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TrueBlue
Posts: 29144
Alba Posts: 12
Joined: 9/20/2006
Member: #1172
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Assault and Battery awaits this man The Knicks thanked their fans — their irrationally loyal, perpetually tormented fans — with free hot dogs, popcorn, pizza and pretzels Monday at Madison Square Garden. They called it fan appreciation night, although the fans surely would have traded the food for a higher-ticket item, namely the termination of Isiah Thomas.
That moment is probably not far off. But for one more night, Thomas roamed the Garden hallways, made optimistic speeches and watched his team try to regain some self-respect against the Boston Celtics.
Boos greeted Thomas before tipoff, and they probably would have been louder if everyone’s mouths were not stuffed with free eats. Yet there was no escaping the reality of the evening, the Knicks’ last home game of the season.
The season ends Wednesday at Indiana, and Thomas’s Knicks reign will almost certainly end with it. Donnie Walsh, who recently replaced Thomas as team president, is expected to decide Thomas’s fate as coach soon.
Thomas betrayed no particular sentiments about his presumed last home game, saying, “I haven’t really let my mind go to that place.” He was still smiling broadly and speaking hopefully of the Knicks’ future, even if it probably will not include him on the bench. But he acknowledged for the first time — without specifically saying so — that his job was on the line.
“In sports, we’re conditioned to live in a place of uncertainty sometimes,” he said. “When you’re in that place of uncertainty, you learn to set with it and rest with it until certainty happens. I’m O.K. with where we are.”
Walsh has given no hints about his decision on Thomas, other than to say there is a decision to make. The unsolicited advice came throughout the evening, as “Fire Isiah” chants burst from various sections of the arena.
The Celtics’ presence was appropriate. It was their record-setting 104-59 rout of the Knicks on Nov. 29 that signaled just how disastrous the season would become. The Knicks had seven losing streaks of at least five games, including two seven-game skids and two eight-game skids.
Along the way, Thomas feuded with Stephon Marbury and lost the faith of most of the locker room. Zach Randolph, Thomas’s prized off-season acquisition, clashed badly with the rest of the lineup. Eddy Curry, Thomas’s prized acquisition from 2005, regressed badly alongside Randolph.
David Lee, the most popular Knick and a rare bright spot this season, was, not coincidentally, chosen to address the crowd before the game. Lee took the microphone, thanked the fans for their support and said, apologetically, “I know it hasn’t gone the way any of us has wanted it to.”
Lee promised that the Knicks would “continue to work hard” in the future. People applauded politely, if not exuberantly, then went back to their pizza.
In the relative safety of the Garden multipurpose room, Thomas also thanked the fans in his pregame meeting with reporters. Indeed, Thomas thanked them profusely — in contrast to the many times he has chastised fans for their hostility — but then, as is his habit, Thomas strayed into hyperbole.
“When I first got here, people didn’t come to the games,” said Thomas, who took over as president in December 2003.
Although Thomas inherited an aging and irrelevant team, the Knicks were still a strong draw before he arrived. They averaged 19,012 fans a game — 96.2 percent of capacity — in 2002-3. Under Thomas, attendance inched upward, to 19,516 in 2004-5. But it dipped to 18,931 in 2005-6, the lowest mark in 14 years.
Somehow, the building filled up again this season. The Knicks sold out 21 of 41 games, including 8 of their last 10. They averaged 19,116 for the season, ninth best in the league.
So the Knicks were a league leader in at least one category — tickets sold per victory. The Knicks (23-58) have the fifth worst record in the N.B.A.
Boston occupied a similarly hopeless place at this point last year. But the Celtics traded a combination of lottery picks and prospects to acquire Ray Allen from Seattle and Kevin Garnett from Minnesota. Now the Celtics (65-16) are finishing off the greatest single-season turnaround in league history and are a favorite to win the championship.
While Allen, Garnett and Paul Pierce rested Monday, the Knicks struggled against their backups in a 99-93 loss.
Walsh built many great teams during his two decades in Indiana, but the Knicks do not have the assets to duplicate the Celtics’ incredible feat.
“Mr. Walsh has a tough job, to come in and try to turn this thing around, and try to do right by the fans and do what’s best for the organization,” Curry said. “I wouldn’t want to be in that situation.”
Some players will surely be gone by fall. Some notable fans have already left. Over the weekend, Tom Brokaw, the former NBC News anchor, said he had canceled his season tickets.
“I was in the front row for a while and then three rows back, but not next year,” Brokaw told Jim Gray on an XM Radio broadcast. “I just think that they have failed their obligation to the city.”
So now it is up to Walsh and a bunch of Ping-Pong balls. Commissioner David Stern seemed to have the Knicks in mind when he spoke earlier in the day about the resurgence of two other marquee franchises, the Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.
"Continued good management can turn around the fortunes of franchises relatively fast,” Stern said, “faster than we think.”
The final minute of the game sounded like so many others, with “Fire Isiah” chants and boos.
REBOUNDS
Wilson Chandler had to be helped off the court after injuring his left knee in the third quarter. The team called it a sprain and said X-rays were negative. Chandler left on crutches and is expected to have a magnetic resonance imaging exam Tuesday. [Edited by - TrueBlue on 04-15-2008 03:20 AM]LMFAO @ the Bio [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephon_Marbury[/url]
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4/15/2008 11:13 AM