Saturday, February 19, 2005

"Hey Trevor, did you check today's mail?"

At approximately 9am EST yesterday morning Trevor Ariza recieved his invitation to join in the Rookies vs. Sophs game out in Denver. He rushed up the stairs to pack his bags, but then it hit him harder than a Shaq shoulder in the lane: David Stern and his cronies running the All-Star love fest had sent him an unvitation.

Unless Ariza opted out of this game, which I can't imagine a teenager doing, how do the powers-that-be keep him out? He is a rookie that has started 12 games and appeared in all but one of the Knicks 53 contests. Meanwhile, Slovenian guard Beno Udrich "earns" a spot on the rookie squad and the guy has never started for the Spurs. Moreover, Ariza has already played 941 minutes this season, which is more than half the guys who were picked to play for the squad.

Ariza is currently waiting by the phone to recieve the unvitation to partipate in tonight's Slam Dunk contest.....

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Bad is Better than Worse

Knicks beat Bucks, 109-80

About 5:30pm I was sitting at my desk in my almost-cubicle and reminiscing about how great of a ticket scalper I was. But, was the NY Knicker-Blogger good enough to unload two tickets for a matchup of last place teams? Could his dashing good looks and inexplicable enthusiasm for the Knicks persuade some fanny-pack wearing rubes visiting from their red state--or some suburban teenagers with a bag full of whippets they bought down in the Village--to pay good money for the Knicks/Bucks game?

Probably not, so I called up my brother and headed for the game. Surprisingly, the fans were flooding into the Garden as if this team weren't awful. As I'm being patted down like a known felon leaving a gun show, my brother asks me if other teams with records like ours ever draw this good a crowd. Well, the Lakers could, maybe the Celtics, the Kings' fans are supposed to be real good, but not too many teams. And, this is why the Knicks (the franchise, not the team) are great; this is not the Nets (who are threatening to take over the Atlantic, again), or the Hawks, or any of the other teams that play before empty seats. The ushers at the Garden will never have to move fans down into the expensive seats so the game looks packed for the tv broadcasts.

Ah, I digress.... the Knicks came out and looked like the opponent of a last place team missing their best player (Michael Redd didn't play) is supposed to look: they looked better. Just not better by too much. With an early 18-12 lead the Bucks took a timeout and got the business from coach Terry Porter. Out of the timeout, the Bucks' rediscovered defense suffocated the Knicks and their sudden insistence on offense subdued what passes for Knicks' defense these days. The game was tied until Jamal Crawford hit the last shot of the 1st quarter to give the Knicks a 20-18 lead at the break.

Crawford, as mercurial as ever, stuck to his normal pattern of play:

astounding/atrocious/astounding/amazing/airball/astounding/atrocious

Bastard son of the tri-state teams, Keith Van Horn, started the second quarter for the Bucks. A smattering of applause made its way around the Garden even though the time of his entrance didn't allow for an actual "moment." I wished he could have come in during a play stoppage while Tim Thomas was at the line airballing foulshouts. What would the look on Isiah's face have been if the Keith got a huge ovation while his "athletic" Thomas gets booed during introductions?

The Thomas / Van Horn deal (remember that Nazr was basically a spare part in the original architecture) has completely bombed. Going into last year's All-Star Break the Knicks were winners of five on the bounce and Marbury and Van Horn were playing with enough chemistry to make the the periodic table nervous. Then, Timmy Thomas shows up, the Knicks lose 6 of 7 (or something like that) after the Break, squeak into the playoffs by the hairs on Moochie Norris' chinny-chin-chin, and are unceremoniously swept by the Nets. Not to mention, that Thomas didn't play in the last 3 games of that series after getting beat up by Jason Collins. Yes, that Jason "I couldn't even intimidate K-Mart's locker stool" Collins.

Anyway, Moochie is the only Knick that is overtly warm to Van Horn when he takes the floor. Van Horn looks tentative, like on one of those nights when Van Horn for Tim Thomas might seem like a remotely good idea. Meanwhile, Penny carries the Knicks through stretches of the second quarter, doing all he can to get them to halftime with the lead.

During a timeout shortly before the half the Knicks City Dancers are on the court mesmerizing my brother like an oasis in the desert (not to say that his sex life is like a desert...), and on the Garden-Vision is an ad* for the Dancers' and their new deck of playing cards**, on sale at all Garden gift shops. Of course, my brother nudges me and solemnly says "we're totally going to go buy those at halftime."

And we did.

The third quarter looked much like the second, with less a prominent role played by Penny: the Knicks held their lead, though ever a tenuous lead. More importantly, the best play of the game, of the past 20 games, occurred during the third quarter. Marbury had the ball on the left wing, beyond the 3-point arc, he's got himself crouched down low, dribbling, dribbling, dribbling, then he stands up, spins himself like a top (clockwise, I think), and as he finishes the first revolution (but before the second) the ball shoots out of the blur and hits a cutting Tim Thomas for a layup. There was no dunk and it was a bit too and1-ish for my tastes, but this pass literally took the breath out my lungs and the foam off the top of my beer. Some would say, that it was the sort of the thing that would suck the paint off your house and give your kids permanent orange afros.

Moments later, a guy, who I'm pretty sure was the main character from American Psycho showed up and sat two seats over from me. With his fancy clothes, his shiny face, and slicked hair all he was missing was the chainsaw. He clapped and yelled too loudly at all the wrong times seemingly to show his frightened lady -friend how big a fan he was. At one point I could swear that he was about to cut off the faces of the three small children sitting behind him (who were struggling to learn the nuances of the DEE-FENCE chant) to use them as coasters on his inevitable expensive coffee table.

Ah, I digress once again....as the players meander onto the court for the start of the fourth quarter the NFL theme music (the orchestral CBS tune NOT fox's robotic cacophony) is playing on the PA, and there's Curtis Martin decked out on Garden-Vision! The appearance of Curtis--and the standing O he received--was the best omen I've seen at a Knicks game in a long time.

And by the power of Curtis a strange thing happened. The Knicks actually started to pull away. With Sweetney dominating the paint and Crawford stringing together an unusually high number of good plays, the Knicks held their lead. By Curtis, they even extended their lead. Fans left early. Fans left early with smiles and high-fives!

Of course, the Knicker-Blogger stayed until the end just to make sure, but they won. They won going away. The lead did not wane, the team did not falter. This isn't much, but it is the hopes for the chance at optimism in the second half.

Random Thought O' the Game: Ariza didn't step on the floor until there was 4:20 remaining in the first half. Not too long ago he was in Herb's starting lineup. Weird, huh?

*during the Knicks City Dancers ad the achievements of each dancer were highlighted. Some have pre-med degrees, others have done a lot of modeling, but by far the best fun fact was that "Christie is afraid of fireworks." That's all the info we have about Christie. No education, no odd jobs, no beauty contests, just a strong aversion to sparklers and roman candles. Clearly, Christie didn't have a summer internship as, well maybe as anything, but definitely not as...say, a rocket scientist.

**the best part of the playing cards is that for the price of $16.99 they came with a DVD documenting the making of the cards.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Herb and Pat are BFF: Ewing stands up for Coach

In a telephone interview with the Daily News Patrick Ewing stood up for his closest pal, Herb Williams. While all too careful to not criticize the Dolans (his would-be bosses someday) or Isiah, Ewing did reveal his feelings about Phil Jackson and Larry Brown.

"I have a lot of respect for Phil Jackson and Larry Brown," Ewing said.
"They are both great coaches. But I think what they did was wrong. When they were first starting out I'm sure they wouldn't want someone saying that about them."

Ewing can see that Herb has been set up to fail, and that most likely he will be brushed aside in the offseason. However, Ewing maitains, and rightly so, that this isn't Herb's mess and no marquee coach is gonna make this team an instant winner. After all, as Pat says, "they just don't have the horses to win right now."

Daily News: Ewing Centers on Herb

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

"I'll flip ya, flip ya for real."

And then there were three, Flip will now take his rightful (as in he has quietly been one of the winningest coaches of the past decade and took his team to within a game of the Finals last season) place alongside Phil and Larry in the media debate surrounding the next coach of our New York Knickerbockers.

The immortally unintelligible words of everyone's favorite usual suspect came to mind this weekend, as I saw Kevin McHale's shoulders lumbering onto the floor in Minnesota. The Timberwolves have fired head coach Flip Saunders and McHale has made the move that everyone has been waiting for Isiah to make. And then, to prove that the Knicker-Blogger isn't the only one watching to much TBS Superstation, Stephon Marbury echoes the words of Finster by acknowledging that, "Flip is real."

Steph started his career under the tutelage of Saunders and admits that "[Flip's] the dude that taught me the NBA game."

NY Post: "Flip is real"

Allen Iverson, Not My Valentine....

Knicks get hearts broken on V-Day, falling in last seconds to Philly. Now, the Knickerblogger only saw highlights of this game, as he had himself a lovely date with his Valentine.

Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was wine, but somehow another last second loss didn't seem to sting as much as usual......

...the news....
NY Times
NY Post
NY Daily News
Yahoo/AP
ESPN

Monday, February 14, 2005

Tiny Tim Comes Up Big

Knicks top Bobcats, 102-99

A bouncing shot from the corner, high off the rim, to the backboard, did it touch the shot clock?, and then, finally, as the buzzer sounds, through the net! Beleaguered small forward, Tim Thomas, saves the Knicks from their own worst enemy; their fourth-quarter selves. A game against one of the only teams more hapless than our hometown also-rans, the expansion Bobcats, that seemed thoroughly in the bag at halftime turned into a nailbiter. There have been many late leads squandered in the Garden this winter, and almost as many big shots at the buzzer, but far too few of these operatic sequences have ended with Knicks wins.

However, Sunday afternoon the Knicks made a shot when they needed one, and more importantly(surprisingly/luckily) they were able to keep an opponent from making one in the same spot. Too many times, visiting teams have driven the length of the floor with time ticking down, and shredded the Knicks' defense on the way to relatively easy baskets (see Jones tying bucket at the end of regulation versus the Heat on Thursday). Now, the Knicks didn't exactly put the clamp on at the end, but Bernard Robinson's (very open) shot missed.

People always say, "it's better to be lucky than good." At this point it seems fairly safe to say that these Knicks are not good, but at least for one day they were able to be lucky.

Et cetera, et cetera....
--Crawford was back on the floor and chipped in 23 points.
--Steph's streak of five consecutive games with 30+ points was broken as he only managed 16.