Fact Checking Stephen A. Smith

It's been more than two years since Ken Tremendous, Dak, Junior and the rest of the contributors at Fire Joe Morgan stopped scouring the sports media landscape for paeans to grit or attacks on reason. Sadly (for the rest of us), the success and stresses of their day jobs in the wider world had forced them to stop directing traffic at your local thoroughfare of debate, leaving us gridlocked, gawking at the latest roadside pile up of Bill Plaschke's mixed metaphors.

During the ensuing months, their methods have occasionally been applied by other practitioners, notably Drew Magary over at Kissing Suzy Kolber. FJM's titular muse has even been stripped of (or given up, depending on who you ask) his national platform for disseminating skepticism about the veracity of facts since the guys have closed up shop.

Perhaps in deference to its diminished capacity for nonsense and misplaced vitriol with Morgan no longer in the fold, the Worldwide Leader allowed Stephen A. Smith back onto its website not so long after the Hall of Fame second baseman was no longer calling ballgames. For those of you out there blissfully hard of hearing or otherwise unaware of this sports personality, Smith has alternately carved himself cozy and lucrative niches in print, radio and on the Interwebs over the past decade thanks in large part to the sheer force and volume of his ego and his inexhaustible supply of outrage.

Tireless and unchastened by setbacks, Smith is something of a marvel. If you didn't consume sports media and/or happened to be related to him then you'd likely be very impressed with how well he has done for himself and how many more famous people he knows than you. But if you consume sports media then it's likely you've come to loathe and/or mock Smith. In all three mediums, and under the employ of various media companies, Smith has eventually outstayed his welcome. He has left Philadelphia. He has left New York. He moved from South to North. He has gone from ESPN to FOX. And back again. He's even popped on MSNBC and in a feature film. In August 2005, at what looks to have been height of Smith's career, he was awarded a daily one-hour talk show. The show ran until January 2007, when it was cancelled due to low ratings and high levels of unintentional comedy. At his zenith, Smith was branching out from hoops, his area of expertise (read=contacts) and was offering opinions on other sports and even politics. Enter FJM.

With Smith back in print and writing about the Knicks, I've felt obligated to take matters, along with a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, into my own hands. Since Smith seems to have no fear of being fired, I propose something that might actually embarrass him: Fact Checking. Without further ado, welcome to the first installment of "Fact Checking Stephen A. Smith."

HED: There's no defense for Mike D'Antoni
DEK: Amid the wreckage of a first-round sweep, it's clear the Knicks need a new head coach

Byline: Stephen A. Smith

Source: ESPNNewYork.com

Now that the broomsticks have been unleashed and it has been emphatically established that the New York Knicks, for all their bluster and bloviating, are nothing more than an average franchise with an exorbitant payroll, it's time to move forward. To put legitimate pieces in place to preserve assets and eliminate liabilities.

For a man with no inside voice, who traffics exclusively in bluster and bloviation even after losing several high-profile jobs, I'm mildly surprised that Smith finds these qualities objectionable in another group just because they lost a playoff series. But I'm even more surprised to read "for all their bluster and bloviating" in regards to these 2010-2011 Knickerbockers. Who blustered? Who bloviated? Was Toney Douglas calling up WEEI in Boston to spread rumors about Delonte West having slept with Ray Allen's mom?

As best as I can tell, there was nobody wearing a Knicks uniform who was mouthing off before or during this series with Boston. For all the starpower of the new New York Knickerbockers, they haven't held any celebratory events in the vain vein of the Miami Heat. There were no guarantees. There were no ultimatums. No one even stated that it was personal. Is Smith confusing the Knicks with Rex Ryan's Jets? Could Smith have found Chauncey Billups' comment about the Knicks being a "tough out" this inflammatory? Perhaps he is conflating the chorus of barks from media members, like himself, surrounding the 'bockers since they returned to relevance over the past year with statements made by actual members of the team. In any case, we're off to an inauspicious start here as Smith is already imbuing the subjects of his story with attributes that suit his conclusion.

Also, the sentence fragment that concludes this opening paragraph makes me wonder if Smith is aware of how NBA front offices, especially the successful ones, spend the offseason. Had the Celtics not taken their brooms off their leashes(????) and allowed the Knicks to win one of those first two games before advancing to the second round would the Knicks not be putting legitimate pieces in place, preserving assets and eliminating liabilities? When Smith contends that circumstances have made it time for those activities isn't he just stating that the Knicks have entered the offseason? Or does assume that only losers have to worry such things? Does he know what RC Buford has been doing in San Antonio all these years?

It's true that the Knicks had an exorbitant payroll as they bottomed out in recent years, but Donnie Walsh took a can of gasoline and a box matches to the roster that Isiah Thomas had recklessly constructed. Several controlled burns later and the Knicks' 2010-2011 payroll of $67,327,114 ranked 16th out of 30. Without one of the top 10 earners in the league this season, the Knicks' salaries are closer to the cheapskate Sacramento Kings then they are to the high rolling (and title contending) Los Angeles Lakers at the top of the heap.

And after watching the Knicks' first-round loss to the Boston Celtics -- how they spent most of Easter weekend stinking up Madison Square Garden before a 36-year-old journeyman point guard nearly came to the rescue -- priority No. 1 is too obvious to ignore any longer: Mike D'Antoni has to go.

My dad suggested the same several times during my family's Easter Brunch. Please show your work, though, Mr. Smith unless you want to be relegated to Shit My Dad Says status.

It is not easy to call for the exodus of a coach who averaged 58 wins a season in his previous job, who is as kind and decent as they come. Nor does it seem fair to call for the head of a coach who, some would say, helped resurrect this franchise and made the Knicks relevant again. But when players are devoid of respect for a coach's basketball acumen, when the opposition laughs over the transparency of his game plan -- so much so that D'Antoni's players intimated they had instituted their own changes at halftime of a close-out game -- the need for a change simply cannot be denied.

In other words: What Smith is doing here is hard work. Not many journalists have the necessary fortitude to call for the jobs of decent, successful coaches. But, fear not readers, our scribe has been doing this since his college days at Winston Salem. The coach at WSU when Smith arrived on campus with college hoop dreams was the legendary Clarence "Big House" Gaines, who had already captured a Division II national championship and been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. As the door closed on his stillborn basketball career, Smith found his star on the rise in the student newspaper. The story that got everyone's attention? Smith calling for Gaines to resign or be removed from his post. Smith contended that the coach's flagging health was hurting the team and lobbied for the icon to be dumped.

Aside from his penchant for calling for coaches to be fired, you'll also notice that Smith always works in absolutes. Well, mostly. Sometimes he equivocates, but mostly things are must, always, never, now, impossible and obvious as described by Smith. Which, is why he asserts that his assertion about D'Antoni "simply cannot be denied." Really? Watch me.

The rare display of heart and guts the Knicks exhibited in the second half of Sunday's Game 4 didn't happen just because they started hitting shots and the Celtics suddenly forgot how to defend them. "We got tired of the way things were going," one player explained in the wee hours of Sunday night, long after everyone had departed from the Garden.

Considering Amar'e Stoudemire's standout game and the overall defensive effort in Game 1 and Carmelo and the Crickets nearly pulling off a shocker in Game 2, I find it a bit disingenuous to say describe the late rally in Game 4 as a "rare display of heart and guts." As the Yiddish saying goes, a half truth is a whole lie.

Smith seems to approach his written work as if it were being broadcast on AM radio. Knowing that he's filed columns via Blackberry, I wouldn't even be shocked if this were dictated and never revised. However, the ephemeral nature of talk radio allows high-volume half truths, recurring inconsistencies and outright exaggerations to flutter off into oblivion. As more and more journalists become talking heads on television and drive-time yakkers on the radio, the lines between these mediums are blurred and the work across all platforms tends toward the lowest common denominator.

"We walked in at halftime and said 'We can't go out this way.' We were pretty ticked off, especially at us not seeming to have any answers scheme-wise. We knew Boston knew everything we were going to do, how we were going to do it, so we needed to do something differently. We just couldn't keep going the way we were going."

Now, a quote like this shows the ace in Smith's hand: He's got access and contacts that the rest of us don't have. He's the Peter King of the NBA, regaling us with tales of his text messages with Allen Iverson. I don't doubt that this quote is at least paraphrased from a statement made by a player on the New York roster, but I also am not certain that Smith isn't using it somewhat out of context to further his point.

Clearly, Smith would like us to assume that the "we" used by the player does not include the coaching staff while the "us" does refer mostly to the coaching staff. He's also refusing to mention, for context, that the Celtics may have known what the Knicks were running because the team was thoroughly depleted by injuries to Billups and Stoudemire and the ineffectiveness of Landry Fields. Should D'Antoni have drawn up more plays for Jared Jeffries to keep the Celtics guessing?

As coach of the Knicks, D'Antoni deserves credit for inserting Anthony Carter into the game, allowing him to defend Rajon Rondo. He also deserves credit for allowing the team to go zone on occasion, for switching on shooters Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, with Carter serving as the catalyst. But if D'Antoni deserves credit for allowing those things to take place, he also harbors culpability for going a full game-and-a-half without a true point guard on the floor, for making little to no adjustments, for leaving the players to essentially decide for themselves at halftime Sunday that swinging back wouldn't entail just jacking up 3s inside of 10 seconds.

Buried in this counterproductive paragraph (insofar as it does more to disprove Smith's thesis than to show why the coach should be fired) is one valid point against D'Antoni. Perhaps it did take him too long to lean on Carter. To my untrained eye, Douglas seemed tentative from the moment that he picked up his first foul in Game 2. Every ill-advised and out of character backpedal on defense seemed rooted in his fear of fouling out with Billups in street clothes.

By my count, Smith credits D'Antoni with four things in this graph while citing three errors. I'm going to absolve him of going a game-and-a-half without a true point guard on the floor because his true point guard was injured in the waning moments of Game 1 and the consensus was that Douglas was the point guard to run out against Rajon Rondo. He wasn't up to it. And perhaps D'Antoni took too long to accept that fact. But how do you write about that without even mentioning in passing that starting point guard was unavailable due to injury?

It seems like Smith is unaware that Games 1 and 2 took place. Almost.

Notwithstanding the tremendous effort displayed in Games 1 and 2, the New York Knicks cannot play defense, folks! Primarily because schematically it's never important, nor has it ever been a priority in D'Antoni's mind.

Well, Smith is aware of the pair of tightly contested games in Boston. He just isn't going to let them sway his opinions. So, notwithstanding those two games in the four game series when the Knicks held a higher-seeded championship contender to 87 points and 96 points, respectively, this team didn't defend at all! Except when they did. My glasses aren't orange-tinted enough for me to claim this a stout defensive team or even an average defensive team. They allowed 110.1 points per 100 possessions and the league average was 107.3 this season. That ranked them 22nd out of 30 clubs.

Points per 100 possessions (DRtg) is a much better tool than points allowed because it normalizes the pace. That hasn't stopped most columnists from lambasting D'Antoni's teams through the years as the worst defensive teams in the league. Smith is clearly working off that assumption. However, the numbers tell a slightly different story.

Year	DRtg	League Rank	League Average
2007–08	108.1	16	107.5
2006–07	106.4	13	106.5
2005–06	105.8	16	106.2
2004–05	107.1	17	106.1

Contrary to popular belief, D'Antoni's teams in Phoenix were not terrible on defense. They were mediocre and were about league average per 100 possessions the entire time that he was at the helm. This competency was masked by the pace at which they played, fastest in the league in his first two seasons and then third and fourth in the next two. The faster pace may have allowed the opponent more chances to score but D'Antoni's clubs defended those chances about as well as most teams while scoring much better than most. I find it hard to believe that most teams wouldn't sign up for a league average defense with a top 5 offense.

Also, Smith's use of "notwithstanding" makes me think of the scenes in Talladega Nights when Ricky Bobby keeps beginning sentences by saying "With all due respect."



Mike D'Antoni's NBA teams have always excelled at the offensive end of the floor. He is an innovator on offense.

Yes, he is. Having conceded this point, Smith isn't going to trash his offense. Is he?

The same coach who's being paid $6 million per season here was out in Phoenix because he would not heed former Suns executive Steve Kerr's advice that he simply couldn't win a championship with his system. Fast-forward to three full seasons later and nothing has changed.

The same "former" Suns executive Steve Kerr that has been providing color commentary during these 2011 NBA playoffs rather than leading a team that aforementioned championship? Yup, that'd be the one. There is no doubt that Kerr's tenure was hamstrung slightly by cash-strapped Sun owner Robert Sarver but it seems like Smith might be rushing to credit the former sharpshooter as an authority on winning just because he presided over D'Antoni's exit from the desert.

I'm sure there are snarky Phil Jackson quotes that could have been employed here to much greater effect, but Smith isn't about to do research. That being said, I think many Knicks fans would like to see a de facto defensive coordinator added to the coaching staff.

There are high pick-and-rolls. There's Amare Stoudemire coming from the corner, getting the ball near the elbow, with everyone and their grandmother knowing that's exactly what is going to occur. Or there's Stoudemire coming from the low block to set screens -- except everyone knows he's getting the ball and that he's not going to set a screen. And intertwined with it all is the arrival of Carmelo Anthony, assigned to doing pretty much the same thing.

"We are easy to scout but tough to play against," John Wooden confessed to Time in 1974. "With Bill Walton in our lineup, our strategy is simple," Wooden explained. "You go to him until the opposing team stops it. Then you go to others. If you don't go to Walton, it's like using Babe Ruth in your lineup to bunt."

The Time article goes on to state that "The Wooden approach is, of course, more sophisticated than that; the Bruins always play within a well-rehearsed plan. On offense, Wooden's first love is the fast break, with Walton firing lead passes to his teammates streaking down the court to score before the opposition's defense can set up."

Sound familiar? After conceding D'Antoni's talents for offensive just a few sentences ago, it seems counterproductive for Smith to turn around and start taking shots at that aspect of his coaching. Perhaps, he meant to write "Notwithstanding D'Antoni's status as an offensive innovator..."

"Coach knows offense," one player explained. "It would be nice to set plays, control pace and not jack up shots just because you're open. But that's what Coach does. You could live with it if we played defense. But obviously, we haven't done that much. Good, bad or otherwise, all I can say is that I've never seen anything like this."

To me, this sounds like it might be Chauncey Billups, who is chummy enough with Smith to have appeared on Quite Frankly while it was on the air. Regardless of the source, Smith continues to take shots at the offense. To take issue with the quote itself, one could certainly argue pushing the tempo is controlling the pace and that D'Antoni's offense creates more open looks than the iso sets that one presumes would constitute the plays being suggested.

What team has a 6-foot-9, 230-pound player like Shawne Williams assigned to stand around and shoot 3s?

The answer to this question during the past two seasons was no one would have used him that way. Because nobody was using him in any way. Out of the NBA last year, Williams played just 15 games in 2008–09 for Indiana. Before he swiped the last spot on this Knicks' roster from Patrick Ewing Jr., Williams was an NBA washout with legal trouble and a bad reputation. During the season he played his way into the rotation and was briefly the most accurate three-point marksman in the league. He also added toughness to the defense, including a stellar effort on LeBron James in one of the Knicks' victories over the Heat.

Letting Williams play his way into the rotation from the bottom of the bench, seems to me an example of D'Antoni's flexibility more than anything else. Just a terrible choice to show that he's stubborn as far as I'm concerned. Talk about his refusal to use Eddy Curry or Stephon Marbury or the insistence of having Jared Jeffries on the floor for the final offensive possession of Game 2. How does a writer constructing a case for D'Antoni's dismissal based largely on the NYK-BOS series not mention Jeffries? Oh, wait, it's probably because Smith is notwithstanding Games 1 and 2.

What team has an athlete like Bill Walker, who's 6-6, 220, programmed to do the same?
See above. Having played sparingly in 1+ seasons in Boston and only in bursts in New York as trades and injuries have opened up playing time, I'd say there isn't exactly a book on best practices for Bill Walker. Again, Smith has chosen to call out a player that really isn't helpful in proving his point? Talk to me about the waiving of Corey Brewer if you're trying to show me that D'Antoni is unreasonable.

How can such a haphazard, frenetic brand of basketball -- you constantly hear D'Antoni screaming at players to shoot whenever open, no matter how much time is on the shot clock -- be permitted to continue when your $100 million franchise player just completed his ninth season? When Anthony, your other franchise player, just completed his eighth season? When both are signed for more than $80 million apiece over the next four seasons, yet based on the fatigue and injuries, neither looked as if he was physically conditioned to go another game in this series?

Just as important, what kind of players will you draft if this system remains in place? Knowing D'Antoni won't play guys who don't fit in?

Please just ignore the fact that Smith is now slamming D'Antoni's offensive acumen just a few graphs after heaping praise on it. Let's move on. So, if D'Antoni won't play guys who don't fit in then your drafting choice would seem straightforward. Draft guys that fit in. And who would that be?

1) Point guards with pace who can run the pick-and-roll.

2) Athletic Bigs that can get up and down and the floor to finish on the breaks that pacey point is initiating. Shot blocker preferred. And the ability to drop in a mid-range baseline jumper would be ideal but not required.

3) Hard-running wings who can keep opposing defense honest with ability to hit three.

Would it really be such a travesty to draft exclusively guys that fit this system?

The New York Knicks need a coach -- not a system. Coaches smirk at the luxury of preparing a game plan against it. Even folks like Charles Barkley have characterized D'Antoni's refusal to recognize the futility of his ways as "pure stubbornness."

Smith is right insofar as he states that the Knicks need a coach. Every team has a coach. Even the Toronto Raptors. But very few teams have a coach with a system. And, last I checked, a bejeweled, creaking fellow by the name of Phil Jackson was lauded for his use of (Tex Winter's) the Triangle Offense. Pete Carrill worked out fine for Princeton with that aptly named "Princeton Offense."

But if "even folks like Charles Barkley" disagree then maybe I should reconsider. What? Even paid commentators with a vested interest in being controversial? Mild-mannered, thinks-before-he-speaks Sir Charles? For a guy that railed against the blustering and bloviating by guys that didn't win at the top of this story, Smith sure seems to give a lot of credence to what Chuck has to say. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching Barkley on TNT, but I'm not about to make any personnel decisions because of something he said.

This city will have plenty of time to debate the future of Donnie Walsh as the president of the franchise, and whether he should stay so he can hire former St. John's star and present ESPN/ABC analyst Mark Jackson -- or whether MSG chairman James Dolan should let Walsh go and offer the coaching job and all of the basketball operations to a man in the last year of his deal, who just finished beating up on the Knicks: Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

What's not open for debate is that it's time for D'Antoni to go.

So, let's get this straight: Smith believes Walsh's future is open to debate despite having turned over Isiah's roster and gotten Melo and STAT fitted for Knickerbocker blue. He also believes that D'Antoni's future is sealed because his team didn't have a better showing in a first round loss to a team that he'd picked to win in the first place. And that Mark Jackson, who has never coached basketball at any level professional or amateur should replace D'Antoni before he has even one entire season with his tandem superstars.

Like a lot of fans and sportswriters, Smith makes the "perfect" the enemy of the "much, much, much better." He's refusing to accept a team that is so much better than anything the Knicks have fielded in ages because it is not yet perfect. He also seems to be assuming that anything that replaces this "very good" will be perfect.

But how does firing D'Antoni look when the Knicks are forced to interview retreads and lifetime assistant coaches? How does it look when Doc Rivers decides to have another go with Boston or to take a year off to watch his son play college ball? If Smith could look further into the future than RIGHT NOW, he might realize the smart play (for those looking to jettison D'Antoni) is to allow him to coach out next season and then go after Rivers once his son is one-and-done at Duke. There's also the reality of the looming lockout to consider? Do you want to hire a new coach and then pay him for a lost season while you're still paying D'Antoni? Of course, I guess Smith wouldn't concern himself with details of this sort since he still thinks the Knicks have the league's highest payroll.

Lest we want Amare and Melo to expire a helluva lot quicker than their contracts will.

Did Smith just intimate that retaining D'Antoni is tantamount to murdering Amar'e and/or Melo? Yeah, I think he did. At least, he didn't use an exclamation point.

Dressing For Knicks-cess

It's the night before the first New York Knickerbockers playoff game at Madison Square since 2004 and I've got a pair of tickets staring up at me from desk. I'm pacing around the apartment like tomorrow's the first day of high school and I've just moved cross country from dingy North Jersey to a Southern California town where the local toughs learn karate instead of play normal sports.

I'm excited. Because the Knicks might win. I'm nervous. Because the Celtics might. I've got my lunch packed (two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a banana) and my first beer planned (from the stand across from the ticket windows in the LIRR station beneath the Garden). As best I can tell there is just one last thing to square before I try to fitfully sleep as I fret about spasming back muscles and knee blood.

What Knicks gear am I going to wear?

The J. Crew khaki pants that I wore to work today were unwashed and have been missing a button atop the zipper for more than a year. The fabric in the crotch and in the seat is thinning, but I will wear them until they tear. Same goes for the coffee chinos that I'll likely wear to work tomorrow. The remainder of my limited wardrobe of office clothes is in the same state of disrepair. I insist on wearing and re-wearing the same things over and over and am very reluctant to buy new clothes. This is especially true with pants. Because, don't you hate pants?

Work is a place that I attend five days a week, weekly, forever. Knicks games, on the other hand, are things that I could never attend more than 60 times per year and never have more than 35. Yet, my closet and dresser and home office are bursting at the seams with squirreled away Knicks gear as if there will be some circumstance that calls for me to dress solely in blue and orange or to sport the visage of Patrick Ewing at all times. While I admit that this is unlikely I've been amassing Sand Knit, Champion and Mitchell & Ness jerseys like my more successful and dapper friends collect wristwatches.

Hmm... a Knicks watch? I don't have one of those. I mean, I do have a few wristbands but nothing with moving parts. While I check eBay for anything like that, here's a look at the options I'm sifting through in advance of Game 3 tomorrow night.

The Kicks:


Outerwear

The Varsity Jacket: First up is a vintage varsity-style Knicks jacket. It has a dark blue wool body with white leather sleeves just like the one your dad wore when he was going down to Arnold's for a fountain soda. All patches and letters are sewn on and awesome. Easily the classiest choice of all that follows.




The Satin Bomber: Next up, we've got the choice of a new generation. This Starter jacket has a light blue suede body and bright orange leather(ish) sleeves. The patch sewn on the back is satin. Yes, suede and satin. Oh, and orange leather, too.



The Ex-Patrick: I lived in London in 2001. Some would say that I felt compelled to leave New York after the Knicks unceremoniously traded Patrick Ewing to the Seattle Supersonics. Those people would be wrong. I left the States to study at King's College for a year. Nevertheless, Patrick was on my mind. We were both strangers in strange lands that uncertain year. This olive military style coat was purchased at a thrift store up in Camden Town, a northwest London neighborhood full of thrift shops, record stores and flea markets. During many visits, the two best things I purchased were this coat and a bootleg of Nirvana's 1992 performance at the Reading Festival. It was on a cassette. I would eventually lose the cassette. But I managed to repatriate the coat. It originally had East German flags on the sleeves. I cut them off and sewed an American flag on one sleeve and a New York Knicks patch on the other. I later added the commemorative pin from the night that Patrick's No. 33 was retired at the Garden.




T-Shirts & Jerseys:








The Original: My fetish - and after showing you all of this stuff there really isn't much else I can call it - for Knicks gear began before I was 10 years old. Being the only child accompanying my grandfather, father and uncle to 'bockers battles at the Garden back in the late 1980s, there was usually someone with me who felt like spoiling me each time the souvenir stand unveiled a new t-shirt. Illustrations of the players were the big thing on the shirts at the time. This shirt depicting the 1988–89 Atlantic Division Champion Knickerbockers was one of my two favorites. It's a size small and there is a tag with name sewn into it.


I placed a shoe next to the shirt to offer some perspective.

A Knicks Fan's Emotional Playoff Weather Report

I've spent the past several springs and early summers observing the NBA playoffs with the intellectual curiosity and remove of a laboratory scientist. I've studied team chemistry. I've charted passing-lane geometry. I've noted the power and grace of the players involved in those playoffs like a dance critic. And I've observed the customs of variously self-righteous, neurotic and apathetic fanbases like a sociologist. I've even unpacked literary analogs for NBA teams, once comparing LeBron James to the titular character in obscure Shakespeare play Timon of Athens and the heavily-inked Nuggets to Cyrano de Bergerac. Reading rather than rooting has characterized May for me. All of these endeavors have been exceedingly pleasant.

And terrible.

Because I write about sports in this space, and others, because I want to root, root, root for my home team. All the while, I've longed for the euphoria of Patrick's raised arms, embracing the crowd, after Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 1994. I pined for the anxiety of game days while I was in grade-school, when I'd struggle to manufacture witty retorts when my classmates in suburban New Jersey gleefully informed me, often correctly, that the Knicks were going to lose to the Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers or whomever was the night's opponent. I waited to stoke that same furnace of anger that brightly burned in my tentative teenage spleen when PJ Brown tossed Charlie Ward into the stands during the 1997 playoffs. I even missed the poignancy of the 2-for-18 desolation that had come closer than any other experience to matching the grasping, quicksand anguish of being dumped for the first time that mattered.

Without those things from 2004 to 2011, I was not so much a basketball fan during the NBA postseason as much as I was a basketball enthusiast. Hoops watching, and even hoops blogging, was like constructing scaled sea vessels that would forever stay dry and be kept in bottles or on bookshelves. While I certainly got high from huffing the modeling glue and enjoyed the meticulous handcraft, it was not the same as sailing.



But after years of clear indoor springtime skies, the winds are howling around and inside me, rattling the shutters and trembling beverages in their glasses as if a T-Rex is stomping through the streets of Jersey city. My sterile playoff viewing environment has been ripped from its moorings and spun like Dorothy's farmhouse in that famous Plains twister.

Marveling at the balletic grace and rocket-powered explosiveness of Amar'e Stoudemire in Game 1 flushed my face with the joy of the playoffs while raging at the no-call when Kevin Garnett plainly, efficiently tripped Toney Douglas to free up Ray Allen for the Boston's Game 1 winner on Sunday reacquainted me with the stakes. Watching Carmelo Anthony's regal, irrepressibly Bernard King–like effort rendered something like irrelevant by Jared Jeffrie's timid game-killing effort in the post last night in the penultimate moment of Game 2 of the first-round playoff series between the New York Knickerbockers and the Boston Celtics brought it all back to me. The feeling after Game 2 was agonizing.

And, I'd missed it. Terribly.

After each loss, I was torn between violent and melancholy desires. I wanted to sulk away quickly, quietly to a windowless room and sleep fitfully but determinedly until the next game. But I also felt a fierce Rondoesque straightline drive to HULK!SMASH! home entertainment equipment belonging to myself and others. I wanted to throw laptops against walls. And then tear flat screen televisions from their wall mounts. I wanted present company to leave without a word, especially self-righteous Boston fans cheering Chauncey Billups' knee injury while thinking their seat on the couch represented some sort of moral high ground. Yet I wanted to yell FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKK as loud as I possibly could so that the neighbors would trudge downstairs to complain. And, then I wanted drink strong fermented drinks from ice-filled tumblers until my vision doubled and trebled as my urges to commit violence against myself and others lessened inversely.

Things are tough all over, when the thunder storms start increasing over the southeast and south central portions of my apartment. I get upset, and a line of thunderstorms was developing in the early morning, ahead of a slow moving coldfront, cold blooded, with tornado watches issued shortly before noon Sunday, for the areas including, the western region of my mental health and the northern portions of my ability to deal rationally with my disconcerted precarious emotional situation. -Tom Waits

To further confuse my emotional situation, both games engendered plenty of positive feelings along with all of the negative ones. In each contest, the best and most impressive player was wearing road blues. In Game 1, Amar'e was acrobatic and powerful. He looked like Patrick Ewing playing against the Celtics in 1990, and KG had as good a chance of staying in front of him as I did.




In Game 2, Carmelo Anthony channeled 1984 Bernard King in a talismanic and relentless performance. He scored 42 points, controlled 17 rebounds and doled out six assists (but, sadly, not seven). It was sports heroism (which is very distinct from actual heroism) and its most compelling.



I ooh'd and hot damn'd and hell yeah'd due to the superlative efforts of these two All-Star players who jumped at the chance to be paid exceedingly well by my the Knicks. The final scores of each games does not mean those exclamations weren't exclaimed and that that enthusiasm wasn't felt.

While I have managed to forage enough Knicks-related thrills to survive the regular-season mediocrity of the last few years, I haven't tasted moments as sweet as those for some time. I've subsisted mostly on a diet of Isiah-directed angst and then free-agency-related hope. But on Sunday and Tuesday, I was able to gorge myself on terrific play by STAT and Melo. Of course, the aged Celtics illustrated that being best was not nearly as important as being last in the postseason. In both games, the Celtics scored the last points of the game to secure the win. In both games, the final score threatened to render my elation and enthusiasm meaningless.

After two 2011 playoff games, the 'bockers are boasting an 0-2-0-2 record. Zero wins. Two losses. No draws. And, a pair of moral victories. Despite doing nothing to help the Knicks advance in the 2011 postseason, the slivers of light amidst the storm clouds are not insignificant. These twin silver-lined losses mark the best postseason that the Knicks have had since 2001. Not coincidentally, that was the last time that a basketball game ruined my day so thoroughly.

I was gutted after Vince Carter, Chris Childs and the Toronto Raptors ended the Knicks' 2001 season, closing the brief window of post-Ewing success. The lurching deadstop loss in the decisive fifth game of that series frustrated more than anything I've seen this week (or may see next) because that Knicks squad was trending down. Patrick was gone. Larry Johnson's back was going. Charlie Ward had just revealed himself to be an anti-semite. Without the center, the team could not hold. The sting of these 2011 losses has been mitigated by the fact - or, at least, my belief - that this team is trending up. Win or lose, the Knicks are blossoming into a better team than the Celtics right before our eyes. Of course, it also helps calm my nerves that New York has two home games coming hot down the pike with which they can even this series.

Biologically speaking, pain and discomfort are supposed to motivate us to back away from dangerous or potentially harmful situations. It is a warning signal. It's telling me to run like hell from these Knickerbockers. But like a moth to flame, I'm drawn to this likely losing effort. I've grossly overpaid for my ticket for Game 3 at the Garden on Friday and I'm open to all the pain that the fine print on the back of the stub absolves James Dolan of. Because, as William Faulkner wrote, given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain. After years of vacuous Knicks nothingness, I'm relishing the opportunity for pain and confusion and sadness because it brings the chance for transcendent moments of happiness and an increased likelihood of high fives.

Always Be Carmelo

Not Worth Saving

As a kid growing up in a leafy suburb in New Jersey, I couldn't wait for the start of Daylight Savings Time each Spring. From Groundhog Day on, I would intermittently ask my mom when we could change the clocks. I would pester her about it almost as often as I would ask my dad when was the next Knicks game that my grandpa had tickets for.

An annual harbinger of the ending of the academic year, Daylight Savings Time seemed more an act of god than a piece of civic legislation. I mean, all of a sudden there might as well have been 25 hours per day. To me, that was a miracle on par with snow days. This new found time was best used in three ways.

1.Full-field scrimmaging till dusk at soccer practice while a phalanx of Chevy Suburbans and Dodge Caravans lined the edge of the field behind the Catholic church in town.

2. Riding bikes.

3. Practicing post moves that I'd cribbed from Patrick Ewing in the driveway but would never really be tall enough to use in a game not against my two younger brothers.

Having no driveway and no soccer practice these days, I drove out to West Orange, NJ on the first day of Daylight Savings Time to get an Italian hot dog from Jimmy Buff's. I was moderately puzzled by the differences between the clocks in the car, kitchen and on my phone as I traversed the Mordoresque expanse of Kearney, but I figured this unsettled feeling had as much to do with my having slept on the couch as it did with the loss of any hour.

By the time that I'd polished off my combination order (one hot and one sausage) with all the fixings (peppers, onions, potatoes) in the inimitable pizza bread, I was feeling even more aware of the hour of sleep that I'd lost at some point in the night. Driving home, knowing that I needed to be at the Garden somewhat soon for the 6:00 p.m. tip-off, it felt like that hour had been stolen from me.

No way, though. Thoughts like that almost seem resentful of Daylight Savings Times. That grogginess must have been the gunmetal sky conspiring with the 17 tablespoons of unadulterated cooking oil that I'd ingested as part of my lunch, I assured myself. Because who would dare slander Daylight Savings Time? Even if just in my head while pushing my own weight eastbound on Route 7? Nobody. That can't be true. It's not possible.

False. There have actually been opponents of DST (as it's called in the Swatch biz) ever since George Vernon Hudson first suggested the practice in New Zealand in 1895. Apparently, the lives of others are not ordered precisely as my own youth. Odd, I know, but bear with me. For those DST detractors, the benefits of that extra hour of natural light in the evening didn't cover the cost of that lost hour in the morning. Farmers and rural folk have always disliked this custom intended mostly to help city slickers save a bit of coin on incandescent street lights and such. Oddly enough, the fast food lobby actually mediated the conflict at some point, as they convinced the farmers of America that the extra hour of daylight in the summer meant that substantially more french fries and burgers complete with lettuce, tomato and onions could be sold at places that probably last passed a health inspection the same year as Jimmy Buff's.


The Knicks-Pacers tilt at the Garden was getting underway at 6:00 p.m., which by Saturday's timetable would have been 7 p.m. To me, this meant I'd be home by 10 instead of by 11. No matter how jarred my body clock was, this was terrific news because it meant there might be time to watch an episode from season 1 of Breaking Bad before bed. But for some of the supporters of the Knicks' opponent it meant something else.

Indiana is in both the Corn Belt and the Grain Belt. It's also a place for cattle and dairying. Soybeans aren't an afterthought, either. So the Pacers' constituency counts among its members some of those rural types who have really never cared for all this clock changing business. To make matters even worse, Indiana is also one of 13 states straddling time zones. Mostly Eastern but partially Central, Indiana has had a contentious relationship with time pieces and timekeepers for decades. For many reasons, most of Indiana refused to participate in Daylight Savings Time. Cities near the Kentucky and Ohio borders would observe it unofficially to help keep pace with their neighbors. Over the years, counties have petitioned the state legislature to move from one time zone to other. A group of counties whose temporal status was forever murky became locally known as "the seesaw six." There was even a US naval base straddling three counties and two time zones. Finally, in 2006, it was decreed that all counties, regardless of time zone, observe DST. And people were pissed.


Which may explain why the Pacers attacked the game from the first whistle. They were most definitely playing like a team that was making up for lost time. The Knicks, meanwhile, looked like me in the driveway as a kid. Practicing, slow deliberate moves that were not much use in game situations.

Georgetown alum Roy Hibbert got as close to "rampaging" as his plodding frame will ever allow him, scoring the first four points of the game himself. Even with our defensive stopper Jared Jeffries in the starting lineup, the Knicks had no answer for this team that boasted both a legitimate center in Hibbert and a bulky power forward in Tyler Hansbrough. The Knicks can handle a team with one of those two types. And, by "handle," I mean allow that one player to kill it in the post while doing their best to run at everyone else on the wings. But two post players? This Knicks group doesn't have the equipment, physically, emotionally or schematically to handle that sort of balanced team. With Pacers point guard Darren Collison keeping the ball on a string and solid wing play from Paul George (and later Dahntay Jones), the visitors sprinted to an 8-1 lead before the 'bockers seemed to even know that the cameras had been turned on. Playing without its best player, Danny Granger, and mired in what seemed a terminal skid, this Pacers club made the Knicks look amateurish, like they might as well not go on the road while the NIT is in town later this month.

Midway through the first quarter, the Knicks would make their only true run of the game to go momentarily ahead, 17-16. That spurt consisted of Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups and Amar'e Stoudemire scoring points. Of course it did. But once that run concluded with a made Melo free throw, the game was never really interesting again. In fact, it was downright boring. Baskets were traded as thoughtlessly as business cards at a Rotary Club meet and greet. There was no urgency or fluidity to what the Knicks were doing. There was little ball movement on offense and not enough moving of feet on defense. They were stagnant. And, the crowd followed suit. After watching three quarters Hansbrough dunking and altogether outplaying his more talented and better paid peers, even the chants of Dee-FENSE were lackluster. The malaise was so severe that I could barely muster enthusiasm for the t-shirt launch.

Perhaps you just don't want to play the Heartland's Hoops Team on a day as apparently fraught with tension as the start of Daylight Savings Time. Perhaps the home crowd and the home team approached this game, played at this early time, as if it were a lazy summer lark. Or perhaps the Knicks just got their own floor mopped with their own asses. I guess, we'll find out when these teams meet again a few nights from now in Indianapolis.

He Do This

Fine. I'll admit. Deep in the hidden recesses of my hoops heart, it has been a minor struggle for me to learn to love watching Carmelo Anthony stop the ball as the Knicks run an increasing number of isolation plays. Despite his ability to play that style better than most of his peers, the seeming stagnation flashes me back to Al Harrington, Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph.

Now, don't get me wrong. I wanted the Knick to trade for Carmelo Anthony, even writing some time long before the Summer of LeBron that I'd rather root for Melo and the upstarts trying to usurp the King then for a team built around an increasingly dickish James.

In spite of my affection for Melo, I have still cringed when he's gone through his brief cold stretches because few plays look as wasteful as the missed iso jumper early in the shot clock. Of course, I understand that coach Mike D'Antoni has to tailor his offense to the skills of his top players. And, I understand that allowing Melo to face up on a defender on most places on the floor isn't exactly a bad play. Or, at least, it's not as bad a play as letting Harrington do it.

Last night, though, Anthony had a message for me. A message that I received by way of the Memphis Grizzlies' bench. When Melo released the above game-winner, the Grizz reserves were hollering in his ear that his effort was astray. Once the ball dropped through the net, Anthony turned to them and simply said, "I do this."

There was a rakish grin on Anthony's face as he backpedaled down the court after that make. With arctic confidence, he just kept repeating those three words. Because he does this. Which means that anytime I feel like the team has abandoned the pick and roll and the breakneck pace for half-court clear-outs, I need to remind myself that it's a make-or-miss league and we've got a guy who makes when it matters:



Even if that winning shot had clanged off the iron, and the Knicks had gone on to lose in overtime, I still would have liked the way that last play looked. It wasn't Jamal Crawford dribbling down the clock at the top of the key before one crossover dribble and an off-balance jumper. Unlike the final possession in the recent loss to Cleveland, D'Antoni had his team run the offense. Toney Douglas initiated the action, passing it Anthony on the left wing that he loves. Amar'e came over looking to run the pick and roll, but Zach Randolph was staying home on him. With the Grizz overplaying Amar'e, it was up to Anthony. Who jab stepped Tony Allen and pulled back and rose for the winner. Because, all together now, He Do That.

Biggie and the Unnamed Knicks Cuckold

It was 14 years ago today that Brooklyn-born hip hop juggernaut Christopher Wallace - better known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G. - was killed in Los Angeles. A tuxedo-wearing gunman in a Chevy Impala pulled alongside the Suburban ferrying Biggie and opened fire. Riding in the passenger seat of that 'burb, the drug dealer turned wordsmith was killed. Despite the fact that a whole lot of people thought they knew who was behind the shooting, the murder was never solved by the LAPD, and is actually still being investigated on the Left Coast.

All these years later, the vivid street narratives in Born to Die and Life After Death remain poignant and surprisingly fresh. At turns angry, hilarious and vulnerable, Biggie has got songs for all seasons. And even one about banging the girl of a player on the New York Knicks. The last song on the first disc of Life After Death, "I've Got A Story to Tell," details what happens when Big's liaison with the lady of Knicks player at that fellow's crib is interrupted by the player returning home from a game against the Utah Jazz, who were fittingly in town the other night. Surprisingly, hilarity, not violence, ensues. Well, there is a robbery and there are threats of violence. But it's funny. Really funny.

Who y'all talkin to man?
Uhh
Check it out, check it out
This here goes out
to all the niggaz that be fuckin mad bitches
in other niggaz cribs
thinkin shit is sweet
Nigga creep up on your ass, hahaha
Live niggaz respect it, check it

I kick flows for ya, kick down doors for ya
Even left all my motherfuckin hoes for ya
Niggaz think Frankie pussy whipped, nigga picture that
With a Kodak, Insta-ma-tak
We don't get down like that, lay my game down quite flat
Sweetness, where you parked at?
Petiteness but that ass fat
She got a body make a nigga wanna eat that, I'm fuckin witchu
The bitch official doe, dick harder than a missile yo
Try to hit if she trippin dissapearin like Arsenio
Yo, the bitch push a double-oh
with the five in front, probably a connivin stunt
Y'all drive in front, I'm a peel with her
Find a deal with her, she fuck around and steal, huh?
Then we all get laced
Television's, Versacci heaven, when I'm up in em
The shit she kicked, all the shit's legit
She get dick from a player off the New York Knicks
Nigga tricked ridiculous, the shit was plush
She's stressin me to fuck, like she was in a rush
We fucked in his bed, quite dangerous
I'm in his ass while he playin gainst the Utah Jazz
My 112, CD blast, I was past
She came twice I came last, roll the grass
She giggle, sayin i'm smokin on homegrown
Then I heard her moan, honey I'm home
Yep, tote chrome for situations like this
I'm up in his broad I know he won't like this
Now I'm like bitch you better talk to him
Before this fist put a spark to him
Fuck around shit get dark to him, put a part through him
Lose a major part to him, arm, leg
She beggin me to stop but this cat gettin closer
Gettin hot like a toaster, I cocks the toast, uhh
Before my eyes could blink
She screams out, "Honey bring me up somethin to drink!"
He go back downstairs more time to think
Her brain racin, she's tellin me to stay patient
She don't know I'm, cool as a fan
Gat in hand, I don't wanna blast her man
But I can and I will doe, I probably chill doe
Even though situation lookin kinda ill yo
It came to me like a song I wrote
Told the bitch gimme your scarf, pillowcase and rope
Got dressed quick, tied the scarf around my face
Roped the bitch up, gagged her mouth with the pillowcase
Play the cut, nigga comin off some love potion shit
Flash the heat on em, he stood emotionless
Dropped the glass screamin, "Don't blast here's the stash,
a hundred cash just don't shoot my ass, please!"
Nigga pullin mad G's out the floor
Put stacks in a Prada knapsack, hit the door
Grab the keys to the five, call my niggaz on the cell
Bring some weed I got a story to tell, uhh...

Yo man, y'all niggaz ain't gonna believe what the fuck happened to me.
Remember that bitch I left the club with man? Yo, freaky yo. I'm up in
this bitch playa this bitch fuckin run them ol mink ass niggaz and shit,
I'm up in the spot though. One of them six-five niggaz, I don't know.
Anyway I'm up in the motherfuckin spot, so boom I'm up in the pussy,
whatever whatever. I sparks up some lye, Pop Duke creeps up in on some,
must have been rained out or something *laughing* because he's in the
spot. Had me scared, had me scared, I was shook Daddy - but I forget I
had my Roscoe on me. Always. You know how we do. So anyway the nigga
comes up the stairs, he creepin up the steps, the bitch all shook she
sends the nigga back downstairs to get some drinks and shit. She gettin
mad nervous, I said fuck that man! I'm the nigga, you know how we do it
nigga, ransom note style put the scarf around my motherfuckin face,
gagged that bitch up, played the kizzack. Soon this nigga comes up in
the spot, flash the Desert in his face he drops the glass. Looked like
the nigga pissed on his-self or somethin, word to mother! Ahh fuckit
this nigga runs dead to the floor, peels up the carpet, start givin me
mad papers, mad papers. (I told you that bitch was a shiesty bitch cuz!
Word to mother I used to fuck her cousin but you ain't know that! Hahaha.
You wouldn't know that shit. Really though.) I threw all that
motherfuckin money up in the Prada knapsack. Two words, I'm gone!
(No doubt, no doubt... no doubt!) Yo nigga got some lye, y'all got
some lye? [conversation fades out]

While the anonymous cuckolded Knickerbocker is likely just a stand-in for the stereotypical ideals of straight-laced, milk-drinking masculinity that this overweight, black market superstar was trying to supersede, I did like to wonder who the gal would have been if the story had been true. Usually, I'd just assume that, Big was banging the wife of Charles Smith. A Connecticut-born college graduate who was well paid but little respected on the block (or at my suburban middle school). Smith's four misses in the waning moments of Game 5 of the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals were still an open wound in this town during the period when the song was likely recorded.



Life After Death was released shortly after Biggie's death in March 1997, but it was, according to my extensive Wikipedia research, originally slated for release on Halloween in 1996. An autumn '96 on-sale would have meant that most of the songs were likely written and recorded during the three-year window between September 1994 when Ready to Die dropped and the start of the 1996–1997 NBA season. Although the Knicks' roster was fairly stable during that span, the only clues that we have about the 'bocker from the song is that he was scared and that he kept a stash of cash in a Prada bag beneath the floor of his bedroom. He's also described as "one of them six-five niggaz," which likely rules out the 6' 10" Smith. Despite the scars I carry from Charles Smith's time with the Knicks' I'm going to say that he simply doesn't fit the description.

1994–1997 New York Knicks
Patrick Ewing 1994–1997
John Starks 1994–1997
Charles Smith 1994–1996
Derek Harper 1994–1996
Hubert Davis 1994–1996
Anthony Mason 1994–1996
Charles Oakley 1994–1997
Greg Anthony 1994–1995
Anthony Bonner 1994–1995
Herb Williams 1994–1995
Monty Williams 1994–1995
Doc Rivers 1994
Charlie Ward 1994–1997
Doug Christie 1994–1995
Ron Grandison 1994-1996
Greg Kite 1994–1995
J.R.Reid 1995–1996
Gary Grant 1995–1996
Brad Lohaus 1995–1996
Willie Anderson 1995–1996
Matt Fish 1995–1996
Scott Brooks 1996–1997
Chris Childs 1996–1997
Allan Houston 1996–1997
Larry Johnson 1996–1997
Buck Williams 1996–1997
Walter McCarty 1996–1997
Chris Jent 1996–1997

First, I think we can rule out the handful of white guys that played on the team since I believe it would have been noted explicitly in the lyrics if this dude was white. Next, I'd eliminate Ewing, Oakley and Mason. Mostly, because they are all too tall, but also because I think this situation ends with a murder if Oak or Mase are involved. Also, Rita Ewing ain't playing like that if it's going to jeopardize her settlement in the divorce. The Ewings also lived in New Jersey. Third, I'd tend toward knocking the older players like Herb Williams and Buck Williams from the list as they're likely married to women too old to end up in bed with a young rapper who they met at a club. Those veterans also probably would have had kids in the house. The next to go would be the itinerant players who only had a cup of coffee with the team during that span. Please move along Gary Grant, J.R. Reid, Greg Kite, Ron Grandison and company. After removing all those guys we're left with a group of young players and a few veterans, that includes Starks, Childs, Davis, Bonner, Ward, Christie, Houston and McCarty.

Of these candidates, I'd think that the religious Houston and Ward would have quoted scripture when faced with such a situation and that Biggie would have mocked them for it. More importantly perhaps, those Christian brothers didn't arrive in town until the very end of the window during which the song could have been written. Same goes for LJ (who is probably closer to being 6'5" then whatever he was listed as during his playing days), Bonner, Childs and McCarty. So I'm going to say that they weren't in town long enough to qualify. Elementary, my dear Diddy.

That leaves us with three likeliest candidates: Davis, Starks and Christie. Davis and Starks are both listed at 6 feet and 5 inches tall while Christie is just an inch taller. They all fit the bill. It's possible that Starks' nightmarish 1994 NBA Finals was brought about by having been "robbed" by Smalls at his home, and the former grocery store clerk does seem like the type that might have kept his money stashed in bags rather than banks. Of course, I see Starks opting for a plastic bag if given the "Prada or plastic?" choice. Now, knowing what we now know about Christie's wife, Jackie, he seems a darkhorse candidate. Lastly, Davis is the college-educated All-American sort that seems a candidate to have a Prada bag and to not stand up for himself. Such measured cowardice is the wise play, of course, which is why it may potentially rule out Starks. This a complicated case with a lot of ins, outs and what have you. Among the many unsolved mysteries surrounding this fallen icon, is the identity of the player that begged Biggie not to shoot his ass.

The Payback Trilogy

I've read enough Baseball Prospectus to understand that nothing I do, as a fan, has any effect on the outcome of a sporting event. Not my yelling. Not my would-be-witty blog posts. Not the spot where I sit while watching. None of my actions have any effect. Which makes me, in this regard, nearly as useful as Andy Rautins.

Now, I don't mean to say that I still didn't worry over which Jets jersey to wear during Gang Green's recent playoff run. Because I did. But I understand that the only purpose of such behavior was to give me something to do before the game and something to talk about during. My ensemble didn't help Shaun Ellis sack Tom Brady in New England or prevent Bart Scott from wrapping Rashard Mendenhall in Pittsburgh.

Recent events, however, have forced me to revisit this stance about my own ineffectuality. Maybe Bill Simmons is right. Maybe reverse jinxes matter. Maybe RBI is a valuable evaluation tool. And, just maybe the things I do and say and eat and drink can alter the performances of athletes that don't even know that I exist. Because that seems to be one of the only ways that I can explain how the woeful Cleveland Cavaliers have beaten the Knicks three times in three tries this season.


In case you haven't heard, those 2010-2011 Cavaliers have been one of the worst teams in NBA annals. Byron Scott's charges have just 12 wins. Seven of those triumphs came in the first month of play, but the comic sans wave crested in the first quarter of LeBron James' return to Cleveland on Dec. 2. With a vociferous crowd behind them, the Cavs took an early lead. The high point came when Antawn Jamison drew a foul while scoring a driving layup. He then knocked down the ensuing free throw to give the home team a 17-12 lead. From that made free throw up until now it's been a nearly uninterrupted free fall. The South Beach SuperFriends finished the quarter strong, with James scoring 11 of his team's final 16 points while assisting on the two buckets he didn't score. The next three quarters would go just as well for Cleveland as the close of the first.

The Cavs would go on to drop their next eight games before the Knickerbockers arrived in Cleveland for their first meeting on Dec. 18. The Knicks squandered a lead in the final minute of the game before capitulating in overtime. As I said earlier, the freefall was nearly uninterrupted. After that first win over the Knicks, the rudderless Cavs would go on to lose their next 26 straight games, establishing a new mark for consistent putridity.

When the Knicks next came calling at Quicken Loans Arena in late February, the 'bockers had just acquired Carmel Anthony, Chauncey Billups and assorted Balkmans from Denver. The new-look New York team stuttered and fumbled its way to a win over the Milwaukee Bucks in its first future outing, but would then go down in Cleveland. In that game, J.J. Hickson played with a ferocity that neither me or the Knicks seemed to anticipate, and it was only a fourth-quarter explosion from Billups that made this one close down the stretch.

Already rocking an impressive 0-fer against the least competitive team of recent vintage, Anthony sounded almost Rexian in making it clear to the media that there would be no messing around when Cavaliers visited the Garden just a few days later. True to his words, the Knicks began brightly in the game, with Toney Douglas continuing his recent streak of strong starts. TD attacked the rack for the opening score. Soon after, Melo dropped a three and then Amar'e got himself to the line after a strong drive. Douglas was propelling the offense at full speed, pushing it through Amar'e. When Jared Jeffries took a charge early it looked like this one would be over early.

To their credit, the Cavs would battle all night, playing with a confidence and an anger that one might not expect from a team so far down the standings. Some of the spirit of belief was imbued by recent arrival Baron Davis, who generally embraces the Garden stage, but just as much was contributed by bulky Newark-schooled Samardo Samuels. For all their brutish exuberance, though, the Knicks lead ballooned to 12 points midway through the fourth quarter as Stoudemire was again working himself past 40 points.

But with an offense operating at full speed only in fits and starts and a defense still being lashed together on the operating table, the home team stalled as the finish line came into sight. It shuddered and shimmied just like the 1986 Dodge 600 I drove used to as I'd force it to make that last hard uphill left turn toward my high school in 1999. This sudden and dramatic loss of locomotion was exactly what a drafting Davis had been waiting for. He exploded toward the tape, knocking down several big shots and playing with the been-there confidence that LBJ used to provide for this team in the building.


Soon enough, the Knicks were trailing in the final minute and forced to have Amar'e shooting a three pointer. As is his wont, he nailed it. Obviously. Former Dan D'Antoni protege and onetime apple of the Donnie Walsh's eye Ramon Sessions then went 1 for 2 at the line to give the 'bockers one last chance to avert disaster. Trailing 115-117, the Knicks had the ball with 7 seconds left (or less).

The ball was never going anywhere but Anthony. He lowered his head and he drove through the paint toward the rim, rising up into the air when he was halfway there. With a clean look above the fray to the cylinder, Anthony was oblivious to Samuels planted beneath him until both were tumbling toward the parquet. Whistle. Offensive foul. Game. Over.

While getting ambushed by an engaged Davis is not exactly the same as losing a lead in Cleveland or as no-showing in Cleveland, there is not enough lipstick out in the wider world to enter this pig in the beauty pageant. This was the worst loss of the season. Because it came after those other two. Because it came with Carmelo. And because it came after Carmelo talking about how this team would not lose the third meeting after dropping the previous two.

Those three wins for Cleveland account for the better part of the paltry five that this club has gathered since that relatively hot first month. But, why? How? Are you there God, it's me Margaret and I want to know how these players have consistently lost to those players?

Oh. I see. Damn. Yeah, our bad.

It's because we, as fans, wanted this for Cleveland. We wanted their homegrown hero to leave. We wanted the 26-game losing streak. We coveted LeBron James and we gleefully scribbled slogans on poster board to this effect. We printed Knicks jerseys with LBJ's name and number on them. It didn't matter one lick to us Knicks fans if Cleveland went 0-82 this season. Nope. In fact, our addition was always supposed to be there subtraction. That was, when you got down to it, part of the fun. Because we could get what they had just because of who we were: Knicks fans. This was the prevailing we-gomaniacal thinking. No?


For 18 months, the Knicks were the free agency bogeyman haunting everything that Cleveland did on and off the floor. We're responsible for the Cavs mortgaging the future for suitable sidekicks for James. Danny Ferry and the Cleveland front office felt incapable of building something strong and sustainable because the lure of James Dolan's money, Madison Avenue market share and Madison Square Garden seemed stronger than the quainter comforts of Cuyahoga County.

When it comes to the relationship between these two franchises, it matters only slightly that LBJ opted to take his talents to South Beach instead of Seventh Avenue because the Knicks and New York City created "The Decision." It was the confidence that we had of James' ultimate departure and the passion with which we wooed him that sewed the seeds of that heartbreak. These Knicks can't beat those Cavs because we created them.

As James would tweet, ain't karma a bitch.