There was a point in the mid-summer of 1969 when the Mets looked to be only a temporary annoyance to the Cubs when they first tried to make a move. One day they made a dramatic comeback to Shea. Tom Seaver threw 8 ¹ / ₃ perfect innings in Chicago the next night.
But the third game, the Mets kicked the ball around a couple, hit a lot, were skimmed by the Cubbies, and then someone asked Leo Durocher, the Cubs manager, “Do you think these were the real Cubs?”
“I think,” replied Leo de Lip, “these are the real Mets.”
The Knicks received a real Thursday night the size of a Big Gulp as they reentered basketball season after a week-long hiatus. The Bucks looted them, 134-101, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee in a game that really wasn’t nearly that close. It was destruction of the highest order, and it was sweet revenge for the Bucks.
On December 27, the Knicks had defeated the Bucks at Madison Square Garden, 130-110. It was one of those scores that crawl across the bottom of television screens from coast to coast, looking like a typo. The Knicks, expected to be terrible all year round, were already 0-2. The Bucks have been the regular season league of the East for the past two years. Didn’t matter. The Knicks transported the Bucks.
So it was a small payback period. And it begs the question:
Were these the real dollars?
Or were these the real Knicks?
“You shouldn’t give up everything, and that’s what we did,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau about 20 minutes after the buzzer graciously ended the carnage, barely able to camouflage his disdain. ‘You can’t [give max effort] for parts of the game you have to do it from start to finish. We have to learn from it. “
This was the first dose of icy reality that would certainly accompany the second half of this season, in which the Knicks have surpassed the most reasonable expectations. That first Bucks game, it turns out, was only a deviation from the quality of the opponent, not the consistency of the Knicks’ play in the first 37 games of the season.
Yes, the Knicks could still get good and hit some nights against good teams, but they mostly took care of business against the weaker clubs, stalking .500 for a while, then climbing 19-18 at the All-Star break. That, and they played hard, and played defense, and played together, causing a favorable buzz night after night.
Good times, those first 37 games.
But Game No. 38 delivered a vital truth that became clear, even as they put the finishing touches to that pleasant, satisfying first half: The Knicks will no longer be able to rely on sneak attacks, on being overlooked, in the hope of teams sleep. and look ahead. That’s the direct by-product of a winning record.
Pat Riley used to have a few sentences to describe the kind of unexpected rise that left the Knicks in the dust in January and February. The first was “harmless climb”: recognizing low expectations, refusing to accept them, committing to surpass them by performing simple tasks that previously seemed unattainable.
The second was “core covenant”, which he described as: “A set of principles and values that are immutable and that shape how team members view the world.”
Usually that was enough for the Knicks, who put in a series of professional endeavors where there were once so few. They could do this in the anonymity of the scorched earth expectation. It was easier then. Now they have an All-Star, Julius Randle, even though he played his worst game of the year on Thursday night. Now they have a vibrant new face in Immanuel Quickley and improved players up and down the squad who usually go well together.
Never stalk the competition again.
So now we see if the Knicks have a different gear, a different phase. They have these four tough games to start the second half – in Oklahoma City, then back-to-back against the Nets and 76ers. They are no longer considered an automatic night off to anyone, even though Thursday proved they can still deliver one if they get lost.
Who are the real Knicks? We think we know. We’ll find out more soon enough.