Garden crowd made sure Cavs never had a chance
ing down from what used to be the blue seats, gathering steam on the way down. It felt like with every succeeding Knick introduced pregame, the din doubled. And when the game started? Well. When the game started it was like something straight out of 1970, or 1994. A lot of things have changed around Madison Square Garden through the years. One thing never has, never does. From the jump, all across the gym, all across the courtside seats and the corner seats, all the way up on the bridge, 19,812 strong, you heard the old war cry:
“DEEEEEEEE-FENCE!”
“DEEEEEEEE-FENCE!!!”
“DEEEEEEEE-FENCE !!!!! ”
And you know something? The Knicks heard them. And the Knicks listened. And the Knicks started to guard the Cavs right from the tip, guarded them straight out of those layup lines, held them to 79 points, the first time all season a team failed to reach 80 in an NBA game. The final score was 99-79, and the final score was only part of the story.
“It was shaking in there,” Obi Toppin said.
“We came out with a lot of energy,” said RJ Barrett, who kept the Knicks going early when it seemed like they might not scare 80, too, scoring 10 of his 19 points in the first quarter. “We just stuck to the game plan, played hard, and got after it.”
Said Jalen Brunson: “We matched the fans’ energy.”
It’s been so long since it sounded like this, felt like this, for a basketball game here, when it felt like the Knicks fed off the fans and the fans fed off the Knicks, a 48-minute study in all-in. The Knicks scuffled themselves plenty, missing nine of their first 10 3s, shooting only 26 percent in the first quarter.
But across the last three quarters they flattened the Cavs, 82-62, fattened up on offense and absolutely hawked and harassed the Cavs. They stole the ball 14 times. They turned the Cavs over 20 times. Darius Garland, who’d torched the Knicks for 32 points Tuesday night on Game 2, looked terrified all night, shooting 4-for-21, the crowd getting on him louder and louder with each brick.
There were old heroes scattered throughout the building, Latrell Sprewell and Larry Johnson and Bernard King, all of them most familiar with what this building can sound like at this time of the year when things are going well. John Starks was there, too, not far from where he slammed down the most famous dunk in franchise history one similar-sounding night almost 30 years ago.
And when Brunson, terrific after a slow start (21 points, six assists, four rebounds) spotted Starks after a basket and slapped five with him … well, goodness, the crowd saw that, too. And the crowd went positively berserk. It was that kind of feel-good night, start to finish, right to the final two minutes when crowd favorite Derrick Rose got two minutes of late run and, much to the fans’ delight, got his money’s worth, firing off four shots.
“Everybody knows their role,” said Toppin, who had eight points and was part of a Knicks’ bench corps that outscored Cleveland’s 39-13. “We came in and did everything we had to do.”
For Tom Thibodeau, the night was like a Gershwin tune, his players providing the music — “Good intensity, good energy, everyone was connected” — and the fans the lyrics.
“DEEEEEEEE-FENCE!”
“DEEEEEEEE-FENCE!!!”
“DEEEEEEEE-FENCE !!!!! ”
It’s hard to fathom that the Cavs can be this bad two games in a row, and so when the teams meet again Sunday for Game 4 — part of a crazy five-day run at the Garden, Friday to Tuesday, that’ll include two Knicks playoff games, two Rangers playoff games, and a Billy Joel concert Tuesday — maybe it’ll feel like a different Garden, and a different series. Maybe.
It’ll be hard to believe the joint can get any louder than it got Friday night. But it’ll be fun to find out.