YOUR su york knicks...

- your celebrities of choice...ll cool j, carl banks, and vinny testeverde. none of them can hold a candle to the REAL celebrity of choice, your very own mister.earl who made his way to section 404 to meet the BRAND NEW STAR of "nyk way"...and to watch the knicks play the wolves. hearing how he was there for the old garden's last game and ewing's first was like listening to the late great mr. miagi talk about catching a fly with chopsticks.

- during intros...the LEGEND continues as nate is CARRIED...CARRIED by the big game like superman when he was introduced. hilarious.

- alot of people there but still some seas of empty seats in the 400's. crowd didn't really get going till the 4th quarter run.

- classy move by the knicks as they presented lb with a 1000th win crystal award thingy at midcourt before the game started.

- on gardenvision, they had a "name that movie" quiz where a knicks' player would say a line from a movie and the contestant had to guess which one it was. your contestant of the day...brian wong from queens, ny. first up, channing frye with "if you build it, he will come." the answer: field of dreams. brian wong is 1 for 1. the next and final quote is eddy curry saying "do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouf?" the answer: rush hour. brian wong is 2 for 2. brian wong just made "name that movie" his bitch...those asian kids not only know math...but movies too...

- line of the night was when my boy jimi asks mister.earl if they had cheerleaders and dancers during timeouts at the old garden. mister.earl's response "all they had were two old janitors sweeping the floor."

- third game in a row where we seem to have some trouble running our offense. i hate hate hate it when we just keep dumping it down to eddy b/c he's not ready to be "THAT" guy yet. it's almost like an automatic turnover unless he gets the ball in perfect position.

- uh oh...is that a big game i see about to check in?!?!? mister.earl says "he could stand to lose about 20-30 lbs." the guy behind me says "man, he is huge." the LEGEND grows... btw, we have dubbed jerome "immediate impact" (co-starring jean claude van damme and shannon tweed, in theaters march 1st). and jerome does not dissapoint as he enters the game, jerome commits an illegal defense (1 point) and then on the very next possession an "and 1" on kg (3 points). 12 seconds...4 points. jerome james...IMMEDIATE IMPACT.

- lackluster 1st half for us as we're down a few points. but i feel good b/c we played pretty blah and with minny not having some lights out scoring ability, we have a shot to win this.

- ...and i spoke to soon as the zone returns and we go down 19 in the 3rd quarter. why is it so difficult for a professional nba team to beat a zone? i mean seriously, is it that difficult or do our guys just stink?

- they had a contest during a timeout where two kids have to run full court, and on their path, they have to put on nba players sneakers and full size shorts and jersey, then grab a bball and head back down the court and have to make a basket. so the little boy beats out the girl pretty bad in the outfit portion, takes the ball, goes all the way down court and DRILLS a jumper from the ft line. everyone got a kick out of it as they all said "give this kid a jersey and get him in the game." i look at them in disgust as i scream "the kid travelled...the little bastard travelled..."

- q1...or "richarson" (without the d) if you go by his jersey, looks to be having his best game of the season as he's pretty active out there. maybe there's some life in that chubby duck waddling body after all.

- when marbury gets hurt and goes to the bench, he looks to be in pain as he's just hunched over with the towel over his head. critical juncture as we're down 5 when he goes out and is subbed in for crawford. next two plays have hassel draining a jumper and crawford taking a bad runner in the lane followed by a wally jumper. quick 4-0 run to extend the lead to 9. after all that hard work bringing it back ot 5, i think the game is almost over as that was our shot.

- marbury's about to check in, as he walks to the scorer's table, kg gets up and walks there as well. it's like the irresistable force meeting the immovable object. they don't even look at each other. the get ready to check in. no smile, no "what's up", nothing. interesting...

- marbury returns and i think all is well as we really need him to win this one and crawford is having a bad shooting game. but it's short lived as he's out again and heads to the locker-room. this may be the first game as a knick that he's unable to finish the game and may be the first game in a long long time that he may miss (on wednesday). they should hold him out and bring him back for detroit if he can play. minny leads by 11. i think the game is over.

- btw, where's mo? unless there's a showcase involved, i thought he was playing better of late, no?

- watching nate, throughout the game...and for the 2nd game in a row, you can see he's still banged up as he's limping around and is favoring his back. everytime to the bench, he gets rubbed down by the trainer. this kid has no fear as he's diving for balls, jumping over people to keep rebounds alive...misses a wide open three (airball) and then comes back to make a layup and drill a 3. this guy got balls and to think he's only going to get better. he's getting beat pretty bad on the other end tho with those pick and rolls. i'm not sure who's fault it is as he's going under the pick so the big man should switch off, and the times he goes over it, hudson just drills a jumper as well. hudson was ON tonight.

- critical turnover by crawford as that could've brought the knicks to within 2 as the crowd lets out a collective "sigh". but nate comes back and drills two ft's like layups...ICE and impressive.

- when hudson drilled that 3 (very reminiscent of many a loss last year), nate put his head down and walked back to the bench. lb was the first guy to come up to him, said something like "good job" and patted him on the butt.

- what i would do is start q1. i mean he's given us NOTHING to date but starting steph + nate KILLS us on the defensive end. i LOVE nate but i realize that he's being put in situations he shouldn't be (even tho he's producing in them). i would start steph, q1, lee, take your pick, and curry. bring jamal and nate off the bench. we have to get something out of q1 and we have to get him going and if he shows some life, try our best to move him this deadline...or maybe...just maybe...he can help us out.

- in conclusion, another hair losing high stress game at the garden....but this time, we lost. first home loss in '06. it was bound to come, right? we have to figure out the zone as this is now 3 games in a row teams have thrown it at us, and each time, were able to build a double digit lead b/c of it. and throughout our 6 game winning streak, our defense was pretty pathetic as we couldn't stop anybody and were lucky enough to outscore them. well, now that teams have instituted the zone against us, we're being stifled on the offensive end now as well. not a good recipe and is the reason why we're 0-2 and easily could've been 0-3. it's tough to be down 19 and try to come back and win, especially without your best player, so it was a good effort. it just stinks that when the game was in balance, we made some costly unforced errors that cost us the game. but it was the young kids out there and they're only going to learn from it. well, we're back down to earth, and are now on a 2 game losing streak, which could easily turn into 4. good thing is that nobody is running away in the east (outside of detroit) so we still have a legit shot to make the postseason as there are ALOT of games left.

[Edited by - djsunyc on 01-16-2006 7:48 PM]

Good info djsunyc, thanks. They will get it together

great post DJ! your little insights are very entertaining to read and I totally agree about starting Q over Nate. Lets give Q a chance to get something going. I was really impressed with his D on Wally.

Posted by djsunyc:

mins, with my chaps and mesh shirt pic, i figured you would've made your way up to section 404 to say "what up"

I definately thought about it
coming up to say hi that is,
...not the chaps lol

What it really was was that I didn't wanna come up unannounced.
What if this was the one game u missed and there was another guy up there and I'm like "Heyyy I know you!" or or I go "Heyyy old chap" and he thinks I'm hittin on him.
I'm just being silly but I'll be sure to give u a headsup when I'm at a game next time.

Keep up the good work on these recaps DJ, you really do cover everything