Green rips quiet time as Knicks fall short
THE GARDEN transformed into Bizarro World during the first half of Sunday’s bout between the Knicks and Warriors.
The home team opted not to play any music, video or entertainment over the opening two quarters so fans could “experience the game in its purest form.” But instead of creating a unique atmosphere, the decision to suspend the noise resulted in awkward, uncomfortable and eerie silences that disrupted players’ rhythms. Even more peculiar and unexpected: The Knicks took advantage of the Warriors’ poor shooting to build a one-point halftime lead against the NBA’s best team.
Order was restored in the second half, though. The music and videos resumed. The Knicks fell behind by double digits. And while they cut the deficit to one point midway through the fourth quarter, the Knicks faltered down the stretch in a 112-105 loss to visiting Golden State.
Players on both teams bashed the lack of sound after the game.
“That was pathetic. It was ridiculous. It changed the flow of the game. It changed everything,” said Draymond Green, who totaled 13 points, seven rebounds and four assists in the victory. “You get so used to playing a game a certain way. To completely change that, to me, I think it was disrespectful to everyone from (NBA Senior Vice President of Entertainment and Player Marketing) Michael Levine to (Warriors team president) Rick Welts and all these people who’ve done these things to change the game from an entertainment perspective, you know, and give a game a great vibe. That’s complete disrespect. You advance things in the world to make it better. You don’t go back to what was bad. Computers can do anything for us. It’s like going back to paper. Why would you do that?”
“Did you see that first half?” Green continued. “It was just bad, sloppy, all over the place. There was no rhythm to the game. All that stuff makes a difference in the game, believe it or not. …I don’t think they were doing that to throw us off, but it definitely threw the entire game off. They need to trash that — because that’s exactly what it was.”
Carmelo Anthony, who finished with 15 points on 6 of 12 shooting and was benched for close to 10 minutes in the second quarter, was asked three times about the absence of music in the first half. He would only say: “It was different.”
Courtney Lee struggled to understand the logic behind the decision. “It was kind of weird because that’s home court advantage, having the crowd involved, having the music going, having that energy behind you,” he said. “So it was different.”
Kristaps Porzingis didn’t approve, either. “I didn’t like it,” said the 7-3 Latvian, who poured in 24 points on 9 of 21 shooting while facing off against Green for much of the afternoon. “It was weird for me.”
The Warriors (51-11) entered Sunday’s national-television matchup on their first regular-season losing streak since April 2015. They fell at the Wizards on Tuesday. At the start of the game, Kevin Durant suffered a sprained MCL that will keep him out indefinitely. Two days later, Golden State lost at the Bulls.
At first on Sunday, the Warriors’ slump continued. Steph Curry missed nine of his first 13 shots. Klay Thompson missed seven of his first 10 shots. The Knicks (25-38) locked down defensively and held Golden State to 49 points and 36.2% from the field in the opening half.
But Curry found his shooting stroke in the third quarter. He scored 15 of his game-high 31 points in the period, including eight points in the final 1:28. The Warriors led by eight at the end of the third and stretched the advantage to 13 early in the fourth.
The Knicks then went on a 13-1 run to cut the deficit to one point. But the Warriors pulled away down the stretch, capitalizing on New York’s careless turnovers and defensive gaffes.
The Knicks are now 5.5 games out of eighth place in the Eastern Conference.
“We had a lot of stretches where we didn’t execute, a lot of stretches where we didn’t execute the defensive plan,” Lee said. “It’s tough to win like that.”