CHICAGO — They tried, and you know what? In this case, trying was enough. Trying was OK. The winning streak mattered to the Knicks, 13 games in which they transformed themselves from flailing club fighters to puncher’s-chance contenders.
And even on the night it would die, there was one last spasm, one last stubborn run.
“We tried to extend the game as long as we could,” coach Mike Woodson said.
He smiled.
“We tried.”
They tried, and they fell short, they lost 118-111 to the Bulls in front of a sold-out United Center that had witnessed these same Bulls halt Miami’s run at history two weeks ago. They tried to run away at the start of the game and the start of the third quarter, building leads of 17 and 15 and you felt that a few more stops here, a few more 3’s there, the Bulls might just concede. They’re trying to get whole for the playoffs, too.
But the Bulls came back at them. An old friend named Nate Robinson had one of those nights we used to see every now and again during the Lost Years at the Garden, dropping 35 on the Knicks, scorching anyone who came near him. And then: when it seemed the streak was about to be given a Viking funeral, when the expiration date ad all but dropped to zero …
“We gave it a shot,” Carmelo Anthony said. “We gave it our best shot.”
Nine points down, they tied it on two free throws by Melo, who was as brilliant (36 points, 19 rebounds) on this night as he has been all season, filling spots up and down the batting order. And then the streak was right where it should have been at the final horn, in Melo’s hands, 20 feet from the basket.
“It felt good,” he would say. “And it looked good. Looked good the whole way.”
It wasn’t good. Given a reprieve, the Bulls finished them off. And, of course, there was the requisite scare, Raymond Felton rolling on the ground and clutching his ankle a couple of seconds into the overtime. The Knicks tried. They were just as wrapped up in the streak as you would hope they would be. It meant something to them. It mattered.
And it should have mattered. The Knicks haven’t wanted for confidence all year, but the streak had been an affirmation of sorts, a confirmation of what they had been feeling, even in the tough times. Streaks do that. You saw how it emboldened the Heat. Back in 1969, the first signals that a soon-to-be-fabled batch of Knicks started capturing imaginations was an early season winning streak that threatened to stretch forever.
That streak was memorably saved on a forever Friday night in Cleveland against the Cincinnati Royals, an epic comeback that in so many ways served as a harbinger for what would follow by spring. This comeback, on a Thursday night in Chicago, fell short. Can it be a harbinger too? We’ll know soon enough.
But it sure seems a lot more is possible than it did 3 1/2 weeks — and 13 games — ago. Anything really is possible.
Assuming they reach season’s end with at least five healthy bodies, that is.