Things got ugly between the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks in terms of the score during Thursday night's Eastern Conference matchup. In the preseason, this matchup looked like a preview to one of the rounds in the NBA Playoffs. However, with the way the Knicks played, they look more likely to miss out on the postseason all together. After getting beat 117-89, Carmelo Anthony admits he is simply embarrassed.
The Knicks were simply overpowered by Roy Hibbert, Lance Stephenson and Paul George. They dominated New York by 30 points and no matter what Anthony did, it was not enough.
"Yeah, it was an embarrassing loss," Anthony said, via the New York Daily News. "Thirty points? I don't think no team is 30 points better than us. So we didn't bring it tonight as a unit, as a team. I don't really know what else to say about that. It's a frustrating loss, man. We're on the road and I felt like we could have played a lot better, a lot harder, than we did out there tonight. This was a big game, against a big-time team, and we didn't bring it."
Anthony failed to hide his emotions while watching the fourth quarter from the bench. After the game he told reporters that the needed adjustments to better matchup against the Pacers were not made, leaving many to wonder if that was a small dig at the coaching of Mike Woodson.
The head coach certainly agreed that the loss falls in his hands. He said the team looked "awful" and the coaching was even worse.
"They're a good team but I don't think they're 30 points better than our team," Woodson said. "It was a total team disaster after a while."
To make matters worse, Amar'e Stoudemire and Kenyon Martin were injured in the loss. Both players suffered ankle injuries and were expected to miss a few games to recover. Woodson said the injuries were not going to be used as an excuse and the team needed to "suck it up" and get past it.
"Right now they're a better team than we are," Stoudemire said. "We match up well as far as roster. On paper we're a pretty evenly matched team. But right now as far as what they're doing on the court, they really get after it. They play hard every single night. That's what we've got to start doing."
