MILWAUKEE – Sometimes, it’s the most over-used, over-worked term in sports. Chemistry? You know what the best team chemistry is? Having Babe Ruth hitting third in your lineup, Lou Gehrig fourth. Having Michael Jordan running one side of the floor, Scottie Pippen the other. Terry Bradshaw throwing the football, Lynn Swann catching it.
That’s good enough chemistry that you can slap it on the periodic table.
But sometimes, it’s the most over-looked, undervalued element in all of sports. Sometimes there really is a delicate balance, a fleeting mixture of talent and tenacity, of star power and selflessness. We’ve seen it all across the sporting universe this year: the Cardinals in baseball, the Mavericks in basketball, the Giants in football.
“You know good chemistry in basketball,” Amar’e Stoudemire said last night, “when you see it. It’s obvious.”
And bad chemistry? That’s even more obvious, and in some ways it’s more damaging than good chemistry is helpful. Bad chemistry is destructive. It’s divisive. And in the case of the Knicks, it can be every bit as devastating to the health of the unit as a staph infection.
They sprinkled bad chemistry all over three states, four cities and two time zones across the past six days. They arrived in Boston last Sunday sitting at .500 and talking large about soaring up the Eastern Conference food chain. By the time they take the floor tomorrow at the Garden they will be four games south of sea level, clinging to a one-game loss-column lead over the Cavaliers – the Cavaliers! – for the eighth and final playoff slot in the East.
The are battered, they are bleeding, they are broken. And they are beaten. They hit their first 11 shots of the game last night against the Bucks … and didn’t even escape the first quarter with the lead. They performed their nightly self-exhumation, shaving all but one point off a 15-point lead with seven minutes left, twice possessing the ball with a chance to take the lead in the final moments.
Never could.
Never can.
This trip started in heartbreak in the city of Cliff Clavin and Frank Galvin, Paul Pierce crushing them with a 3-point prayer on the way to an overtime loss. It ends in the city of Laverne DeFazio and Richie Cunningham, the Bucks pinning a 119-114 loss on them that somehow felt as bad as any of the 22 losses – and counting – the Knicks have amassed so far this year.
“We have to play better defense and have more inspiration,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said. “Especially come playoff time.”
As a wise man once said: Playoffs? Right now, it’s hard to figure a team the Knicks can beat, which isn’t a great place to be with first-place Philadelphia – a case study in positive team chemistry – and the Bulls awaiting them over the next few days, with a couple of games against the Pacers – who should have surgical masks as part of their game uniforms, so strong is [ital] their [ital] chemistry – later in the week.
The Knicks? Right now, the face of the franchise belongs to J.R. Smith, who always did seem like a strange extraneous piece of the pie, who now has become something much more, much worse. He spent much of the fourth quarter utterly detached from his team both physically – apart from huddles – and beyond (not surprisingly, the Knicks mounted their comeback without him). This after a day in which he posted a photo of dubious taste on Twitter, and wound up taking a rightful social-network beating for it.
“Not that smart,” was how Smith described it, which might also describe the wave of inspiration that caused the Knicks to sign him in the first place, at the precise time the team was playing so well together. You can blame Carmelo Anthony all you want, but he’s a scorer who is supposed to score. If his skillsets have caused an adjustment, his attitude really hasn’t.
That’s the sole provenance of his old running mate from Denver (and what a delightful bonus to give him a player option for next year). Maybe you didn’t appreciate the Knicks’ good chemistry while it was on display. But you sure as hell miss it now, don’t you?