MIAMI – The record will show that the Knicks’ season ended last night at American Airlines Arena. History will insist the end came in a mad flurry in the second half, when the Heat made one final push to topple the fragile visitors off the cliff, to end the competitive phase of the game – and the series – on their way to a 106-94 win.
Officially, the season ended just after 9:30 on the evening of May 9, 2012.
But the Knicks have to know better than that, if they’re going to be truthful to themselves, for they really did die a dozen different deaths across this season. There was Jan. 4, the night they handed the Bobcats one of their three road wins. There was Feb. 17, a loss (again at home) to the Hornets, and Feb. 20, when Deron Williams and the Nets crushed them, again at the Garden.
There was the 2-11 stretch, pre-Linsanity, that nearly doomed Mike D’Antoni and the six-game losing streak later on that finally did him in. There was the disgraceful no-show in Cleveland the last weekend of the season. There were too many of these inexcusable nights – and weeks – for a team that fancies itself respectable, let alone elite.
“I am so happy for our ball club, we fought all year to get to this point,” said Knicks coach Mike Woodson, spinning it positive because that’s how he has to hope the team’s brass feels, and also because his 18-6, 24-game run was the highlight of this impossible-to-predict season. “I don’t want them to be satisfied because the ultimate goal is to win an NBA title.”
If that’s so, then a few things have to happen immediately, even as the Knicks enter a five-month hiatus and will emerge on he other side of the rabbit hole a much-different-looking team. One thing that won’t change: the core three, the nucleus, Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler. It will be their team. It will be their future.
It will be their choice: elite or inelegant?
Contender or counterfeit?
Tough guys or teases?
“Next year we’ll be much better,” Carmelo Anthony said when it was over. “We’ll learn from this. I’m confident where we’re headed.”
It isn’t the playoffs they have to learn from. It’s mastering the grind of 82 games, of establishing a place in the legitimate half of the Eastern Conference hierarchy. It’s a disgrace the Knicks couldn’t hang with Indiana, which has already advanced to the second round, or with the Celtics and Hawks, one of whom will as well. Are they in the same league as the Bulls or the Heat yet?
No. But the fact that they spent most of the season life-and-death with the Bucks is inexcusable. Too many mailed-in games early, too many stretches where they couldn’t get out of their own way, too many nights when they were barely watchable. Praise them for that 24-game push at season’s end if you wish, but remember they needed that just to eke into the postseason.
Woodson wants to win a title? Wants to compete for one? Forty-one wins won’t get that done next year. Forty-five won’t, either. They want to sniff the elite, the first goal is this: win the Atlantic. Beat out the aging Celtics and the limited Sixers and their new neighbors from Brooklyn, no matter who’s on that roster by President’s Day. Win the Atlantic. Earn a round of home court. Make home court matter.
This team isn’t about baby steps any more. They’ve acted awfully proud of themselves the last two years for qualifying for the playoffs, then promptly lost eight out of nine once they got there. The absurdly over-the-top celebration after winning Game 4 had even their most devoted fans rolling their eyes at how comically the bar had been lowered.
It’s time. Anthony is a legit superstar, and he and Chandler will likely bring gold medals home from London this summer. The core will have a full training camp together. They will get a full year together. No more excuses. No more qualifications. The depressing end of this year started to be written in January and February and March.
A happier ending to 2012 can get a jump start in June and August and September.
And starting right now, too. The Knicks, quite literally, are on the clock.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com