Carmelo Anthony Quotations

People look at me like I'm on my way out of the game. I'm just getting started.

I'm a classical type of guy. Whatever's out at that point in time, I like it. I just put my own twist on it, and we go from there.

Any decision I make is the biggest decision of my life.

I wanted to make the lightest shoe possible, but still be able to perform at the same time.

I can't worry about what other people are saying about me. At the end of the day, it's just their opinions, but if I said I don't hear it, or it doesn't bother me a little bit, I'd be lying to you.

It's too late for me to get married before I'm famous. You never know people's intentions.

I think everybody has their own unique style.

I just want to get on the court.

I believe that you should put the right people around you, people that will not let anything go wrong.

When I step on that basketball court, I'm thinking about basketball, I'm thinking about winning - but there's so much that goes into thought about how I'm going to open this game up to others. It's so much more than just basketball.

At the end of the day, you want to be always the one that's one step ahead of everybody, and when it comes to hip-hop, culture and art, you want to be that signature guy.

What I do will be straight up. Management knows that.

I know I'm not a selfish player. People around me know I'm not a selfish player. I do everything I can to make people around me understand I'm not a selfish player.

Denver is home to me, and to be recognized for my achievements in the sports community here is a great honor.

Man, I'm not trying to be important; I just go out and play.

I think going to college for that one year was probable the best thing I have ever done.

The NBA's a Fortune 500 company. That's how you look at it. And all the other Fortune 500 companies out there in the world, you don't see their CEOs and COOs going to work with white tees and baggy clothes and stuff like that. So I have to take that same approach.

I think people fail to realize that teams and organizations have been stacking teams since way back in the day. The Lakers had the Showtime era. Boston had six hall of famers on one team. You had Detroit, the New York Knicks, and now the Miami Heat. They were stacking their teams back then, it just fell off over the years and now it picked back up. Boston did it first, then LA. I was fortunate enough to play against them when they had Shaq, Kobe, Rick Fox, Gary Payton, Karl Malone... that's five hall of famers on one team! So you can't get mad at Miami for doing what they did.

I've been at the funerals of a lot of people in my neighborhood. Sometimes when I sit back and relax, I think about that and just blank out.

With the way everything's going now and the way that technology is going, you can do a lot of things with a lot of different new materials.

Of course I want to take the last shot, let's be quite frank: I've been doing for nine years already, and I've made a ton of them.

Who wouldn't want to go back home to play?

We let three slip away. That's over. That's behind us. We know this is a new year. New goals. New attitudes.

We knew they were going to make a run, we weren't going to be able to keep a (big) lead on them. They made a run, they made a big run in the third, but we kept our composure.

We knew they were going to make a run but we kept our composure and finished off the game. It was a great game out there.

We ran pretty well (Monday night). I don't think we ran as well as we wanted to. But we ran pretty well.

Last year's second-half stretch was incredible. Hopefully we can come together and do the same thing we did last year. I have confidence in me and my team to step it up.

My first season, I was just happy to be in the playoffs. Last year, I think we did OK against San Antonio. We didn't do much to win. We learned from that. I think this is the year that's going to separate us.

Of course it was a disappointment at first, having that as one of my goals at the beginning of the season. But at the end of the day you and everybody else knows how the West was.

My confidence level is out of this world right now. I feel every shot I put up there is going in.

Now we don't have to put too much pressure on ourselves. It was good to come on the road and get this win. I don't think anybody predicted where we'd be where we are right now in three years. This is one of the stages we've been trying to get to. Now that we're here, we want to move forward and win a playoff series.

On the defensive end, they really turned up the pressure on us.

I got some treatment (Saturday). I got some rest. I got a lot of treatment. I got some ice and massages on my side. They said it was going to hurt. . . . It keeps getting banged up. I just got to fight through it.

I didn't mind sitting out in the fourth at all. We did a good job of holding a lead and we held their starters to just 29 points.

I didn't get hit in my nose, more around my eye, and across the bridge of my nose. I didn't feel it in my nose, I felt it in my forehead.

I don't even know what happened out there, it was all so fast.

I don't know what it is about Memphis, but we always seem to come out and play good against them.

I couldn't sleep last night due to the pain. I tried to go out there and play tonight, but by the third quarter it started tightening up on me.

I feel like it's a fresh start for me. I'm feeling better than I ever felt. I feel better than even in high school or college.

I can't even remember. To me, it's just going to be like practice. . . . I don't even look at it as trying out.

For two days, George (Karl) has been constantly stressing that this is a team that we'll be playing against. We kind of wanted to make a statement that if we play you in the playoffs, this is what you're going to see.

For two days George has been stressing that if the playoffs started tomorrow this is the team we would play against. We wanted to make a statement.

For the record, I'm not getting in the car. I can't fit into no Indy car. I'm just excited about the project. I think we're going to have a lot of fun.

Give the Clippers credit. They tried to take the ball out of my hands. We missed shots we normally make. We kept fighting and kept competing. I feel very good about this series.

If we win playing ugly ball, we'll take it.

He's been a big influence. He's got a lot of knowledge.

We're on a roll right now. Hopefully, we can continue this confidence-building.

We've got to roll with it and just move on. Everybody's got to pick up the slack.

Having three, four power forwards out there on our team, being so deep at that position, at this point, it really doesn't matter.

He's a good defender. Everybody knows that. . . . We'll see how it turns out.

We match up with them pretty good, despite how the record turned out when we played them throughout the season. I look forward to playing the Clippers. Playoff basketball is a lot of excitement. It's going to be fun, especially in L.A.

This was a good win for us. We had good aggression in the fourth quarter.

Just trying to support him in any way we can.

(Karl) just told us management had to make a decision.

I talk to Julius every day. He's just got to be patient. George is going to get on him a lot, but it's for the best. He only wants him to get better. I try to talk to him and tell him to fight through it.

I take this as motivation. It's nothing to be upset about. I can't take away and nobody else can take away what I've done this season.

It is getting old. I hope we have everybody out there as soon as possible. Playing with a 6-4 lineup is tough.

I was edgy my first two games just to get out there and start my career. You saw me settle down more than I did the first two games.

I think we just came together seeing we were down. We couldn't lose our first game after the (All-Star) break so we had to focus in and we did a good job of that.

I think it was a little bit unfair for me because I didn't know what was going on. For (Brown) to come out and say what he said, he could have at least come to me first.

Last year I showed people a little of what I can do. I didn't give them the whole shebang.

I saw the double team coming, I tried to beat it and go faster.

I saw a double (team) coming and I just tried to beat it. I just had to go fast.

Our team needed me out there to get some things done on the offensive end and the defensive end. At halftime, I just told (the team) it's time for me to wake up.

Regardless of who they sent at me, I was going to the hole. We won the game, that's the only thing I'm happy about.

Regardless of who it was, I was going to the hole. They weren't going to stop me that time. I was either going to get a foul or a dunk.

Reggie is a (great) block-out guy and Ruben will go down there and battle. Sometimes, the ball just seems to fall right in my hands.

That boy got eyes on the front and back and both sides of his head. He got eyes everywhere. He's always playing hard. Only thing I like about him, he looks for his teammates first, then he goes out there. He's not a selfish player. I can play with somebody like that all year long, maybe in the future we can get him out here in Denver.

My team needed me out there to get some things done. At halftime I just told them it's time for me to wake up and just go out there and win the game.

I was trying to set a screen for Andre Miller and just get open. I saw the double team coming and I just tried to beat it and go fast to the basket.

I think I brought it on myself. I guaranteed a gold medal (before the Olympics). I'm not doing that this time.

I think in certain situations last year and the year before last I would have tried to take that shot with three people on me. But I've seen even if I don't shoot the ball to win the game, I can win the game by passing it out of a double team.

I think I'm starting to get into a rhythm a little more. I'm focusing more.

It didn't seem like he had 40 points.

I think last night they saw how hard it was for me out there making everything and doing everything and them not coming through. But (Saturday) I think we spread the wealth.

That was real good. That was probably the best thing that happened (Saturday). Seeing the kid.

That was a good block, good defense. He was doing that all night. Actually, he's been doing that all year.

I wasn't going to miss no time, not in a game like that.

Me playing only 6 minutes in the first half really hurt us. Anybody gets frustrated over fouls. It's a matter of how you bounce back. I tried to come back in the second half and bounce back. . . . By that time it was a little too late.

Yeah, I think that was the best of any big shot I've hit, most likely. I didn't have nothing to do, but to shoot.

We have to keep shooting. We had our bad shooting game out there tonight. So we are bound to have a good shooting night.

We came out sluggish but you can't take anything away from the way they shot the ball in the first half. Coming in here and starting off the way we did, we had to finish hard. The last five minutes we buckled down and took control of the game. We feel more confident in close games.

We were holding it down on the defensive end. To know that we can do that without him, just imagine what we can do with him when he gets back.

Triple-team. If I was a coach, I'd do the same thing.

We've been fighting with injuries all year. So we've got to do what we did tonight, go with who's going to go out there and play.

We can build some confidence and we can build off the way we played in the first three quarters. We ran pretty well tonight. Maybe not as well as we wanted to, but we ran pretty well. Next game we can go out and try to do a couple of more things than we did.

The past two days, George (coach George Karl ) has been stressing that if the playoffs were today, this is who we'd play. We wanted to make a statement right away and tell them this is what they'll see if they play us.

We still got a great chance to make this road trip real special. Finish a road trip like this 5-2 is a real good road trip for us.

Wally hit some big shots and they got some easy baskets.

We knew that it was a division game and we wanted to win it and we showed that.

To see anybody mess up their knee like that is real tough. I think, not just me, but a lot of people, will have to step up.

We got hot. We started making shots. We can shoot, man.

We have seven games on the road coming up. If we can win at least five of those games on this trip, it will define us as a team.

We've got to figure it out. Any time we miss a key component to our team like that, out for a lot of games, and he comes back, it's going to be rusty.

This season I came in with a clean slate. I didn't have any off-court issues to worry about. I was able to get focused on basketball. Everybody in my circle, I told them I was on a mission this year.

Tonight we stuck to our game plan which was to get out in the open court. We just needed to get back to playing basketball and having fun.

We had a great preseason. But it's over with.

We're very confident. We have high expectations. Every time we play the Clippers, they are great at adjusting in the second half to what we are doing in the first half. They are also sending two or three people at me every time I touch the ball. That's a sign of respect. They try to mix it up. They play with my head a little.

This one hurts worse than the other two. We have issues. I saw guys who did not want to be here and play in this game. We did not play playoff basketball in this series.

We should have put them away earlier than we did. For my teammates to step up and hit shots helped me out tonight.