Can’t fault Carmelo this time around

You can take issue with Carmelo Anthony’s failure to chase Delonte West on Tuesday as the Celtics ran out the clock — and the Knicks’ complete lack of preparation for Boston’s move to toss the ball into the backcourt. You can get on him, if you want, for seeming a bit too pleased in postgame interviews with his own performance — a bit too caught up in the fun of a hothouse playoff battle, and perhaps not furious enough about a season-changing missed opportunity.

But don’t get on him for passing the ball to a wide-open Jared Jeffries with the Knicks down by one in the game’s final seconds:

Don’t bring back this notion, already tired when folks heaped it on LeBron James for passing to Donyell Marshall four years ago in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, that real superstars don’t pass the ball with the game on the line. Watch the tape of that possession, and you’ll see Anthony holding the ball on the right wing, beyond the three-point line, with three Celtics almost close enough to touch him. Anthony’s defender, Paul Pierce, is in his chest. Ray Allen has decided to drift away from Roger Mason Jr. at the top of the key and hang near Carmelo’s left hand. Glen Davis is charging through the gap between Pierce and Allen, also ready to cut off Anthony’s path to the left.

In theory, Anthony could have done something on his own here. With Davis and Allen gathering to his left, he probably could have put his head down, taken a hard dribble or two to his right and pulled up for a contested jumper — the kind of ridiculous shot he made over and over to keep his team in the game. But he saw Jeffries come free underneath, and he made the right play. Jeffries is a borderline incompetent offensive player, but he’s in the NBA, and he should be able to turn over his left shoulder, toward the baseline, and make a layup to put New York ahead by a point. That he didn’t — that he turned away from the basket instead — is a testament both to Jeffries’ chronic skittishness and the fear players have when they know Kevin Garnett is coming. Maybe Ronny Turiaf, if he was up to it, would have been able to finish; Turiaf probably would have fared better than Jeffries defending the Garnett post-up play that put Boston ahead seconds earlier, but coach Mike D’Antoni had decided by then to ride with Jeffries.

D’Antoni was right after the game that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t criticize Anthony’s terrible shot selection one day and then excoriate him for refusing to take a terrible shot the next day.

Anthony does take his share of awful shots. He took some Tuesday, but they went in, and he had to assume a larger burden than usual with Amar’e Stoudemire out. But what struck me about Game 2 was how smartly Anthony and his teammates used him to their advantage. It reminded me of the way the Mavericks’ supporting players use Dirk Nowitzki — and the attention defenses must pay to Nowitzki’s jumper — to create open looks for themselves.

Toney Douglas, in particular, was good at exploiting Anthony’s presence. On at least three key possessions midway through the fourth quarter, Douglas used Anthony as a screener on the right side of the floor, knowing that Carmelo’s defender was going to stay attached to him instead of jumping off to help on Douglas. The result: Douglas turned the corner easily each time and drove baseline, creating (in order) an open runner for himself (he missed); an open three-pointer for Mason in the left corner (he made it); and another open look for himself (a mid-range jumper he made).

Watch the Mavs, and you’ll see their guards use Nowitzki in this exact way — as a decoy who allows them to get into the paint. Carmelo deserves credit for acting this part without agitating for the ball on every possession, and the rest of the Knicks deserve credit for knowing how to play off their star. All Anthony has to do now is understand this kind of thing can be doubly powerful when he and Stoudemire are on the court together.

A few other thoughts, bullet point style, on a classic in Boston:

• I watched the last part of that game thinking a lot about the debate over the idea of a hot hand. As Henry Abbott chronicled nicely at TrueHoop, it is very difficult to find evidence that such a thing actually exists in the big picture. The numbers indicate that players actually hit a lower-than-usual percentage of shots they attempt right after hitting a shot. No one knows why that is or whether it applies to everyone, all the time, but folks suspect that players might think they’re hot and thus primed to nail some difficult jumpers.

That kind of research collides with all the stuff we learned about basketball when we were teenagers — about being “in the zone,” and which players are more “clutch.”

And so I found those two thoughts colliding in my head when Celtics coach Doc Rivers finally decided to double-team Anthony the second he touched the ball, even if he was 25 feet from the rim. Boston fans probably thought, “Finally! The Celtics have to let someone other than this terrifying, flame-throwing beast defeat them!” But the calculated observer in me thought that perhaps the Celtics should have stuck with something like a traditional defense, knowing their primary Anthony defender (Pierce) would play him tough, and that the Knicks’ forward might be tempted into more 20-foot pull-ups. He was due to miss, right? Then chance it instead of leaving guys open all over the court.

I’d love to turn back time and see Rivers play the game out the other way.

• Anthony has worked hard on defense in this series, but he cannot put a full game together on that end. On one of Rajon Rondo’s first-quarter transition layups, Anthony was complaining to the officials about a non-call as the Celtics sprinted by him. And at about the 5:50 mark of the second quarter, he made the smart decision to leave Rondo and trap West, who was about to abuse Douglas in the post. Douglas found Rondo under the hoop, but Rondo quickly picked up his dribble and got himself bottled up under the rim, just outside the paint. Anthony and Stoudemire then made the strange decision to double-team Rondo there with the laziest trap you’ll ever see. They just stood there; they didn’t apply pressure, wave their arms, or crouch down to widen their base and cut off passing lanes. Rondo looked around and found Garnett completely uncovered for an open jumper. Awful defense.

• D’Antoni’s decision to go small (with Anthony at power forward) for the bulk of the fourth quarter was interesting and worth looking at going forward, even if the absence of Stoudemire forced his hand a bit. With Jeff Green struggling, the Celtics opted to keep two big men on the floor instead of countering with their own small lineup. Even so, Rivers wanted Pierce to stay on Anthony, which meant that Garnett had to defend Bill Walker. The Knicks got nothing out of this, but they thrived on the boards despite their size disadvantage. Something to monitor, I guess.

• There are few things more viscerally entertaining than watching Rondo guard a LeBron- or ‘Carmelo-sized superstar.

• The Knicks are switching a ton of screens, both on and off the ball, and Boston is getting the matchups it likes as result — especially for Pierce, who took advantage when the Knicks switched a big man onto him. It will be interesting to see if New York changes things up in Game 3.