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diderotn
Posts: 25657
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Joined: 4/15/2004
Member: #650
USA
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Marbury's going to need help if Knicks hope to have chance against Nets
By IAN O'CONNOR
(Original publication: April 18, 2004)
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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — With that white towel draped over his bald head, framing the blank expression of a hopelessly lost cause, Stephon Marbury did not appear in need of a cup of Gatorade or even a 12-2 run. He appeared in need of a magic marker like the one he used to write "All Alone" on his ankle tape in a previous life.
He was an island in the Jersey marshes back then, a losing point guard so desperate for the job he now holds. Only Marbury never imagined that his Knicks wouldn't be much different from his Nets. He never believed he would join the team of his Coney Island dreams when it was stationed on the wrong end of the Hudson, 8 miles away from the Turnpike testament to the selfless way basketball was forever meant to be played.
The Red Holzman way.
Jason Kidd has a team worthy of his skills, and Marbury does not. That was the coldest, hardest fact of the Nets' 107-83 victory in Game 1 of a first-round series that isn't as much about the passers as it is the teammates charged to catch their passes.
Marbury didn't have a single point or a single assist in the second half, but he will have his moments in this series. Marbury will neutralize Kidd more often than not, and the Nets will still beat the weakest first-round opponent they've seen since Kidd came east and Marbury stopped in the desert on the way to his home, not-so-sweet home.
"It's only one game," Isiah Thomas said as he held up one finger and headed down the same Meadowlands tunnel that had provided passage to an ambulance carrying the battered Tim Thomas and the tattered Knicks' hopes.
Never mind one game. One possession would've been enough for Isiah's Pistons to even the score on Jason Collins, who knocked Tim Thomas from the sky with the Game 1 outcome no longer in doubt. But these Knicks aren't those Bad Boys. These Knicks aren't the Pat Riley Knicks, either, the ones who had John Starks deck Kenny Anderson in a bygone border war that inspired Anderson's mother to come down from the stands to make a run at Starks herself.
Tim Thomas' mother ended up in Beth Israel with her boy, who was flat on his stomach — head buried under a towel — as he was wheeled out of the X-ray room and into an ambulance that would try to avoid potholes on the way to the Lincoln Tunnel. The Knicks' small forward had a multiple muscle contusion to the lower back, and yet looked like the picture of health when measured against his team.
"It's a 15-round fight and we lost Round One," said Marbury, who finished with 13 points and two assists to Kidd's 14 points and 13 assists. "We got our butts beat in the first round. ... If all you watched was the first round, you'd probably think that guy's going to get killed."
The Knicks will surely get killed if they keep playing defense the way it was played in the old ABA. They gave the Nets 30 points — 22 in the paint, 14 on the fast break — on 13-of-18 shooting in the first quarter, a complete embarrassment. Meanwhile, the Nets doubled and trapped Marbury into oblivion, forcing the ball into the hands of too many teammates willing to settle for too many lame jumpers.
The Nets ran and dunked. The Knicks walked and fired from the perimeter. With a healthy Allan Houston, maybe the Knicks would've stayed in the game long enough for Marbury to steal it in the end.
But Houston's left leg is weaker than the left legs belonging to Kidd and Kenyon Martin. So the Nets of Lawrence Frank made like the Nets of Byron Scott. They set an NBA record with their 11th straight playoff victory over an Eastern Conference team, beating the Knicks like they've never beaten another postseason opponent, and they left Marbury with that one question haunting his private, middle-of-the-night thoughts: Why in the world did I ever leave Kevin Garnett?
"When I was in Minnesota," Marbury said recently, "growing as a team, we were in a better situation. But individually, we've got players who can carry us. We have Tim, who can carry us through a playoff series. Vin (Baker) could carry us through a playoff series. Penny. We have guys, all of whom are capable of going to another level and winning a series for us."
Truth is, Vin and Penny haven't carried anybody in a good, long time, and, even before his injury, Tim preferred to be the one getting carried.
"Someone has to step up," Marbury said. "That's what it's all about."
Game 1 was a perfect time for the Knicks to step up. As usual, the Jersey crowd offered the surreal benefits of a 50-50 split. When Richard Jefferson was on the foul line in the first quarter, fans were actually heard booing. When the Nets had the ball, fans were actually heard chanting for defense.
Spike Lee and Jay-Z were sitting in the front row, mixed in with the families of four from Ramsey. None of it mattered. In knee-high socks as red as his hair, Brian Scalabrine drained a bigger shot than any of the six made by Marbury.
"We're focused on Stephon," Kidd said. "We know how good he is and how talented he is. We're not going to stop him; we're just trying to make it tough for him."
The Nets are just trying to make Marbury throw the ball to teammates who aren't nearly as reliable as Kidd's. The Knicks' problem isn't the passer, but his four receivers.
Yesterday, those receivers were left a bloodied and beaten mess. If they don't play bigger and tougher, this fight won't get anywhere near the 15th round.
The true Knickabocker..........
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4/19/2004 8:16 PM