Bumbling idiots

The Knicks are absolutely absurd. They sometimes win games they have no business winning, but usually lose such games. It almost never seems that the Knicks actually deserve to win. This is starting to sound like a question on my Symbolic Logic 225 final exam...

Steve Francis misses a free throw with the Knicks down by one, gets the ball back with five seconds left, dribbles wildly down the length of the court, goes behind his back, and drains a silly three to bag a one-point win over the Wiz. Then he leaps up on the scorers' table and makes idiotic gestures at the crowd. His grandmother is in attendance. Of course, Nate Robinson also must leap up on the table, even though he barely played at all tonight. Robinson then jumps on Francis's back and rides around for a while with his shorts falling off his ass.

COME ON ISIAH! There are guys with real talent on this team, but they're about as disciplined as a bunch of 7th graders on a Friday afternoon. They just don't seem to be concentrating! I exempt Steph from that comment-- he's grown up a lot this season (although he kinda stunk tonight). Yes, I blame Isiah for this.

The Knicks will end up just below .500, and might even make the playoffs (!). This will keep Thomas here for at least another year, and chaos will continue to rule. Chaos will win us a few games here and there, but that's about it.

Illin' in Philly

Boy, did the Knicks stink tonight. I got a little pumped up after watching a nice game last night-- I should've known better. The Knicks never win back-to-backs. Especially when Kyle Korver is scoring over 30 points. Didn't help that Q and Crawford couldn't shoot to save their lives.

I think this sums things up pretty well. From tonight's play-by-play (roughly):
Breen: "One area where the Knicks need to improve is turnovers."
Clyde: "Yes, you're right. The Knicks rank 30th in the league in that department."

Heat stroke

Hear ye, hear ye!!! The Knicks have finally bottomed out.

The first quarter just ended in Miami, and the Knicks are down 40-12. Shaq and Wade aren't even playing! The Heat scored at least 25 unanswered points-- I swear to Christ...

Three of a perfect pair

Pistons at the Garden? My date and I headed down to 33rd St. expecting a complete laugher, and we had the pills to prove it. I had no idea we'd be treated to one of the best basketball games I'd ever seen.

Stephon Marbury was absolutely brilliant, peaking with three clutch free throws to send the game into the 2nd OT. He had confidence, poise and skill like I ain't seen all year. Way to go, you bum.

Frye, Curry, Lee, and ultimately Crawford sealed the deal for the Knicks. Rip Hamilton couldn't miss a shot all night (51 pts), so we clearly needed more than Steph stepping up. We got that from the "Baby Knicks" (minus Nate Robinson, who really is a goddamn baby) tonight, via shooting, toughness, rebounding and timeliness, respectively. The crowd loved David Lee so much tonight, he almost reminded me of Kurt Rambis of the 80's Lakers for a minute there. Then I realized that Lee can make layups, dunk, pass, and probably gets laid a lot-- he's nothing like Rambis at all.

It was a long game. My date was nodding off in the 4th quarter, passed out in the first OT, total flatline in OT 2, but made a miraculous Lazarus-like rise for the 3rd and final overtime period. An historic win for the Knicks by any standard. I didn't drink any alcohol at all, but instead gorged myself on pretzels, ice cream, N/A beer, and whatever prescriptions drifted through my transom. It worked very well-- I was completely cogent throughout the nearly four hour ordeal, except for the time I had to walk unaccompanied around the outside wall of the Garden for about 100 feet, doing my best impression of the prisoners on the island jail complex in Face/Off whose boots are magnetically drawn to the floor they try to walk on.

Bottom line: an energy was there that hasn't been for years and years. OK, maybe in weird isolated cases, but this was the Knicks building on an already strong homestand with a gutsy, emotional win in 3 OT's that truly united and electrified fans, players and staff alike. It meant something.

The Curry, Lee/Frye, Jeffries, Marbury, Crawford thing seems pretty damn nice. Let's give it a shot...

Mysterious ways

This team is tough to figure. They look like they can't rebound to save their lives, but they actually lead the league in boards. Crawford looks like he can't hit Oprah's ass with the ball from 10 feet away, but he ends up with 30 points. Maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention.

Anyway, three wins in a row-- not too shabby. I'll be at the next home game on Wednesday against Philly. That's a boring prospect these days.

Saturday night's alright...

Not much to say about this stupid fight. Nate Robinson's proven himself to be an idiot several times now, so that's not news. Jeffries and Collins were just trying to show they're real Knicks. I could really care less about what happens to Carmelo Anthony.

Dunno if Isiah will be suspended, but I predict the Knicks will win at least half of those games.

We had 6th row seats to last night's fiasco, but ended up singing karaoke instead. Planning on seeing Detroit next Wednesday night-- a brawling team in their own right.

how low can we go?

This season's already had more low points than a funeral on cough syrup, but tonight's worth noting anyway. It was the NBA's worst road team (Wizards) vs. the NBA's worst home team (us). We lost miserably.

Maybe the stratege du jour was "don't challenge guys too much on defense," because the Wiz scored 14 3-pointers (yes, 14 x 3 = 42 points!). Chants of "FIRE THOMAS!" filled the Garden (that was about the only thing filling the Garden) as the Knicks alternated between bricks and airballs. Kenny Smith claimed that the Knick bench is "filled with unknown quantities." I wish!!! These quantities are quite known, thank you. We know them to suck.

The only unknown quantity right now is time. I don't see how things can possibly improve for at least 2 years. In the meantime, I'll be thinking up new ways to make it through 48 minutes at a time of NY Knicks basketball (whippets? glue? sudoku? hookers? all of the above?)...

Courtside Bums

Attended our second Knick game of the season last night. Amazing seats. At least the game was close.

Right before tip-off, a woman led her young son down the aisle next to us-- right down to the front row. The boy was blindfolded on the way in, so the mother could surprise the kid with the treat of a lifetime: courtside seats in the most famous arena in the world. Maybe she put the blindfold back on the kid once the Knicks started sucking all over the joint.

The Raptors are pretty much Chris Bosh and 5 or 6 enormous white guys. All of them can sink jumpers from anywhere on the court. Bosh absolutely torched the Knicks for the first half of play, and then kind of disappeared for a while. Probably the only thing that kept us in the game. He's a little weird-looking, but damn good.

It was "Legends Night" (or something like that) at the Garden last night. Which meant that Pat Ewing and John Starks were endlessly paraded on and off the court for cheap bids at applause. Clyde was too busy working for such silliness, and "Pearl" Washington really didn't seem to give a shit. Bernard King was not present.

Ten minutes or so into the game, two homeless guys staggered down the aisle in front of us, and right into the folding chair section on the floor. Security guys were squawking and motioning to each other as the bums were swarmed upon. To the amazement of the crowd, each of the winos promptly produced a crisp ticket for the night's event. How did these guys get tickets? Who the hell knows. One of them was passed out before the end of the third quarter.

John Starks mingled with the crowd a little bit near the end of the game, but blew off any and all fans not in possession of a large chest.

I realized last night that it's been over 6 years since I REALLY cared about an NBA game.

Chocolate explosion

Went to my first Knick game of the season last night. Unbelievable seats right behind the Knick bench-- I could practically strangle Isiah Thomas from where we were sitting. I didn't really get a chance, as Thomas was thrown out of the game for arguing with officials. I think he just wanted to get the hell out of there.

The Knicks opened the game with a 10-0 run against the Celtics. That didn't last long. Wally Sczrerzxbiiyak was scoring at will on Channing Frye, who looked like he had lead in his Keds. Paul Pierce did his usual combination of whining and dining on the court (39 pts), and the Celts won by 4. In all, not a terrible showing by the Knicks.

Lets get to the fun stuff:The Knicks City Dancers were mysteriously absent for the first half hour or so, including the game intro. Probably because somebody stole their entire wardrobe set. They finally pranced out onto the court in hideous-looking pale orange felt skirts, looking like extras from a middle school production of Peter Pan. I heard at least three different people say they looked like "fucking pumpkins."

We were also treated to the rhythms of the New York Sticks, a bunch of kids from some local music program. I liked it better when they just let that kid with the plastic bucket play for 10 minutes.

Things reached a cultural and creative high point with the halftime show of the
"Acko Airs" (?). A loosely-knit troupe of acrobats and gymnasts, the Airs were supposedly united by some sort of anti-drug message. Unfortunately, their performance was absolutely impossible to understand unless you were on some sorts of drugs, which I was. Truthfully, at that point I was simply relieved that I wasn't chosen for the halftime lay-up contest...

After the game we staggered over to 8th & 34th (about 200 feet away) for a raucous midnight showing of Borat, which was absolutely hilarious. Somebody shit diarrhea all over the men's room after the film, which led one group of drunk patrons to speculate that "it looks like Borat was in here..."

Losing Isiah

Haven't written in a while because... the Knicks stink. Really stink.

I tried to make a fun thing out of Isiah not really caring about defense, but now we see he doesn't really care much about rebounding of any kind either. If all he cares about is offense, he's got the wrong bunch of guys-- they can't shoot to save their lives.

Zeke is proving to be a great quote machine, however:"I have zero favorites. I'll bench anyone."Yeah, I think we all have "zero favorites" on this crappy team (and as if benching a guy who sucks and everybody hates is somehow a ballsy thing to do)!

My favorite Knick? Clyde. Hands down.

Knicks win!

Last night's NY/Memphis game was just like an ugly breakup: it was painful, it went on for way too long, communication was poor, nobody took charge, and everybody involved should be ashamed of themselves. Nobody could shoot to save their life either.

The Knicks do seem to make their free throws, though. The Grizz were shooting from the line like they spent the afternoon drinking sizzurp with 8-Ball and MJG. Let's hope games against Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta and Charlotte include similar collaborations with dat purple drank...

Isiah really seems lost. How about these quotes:

"It's never pretty on the road. It's always ugly..."
"I knew there would be a point in the game we'd come unglued..."

Maybe he's onto something.