Anthony and James are friends and talk often. But Anthony said if his move had come through free agency, he would not have televised his decision as James did.  “I think a lot of people had mixed feelings about that whole ordeal,” Anthony said. “But at the end of the day, I don’t think he’s worried about that. He can’t worry about that. In his mind, he feels like he’s made the best decision for him and his family. I doubt if he regrets that.”  With the influx of stars to the Eastern Conference— which started in 2007 with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen going to the Celtics, continued with the arrival of Stoudemire and Carlos Boozer (the Chicago Bulls) over the summer and was punctuated by the trades of Anthony and Deron Williams (from the Utah Jazz to the Nets) — the conference continues to get better, deeper and more competitive.  “Of course, you look at teams like Chicago, up and coming and having a great season this year, they’re not going anywhere for a while,” Wade said. “Of course you have us, Orlando as well. Now the Knicks, earlier in the year, they were having success and now they added another marquee star to their team.  “Now they’re going to continue to build around that. What Melo does to New York is, it makes people want to go there. It makes them more attractive and it’s a better team and they’ll be a lot better next year than they are now. It just makes the East that much more competitive.”  Anthony said James told him that the process of blending his skills with Stoudemire’s would take time, as evidenced by Friday’s loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Miami also started the season slowly.  “We were used to a certain amount of things offensively and it just wasn’t clicking right away,” Wade said. “It took time for us to click and I think our defense helped us a lot at that time when we were losing, we could depend on our defense until our offense came and now, we feel very comfortable with our offense and what we’re doing.”  Although Chauncey Billups, the Knicks’ new point guard, called Coach Mike D’Antoni’s system “not like any system I’ve ever played in,” Wade suggested it should be easy to adjust to.  “I don’t think you have to tell Melo to score, to shoot,” Wade said. “I don’t think you have to tell Chauncey to come up and score and shoot and run the team. That’s what those guys do. They added two key components that get to come in and do exactly what they do.  “Now, of course they’ve got to get familiar with each other and Coach D’Antoni is going to have to get familiar with those guys and run different sets, etc. but right now, if you can go into any situation in the middle of the season, I think Coach D’Antoni’s offense is probably the easiest to come into.”  A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2011, on Page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: Heat and Knicks Are Reflection of Rising East. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Sunday night’s game between the Knicks and the Heat featured the kind of collection of stars not often seen outside the All-Star Game.