Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul named as the players of month for April - NBA Update
New York’s Knicks star forward Carmelo Anthony and Los Angeles Clippers swingman Chris Paul have been nominated as the ‘Players of the Month’ in the Eastern and Western Conference respectively. The duo was judged for the games
played through the month of April.
Paul has been the driving force behind Clippers’ success in April and it was due to his 20.7 points per game average that Clippers managed to secure the playoff berth (5th) for the 1st time since the 2005-06
season.
On April, 22 he poured in a game high 33 points and 13 assists to help Clippers rout New Orleans Hornets (his former team) 107-98. He was determined to lock up home-court.
"We got to keep fighting," Paul said. "We got to win one more to lock up home court."
He led Clippers to a 9-5 record in April, during which his scoring average was number 4th in the Western Conference while he led the league in steals at an average of 3.0 per game.
On April 24, he put up another impact performance by scoring 34 points against Atlanta Hawks. During the month CP3 recorded 6 double-doubles, scored more than 20 points in 7 games and more than 30 points in 3 games.
The Eastern front was owned by Carmelo Anthony. He stepped up at a moment when Knicks were dealing with back to back injuries to Jeremy Lin and Amare Stoudemire. Faced with the responsibility to taking the Knicks to the playoffs,
Melo prospered big time.
Late in the month against a higher seeded Atlanta Hawks side, Anthony stole the show with a jumper at the death giving the Knicks a frantic, 113-112 victory. He tallied a game high 39 points to go with 10 boards and steered the
Knicks to the 7th seed in Eastern Conference. He is leading the league with an average of 29.8 points per game in this month.
One of his best performances was against Boston Celtics when he recorded a triple-double scoring 35 points, 12 boards and 10 assists enroute to a 118-110 win.
Knicks won 9 and lost 4 in this month and Anthony was the impetus behind their success. During the month he has tallied seven 30 point performances and two, 40 point performances.
Mike Woodson ran his offense through Anthony and would be relying heavily on him heavily in the playoffs.
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