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Without reinforcements, Melo and Knicks fall to Nets 109-98

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On second thought, the Knicks may want to cut out all that playoff talk. At this rate they’ll be squeezing out their remaining relevance in early March.

Carmelo Anthony’s day started with a call for a playoff push even after Phil Jackson sat on his hands at the trade deadline. It ended with a 109-98 loss to the lowly Nets, a deflating game that included bundles of turnovers and lost opportunities.

No wonder Derek Fisher was smiling so hard in that vacation picture with Gloria Govan. He’s no longer part of this tailspin.

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“We gave this game away,” Anthony said. “That’s a disappointment.”

The state of New York basketball includes two losing teams and two interim coaches, a GM who was hired Thursday and a team president who doesn’t do road games. The borough bragging rights have been reduced to which team will have to give up a lower draft pick in July because Toronto owns the Knicks’ and Boston owns Brooklyn’s.

But nobody in the Eastern Conference is on a worse stretch than the Knicks (23-33), who’ve lost seven straight and 11 of their last 12. The 10 days off around the All-Star break allowed them a break from futility, but it resumed on Friday without skipping a beat.

Joe Johnson handles the ball against Carmelo Anthony, who doesn’t get any help at the trade deadline.Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

Joe Johnson handles the ball against Carmelo Anthony, who doesn’t get any help at the trade deadline.

They also dropped to six games out of the eighth seed because both Chicago and Charlotte won on Friday.

“We can’t be giving away games like this. It’s crunch time now. Twenty-six games left,” Anthony said. “(Friday) night was a game we had an opportunity to go get. And we felt like we was going to get this game.”

Without reinforcements arriving from an uneventful trade deadline, Anthony settled into life on his Knicks Island – still the lone superstar trying to resurrect fading playoff hopes. He stood there Friday at the Barclays Center without much help when a fourth-quarter comeback sputtered and Robin Lopez couldn’t stop his twin brother. Anthony dropped 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting, which couldn’t match the season-high 33-point outburst from Brook Lopez.

“He’s incredibly lucky when he plays like that,” said Robin Lopez, continuing a brother tradition of not giving the other one any credit.

The Knicks, who committed 16 turnovers, cut the deficit to three early in the fourth quarter and promptly collapsed, as Anthony faced constant double teams in his 38 minutes of action. He also finished with seven rebounds and a team-high six assists.

“I got to do everything, everything and more at this point,” Anthony said. “It’s win or go home at this point. It’s no excuses, no excuses now for myself and everybody else. We got to tighten this thing up and make a push.”

Brook Lopez has 33 points during Brooklyn’s win.Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

Brook Lopez has 33 points during Brooklyn’s win.

Anthony declared during the break that he craved a superstar teammate to ease the load on his surgically repaired knee, but there was an understanding the Knicks didn’t have the assets to pull off a major upgrade. Their next planned signing is Jimmer Fredette on a 10-day deal from the D-League, which isn’t sprouting hope beyond another live body.

Anthony said he spoke briefly with GM Steve Mills ahead of the deadline and moved along, while team president Phil Jackson resisted a quick fix and held on to the 2018 first-round pick.

“I wasn’t expecting us to do anything, especially over the last couple of days I didn’t hear anything imminent,” said Anthony.

So Anthony started the season as the lone All-Star on the roster and will end it that way, a dynamic scorer whose top sidekick, Kristaps Porzingis, missed nine of his 15 shot attempts Friday and committed four turnovers. The Knicks need to leap four teams to get into the playoffs. All of those teams made moves at the deadline. New York stood pat and was subsequently pummeled by its neighbor.

“We lost again, it sucks,” Porzingis said. “But we’ve got to find a way out of it. Play the way we need to play, and get those wins.”

That’s been so elusive for the Knicks, who haven’t gotten one in three weeks.

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