Carmelo Anthony: Winning with Melo Slumping Is a Good Sign for New York Knicks

The New York Knicks suffered their first loss of the Mike Woodson era on Friday as they dropped a decision to the Toronto Raptors. Prior to that, however, the Knicks had won five consecutive games and they were largely doing it without the regular contributions from Carmelo Anthony.

Anthony has gone six consecutive games without scoring more than 17 points and he has shot 40 percent or worse from the field in four of those contests. According to Marc Berman of the New York Post, Anthony admits that he is lost on the offensive end, but he is optimistic that he'll bounce back.

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I’m trying to find my shots on the court and trying figure it out, Anthony said. But right now I don’t have the rhythm. I never thought I’d be saying this but my defense is ahead of my offense right now. I’ll take it. As far as my shot goes, I still have confidence it will come back.

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When Woodson took over as head coach following the resignation of Mike D'Antoni, he said that his priority was to run the offense through Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire. That has been the case as Anthony has 15 shots in three consecutive games, but nothing is going down for the star small forward.

This has been a trying season for Melo as he has dealt with injuries, disagreements with D'Antoni and now a major shooting slump. Despite Anthony's struggles, though, the Knicks have been excellent as of late.

Aside from the loss to Toronto, the Knicks have consistently been putting up over 100 points per game under Woodson and have beaten strong Eastern Conference teams like the Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers.

If New York is capable of doing that with its superstar playing mediocre basketball, then imagine what the Knicks can achieve when Anthony finds his game. It isn't as easy as Carmelo suddenly rounding into form out of nowhere as he will need to put in the work, but Anthony has always been a prolific scorer, so there's reason to believe he will figure it out.

Until that time, it's good news that the supporting players like Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, Jeremy Lin, Steve Novak, J.R. Smith and others are playing quite well. Last year, the Knicks' biggest issue was depth as there was nobody to complement Anthony and Stoudemire, but that is no longer the case as the Knicks have one of the deepest teams in basketball.

That much is quite apparent as the team has stayed afloat despite Carmelo's troubles. With Anthony playing like this the Knicks are nothing more than a one-and-done team in the playoffs, but if he finds his game and the supporting cast continues to thrive, then it isn't inconceivable to think they could pull of an upset or at least push a top team to the brink.

There is obviously reason to be concerned with Carmelo's game right now, but the Knicks are doing him a great service by winning without his contributions. This is the best team the Knicks have had in a very long time, and a dominant Carmelo Anthony seems to be the only piece missing.