We’re still trying to determine how many basketball fans like the NBA’s In-Season Tournament (IST), how many fans detest it, how many fans will read this, scratch their heads, and ask the person in the next office, the next cubicle, the next seat on the subway: “What the hell is the NBA’s In-Season Tournament???”
(For many this will indeed be an extra-question-mark question.)
Sometimes new stuff takes time before it hits its stride. When “Rounders” was in theaters, only the ushers and the ticket-takers saw it; now everyone in any room where there’s a deck of playing cards can’t wait to say in their worst Russian accent: “In my club, I weel splash ze pawt venever ze [heck] I please.”
Sometimes new stuff is New Coke. Or the Edsel.
We’ll see.
One thing you can certainly say as the first round of pool play in the first-ever IST came to a close Tuesday at Madison Square Garden: this wasn’t your average late-November game. Not here at the Garden, where the Knicks crushed the Hornets 115-91, winning by enough points that they qualified as a wild card into the eight-team knockout tournament beginning Tuesday night in Milwaukee (with a trip a Vegas for the Final Four awaiting the winner).
Not in Miami, where the Heat and the Bucks played an entertaining game to the 48th minute with their knockout-round fates on the line, the Bucks prevailing in what probably doesn’t make up for them getting bounced by Miami in last year’s playoffs but sure beats losing. Certainly not in Boston, where Bulls coach Billy Donovan took exception to Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla hacking Andre Drummond up 25, late, because the Celtics needed the point differential as they tried to squeeze into the Eastern half of the draw.
“I didn’t like that,” Donovan said.
In New York, the fact Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau and Steve Clifford are old friends may or may have not contributed to the dance both teams played at game’s end. Clifford cleared his bench with 4:41 to go and the Knicks up 23, at a time when it was still unknown how many points the Knicks would win by.
And then Thibodeau — who hears it from his critics all the time when he keeps his starters in till the 48th minute of a 35-point blowout — started doing the same with just under two minutes to go and the Knicks up 24. That’s how it would end. At game’s end, Clifford and Thibodeau bro-hugged and that was that.
All of this drama for Nov. 28?
If nothing else, this first dollop of the baby dance was interesting.
“It was crazy,” Mitchell Robinson said after turning in a vintage Robinson line — 10 rebounds, six blocks, six points. “It’s something new. I don’t really know too much about it to be honest. We’ll see how it goes. We came here and did what we had to do. Now we’re in.”
Julius Randle — fresh off his best game of the year, a 25-point, 20-rebound, five-assist gem — said he was a fan of the tournament. Asked why, he chose a refreshing burst of honesty.
“It’s a chance to go to Vegas,” he said.
First, the Knicks will have to tangle with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dame Lillard and friends in Milwaukee — where it dipped Tuesday to a low of 13 degrees Fahrenheit — before dreaming of the desert.
And of course that brings to light one of the fundamental issues of the IST. The Knicks usually play the Bucks four times. Now they’ll get them a fifth time, on the road, while the teams that didn’t qualify for the quarterfinals but will still be in play with the Knicks for playoff position come April — the Nets, the Cavaliers, the Magic, the Hawks, the Sixers — will get their extra game against a fellow non-qualifier.
If the Knicks finish a game out of home court — or the six seed, or the play-in — that may seem relevant.
Thibodeau was unbothered.
“If we play them five times, it’s five times,” he said. “If we play them eight times, it’s eight times. I just care about winning. I just want us to play well. Just play the right way. I don’t want to get involved in things that aren’t important.”
Time will tell how the IST grows on people. There are ways to make it better. One, to avoid the absurd rewards available for running up scores: award every team a point for winning quarters in tournament games; then make the second tiebreak (after head-to-head) most quarter-win points before using point difference for the third.
We’ll see. For now, the Knicks are still in play. Will winning the IST merit a banner in the Garden rafters? A parade? A nice dinner at Nobu? Will they have to content themselves with the cool half-mill that each player will receive?
Will anyone even notice?
It’s all still in play. Not bad for the last week of November.
