ORLANDO, Fla. — The streak was going to end, although it didn’t have to. The Knicks had the game well in hand, the Magic were waving white flags, players were already exchanging handshakes.
And the basketball was in J.R. Smith’s hands. And there was nothing but empty hardwood between Smith and the basket.
Now, the version of Smith we saw last year in New York, that the rest of the NBA had seen for years before that, it’s even money — at least — that Smith takes advantage of the free pathway in front of him. Especially because Smith was sitting on 18 points, sitting on a streak of five straight games of 20 or more.
“In the past,” Smith said, “my priorities weren’t what they are now.”
Yes. This is a new year, a new season, a new Smith. He dribbled out the clock. He handed the ball to a referee, then winced as he started to limp off the court, about seven different parts of his left leg barking at him. The Knicks had won, 114-106. That was enough. That was, in fact, plenty.
“Do whatever you can to help the team win,” he said a bit later, after icing his leg, after trundling around the locker, after dismissing his aches and his pains as “another day at the office.”
“That’s what everyone on this team has embraced,” he said. “That’s what I embrace.”
One more time, Smith’s old Nuggets teammate, a fellow named Melo, turned in an MVP-worthy performance for the judges’ future consideration, scoring 40 points again, hitting one crucial shot after another as the Knicks engineered a fourth-quarter comeback to quiet the feisty Magic.
But is anyone prepared to argue who the team’s second-most-indispensible player is right now? Yes, Jason Kidd has nights when he turns back the clock (last night, for instance), and Tyson Chandler, when fully engaged, is a freak of nature in the paint. And certainly Raymond Felton’s absence has only emphasized his importance.
But as the season has progressed, it is Smith who pops up night after night, game after game, doing something — sometimes many things — to ensure the Knicks win a basketball game, as they did last night for the 23rd time in 33 games.
Sometimes it’s scoring. Sometimes it’s passing. Sometimes it’s defense. Always it is a revitalized approach to the game, one he talked about from Day One.
One that is a lot easier to talk about, in truth, than apply.
“I won’t lie to you,” Smith said last night. “It’s been tough. It’s been an adjustment. It hasn’t been easy at all.”
But it has happened. For most of Smith’s career, he hinted at alternate dimensions but was, in truth, a single-dimension wonder: if he came in and sank his first couple of shots, he could carry you against anyone, drop 30 on anyone. If he came in clanking, you were probably better off cutting your losses and getting him out of the game as quickly as you could.
Last night? This was the perfect example of what Smith aspired to as a player, contributing when his A-game was back on the team charter. He was in early foul trouble, banged up his ankle, his knee, his thigh.
He hit a couple of shots but missed more, was off from 3-point range all night. Yet still filled up the box score — 18 points, six rebounds, two assists, two steals, five fouls which were reflected of how hard he played on both ends of the floor.
“He’s a guy who wants to be coached,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said. “I think most guys in the league want that, but he’s done everything to make sure he could take advantage of the things that have allowed him to get better. He’s worked hard at it. It’s paid off.”
And he keeps getting better, keeps doing whatever’s necessary. Twice in December, with Anthony on the sidelines, that meant hitting buzzer-beating game-winners and adding a few salsa steps for extra flourish. Mostly, it’s meant being precisely what a Sixth Man is supposed to be: a source of energy and fire, a change-of-direction weapon that alters the flow of a game the moment he reaches the scorer’s table.
An utterly indispensable piece of the pie. Who had that one in the preseason pool?