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Carmelo Anthony got some much-needed advice from Kobe Bryant last year, and it appears the Knicks star has taken it to heart.

(Photo by Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports)

While speaking to reporters at All-Star Weekend in Houston, Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony didn't hesitate to proclaim his team as being ready for an NBA Title run.

"We just got to go out there and do it," Anthony said, as quoted by Fred Kerber of the New York Post. "I can sit here and talk about how bad I want the title, what we have to do to win the title, what I think we have to do to win the title. If we don't go out there and do it, everything I'm saying is irrelevant."

The irrelevance of Anthony's quote is something we can all agree on.

Perhaps some more important words were uttered by 15-time All-Star Kobe Bryant. Anthony has been receiving some advice from the Lakers legend ever since Mike D'Antoni stepped down last season. Melo was receiving criticism over the incident but continued talking to Bryant throughout the summer and into the Olympics.

Fast forward to the 2012-2013 NBA Season and Anthony is playing his best basketball.

"I think it's helped," Bryant said, as quoted by Newsday's Al Iannazzone. "What I told him was, 'Listen, you can't listen to what the critics, the pundits are saying. You can't adjust your game because of criticism. If you do what you do, everything else will fall into place.' Hopefully he took that advice to heart."

"Me and Kobe talk a lot," Anthony said, as quoted by Iannazzone. "A lot of conversations came last season throughout the season. We talked this summer. We talked at the Olympics. His approach to a lot of things I definitely admire. If I could take anything away from what we talked about, it was just his approach, how to approach different things, kind of how to block things and stay in his mind frame."

In other Knicks news:

• The Knicks are obviously one of the best teams in the league, but according to the numbers, they're still looking up at the Clippers, Heat, Spurs and Thunder: "Well the Knicks currently have the fifth-best winning percentage in the NBA, which is congruent with their fifth-overall ranking in efficiency differential (naturally the Thunder, Spurs, Heat and Clippers are ahead of them in both categories). It could be that the Knicks' record accurately reflects how good the team actually is... There are a few other ways to analyze the Knicks' numbers at the break. ESPN.com's Relative Percent Index (RPI) ranks the team seventh overall behind the four aforementioned teams as well as the Memphis Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets. The Knicks are penalized in this case because they've had the 27th hardest schedule to this point of the season."

• As NJ.com's Tony Williams wrote, James White could make a name for himself at Saturday Night's slam dunk contest: "But leaping comes easily for White, who transferred from Florida to Cincinnati after one year and started for three years there before being selected in the second round of the 2006 draft. In high school and college, he dabbled with long and high jumping and in his only year on the track team at Cincinnati. He met the Olympic standard in the long jump by hitting 25 feet, 7.5 inches. His track coach there, Bill Schnier, calls him 'a natural at it.'"

• ESPNNewYork.com's Ian Begley wrote that the Knicks have a very tough schedule over the season's second half: "In the second half, the Knicks have a murderers' row of nine back-to-backs in their final 32 games. One out of every four of their final games is against a team currently in the top four of their conference. They have two more against the rival Celtics and Heat and a combined five games against Denver, Golden State and Utah -- three Western Conference playoff teams."

• Begley's colleague Jared Zwerling wrote that Anthony will start the All-Star Game despite a deep bruise on his right arm.