MAYBE this is all a Four-gone conclusion for the Knicks. Maybe Clyde Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley and Dick Barnett or Pearl Monroe, at their ages today, would have a better shot against the Spurs than these Knicks.
But it would be nice to see some fight from the Knicks in the NBA Finals. Because so far when they have been hit, most of the time by Tim Duncan and some of the time by David Robinson, they have stayed hit. It is no way to go out. It was not the way of the Riley Knicks, and it has not been the way of the Van Gundy Knicks.
So the Knicks have a choice tomorrow night. They can find a way to win when few think they can, even at the Garden, or roll over and get ready to get swept away by the Spurs. It is time for them to make a stand. If there is a championship heart inside the Knicks, now is the time for them to show us.
Because the Knicks simply didn’t show up in San Antonio. They almost looked like they wanted to faint at the sight of Duncan. No one is talking about Charles Oakley and John Starks anymore. But Oakley and Starks wouldn’t have gone as quietly as the Knicks went in Games 1 and 2. They would have gone kicking and screaming into the night. The Knicks, with the exception of Latrell Sprewell, who apparently never met a one-on-five fastbreak he didn’t like, mostly looked like awe struck tourists staring up at the Twin Towers. They didn’t play poised. They didn’t play smart. They didn’t play together. They played scared at the point in the game when winning and losing is determined.
It is understood that these aren’t the Pacers standing between them and the basket they apparently can’t see, or reach. Duncan sure isn’t Rik Smits. Robinson isn’t Smits. The Spurs have won 44 of their last 50 games. It doesn’t mean they are invincible. It doesn’t mean they aren’t beatable. Jordan doesn’t play for them. These aren’t the Auerbach Celtics.
Robinson has as many rings as Patrick Ewing has. The Spurs have never been two wins from an NBA championship. No one knows what kind of finishers they are. No one knows how mentally tough they are. No one has ever confused Robinson with Bill Russell. No one knows whether the Spurs will walk into the majestic Garden and be stricken with stage fright.
So it isn’t over. There is still hope. New York can still dream. But only if the Knicks wake up, and wake up right now, and take Game 3. The Knicks can change the complexion of the NBA Finals tomorrow night, if they are tough enough, and tough-minded enough. Forget about sweeping the three games at the Garden. Forget about the monumental task of winning four of the next five games. Game 3 is the season now. Just because they lost two games in San Antonio doesn’t mean they should stop believing in themselves. Those two games were winnable games if Sprewell and Allan Houston were better and somebody, anybody, could have helped them.
Just a reminder: this is the championship of the world they are playing for. These chances come around once in a lifetime if you are lucky. The other team is bigger and healthier? Georgetown was bigger than Villanova 14 years ago. Ewing is out? Tough. Nobody is crying for the Knicks. Larry Johnson is hurting? Chris Dudley has a hyperextended elbow? Tough and tough. Nobody is crying for the Knicks. They should stop feeling sorry for themselves. This is no time for excuses. Just do it, or they can live the rest of their basketball lives in regret.
No one gave the ’70 Knicks much of a chance against Wilt and Jerry West and Elgin Baylor and the Lakers in Game 6 once Willis Reed went down. No one except the ’70 Knicks. They found a way to get to a Game 7, and you know the rest. The ’96 Yankees were on life support after losing the first two games of the Series to the Braves at the Stadium. They got up. Boy, did they get up. Sometimes you need a ball rolling through the legs of a Bill Buckner to win a championship. The ’86 Mets can tell you about that.
Of course, everyone can see that the Knicks will need more than that kind of luck against the Spurs. It would help if they remembered how to put the ball in the basket. The Knicks have taken 163 shots so far. Sprewell and Houston have taken 83 of them. But made only 33 of them. It would help if Houston remembered the way he played Game 6 against the Pacers, after Johnson went down. Houston should have been able to build on a career moment like that. He has come up small instead. All the Knicks have come up small, especially in the fourth quarter, when champions come up big. It would help if Marcus Camby, nowhere near the player he was against the Pacers, could stay out of foul trouble and away from the officials while there is an offensive rebound to corral. It would help if Johnson didn’t play 43 minutes if he can’t do better than 2-for-12. It would help if Chris Childs did something.
The Knicks have lost their edge. For some reason, they have deferred to the Spurs. Jeff Van Gundy can make all the adjustments in the world and they will mean nothing if his team doesn’t start playing as if it expects to win. The Knicks vowed they weren’t satisfied making it to the NBA Finals. They came home yesterday afternoon to the Westchester County Airport looking like liars, driving off one by one stone-faced after landing in restricted solitude behind Hangar E.
For all the unexpected magic the Knicks have given us this spring, they should all remember that they have won nothing. The sound the Garden made at the end of Game 6 against the Pacers was a sound most of them will never forget. But unless the Knicks dig down deep into their reservoir of resiliency and resourcefulness and show us some pride, some defiant fight, the sounds of silence as Spurs dance on the Garden floor will be deafening. The Knicks are nobody’s sparring partner. This is the worst possible time to show up as the club fighter. There is a world championship to be won. The Knicks have the same right to it as the Spurs do. They have more than their homecourt to defend now. They have their honor to defend. Win Game 3. Don’t get swept. You’re better than that.