Oklahoma City Thunder star Carmelo Anthony has been one of the smoothest scorers in the NBA. He can get a basket from just about anywhere on the court in just about every way.
In most of this stops in his career, Anthony has been the go-to guy on offense, which has fit the way he plays offense quite well. But since joining the Thunder, he has faced an adjustment period in terms of what kind of shots are best for him to take.
Many of those shots lately have come in catch-and-shoot situations, where he is benefiting from an extra pass or a drive-and-kick to him out on the perimeter. He's adept at that type of play, as he showed while on the Olympic team, but it's not his overall strength.
On Friday morning, Anthony addressed this piece of game, per Fred Katz of the Norman Transcript.
Carmelo Anthony on liking to receive catch-and-shoot opportunities in rhythm: “I won’t consider myself a shooter. Klay Thompson is a shooter. Steph is a shooter…I consider myself a scorer. And as scorers, you want the ball in rhythm.” pic.twitter.com/x7cWAMroFW
— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) March 9, 2018
Anthony gave some insight into what can cause an otherwise good catch-and-shoot opportunity to go awry.
“Any small thing — the pass can be off a little bit — is a big difference between making a shot, missing a shot or just a shot going in or not,” Anthony said. “It's a major difference.”
It's always great to hear players talk about some of the minutia that goes into how they play the game of basketball. It's important for fans to understand that open shots sometimes come down to more than whether or not a player is open. Rhythm and all the other little things matter.
For Anthony, he's tasked to make those types of shots more than he misses them. This season, he is shooting 40.1 percent from the field on catch-and-shoot opportunities, and 36.9 percent from the 3-point line in those instances, per NBA.com.
Those numbers will need to improve in order for the Thunder to get to where they want to go in the playoffs.
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