I Hate New York

Why last night was about more than a missed free throw

In many ways, the 2006-07 Knicks are a lot more frustrating to watch than the 2005-06 team. What’s the optimist’s automatic response to that? Hey, we surpassed our win total from last year, and there is still a third of the season left. In my opinion, improving on last year’s record is like Britney Spears deciding to only check in and out of rehab twice this week, rather than seven. Putting things into a positive perspective often blinds us to the fact of the matter at hand – in this case, the Isiah Thomas era Knicks are just a miserable team to have to root for.

So last night, with the Knicks riding two straight victories (a streak is when you win three games in a row folks) into a showdown with the Sonics at home, they had two options on how to play the game. Option (A) win the game decisively, and create false hope in Knicks fans over a three-game streak at home against teams with a combined record of 74-109. Option (B) stick to the routine of the season, fall behind by over 20, come back to take the lead late, and ultimately lose.

Obviously, the Knicks chose option (B), as they have many times this year after stringing together a couple of wins. The turning point of this game exemplified so well what is wrong with this team. Up by one, with about a 12 second differential on the shot and game clock, Marbury brings the ball up court with the Knicks up by one. Once he stopped his progression a little past half court, I knew what was going to happen next. Marbury does it all the time in these situations. Instead of setting up a play, driving to the basket, or god forbid, advancing the ball to at least the three-point line, Marbury decided to drain the clock to about five before making his move.

Of course, when you have the ball that deep from the basket with no intent to pass, you’re left with one option; a horribly low percentage, highly contested fifty footer. It wasn’t even a shot Marbury put up as much as it was a chuck. I can only imagine what was going through Marbury’s head. My friend Grandpa said that Marbury goes into “street ball” mode in these situations, always trying to one-up the opposing team. He probably had Bobito announcing the action in his head saying, “It’s Starbury baby! Here come the pain! You can’t stop the kid from Coney!”

You all know what happened next, the Sonics drove it right to left, and Rashard Lewis got the ball for a ridiculously wide-open three, which he hit. The Knicks were now down by two with five seconds left, and that is when Isiah decided to call timeout. That pains me more than anything else. Why didn’t he call a timeout when Marbury brought the ball up with a one point lead? Does he have any faith in himself to call a successful half court play late in the game? He should have called the timeout, set up a play where Marbury could draw some contact and get to the line. Worst case scenario, if the Sonics rebound and bring it back, he could at least set up some defensive assignments to stop them from scoring.

But no, Isiah decided to keep his timeout, almost predicting that his team would screw up, and that he would need to have one. This is what separates good coaches from bad ones. The idea is to use timeouts in favorable situations, not pressure ones. Instead of calling a timeout up by one with 36 seconds left, Isiah was forced to call one down by two with four seconds left. Which situation would you rather like to be in as a head coach? It’s like the Knicks were a football team with a third and short in field goal territory (favorable situation) and a bonehead play put them at 4th and long, forcing them to punt (pressure situation). If Isiah Thomas coached one football game, at least four of his players would suffer career ending injuries by the end.

So for me, it boggles my mind why radio hosts, TV personalities or writers would waste one second on talking about the missed free throw. It was irrelevant to me (although Kenny Smith’s horrible jinx was the type of thing that Charles Barkley will surely make him pay for on TNT tomorrow).

The thing that really disgusts me, or at least bothers me the most, are all these pointless comebacks. Every time this team comes out playing like shit and falls behind by 20, they somehow manage to comeback in the second half. Now why exactly is this a problem? Because the players are having too much fun, in games that they are for the most part losing. There’s too much towel slapping on the bench, too many players bumping chests for a team that isn’t winning, and it’s all caused by these comebacks. Did anyone see Steve Francis’s weird dance last night late in the fourth? He looked like a skinny white kid from Valparaiso whose team just made the big dance.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I just want some fucking wins. I don’t care if they play like San Antonio in the height of the Tim Duncan era at this point; just win some games, beginning to end, like a respectable basketball team. If I see one more of these “20 point deficit turned comeback lost cause” games, I’m going to think I’m Phil Connors from Groundhogs Day. I’m going to have to kidnap local groundhog Malverne Mel (my newspaper owns him apparently) and drive my car off a cliff to see if it’s true. I guess the only question is…does the Sports Jew feel lucky?