Melo was being truthful, simply based on the time of the game and the logistics involved. Like it or not, you can't fault him for that. Let's recap the scenarios. The 'Cuse game was a Sunday Noon game. The Duke game was 7:30 in the evening. The Cincy game was 7pm in the evening. A tad easier to wake up for the latter two games. But let's dig a little deeper. The Knicks had a 7:30 game on Saturday night. By the time they get done with all the post-game stuff (the showers, interviews, etc) it had to be at least 11pm, but more likely closer to 11:30pm. Traditionally, the players will then go out to a restaurant and have dinner (not necessarily together as they might be with their women or other friends, etc). So let's say the dinner doesn't take too long and they are done by 1am. He still needs to get back to his house in the suburbs (I think a lot of the players live up in Westchester, as their practice facility is up there). So the very earliest he would get to bed would be 2am. But keep in mind many of the players like to go out clubbing in the city on the weekends (see JR Smith), so could be closer to 4am or 5am when he got home. And even if he didn't, his dinner could easily have taken longer than 90 minutes, especially if they had a lot of people at the table. So Melo is finally home, very tired, and would need to get up no later than 10am if he is going to shower, eat breakfast, and get back into NYC for a Noon game. So which crime was worse, not getting up on minimal sleep to watch the school he gave $3M to after leading them to their only basketball National Championship, or being honest about it?
