HIGH FLYER: Gerald Wallace soars past Tyson Chandler as he goes in for a layup. Wallace had 16 points, two blocks and two steals. (
)
At the end, as the final seconds melted away and the final buzzer groaned, the eerie chant came tumbling down from the upper reaches of Barclays Center. Nothing manufactured about it. Nothing artificial about it.
Brooooooooklyyyyyynnnnnn …
Gerald Wallace dribbled out the clock, and he handed the ball to the referee, and a splendid night on the Brooklyn side was complete, a 96-89 overtime victory for the Nets in their pockets, a share of first place in the Atlantic Division standings. And a brand-new rivalry for a city to savor.
If they can all be like this?
Well, then the baseball Subway Series will become a cute little novelty. The notion of a Giants-Jets Super Bowl will fade to oblivion. And all of those intramural hockey battles we’ve rhapsodized about through the years? They’ll seem like a Catskills warm-up act.
“This,” Nets guard Joe Johnson said, “is what the fans live for.”
“This,” Nets coach Avery Johnson said, “is what I’ve dreamed about ever since I got here.”
“This,” Knicks coach Mike Woodson said, “was a great game.”
The city game never looked so beautiful, even during those long stretches of basketball last night when it took an ugly turn or three. The Nets had one seven-point lead in regulation. The Knicks had one seven-point lead in regulation. In between? It felt like the whole night was a one-point game.
The Knicks were without Jason Kidd, and remain without Amar’e Stoudemire and Iman Shumpert, but this was mostly the team that had raced to that 8-1 start, and they got a couple of beastly performances from Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler, who combined for 63 points and 23 rebounds.
But they also received a beast of an effort from Raymond Felton, abused by Deron Williams (16 points, 14 assists) and sabotaged by a stat sheet plucked straight out of a John Starks nightmare: 3-for-19 shooting, five assists, five turnovers, too many poor decisions late in the game and in overtime.
All night, Barclays was an acoustic ping-pong table, cheers for everybody, boos for everybody, every basket and rebound and turnover and flop equally praised and prosecuted by a crowd that, probably, was split 60-40 for the Nets but seemed perfectly willing to treat this first meeting of Manhattan and Brooklyn like a Little League game:
Cheers for everyone! Trophies for everyone! Now let’s get ice cream.
Maybe there have been times in the 36 years since the ABA-NBA merger when the teams were as equally matched as they are now, when the match-ups were equally intriguing, when the buzz surrounding both seasons was this electric. Separated as they are by the East River, this feels like the start of something unforgettable; when it was the Hudson, when the Nets were in Jersey, it might as well have been Wyoming.
No more. No kidding. It will be interesting to see what this all looks like, and sounds like, when the teams play at the Garden (which won’t happen until Dec. 19, after one more game at Barclays eight days earlier), where you would expect the breakdown to be more pro-Knicks because, after all, they have had a 66-year head start on winning the city’s hearts and minds.
Still, as Avery Johnson had said before the game: “Just as important as this game is for us, as the new kids on the block, to gain some territory, it’s important for them to try and push back, too.”
That starts now. New York’s two teams awaken this morning sharing first place in the Atlantic, and if it seems a bit early to celebrate that … well, it is. And if you are a Knicks fan and that doesn’t make you feel even a little bit better … well, it shouldn’t. But even that’s OK. Because this is what a rivalry is supposed to feel like, and look like, and sound like.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” Anthony said, a half-smile on his face, long after the final buzzer and the final Brooooooooklyyyyyynnnnnn … And then he realized: “That’s what you’re going to call it.”
Yes. It is. A rivalry grows in Brooklyn. The city game belongs to the city once again. More, please.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com