Great article highlighting my sentiments for the Knicks this year. How can you not love them?
You didn’t have to drop the eggnog for three hours Tuesday afternoon in the midst of merriment and turn your attention to the Knicks’ Christmas Day game against the Lakers to realize you already have gotten a present from the team.
The hard-fought 100-94 loss to a rapidly improving Lakers team, as depressing as it may have been to provide a measure of told-you-so vengeance for Mike D’Antoni, doesn’t portend doom or gloom, at least not now.
Years of suffering, disappointment and really, let’s be honest, embarrassment to put on that Knicks cap you got for the holidays have piled up. After more than a decade of trying to explain away the Stephon Marbury years, the Isiah Thomas troubles — on the court and off with Eddy Curry and the sexual harassment suit providing equal doses of humiliation — the Knicks are back.
They are contenders in the best possible way, a team even Red Holzman could love — even if he might not understand the ways of J.R. Smith.
They are back beyond the marginal good times of Bernard King, when they were beloved, but not a real threat. They are the real deal more than a quarter of the way through the season and they boasted the best record in the Eastern Conference heading into Christmas, even as they waited for two players who were starters and key pieces a year ago — Amar’e Stoudemire and Iman Shumpert — to make their season debuts.
The loss to the Lakers actually might provide a lesson of just how much difference a missing piece can make, as Los Angeles has seen its fortunes change quickly with the return of Steve Nash.
For all of the chatter about how Stoudemire will fit in, the simple truth is it can’t hurt to have another weapon — a point on display when the Knicks could have used Stoudemire’s length offensively and defensively, as well as a lockdown defender like Shumpert.
When they return, the Knicks will have one of the deepest rosters in the NBA. Not the best roster, not when on most nights the Knicks have Carmelo Anthony and a cast of talented, aging pieces.
Even the one-sided defeats at the hands of the Houston Rockets revealed a flaw. In a series, maybe the Knicks would get the best of them, but on a given night, the Rockets are just too fast, too young and too athletic for the Knicks to keep up with across the floor.
But no other team boasts so much veteran talent. It’s a far different world than it was a year ago — and certainly far different than what the Knicks had on display for years. As surprising as it may sound, a team led by Anthony plays the game the right way.
They defend, maybe not quite with the toughness of the Pat Riley or Jeff Van Gundy-era Knicks, but they are a top-10 defense and one that will get better when Shumpert plays again. Rebounding has been a weak spot, but the offense is far more accomplished and diverse than the last two Knicks teams to reach the NBA Finals (1994 and ’99).
With Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd and Rasheed Wallace, they have a core leadership, all bearing championship rings and coaxing the rest of the team to do the right thing.
And that’s the thing. The Knicks play like a champion on most nights, the sort of team New York can root for without the tinge of guilt that might exist if the Thomas-Marbury combo had somehow carried the team to glory. You’d know in your gut if you grew up on Willis Reed and Patrick Ewing that it wouldn’t be right.
The Knicks, at least on the court, are a throwback, a squad filled with enough throwback players to have nudged even the most baffling talents in the locker room to fit into the best history of the franchise.
During the summer, the Knicks introduced their new uniforms and displayed the inner ring of the collar, where “Once a Knick, always a Knick” was inscribed. For the first time in decades, that’s something to be proud of.
Email: popper@northjersey.com
Let's go Knicks. That's amare
