LITTLE BIG HORN’
CAVALIERS MASSACRE JEFF’S NEW-LOOK KNICKS
CLEVELAND — The NBA may not have done the Knicks any favors by serving them up to the Cavaliers Tuesday night, on a night when Cleveland was feeling awfully damn good about itself. Up went a banner, the first such to commemorate a championship in this town in 52 years. Down went the Knicks. Hard. “Tough business,” the new coach, Jeff Hornacek, said.
But the NBA did the Knicks a solid by what comes next: three straight days off before the home opener against the Grizzlies, Saturday night at the Garden. Three straight days when the Knicks can acclimate themselves to each other in ways they were simply unable to during the actual exhibition season, with Joakim Noah spending some time watching, with Derrick Rose spending two weeks in California.
This doesn’t excuse the 117-88 stomping the Cavaliers put on them Tuesday night — including a 69-43 humiliation in the second half. But it does explain it. Look, you can get ahead of things right now and start poor-mouthing what the Knicks have put together, and given the way the last 16 years have gone for the franchise you would have every reason to.
But there’s also reality. This is reality: nobody was walking into Cleveland on Tuesday night, the 25th of October — greatest sporting night in the city’s history, in just about any city’s history — and walking away satisfied except for the home teams. If that could apply to the 103win Cubs team that was getting its own comeuppance next door at Progressive Field during Game 1 of the World Series, it could most certainly apply to the Knicks, quivering and quaking at Quicken Loans Arena.
“There’s lot of room for improvement,” Rose said.
That was putting it mildly, yes. And Rose did provide the most intriguing minutes in the 29 ½ he logged in this game. There was some obvious rust to his game. There were more than a few moments in transition, both ways, when it was clear he wanted nothing to do with Kyrie Irving’s younger, healthier legs.
But he did get to the basket plenty, and he did score 17 points, and if the thing that seemed to bother him most was the solitary assist he collected all night, it was because he still has enough muscle memory to know what it is to have his hands on the wheels of a high-powered offense. And he sees potential for that with the Knicks.
“When we’re going right, it will be a pick-your-poison thing with us,” he said. “Do you want me driving? Do you want me to kick it out to [Carmelo Anthony] and [Kristaps Porzingis]?” He shook his head. “But we have some work to do to get there.”
The work must be done on the fly, starting from here, starting with the practices between here and the Memphis game, culminating with what they do at the Gar- den Saturday.
Here’s something the Knicks most certainly don’t want to do back home: they
don’t want a score sheet that lists Joakim Noah and Courtney Lee back-to-back — as this one did — and have the two of them, who combined to sign for $122 million in the offseason, to combine for zero points — that’s “zero” — on 0-for-6 shooting.
They’d better not have another 69 splattered on them in a half, because the Garden has wearied seeing teams come in and run 48-minute layup lines against the home team. And while both played well, it’s probably an imperative Anthony not be minus-19 for his time on the floor Saturday, and Porzingis minus-21. Those aren’t good harbingers. “We’re building up to something,” Rose said. “We’re building up to being a playoff team. This left a bad taste in our mouths. But there’s time enough to fix it.”
There’s time, yes, and there’s talent, and if it doesn’t measure up to the defending champions, to Irving (29 points) and LeBron James (19 points, 14 assists, 11 rebounds) … well, it may never quite reach those heights, not this year. It just has to be better than this, and soon.
“We’ve got to figure this stuff out,” Hornacek said. What he didn’t say was more important: preferably, by Saturday night.