You can call it coincidence. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe Carmelo Anthony was simply due for this, due for 16 points and seven assists in 241⁄2 minutes, due for actually cracking a smile on the Garden floor, due to play in a manner befitting both his talent and his temperament.
"It was fun out there on the court tonight," Anthony would say when this 121-79 walkover of the Blazers was done. "It's been a long time since it was that much fun on the court for us."
He certainly looked happier last night. He certainly played freer. A cynic — or maybe just someone with a pair of working eyes — might say it was a direct byproduct of having a new coach on the sideline, a new voice in his ear.
Melo merely would say he was due.
"We know we have to play better," he said. "And we know we have to get this together quickly. Guys have to be accountable. That starts with me as a leader of this team."
Anthony has no choice but to reach for the high road now, has no choice but to distance himself from what happened yesterday afternoon, when Mike D'Antoni handed in his resignation and Mike Woodson replaced him and the Knicks' season reached critical mass.
That's fine. And it also is perfectly irrelevant.
Whether Anthony was the hand in his back that shoved D'Antoni over the line, whether he has blood on his hands, it will be of little consequence if yesterday was more a sign of things to come and less an aberration.
"Some guys just weren't buying in," Amar'e Stoudemite, who himself had a fine 18-point, eight-rebound game, said no fewer than four different times. He didn't mention anyone specifically. But if you've seen the Knicks play this year, did he have to?
Look, D'Antoni was not a popular coach among Knicks fans, and if most people don't like the notion that a star player can manipulate a coach's ouster, it isn't exactly unprecedented in the sport. Ask Paul Westhead about Magic Johnson. Ask Doug Collins about Michael Jordan. Ask Byron Scott about Jason Kidd.
In truth, they don't want to hold this against Anthony. They didn't boo him all that loudly during pregame introductions and in fact gave Woodson a healthy cheer. Knicks fans want the Knicks to win. They want the Knicks to reverse the free-fall that took them from .500 to six-under before last night's win, want them to be done with the Bucks and the Cavaliers and firm up a playoff spot.
Which means they want Carmelo Anthony to play like Carmelo Anthony.
And during the competitive portion of last night's game — before it evolved (or devolved) into a public lost-and-found for J.R. Smith's jump shot, what we saw at the Garden was the very best of Melo: 15 first-half points, all of them scored within the flow of the offense, four first-half assists, long stretches where he and Jeremy Lin didn't look like strangers.
That's what even slow-to-embrace-Melo Knicks fans want. They want a Melo they can embrace. They want a Melo who will lead and will score and will play with the kind of spring in his step they used to see at Syracuse, at the Beijing Olympics, even in Game 2 of the playoff series with the Celtics last year.
"The season is not over," James Dolan declared before the game, and whatever issues Knicks fans may have with the team owner, they want to agree with him on this, want to believe him. Want to believe there still is a season to embrace and enjoy.
Hell, by the end of the night they were chanting Mike Woodson's name at the Garden. Knicks fans are perfectly willing to move on. The question is: Will Anthony allow it?
"Melo got a lot of criticism with his body language, but nobody likes to lose," said Tyson Chandler, one Knick who did like playing for D'Antoni, but who likes winning more, and recognizes the impact a revitalized Anthony will have on the team's bottom line. "We all react differently to losing."
They reacted different last night, all right. One of them in particular.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com
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