It didn’t take much imagination to summon what those final two minutes of the third quarter would have been like, which sounded, seemed, were. If you remember what becomes of Madison Square Garden when the Knicks not only play well, but the fans think they play well …
Yes. You know. Remember. Intellectually, you knew the yard was empty Wednesday night, however, when the Knicks reduced it from 73-68 to 78-75 as they polished a 10-2 run that looked like it had been taken out of the archive of the 90s, I could almost hear the requests that rained from the cheap seats, to the side of the court.
“DEEEEE- FENSE! DEEEEE- FENSE!”
While Kevin Knox blocked a shot, while Austin Rivers stole, while RJ Barrett hit a house to score it all with 8.1 seconds to go, you could summon the uproar, whirlwind and echo that Jazz would try to chase the court, to the bus. These moments in the garden, the best moments, you swear you can see the momentum of the local team.
“It’s so unfortunate that we can’t get our fans to be part of it,” Julius Randle would later say, after the Knicks had punched Utah, 112-100, beating the Jazz by 30 points after seeing them with a 52-point lead. -34. at the end of the second quarter.
Randle would have given customers something to look good and snoring, announcing what is becoming his nightly statistical routine: 30 points, 16 rebounds, seven assists, a rating of more than 25. Later, of course, it would be Rivers, who has become a fourth-quarter phenomenon, who would score 14 points in a row to help turn a 96-96 tie into a 110-100 lead, knocking down four 3s in a row.
By then, the garden would have already felt like it was about to collapse when it was founded. You get it a couple of times a year when you get a team like this, a team that captures the attention of the fans the way it has in the first eight games. See how the Knicks bench went crazy: Immanuel Quickley and Barrett, happy, watching and cheering in the warm-ups, hinted at how it would have been.
“I know the garden would sway,” Randle said. “That’s why we all signed up.”
What Knicks fans have pointed out (what they have wanted) is a team that looks a lot like this one. Every night something else arrives to enjoy. The last two games, the Knicks fell into big holes (15 in Atlanta on Monday, 18 against Jazz on Wednesday), and both times they not only figured out how to turn an explosion into a nail biter, but they also discovered how to win both. games.
“The NBA is a long game,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “The ground can be reclaimed quickly. No advantage is certain and no deficit is impossible to overcome. “
Rivers said: “The boys had a sense of urgency. They started talking to each other, saying, “Let’s hunt them point by point.” We knew we didn’t need a home run, we were going to play basketball, and then everyone started having fun, competing, one thing led to another and then it became a ball game again.
It was a ball game again, and then it was a fourth quarter move, the Jazz tried to keep their legs in the second half of a back (after smoking in Brooklyn Tuesday night), the Knicks hoping his own legs would survive the rotation of eight men that first-season injuries have forced.
And that’s the amazing thing about this team – you could almost understand it if, at the start of the season, the players relied on enthusiastic and pleading crowds to get them. But as much as you can imagine all this as a fan, the truth for players is this: it’s like playing in an open gym in high school, that no one looks at each other except each other, and that there are a few scattered passing through the gym the cafeteria to the bio lab.
You know what you are missing.
But they also know what they are missing.
“I keep trying to imagine it,” said Rivers, who finished with 23 points in 32 minutes. “I can imagine what it was like when I played against them. The fans here have so much energy I can’t wait. Will happen. Hopefully, we get people back here. This is the best place to play basketball and everyone knows it.
He shook his head.
“These falling lights, the darkness sets …
“There’s nothing like it.”
Yes. You know. Remember.