Allow tortured fans this grain of salt
WE GET it, New York. You’re skeptical. As Knicks fans who have suffered through Eddy Curry and Andrea Bargnani and Alexey Shved and Jackie (Not Jimmy) Butler and a bunch of guys named Williams, you want to buy into the 7-5 start but you’re just not ready. Well, the Knicks say you can believe. They’re not talking titles or making looney-bin promises, but there is a difference from past years. “This year the difference is we try to play hard defense for 48 minutes, we never give up. That showed the two games we had against Indiana and Charlotte,” Kristaps Porzingis said, referencing two recent improbable Knicks wins with rallies from 19 and 16 points down. “And [last year] we really didn’t have the fundamentals as a team. [Now] we’re playing together.” You’ve heard similar stuff before. You were giddy amid the 54-28 excitement of 2012-13. But real relevancy has been reserved for other teams for years now. Since 2000, the Knicks have been in the playoffs five times, surviving the first round once. So it’s understandable. You see a superstar in the making in Porzingis, you see those comeback wins. But instead of waking the kids and yelling, “They’re back!” you are humming a classic Who song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Maybe this time is different. Forget these were the Kings, now 3-9, the Knicks and Porzingis steamrolled, 118-91, Saturday at the Garden. The night began with all the noise and furor reserved for an advanced Calculus exam. But as the night proceeded with “MVP” chants for 34-point scorer Porzingis who had his eighth game of at least 30, maybe some folks were won over. The team enjoys the freeflowing style far more than the restrictive, antiquated triangle. “We’re playing defense first. We’re playing at a fast pace, we’re playing together. It’s a different system,” said Courtney Lee (20 points). “The triangle was more come down, slow down, execute, take what the defense is giving you. Now it’s, ‘Let’s push the pace, outrun them and score in transition.’ And if they slow us down we execute, space the floor, move the ball. It’s night and day.” And there’s something that has been pretty foreign for the Knicks: fun.
“Overall everybody likes the ball movement. They’re trying hard, trying to play together. We know we’re not the most talented group,” coach Jeff Hornacek said. “They see what playing together can do for a team that’s maybe not as talented as last year.”
Porzingis is evolving into a bona fide stud. And he has help. On a night Tim Hardaway Jr. couldn’t hit the barn, not just the broadside, Lee went 7-of-9, and Enes Kanter was a 20point, 13-rebound double-double presence. Frank Ntilikina keeps growing on the fly.
Some fans are accepting. Others apparently are waiting for more.
Very plausible reaction, given recent history.
Last season, the Knicks were 14-10, but then dropped 12 of their next 15 games, finished 20 games under .500 and had their fans saying, “It’s OK. I’m just gonna root for the Mets with that great rotation.” In 2015-16, they started 8-6, were at .500 after 44 games, 22-22. So they lost 11 of 12 games, saw Derek Fisher get whacked and ended on a 10-28 streak. Not exactly the stuff worthy of the playoffs.
The best thing about 2014-15 was that it ended — and the finale was a 22-point wipeout. But it was an announced sellout, something that also indicates the skepticism of current Knick fans. The first three home games played to sold-out gatherings. The next four didn’t. If the Knicks keep it up, Celebrity Row may actually house real celebrities again instead of the occasional known commodity or the actor whose claim to fame is “You know him as the dead body from Season 12, Episode 15 of ‘Law and Order’…”
Porzingis has created interest with offense that has set new franchise standards. He scored 300 points in his first 10 games of the season. No Knick — not Bernard, Patrick, Willis, Clyde, Carmelo or Alexey — scored 300 points in the first 10 games of a season.
So you want to believe that maybe, just maybe, this year’s oh-so-early playoff promise will materialize.
But we get it if you’re not holding your breath.