#62 points

Ah, the week before the Super Bowl. It’s that sports vortex when America experiences football withdrawal, baseball is still too far away, National Hockey what League?, and the NBA is in the heart of mid-level regular season games.

So it was really nice of Carmelo Anthony to absolutely light it up for four quarters and score a Madison Square Garden record 62 points, leading the Knicks in their rout of the Charlotte Bobcats. When nothing else is going on in the sports world and the Knicks are playing the Bobcats, it’s common courtesy, really.

Melo's half court buzzer beater (he started celebrating before it went in, that's how unconscious he was last night)

Melo hit eight of first ten shots, and was 15-21 at the half, which basically means the guy was feelin’ it. He also pulled down 13 rebounds. As if having 62 points wasn’t enough, Melo figured he’d get a double-double to boot.

The Knicks came into last night’s game on a five game losing streak, needless to say they had to get this type of a boost. They play the Lakers tomorrow in a Sunday matinee game, which unfortunately was a far more interesting matchup a decade ago than it is now.

At 17-26, the Knicks are two games back of the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, who incidentally is the Charlotte Bobcats with still a couple of more months to go before playoff season. To answer your questions: yes, the Eastern Conference is that bad, and no, I can’t make this stuff up.

This is all to say thank you to Melo for making the vortex more bearable. You reminded me why I still (half) pay attention to the Knicks in spite of all the disappointment, and will continue to do so for times like this.

-Pat