Carmelo Anthony 'Excited,' Says Blazers 'Have the Hardest Uphill Battle'

Portland Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony said Tuesday he's "excited" to help the team attempt to earn a playoff berth when the 2019-20 season restarts amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

Anthony told Casey Holdahl of the team's official website the Blazers, who are 3.5 games behind the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth seed in the Western Conference, have no margin for error when play resumes at the Disney World complex in Orlando, Florida:

"And for me, to go down there and—I think we have the hardest uphill battle because of where we at position-wise. We're sitting in ninth right now, we've got to stay within those four games of the eighth spot, so we don't have no time to slack in those eight games going down there. We gotta go, we gotta get it going and then after that, it's like playoffs for us before the playoffs. And for me, as a competitor, that's what excites me, because I know that I gotta turn my switch on and there's no turning off once I get there."

Anthony signed with Portland in November, a year after his last NBA game as a member of the Houston Rockets. He averaged 15.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.4 threes while shooting 37.1 percent from beyond the arc across 50 appearances before the season was halted March 11.

The 36-year-old Syracuse University product played the stretch 4 role to help the Blazers overcome the absences of frontcourt starters Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins because of injury.

Nurkic and Collins are expected to return following the four-month layoff, which would allow the 10-time All-Star to play his more traditional spot of small forward. He told Holdahl the switch, also necessitated by Trevor Ariza opting out of the restart, is welcomed:

"The good thing is I get to go back to my original position, which is playing at the three. I'm actually very comfortable at that, I've been doing that my whole life. Over the last couple years is where I started moving, transitioning toward playing the four more. You've got teams going small, so that was to my advantage as well. But I think today in this game, it's positionless. There's no positions no more today, so it doesn't matter when people put an emphasis on you playing the three or you playing the four, like, we out there playing."

On paper, the Blazers' raw talent can compete with just about any team in the league. A starting lineup of Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Anthony, Nurkic and Collins with Hassan Whiteside and Gary Trent Jr. leading the reserves is a threat.

If Portland does enough to at least earn a spot in the play-in tournament following the abbreviated eight-game finish to the regular season, it'll have a great chance to take the last spot in the West and likely set up a star-studded showdown with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers.

The 2012-13 NBA scoring champion told Holdahl he sees it the same way:

"I like our chances. I say that not in an arrogant way, but I say that in the way that I believe in the group of guys that we have. We're healthy, guys are ready to play, guys are focused, guys are locked in. This is something that we talk about on a daily basis, how important it is to go down there and be locked in from the jump. Everybody seems like they on the same page, right. They're very aware of what's at stake."

The Blazers, who own a lackluster 29-37 record in large part because of the injury woes, are set to resume play with a crucial clash against the Grizzlies on July 31.

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Bleacher Report's David Gardner interviews athletes and other sports figures for the podcast How to Survive Without Sports.