.
EFFICIENCY
Melo always gets his buckets. He's going to score night after night because he's willing to launch. Yet look at that number: 18 field-goal attempts. That's an incredibly reasonable amount. Beyond that, Anthony was playing in the flow of the offense. He was a willing passer, and wasn't demanding the ball on every trip down, trusting the offense. Anthony had six isolation possessions via Synergy Sports, to four spot-up opportunities. That's terrific balance for a player of his profile.
Anthony did shoot 14 contested field goals compared to just four uncontested via NBA's SportVU data, but Anthony's able to do that. When you go back and watch his shots against Washington, many of them were situations in which he got his defender off kilter, one-on-one, and that's a matchup that Anthony's going to win every time. He also made a stunning eight of those 14 contested shots. For Anthony, that's about as efficient as you're going to get.
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