INDIANAPOLIS – Today, the Big L stands for lame. And listless and lackluster and limping.
Most of all, it stands for loss. The biggest loss of all.
There can be only one bigger, the one that ends this improbable run to the NBA Finals, the one that could come as early as tomorrow night at the Garden, or Sunday back here at Conseco Fieldhouse, a building in which it seems the Knicks cannot win and the Pacers cannot lose.
After last night’s 88-79 loss in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, it is a loss the Knicks cannot afford to suffer.
The thing is, last night’s loss was one that never should have happened. As they say out here in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, “Can you say collapse?”
Sure ya can.
The symbol of the night turned out not to be Larry Johnson’s obnoxious and vaguely offensive “Big L,” but Mark Jackson’s crossed-arms, which he called, fittingly enough, The Cross.
For the Knicks, it was more like the double-cross.
First, they crossed the line into territory few Pacer opponents had ventured into this year, threatening to become only the sixth team to come into Conseco as visitors and leave as victors.
Then, they crossed back into the realm of a team on the verge of elimination after a weekend that promised so much more.
Now, it is the Pacers who are one win away from earning the right to be swept in the Finals by whomever ultimately wins the War of the West.
For a team that had not only regained its momentum, but had seized control of the series with a stirring rally on a memorable Memorial Day Weekend in New York, the Knicks had precisely 14 minutes of good basketball left in them last night.
The first 14 minutes. Unfortunately for them, basketball games are 48 minutes long. Last night, that was too, too long.
Within those first 14 minutes, the Knicks had taken the vociferous Conseco crowd out of the game. They had sunk the home team into a hole out of which they never should have been able to crawl.
They had their (admittedly sore) feet on the throats of the Pacers. Somehow, they let them up again.
Indeed, it seemed the Knicks could not lose last night from the moment it was announced, about an hour before tip-off, that Larry Johnson was the latest addition to the parade of walking wounded with a case of plantar fascitis.
This could only be good news, since in New York, every time the Knicks announced an injury, it was the Pacers who needed an ambulance.
But after that first 14-minute run, the Knicks played the way a team in their condition is supposed to play. Sick. Sore. Subdued.
Patrick Ewing, who decided at game time he was well enough to go, had a stunning first quarter with nine points and four rebounds in nine minutes of work.
He had four points and three boards the rest of the way.
And Ewing was outstanding compared to Latrell Sprewell, who shot 4-for-14, and Johnson, who followed his 25-point Game 4 performance with four points on 2-of-8 shooting.
“It’s not about one guy playing well or one guy not playing well,” Jeff Van Gundy said. “It’s about our team playing well.”
In that case, Ewing, Spree and LJ had plenty of company. Kurt Thomas, a Game 4 hero, did almost nothing last night. Marcus Camby couldn’t sink a field goal and managed just four rebounds. Chris Childs may have set a playoff record for boneheaded decisions in his 21 minutes of work.
Only Allan Houston, with a game-high 25 points, played anywhere near the level the Knicks needed to be competitive, and even he disappeared for long stretches of the game.
But the most striking evaporation of all was done by the 18-point lead the Knicks had built early in the second quarter, when they were on the verge of running the Pacers out of their own building, 37-19, barely two minutes into the period.
But by the end of the half, the Pacers had taken the lead, 42-40, helped immensely by a Knicks offense that managed all of eight points in the quarter, a team record for post-season futility.
“We played an outstanding first 12, 14 minutes, and after that we didn’t play as well as we are capable of,” Van Gundy said. “We got hurt, predominantly, by three things.”
He identified those as the 21 second-chance points scored by the Pacers, who owned the offensive glass, the 10 three-point shots they made beginning with back-to-back threes by Jalen Rose in a 59-second span of the first quarter and the play of the Indiana point guards, especially Travis Best, who had 15 of his 24 points in the second half.
Characteristically, Van Gundy did not address the deteriorating play of Ewing, who hit only two of seven shots after the first quarter.
Still, whenever he was in the game, Ewing planted himself in the middle of the lane, his long arms outstretched, his hands flexing, demanding the basketball.
The Knicks offense, as sleek and speedy as a Ferrari behind Sprewell, Houston and Camby in Games 3 and 4, became as cumbersome as a cement truck.
“We can talk about Patrick and the offense all we want,” Charlie Ward said, “but it doesn’t matter. Whoever’s out there, we have to make the game work. And remember, he was the one who helped give us the big lead in the first place.”
A lead they couldn’t hold in a series they now seem to have given back. Just as the Pacers blew a golden opportunity to bury the Knicks in Game 3, the Knicks blew an equally good shot to send the Pacers into never-never land last night.
The difference is, the Knicks now have no margin for error, no more last chances. They have two games to play and two games to win, one of them in a building in which they have never won.
“We could tell ourselves we’re crazy,” Ward said. “How can you give up a big lead? But we did, and now we can’t allow this to carry over.”
Otherwise, the big L they put up last night will become a bigger one tomorrow, the biggest of all.
The one that stands not only for loss, but for later, baby.