For 24 minutes, the Knicks played as if they were the 1972-73 Knicks they were honoring — which wasn’t too good because those guys are all like 70 years old.
Pick your reason. Maybe they missed the energy of Kenyon Martin who took a precautionary day off to rest his sore right knee. Maybe it was Tyson Chandler working his way back into the flow. Maybe it was other matters.
“I didn’t think we played that badly we just didn’t make shots,” coach Mike Woodson said with a straight face because his Knicks did play badly.
“We were lackadaisical,” said 30-point scorer J.R. Smith.
“We had a big road trip and any time you come home there’s a tendency to have that little relax, exhale,” said Jason Kidd, who delivered the most spectacular individual moment of the night — and it had to be pretty spectacular because Carmelo Anthony hit 40 again.
Kidd completed a game-changing third quarter when the Knicks made 16-of-23 shots (.696) with a 70-foot heave that banked in and stood out in the Knicks’ 11th straight victory, a 101-83 triumph over the Bucks.
“I shot one from behind the free-throw line before … with Dallas against the Clippers. You remember those,” said Kidd (five points, seven rebounds, two assists in 24 minutes), who admitted as soon as he launched the shot he felt the prayer “had a chance and I didn’t know how to celebrate at the end.”
He tried to mimic Smith. Didn’t quite work.
“I’ve seen J.R. do his soccer celebration, but I’ve never seen the end of it so I only knew how to do the guitar and I got out of the way because I didn’t want to embarrass myself,” Kidd said.
Like the Knicks pretty much did in the first half before their redemption.
“That first half, I’d love to erase it,” said Chandler, who played his third game after sitting 10 with a bulging disk in his neck— and this was a definite improvement after his first two efforts.
“It was just getting my wind back, my timing back. You expect it, being out so long,” added Chandler (six points, 10 rebounds). “I was just glad the way my teammates were going so we could play like a team. They were very encouraging even when I felt like I was about to pass out out there. That’s what it’s all about, keep working.”
And eventually you can overcome any unsightly 24 minutes.
“We were just lucky to be down nine [at halftime],” Kidd said. “Then in that third quarter we got to playing the way we had on that road trip and took command of that game.”