FOR a while, you could close your eyes and let your mind wander, let the noise and the electricity carry you off to better times and happier nights. For a while, as the Knicks kept drilling 3s, as the Lakers’ lead shrank, you could allow yourself to believe in the grand illusion the Knicks had created these past few weeks.
The Garden was packed. Spike was in the house, and so was Woody, and Michael Strahan and Darryl Dawkins and an increasingly rare assortment of A-list supermodels and B-movie actors, and for a fleeting few fourth-quarter moments, it was all very heady, all very dizzying, all very satisfying in the midst of this lost basketball winter.
I hope you enjoyed that while it lasted.
Because the Lakers performed an heroic public service last night for the devout basketball congregation of New York City, first in racing to a 34-point lead, later in holding on to a 114-109 victory by the nub of their fingernails.
The Lakers provided a peek, a preview, of the long, hard road to come for these Knicks beginning exactly a week from tonight, when they embark on a six-game tour of Western Conference Hell, a trip that should put their universe back in its proper order, and should officially remove the term “playoff push” from the team’s lexicon.
This was just the start. Really, it was a perfect showcase for all the Knicks are, and all that they lack. They are a gritty team. They are a fun team to watch on a lot of nights, which isn’t something you could say about them a year ago.
In truth, there is very little not to like about them.
“What you saw out there tonight,” said Don Chaney, “was the reason why I admire this team so much. They are a courageous team, a fighting team, and a bunch of guys with a lot of character that make this a very enjoyable team to coach.”
They are simply not a playoff team, despite how deceiving the standings may be right now.
“You always want to make sure you make a game respectable,” Latrell Sprewell said. “And once you make a blowout game a respectable one, you have a great chance to win it. We showed that tonight.”
They showed a lot last night, and have shown a lot in this brief spurt of prosperity that had caused all that foolish postseason chatter. Chaney suddenly doesn’t look so overmatched on the sidelines. The players suddenly look less disinterested, and play with an energy (if not a defensive will) that actually calls to mind the best segments of the Jeff Van Gundy era.
All of that should be enough to keep you coming back to the Garden without hiding your face under a paper bag. Despite what we’ve come to accept as gospel in New York, it isn’t against the law for the home team to be an underdog once in a while.
But taking solace in overachievement is a far cry from squirreling away money to reserve playoff tickets. Which is why it is just as important to remember the way Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal battered the Knicks across the game’s first 36 minutes as it is to celebrate the way the Knicks shaved all but five points off the 97-67 lead the Lakers brought into the fourth quarter.
It’s why it’s important to understand why the Knicks owe it to themselves – and their fans – to explore every available trade option on every player right up to the final moment of the trade deadline. The Knicks have already done what they needed to do this year, re-establishing credibility with fans who had grown disgusted by the half-hearted way they pranced through last season.
But they need to do better, and they need to get better. This team isn’t going to get better, as presently constituted, just older. Don’t think about what the standings look like this morning; think about what they will look like in two weeks, when they come staggering home from the coast.
Nourish yourself on what the Garden felt like, and sounded like, last night. But temper that with the words Phil Jackson spoke earlier in the day, inside an empty Garden: “There’s nothing better than bringing a team in here when the Knicks are going good. Nothing.”
It was a taste, a glimmer, nothing more. Do yourself a favor. Remember that.