The Knicks dropped a tough loss tonight to the Mavs, 105-103. The Knicks got off to a good start in the first quarter, leading 29-22, thanks to the red hot Stephon Marbury. Steph scored 16 of the Knicks' 29 first quarter points, along with a couple of assists.
Unfortunately for the Knicks, Eddy Curry got into some foul trouble, so whenever the Mavs were able to send a double team at Marbury they did, forcing him to give up the ball more in the second. The real problem in the second was that the Knicks turned the ball over too much, leading to quick easy buckets for the Mavs (35 points in the 2nd).
At the half it was 57-53 Dallas. Steph had 21 points, and the Knicks, despite 15 turnovers, were still in it thanks to a 18-4 rebounding margin. How the hell is Dallas gonna win a championship when they can't rebound? Or score from inside the paint? Sorry, we're betting against the Mavs come playoff time.
Mardy Collins played his best game of the year. He had a couple of nice drives to the basket in the second, surprising me with his slashing ability. Also, he can throw an entry pass in to Curry, which makes him the best passing point guard on the Knicks roster. He has no jumper, which will make it hard to see him getting far in the league, but he is very solid defensively and has a little get to the basket ability.
In the third things got a little heated; Curry got called for a couple of fouls, and then Marbury got a few bad calls go against him. Devin Harris has become our least favorite player - he does a "great job... creating attention... to the contact." In other words, he's a freaking actor. SML doesn't mind floppers too much - we are Ginobili fans, so we would be hypocrites if we spoke out too much against flopping. We even let the Reggie Miller thing go when he was a player (though it annoyed us). But flopping on defense to get offensive fouls called bother us. It's not like he was taking a charge - we respect that. Now, Devin Harris is a little b*tch who talks a little contact from a dribbling Marbury and acts like he got tossed from the top ring. F*ck off, you development league scrub....
Oh, and Renaldo Balkman immediately responded by completely posterizing Devin Harris on a vicious and one dunk! We will look for footage of this, this was just a vicious slam. Take that you little b*tch. Ah, taste Balkman's taint! Step on the roach, Balkman!
Thanks to the foul trouble Marbury and Curry are in (plus the injury roll call - Francis, Lee, Richardson, Crawford), the Knicks are now playing (for the last three minutes of the third) Robinson and Collins at the guards, with Frye, Rose, and Balkman in the frontcourt. That's four kids and Malik Rose. For the record, Balkman, Robinson and Collins all played more than 32 minutes each, and only Marbury (39 minutes) played more than them tonight. In fact, all three got more burn than Curry, Frye, or Jeffries.
Not only did this squad play a lot against the top NBA team, on the road, but they cut the lead from 76-68 to a 76 all tie at the end of the third quarter.
The third quarter totals for the Mavs are pretty ugly - 2-17 shooting, but thanks to 15 FT made they still managed to hold on to their lead. The calls usually don't go against the Knicks, but without Curry getting the ball in the paint, without Crawford and Francis joining Marbury in attacking the basket, the Knicks are not able to rely on the large free throw advantages they have enjoyed most of the season.
Sidenote: Watching Balkman fill the lane on fast breaks is impressive. He might be the best finisher at fast breaks the Knicks have, and watching him go makes us believe that the Suns really might have wanted to draft him at #21 after all. We can certainly picture him on the Suns - he would be a good bench player (filling James Jones slot) thanks to his defensive intensity and fast breaking ability.
The game ended the way it had to. Despite Marbury's heroics - sorry Mavs fans, but Marbury looked like more of an MVP than Dirk tonight, carrying the Knicks on his back - the end result was a Mavs victory. Marbury came down the court with a chance to extend the Knicks lead to four late in the game; his three point attempt was off, and the refs missed a Devin Harris foul on his shot attempt. On the other side, Dirk got the call (an and-one) on a touch foul. We're not hating - that's the way you should expect it to be called... they are the #1 team in the NBA, and at home. The refs tried to make it up by calling a touch foul on the Mavs, and Marbury hit a couple of free throws. But with the Knicks down two and less than 10 seconds to go, Marbury's drive to the basket fell short, much like the Knicks playoff chances will likely fall short.
The Nets lost tonight, but the Magic beat the Pacers. Right now the Knicks are 2 games behind the Nets for the last spot; the good news is they play the Nets twice the final week of the season, so they still have a chance.
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Thanks, Seth. We appreciate the support. I don't think it's that bad over there, The Cavalier has been good to us to this point. But it was a little classless of him to call DJM's post "a complete rip-off" and compare it to Scoop Jackson.
The dude hasn't read any of David Foster Wallace's stuff, knows nothing of his work, and admittedly didn't even get the premise of the "schtick". For him to opine on something he knows nothing about makes him look ignorant. I don't opine on the chances of a random Australian rules football team to beat another team in a game next week, right? Because I don't know anything about it.
Furthermore, to imply it was a rip-off when DJM fully credits and pushes Wallace's books? To call it "just doing the same thing someone else does" (as he did in an e-mail to us) is frustrating. We challenge him or anyone else to find anything like this in the world of sports - in a blog, a website, a magazine, a book - anywhere in sports.
Things are getting a little dicey at the Yay, eh?
It's all good. We all love what you do here. Keep it up.