SHOOTING FROM THE LIP
As the Knicks enter the final quarter of their tumultuous season, this is their last chance to prove they belong
NEW ORLEANS — This was supposed sup to be one of the shortest NBA se seasons in history, a sprint of 66 game games after the lockout, the first one on C Christmas Day between the Knicks a and the Celtics at the Garden. Only now ther there have been four different Knick seasons already, a one more to be played in April before the playoffs, if the Knicks make the playoffs, that is, if th they can show us at the fancy new Garden they are something more than the Sam Same Old Knicks.
There was the 8-1 8-15 start that was about to get Mike D’antoni fired. Then came Linsanity, that was wa Season No. 2, the seaso season that started the day befo before the Super Bowl and took to Jeremy Lin, now out for six weeks, off the end of the bench and made h him the most famous sudden star in the history of the NBA, even had Sports Illustrated Illus put him on two con consecutive covers, and had people p acting as if Lin were on h his way from there straight to the B Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Sprin Mass. As if the whole world had gone Linsane.
Two seasons then, basically basic in two months.
Then Carmelo Anthony Anthon and Amar’e Stoudemire, the th two Knick stars, were back and an the Knicks were losing six in a row and D’antoni finally was gone, unable to reach those stars or to get the Knicks to play defense. That was Season No. 3. Finally there was the season of Mike Woodson, the rising of Anthony, for whom the Knicks had given up as much as any NBA team had given up for one star in all the time since the Knicks last won an NBA championship.
Somehow, though, through it all, through Saturday night, the Knicks were still a 27-26 team, still sitting in the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference, still looking at a first-round series against either the Bulls or the Heat.
So here comes April at the Garden, the Knicks limping all over the joint. But in the immortal words of Dr. Evil, boo-frickity-hoo, welcome to the world of the short season in the NBA. And, by the way, when Linsanity happened, weren’t they missing both Carmelo and Amar’e?
Last month of the season. Last chance to show that somehow this team is better and different than all the others we have seen over the worst and occasionally most shameful decade in the history of the organization.
Starting this week, we see if the Knicks can get themselves to the playoffs after all the money they have spent and all the headlines, good and bad, they have generated — they are more than somewhat like the Jets that way, another .500 team — can do something more than tease their fans, especially the ones who keep paying more and more to watch them.
They got Stoudemire, out until further notice, for nearly $100 million. They sent half their team to Denver for Anthony and gave him a max contract. They threw another huge contract at Tyson Chandler and had Lin fall into their lap and make the team a small fortune because of what he did to the company stock. They changed coaches.
After all that, here is the bottom line, including Saturday night’s win over the Cavaliers: Over the last 135 games going back to the start of last season, the Knicks have a record of 69-66. They really are the noisiest win-one, lose-one team this side of our Jets.
So now we see what they’ve got. Limping or not. We see if Woodson can make them something more than the first-round loser they were under D’antoni. Now we see if the New York Knicks, who are supposed to be an iconic franchise playing in an iconic building, can make it to the playoffs and then win a playoff series for the first time since the 2000 season.
“Accountability,” that is what Woodson has preached since taking over for D’antoni, as he has gotten the Knicks playing a style made for the playoffs and at a speed made for the playoffs, got them playing the kind of defense — even when they lose, the way they did to the Hawks on the road Friday night, they only gave up an even 100 points — you have to play to have any kind of chance in the playoffs.
It is April now in pro basketball and the Knicks are still assured of nothing, have won nothing, have wasted so many chances just since the All-star break to make the big move they should have made up the standings in the Eastern Conference.
We know how much the basketball fans of the city want the Knicks to matter again. The Knicks have that chance now, to really matter when it counts. Last chapter of a short, crazy season, last chance to show that they aren’t the Same Old Knicks the way the Jets turned back into the Same Old Jets.