This was early last spring, back when the Mets were teasing their fans and toying with the idea of being contenders. It was late in the afternoon and, as these things often go, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez were talking about the splendid season of ’86.
“St. Louis,” Darling said.
“St. Louis,” Hernandez said.
They had been asked a simple question: When did you know you were something other than a good team, or even a very good one? Neither had to wait for the end of the question. It was on the night of April 24, 1986, when the Mets, down to their last strike against the Cardinals, were rescued by a ninth-inning home run from Howard Johnson. They won in the 10th. They wound up sweeping a four-game series in Busch Stadium.
After the Sunday finale, Wally Backman walked into an elevator. He saw a Cardinal whom he knew well just outside. And as the door closed, Backman smiled and crowed: “Don’t let us get too far ahead …”
“Something clicked,” Darling explained. “It’s hard to describe.”
But easy to identify. It’s the moment when teams start believing in their better selves, a moment all championship teams enjoy before actually winning a championship, a moment so prominent it deserves to be capitalized, a Moment that delivers an internal memorandum that, essentially, goes like this:
TO: Us.
FROM: Us.
RE: We can do this!!!!
Is that what the Knicks experienced in Miami on Thursday night? Well, these are things we are only certain about in retrospect. But it sure did feel like everything was in place for immediate recollection, just in case. They were short-handed. They were banged up. LeBron James was playing brilliantly. And it didn’t matter: they won. They won big. And the players themselves, afterward, were perfectly aware of how meaningful all of this was.
“Hopefully,” J.R. Smith said, “this says we’re the real deal.”
Yes, you can say it’s too early to look for meaning that stretches beyond where you sit in the standings, and that’s probably true. But there are no rules for when the Moment graces a team. True, for last year’s Giants, it was probably the moment in Week 16, on Christmas Eve, when Victor Cruz sidestepped one tackler, leapt over another, and dashed 99 yards for a touchdown against the Jets that certainly seemed to serve as a magic button for everything that came after.
But that HoJo homer? That was the 11th game of a 162-game season. There are some around the Yankees who swear that the most important moment of the Yankees’ 1996 team — the one that turned 18 years of dark history around and catapulted the franchise into the ionosphere, permanently — came on Opening Day, in Cleveland, when everyone saw Derek Jeter, all of 21, make one remarkable catch and hit one tipping-point home run.
One of the historical high holy days in Knicks’ lore came on the night of Nov. 28, 1969, an otherwise ordinary game night in Cleveland (against the Cincinnati Royals) when the Knicks rallied from six points down with 16 seconds to go to win their 18th straight game (at the time an NBA record) and improve their record to 23-1. On the 25th anniversary of that game, Walt Frazier said: “Obviously, when you’re [22-1], you know you’re a pretty good team. But after that … we knew we were something much, much better than that.”
They still had 58 games to play. But they were right. Sports aren’t always logical like that, of course. Injuries happen. Players hit skids, and slumps, teams peak too early, teammates quarrel and fight, the delicate balance of chemistry erodes.
Point A doesn’t always lead to Point B. But if you do wind up at Point B, it’s easy to remember Point A.
For now, that 112-92 win in South Florida was a nice benchmark, a good springboard to Chicago, where the Knicks will face the Bulls tonight. It may never be anything more than that.
Then again … it might.