Carmelo Anthony showcases a new way to be great in win over Wizards

It's very easy for Carmelo Anthony's performance Saturday night to go unnoticed. His effort against the Wizards is similar to the normal star performances that we've seen from him through the years. After all, what immediately stands out is his 37 points on 11-of-18 shooting. An efficient night for the Knicks gunner, but nothing really too shocking.

Unless you watched it.

For as often as I turn to metrics, for as much as I believe in evidence, there are moments when you realize that a digit in a box score means more (or less) than it indicates. A rebound can be a clutch, clinching collection that stifles momentum, or it can be a dude snagging a rebound that belonged to a teammate after a missed free throw which the other team had surrendered. A shot can be a crucial basket made when a player's team needs it most, or it can be a garbage lay-in off a random deflection. They count the same, but they don't mean the same.

Anthony's game Saturday night was filled with the same kind of numbers he always puts up. However, it was one of the best performances you'll see out of Melo, for NBA 2k16 MT reasons that go well beyond the box score.

EFFICIENCY

Melo always gets his buckets. He's going to score night after night because he's willing to launch. Yet look at that number: 18 field-goal attempts. That's an incredibly reasonable amount. Beyond that, Anthony was playing in the flow of the offense. He was a willing passer, buy 2K16 MT and wasn't demanding the ball on every trip down, trusting the offense. Anthony had six isolation possessions via Synergy Sports, to four spot-up opportunities. That's terrific balance for a player of his profile.

Anthony did shoot 14 contested field goals compared to just four uncontested via NBA's SportVU data, but Anthony's able to do that. When you go back and watch his shots against Washington, many of them were situations in which he got his defender off kilter, one-on-one, and that's a matchup that Anthony's going to win every time. He also made a stunning eight of those 14 contested shots. For Anthony, that's about as efficient as you're going to get.

VERSATILITY

It's easy to look at his fourth-quarter scoring output (11 points in the final frame) and say he had a big close. However, another number stopped me in my tracks. Melo finished with seven rebounds, but he grabbed five of them with 8:15 remaining in the game, including the clinching board off a Bradley Beal miss.

Gortat didn't exactly crash the glass here, and Melo didn't have to leap and battle through multiple guys. But it's the fact that he committed himself to making sure he got that rebound, and that he contributed a winning play that stood out which didn't involve a shot attempt.

Before the season began, I asked the folks at SportsLine to put together a projection for the Knicks season with the standard Anthony projection, and one in which he grabbed one more rebound and had one more assist. Look at the impact that has statistically, according to the SportsLine Simulation Model:

The big takeaway from all this is that Anthony hit tough shots -- like he can -- on Saturday, but he also contributed to plays that could help his team win. He was moving off-ball. He was staying locked in defensively. This resulted in a win over a team that's supposed to land a top-six seed in the East this year.

READING THE TEA LEAVES

It's easy to play with purpose and intensity, to play smart, early in the season. It's the slog, when you're in the middle of a losing streak in February, on the road in Milwaukee, that tests those things. Yet Anthony is showing a remarkable combination of intensity, purpose, and a willingness to commit to a team structure. He's struggled from the field in two of the Knicks' first three games, and yet the team is 2-1, and his most important play in Saturday night's win ended up being a rebound he nbamtcoin.com snagged.

On Saturday, the Knicks' defense was two points better with Anthony on the court vs. off, per 100 possessions. In the two Knicks' wins, he has a positive net rating defensively. That may seem obvious, that his defensive impact would be good in wins and bad in losses, but that's never been the case. Anthony doesn't have to be lights out on defense, just a little bit better.

If this is the Carmelo Anthony that Knicks fans are getting this year, they're going to have a good chance to reach their ceiling and make the Garden a positive environment for the first time in a long time. It's only been three games. The hard part comes in turning performances like Saturday night into the norm and not the exception.