It’s Hard Enough Sitting There
Long enough afterward, it’s perfect that we were talking to a Pacers fan. I’d completely missed the place I was supposed to meet with Steve, walking a clear two blocks past it before I realized the Google Maps button did not match the side of the street where this joint exists. Walking in and, for the second time in thirty seconds, completely missing my target, Steve waved me down to an open seat he’d been saving. An hour before tip-off and three blocks from the Garden, our eventual destination for Game 2, I sat down.
As an introduction was about to inform me, an affable gentleman named Paul, ex-military and parked on a laptop, was along for this particular pregame ride. He told a few sort of boilerplate stories about what bravery means before he took the first of a few left turns, this one into the values of nationalized healthcare and unionization, because if we don’t have us, we don’t have anything: this is what the military is supposed to teach you. Paul was verbose, but, sure, he was alright[1].
Being in a sea of actually-excited Knicks fans is addictive: that’s been New York City this season. With the Rangers doing similar work in the same building on off-nights, the city buzzes. It sounds any number of self-referentially disparaging adjectives, but the streets feel alive with the sound of #knickstape.
On a cost basis, one point separated the New York Knicks from the Philadelphia 76ers in an instant classic first round series. One team ground down to its rawest bit, perhaps beyond it; the other continued to chew at the bone, continuing to find something.
Destiny from the first jump: this series was to be a grind. A Philadelphia 76ers team fresh off a close play-in victory over the weakened Miami Heat, one that never should’ve happened in the first place, and featuring what was, down the stretch of the regular season, the MVP form of Joel Embiid as well as a leveling-up-in-real-time Tyrese Maxey: that team would be going against a shorthanded yet relentless New York Knicks team, one that won three straight to close out the regular season and surpass the similarly hobbled Milwaukee Bucks to earn the 2-seed in the East[2].
Worth a note here, as happens every postseason: You see the thread connecting the above playoff teams beyond Philly and New York, as well as most every other at this point in the NBA season. Health is always the seventh man, but the litany of players missing time at any point throughout the playoffs in the East seems especially concerning: in roughly chronological order, Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jimmy Butler, Joel Embiid, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, Bojan Bogdanović, Jarrett Allen and Damian Lillard all missed some or all of their team’s games[3]. It’s all a reminder that, despite our best wishes and finest graces encountering anyone on a Sunday, injuries do happen.
Teams know and plan for this with depth, but playoff rotations get tighter, and the top 7-8 players or so are the ones expected to see the floor. In cases of injury, depth runs up against rust. It can be risky to throw out the tenth man three weeks after he last played; injured stars, instead, tend to play through as much pain as they can bear.
What Knicks-Sixers set out to prove, the mutually agreed-upon thesis statement, was this: extended benches in the playoffs do matter to respective extents. Both teams used at least nine players, and then the Buddy Hield game wasn’t quite to be. Precious Achiuwa’s winning minutes in what would turn out to be a 47-point Jalen Brunson performance in Game 4 both ended up lost in the sea of Knicks fans apparently getting massively familiar with Amtrak for a Sunday matinee.
Each team played at least six players in all six games. New York had an offensive rebounding rate of roughly one-third (better possessions do, than you don’t).
(Trying to encourage while being realistic): tough to beat a point guard of his size, who can hit those shots, and whose backups are that ferocious when he dares to miss games, or minutes. BIG, LARGE LOVING EYES EMOJI.
With 45 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Steve and I, in a sea of the same, stood with our hands on our heads, starting to consider ways of getting home. Ah! But then: Jalen hit the only three of his night. A leveling-up in real time version of Tyrese Maxey bobbled an inbounds pass, reminding us that the good sometimes matches the bad, and then Donte DiVincenzo missed a three, resulting in [REDACTED, mostly because I’m still unsure of how this happened despite watching the replay several times, in several different speeds], and OG Anunoby ended up with it, dishing it out to Donte again: bang. Bang-BANG!, in fact. Knicks 104, Sixers 101.
You know Joel Embiid was the MVP last year? Do you further know that that same player, having accepted that he wouldn’t hit the games-played threshold, would go on to play even better than that? You know he hit some hmm-hmm points-per-minute recs? Alright, then. Alright.
The Knicks defended their home court advantage with that whoopsie-daisyl ending to Game 2, which the Sixers managed to scratch back for a wild overtime win in Game 5. In between, New York fans complained about ticket prices, while Philly stakeholders complained about New York fans taking advantage of exurban pricing and accessible trains.
It’s not a footnote, but a reminder: three of the Knicks’ primary players went to Villanova together[4], a mere few miles from Wells Fargo Center, and you have a recipe for an all-time classic series. Sometimes they do happen in six games in the first round.
Not unlike these heroes, and many else among us, I am tired. Reggie Miller Vs. The New York Knicks lives in my brain permanently, but the NBA’s second-fastest team might, possibly, be on a weakened split. Tyrese Haliburton is hobbled, but he is a grade-A floor genius who can pass his way out of the most impossible situations.
In this corner: Brunson was the third player in NBA History with four consecutive playoff games of 35+ points and 5+ assists in a single postseason, joining: LeBron James, once (2009), and Michael Jordan, twice (1989, 1990).
In that corner: running, gunning, doing it, you know, In this corner: pushing, nudging, touching. Rubbing? Rubbing’s basketball. One of these teams is going to wear out the other. The question is which, and how?
[1] I continued to try to order, to no avail. Meanwhile, Paul got on something or other about some player: “You know who’s a star, but he doesn’t want it? Paul George.” At this point, my ears perked, and I correctly placed him as a lapsed Pacers fan before incorrectly referring to Gainbridge Fieldhouse as Bankers Life; at least I didn’t say Conseco.
[2] The specter in the conference, of course, the Boston Celtics, prominently featuring none other than former Knickerbocker/great white hope Kristaps Porzingis
[3] This doesn’t account for Kawhi’s injury, which may or may not have saved the Clippers’ season. The thing with him is: it always might have, but he’s getting to the point where that might not matter.
[4] And they clearly like each other. Thithe most heartwarming development of this team, the one that suggests the closest parallels to (those) Knicks title teams.
Tuesdays With Horry 