It didn’t take much imagination to invoke how those two minutes of the last trimester would have felt, looked, looked, looked. If you remember what Madison Square Garden becomes when the Knicks not only play well, but the fans there think they have a stake to play well …
Yes. You know. Do you remember. Intellectually, you knew the Garden was empty on Wednesday night, but as the Knicks fell 73-68 to 78-75 up, as they polished a 10-2 run that looked like it had been taken out. from the archives of the 1990s, he could almost hear the prayers raining from the cheap chairs to the backyard.
“DEEEEE- FENSE! DEEEEE- FENSE!”
While Kevin Knox blocked a shot, while Austin Rivers stole, while RJ Barrett slammed a house to score everything with 8.1 seconds left in the quarter, you could summon a noise, twist, echo that Jazz would try to drive down the yard to the bus. These moments from the Garden, the best moments, I swear you can see the momentum for the home team.
“It’s so unfortunate we can’t make our fans part of this,” Julius Randle would later say after Knicks drilled Utah 112-100 – 30 points ahead of Jazz after taking observed an advance of 52-34 late in the second quarter.
Randle would have offered customers something to feel good and hoarse, transforming what becomes his routine night line: 30 points, 16 rebounds, seven assists, a plus-25. Later, of course, Rivers, who became a fourth-quarter phenomenon, was the one to score 14 straight points to turn a 96-96 tie into a 110-100 lead, tearing down four consecutive 3s.
Until then, the Garden would have felt that it was about to collapse on its foundation. You get this a few times a year when you receive a team like this, a team that captures the attention of the faithful as it has in the first eight games. Watching the Knicks go crazy – Immanuel Quickley and Barrett look happy and cheerful in their warm-ups – they hinted at what it was like.
“I know the garden would be shaken,” Randle said. “That’s what we all signed up for.”
What the Knicks fans signed up for – what they wanted – is a team that looks so much like this. Every night there is something else to enjoy. In the last two games, the Knicks have fallen into big holes – 15 in Atlanta on Monday, 18 against the Jazz on Wednesday – and both times they not only figured out how to turn an explosion into a nail bitterness, but gave up. figure out how to win both games.
“The NBA is a long game,” said coach Tom Thibodeau. “You can fix the ground quickly. No lead is safe and no deficit is impossible to overcome. “
Rivers said: “The boys had a sense of urgency. They began to talk to each other, saying, “Let’s hunt them point by point.” I knew we didn’t need a home, to play basketball and then everyone started having fun, competing, one thing led to another and then it was a ball game again. “
It was a ball game again and then it was a quarter of the fourth quarter, with the Jazz trying to keep their feet in the second half of a back-to-back (after being smoked in Brooklyn on Tuesday night) The Knicks are hoping their own legs will survive the rotation of eight people who have been injured since the start of the season.
And this is the amazing thing about this team: you could almost understand if, at the beginning of a season, the players would rely on enthusiastic crowds, asking them to pass them. But as much as you might want to imagine all this as a fan, the truth of the players is this: It’s like playing in a gym open in high school, no one is just looking at each other and a few scattered people cutting the cafe through the hall to the organic lab.
You know what you’re missing.
But I also know what they are missing.
“I’m trying to imagine,” said Rivers, who finished with 23 points in 32 minutes. “I can imagine what it was like when I played against them. The fans here have so much energy, I can’t wait. It will happen. Hopefully, on the line, we’ll get people back here. This is the best place to play basketball and everyone knows it. “
He shook his head.
“Those lights that go down, the darkness stays …
“There is no such thing.”
Yes. You know. Do you remember.