If Carmelo Anthony wants to get his New York Knicks past teams like LeBron James and the Miami Heat, he needs help, but he also needs to do his job - lead them to a championship. Can the game's best scorer do it?/AP Photo.

Another season.

Another early playoff exit.

The Miami Heat put the New York Knicks out of their misery by eliminating them in five games to conclude a season that wasn’t going to go far anyway.

How could it?

Added new players. Changed coaches during the season. Lost key guys due to injury.

When the highlight of your season can be capsuled in a single word – Linsanity – the journey wasn’t going to be a long one.

The question now is where to does the affiliate of the Erie BayHawks go from here?

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I told you all before about Denver.

J.R. Smith started off scoring off the dribble. Then he buried Los Angeles with 3-point shots

The Nuggets aren’t going anywhere.

J.R. Smith busted the Los Angeles Lakers up for 24 points off the bench in leading the Nuggets to a Game 4 home win, 120-101, to tie the series at 2-2.

Game 5 is Wednesday at 9 p.m. at Los Angeles.

Now the Lakers regained home-court advantage by winning Game 3, but Denver reestablished its physicality by winning Game 4 in a dominant fashion.

More importantly for the Nuggets, they won Game 4 with their main man, Carmelo Anthony, shooting just 3-of-16 from the field.

The Nuggets rely on effort and intensity to get it done, while the Lakers have the most skilled player in the game, Kobe Bryant, surrounded by a slew of other skilled players.

So it’s really skill against will.

Denver thrives when it imposes its will on opponents. Los Angeles likes to beat teams with execution and precision. So the team that can cater to its strength the best will win the series.

Kobe Bryant had that look tonight.

Kobe Bryant scored 41 points in leading the Los Angeles Lakers to a Game 3 win at Denver tonight against the Nuggets.

Ya’ll know the one. Denver saw it much to its dismay.

Bryant’s 3-pointer over J.R. Smith with 1:08 remaining gave Los Angeles the lead for good as the Lakers took Game 3, 103-97, in the Western Conference finals Saturday night at Denver.

Looking exhausted after the game, Bryant finished with 41 points, including two clutch free throws to give Los Angeles a 101-97 lead with 22.2 seconds left.

As big as Bryant was tonight, Trevor Ariza, as he did in a Game 1 win for the Lakers, came up with big steal with Los Angeles up two, 97-95, with 36 seconds left. The play took on greater meaning because Carmelo Anthony fouled out on it as he grabbed Ariza in trying to prevent him from scoring an uncontested lay up.

Ariza came back from an injury to score 16 points.

In contrast, Anthony didn’t come up with the big game Denver needed from him. After dueling it out with Bryant in Game 1 and Game 2, Anthony scored just 21 on 4-of-13 shooting tonight. Now he did attempt 14 free throws, made 12 of them, but he was just 1-of-7 from 3-point range.

Game 4 is Monday at Denver.