If the NBA season equaled baseball with 162 games, maybe the Knicks would have a shot at the playoffs, based on consecutive victories over the winning-record but defensively-bankrupt Bulls.
Maybe. But don’t bet big. The reality is elimination, through the wonders of math and the “if this, then that” process, could come Saturday when the Knicks entertain the recently puzzling Cavaliers at the Garden. While the Knicks revel in their consecutive victories over the Bulls, their first back-to-back wins in more than two months, the Cavs are coming off a loss to the Nets. LeBron James and friends should be less than cuddly.
“I don’t know what their mindset is gonna be. We just got to prepare for that,” Carmelo Anthony said when asked if he expected the James Gang to be spitting brimstone. “We won two games against a pretty good team, and we’ve just got to be ready for whatever they’re going to come in here with.”
If you ask James, he wants the Cavs to come to the Garden with an attitude and approach befitting championship contenders. Following the loss in Brooklyn Thursday, James admitted he was bothered that his mates’ effort simply lacked the urgency for this time of year, especially for a team intent on a return to the Finals.
“It is not given that every year you have a team like this where you have an opportunity to do something special,” James said Thursday, reiterating his call for Cleveland to get in playoff-push mode. “We have a great opportunity to do something special or at least compete for something special. I am fortunate that I am very healthy, as healthy as I have been in a long time, and I feel great and I am trying to do things to help us win.”
James caused recent headlines for his social media dealings plus his public yearning for a dream team one day, somewhere, with himself, Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul.
Anthony said James’ comments should have little bearing on Saturday’s affair for the playoff-elimination-facing Knicks (30-43) and the Cavs (51-21), who have clinched a playoff spot and are fighting for the East’s top seed.
“I don’t think he worries about that. I think if he’s going to come in here and play, he’ll come in here and play,” Anthony said. “It’s not going to be something he said that gave him motivation for it.
“I definitely look forward to those games, those matchups. They’re fun games to be involved with. Just playing against the best player, the best team, we should want to get up for those games.”
Those games mean more when more is at stake. The Knicks, having dented Chicago’s playoff drive, saw how they could have been a postseason contender if only they had played like that months earlier – and occasionally won.
“At this point, it’s kind of hard to be frustrated,” Anthony said. “You just go with the flow now, try to win basketball games. There’s nothing we can do about our situation but go out there and still win basketball games.
“It’s not about the teams that we’re playing. It’s more about us and how we go out there and still compete, despite if we have a chance of making it or not. So it’s more on us and how we approach the game and how we sustain throughout the course of the game.”
But of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: “What might have been.”
Those, and: “Wow, we stunk tonight.”
“It just shows us that we were capable of doing that. We slipped a little during the season and we weren’t playing well. It just shows that we have enough talent to be there,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “At this point we just try to do our best to finish the season the way we want to finish and win as many games as possible.”