'Melo denies three-point celebration is gun related

After Carmelo Anthony's 34 points burned the Phoenix Suns on Sunday afternoon, New York Daily News writer Mitch Lawrence took a shot at the New York Knicks forward by saying his three-point celebrations looked like he was pointing a gun to his head and was a bad image for the player and the game.

Lawrence wrote:

"Here was Carmelo Anthony draining four 3-pointers against an inferior Phoenix Suns team on Sunday at the Garden and then putting a couple of fingers next to his head every time he hit one, as if he were shooting himself.  On his fourth one, he was quite emphatic.

With the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide in Kansas City happening the day before, with guns so prevalent  in society and wreaking so much carnage, it hardly looks like the appropriate way to celebrate an NBA three."

Anthony fired back at the suggestion his three-to-the-head salute had anything to do with guns.

"No. Never. Of course not," insisted the Knicks star as he left the locker room with his young son, Kiyan.

"Hell, no!" he emphasized.

No one will deny the existence of gun references in music, movies and the so-called gang lifestyle that is sucked up by the media and imitated in the streets as well as the suburbs, but Anthony says he is not playing that hand.

"I know how people will look at it," he said.  "But it's just three points, that's all."

While teammate Steve Novak mimics strapping on a championship belt after one of his many threes, Lawrence insists the Knicks players seem to be "sticking with the sign, created by Rasheed Wallace" which glorifies the gun culture.

Only Anthony used it on Sunday but, in their previous win against the hapless Washington Wizards, Lawrence writes, "it seemed that everyone did the three-to-the-head signal."

"It just means three," Novak said of Wallace's sign.  "We just sit around and come up with these kinds of silly things."

If the celebration is a gun reference — as has been suggested by stories on the Internet — Anthony isn't having any of it.

"I'm just representing my man, Rasheed Wallace — three-to-the-dome," said Anthony.  "It's just three, nothing major."

Jeremy Lin granted his 'early-Bird rights' but NBA will appeal

The Players Association won and so did the New York Knicks after Jeremy Lin and Steve Novak were granted their "early-Bird rights" by an arbitrator, giving the team more financial flexibility this summer.

Friday's ruling by arbitrator Kenneth Damm means that Lin— as well as Novak— will be able to re-sign with the Knicks without the confines of a salary cap. 

Within an hour of the ruling, the NBA issued a statement saying it would appeal.  If that goes over past July 1 free agency, it could create a delay in the Lin/Novak negotiations.  Union attorney Ron Klempner said he believes the appeal will be resolved by then, paving the way for Lin and Novak to have Bird rights by then.

Because the Knicks will not have to waste their $5 million mid-level exception to sign either of those players, the team can take that money to improve their roster in other ways (i.e. a veteran point guard).  Steve Nash leads the list of experienced point guards the Knicks have their eyes on but that looks like a long-shot— especially the way the organization bum-rushed Mike D'Antoni—Nash's friend and former coach in Phoenix— out of New York.

Point guards Jason Kidd, Jameer Nelson, Andre Miller and shooting guard Ray Allen could also fill the $3 million slot.

Had the arbitrator sided with the NBA, and neither player was granted his so-called early-Bird rights, the Knicks would have had to use their exception money on Lin and left them with little room to make other moves and Novak was as good as gone.

"Can't tell you how great it is to have my Bird rights preserved," tweeted Novak.  "A lot of hard work was put into making this happen."

For now, it looks like Linsanity is still at the Garden.

Texter gets hit in face by ball at Nets game

A guy was sitting in the front row at Newark's Prudential Center— watching the New Jersey Nets host the New York Knicks while texting someone and without paying attention to the game— when an outlet pass from  Knicks center Tyson Chandler sailed by Steve Novak and bopped the guy in the face.

While the woman sitting next to the texter had the awareness to shield her face, this guy was so into his texting he didn't even see the play unfold from his front row seat and went back to texting after the ball bounced off his head.

The pissed off man's text probably went something like this: "Sitting courtside next to the Nets bench.  Chillin'. Watching Carmelo Anthony light up the Pru... ouch! WTF!... Oh...  just got hit in the face by Tyson Chandler's pass. Awesome."

If the texter was a Nets fan, his night was already pretty bad. The evening started out with the hometown Nets getting booed while their cross-river rivals, the Knicks, got rousing cheers during the introductions.

Anthony finished the night with 33 points in 34 minutes— 21 of them coming in the first quarter— and the Nets ended up on the short end of a 104-95 loss.