For the thousands of New Yorkers that follow the Knicks and the Orange with the same passion this couldn't have gone worse. 'Melo is a god for those of us who grew up in the Upstate hinterlands/ graduated from SU or both. He fell several notches from that status last night and so did the Knicks. Anthony's shot heard round the Garden was loud enough to even wake himself up from the madness. You could tell he instantly knew how bad he messed up as he quickly backed away as Collins fell backwards. He is surely gone for 20 games and the Nuggets will have a hole to dig out from when he returns.

As for my beloved Knicks... Isiah probably did order hard fouls if any Nugget starter went to the paint. That is not so horrible, given the situation. The problem is that it is not unusual for the Knicks to be down 20, so the question is, how many times for the rest of this season are the Knicks going to complain, "they were piling on!"?

This has to be a galvanizer for this Knicks team, or else they are truly the biggest disaster in all of sports. They will have to come together against all odds, because they will be without Francis, Q, Nate, Jeffries, and Collins for a while at least. It will be up to Marbury, Craw and Eddy to fight against adversity for the better part of a month, basically on their own, and keep this team in the chase. If they are not competitive during this stretch, the Garden at present will seem jam packed compared to what it will be. The team won't have to worry about the boos anymore because there won't be anyone left to boo.

Isiah, you thought your back was against the wall before... good luck to you