It was East versus West in Madison Square Garden yesterday, when the New York Knicks faced the Los Angeles Lakers.

Carmello Anthony had a total of 35 points, which was a far cry from his 62-point game this past Friday, but it was still good enough to secure a victory over the Lakers 110-103.

Although most would probably assume that Knicks’ coach, Mike Woodson, would love for Anthony to duplicate his Friday night performance every night, he said that he much rather have his entire team be equal contributors, which is necessary in order to keep other teams guessing

“Last year we had five guys that averaged in double figures and I’ve always wanted a team where you just didn’t know where it was going to come from,” said Woodson. “And we know Melo’s going to get his, but we need everybody to be a part of the offense and touch the ball and feel good about themselves.”

Apparently, Raymond Felton felt good about himself, scoring 18 points, and Tim Hardaway Jr. and J.R. Smith seemed to feel good too, as they put in 18 and 16 points respectively.

Lakers’ Coach, Mike D’Antoni said, Anthony wasn’t the team’s biggest concern, it was the other Knick players, and if the Lakers’ could shutdown everybody else they would be victorious, but that obviously wasn’t the case.

Plus, D’Antoni said that he wasn’t worried about Anthony going on another scoring spree like he did on Friday night, because it’s really hard to stop that. “Melo is going to do that against anyone,” he said. “That’s what he does. Where they killed us was Hardaway was 4 for 5 for 3s and Felton didn’t miss his shots. We made some mistakes on guys on rotations and stuff.”

But the biggest drawback for the Lakers is not having Kobe Bryant, as he’s still out with a severe knee injury, and most likely won’t be back before the all-star break. But once he returns and is able to get himself into game-shape, and other key Laker scorers return as well, the team should be able to compete way better, and they’ll need to if they even have a chance of making the playoffs.

Image via Wikimedia Commons