It was another 20-point lead, this time against their outer borough rivals, the Brooklyn Nets, and the New York Knicks had them on the ropes.
Even as the lead whittled down, Knicks fans remained resilient in their belief that New York wouldn’t blow another game.
At the end of the third quarter, the Knicks were up 15. Against a deeply depleted Nets team, that should have been enough.
But this is the Knicks.
This is the team that’s broken so many hearts over four decades that loving them has become a form of masochism.
Knicks fandom is a condition similar to that of self-injury. It’s the act of harming your body as a way to, according to the Mayo Clinic, “cope with emotional pain, intense anger and frustration.”
In other words, your bouts of frustration and eruptions of anger cause you to break furniture, punch walls or just simply cry to deal with the team’s losing ways.
Stephen A. Smith manifested this last night after the Knicks blew a 28-point lead and lost to the Nets at MSG, 111-106.
“The damn Knicks make me sick man,” said an emotionally drained Stephen A. Smith after their seventh loss out of eight games in February. “I can’t take it. I just can’t take it.”
Stephen A., I feel you. I’ve felt that pain since I started following them when I was a little boy.
After the championships of the 70s, the team failed to replicate those magic times or produce the volume of Hall of Fame players.
Between 1984 and 1988, which included the beginning of the Patrick Ewing era, the Knicks were horrible. They had four straight losing seasons (109 wins and 219 losses) and outside of Ewing, they lacked true star power.
During these years, you could buy nose-bleed tickets the day of the game and simply walk down to the lower sections to watch players like Marvin Webster, Ken “The Animal” Banister, Rory Sparrow, Darrell Walker, Truck Robinson, Bill Cartwright, Ernie Grunfeld, Trent Tucker and Louis Orr.
It was a time when the hope of teaming Brooklyn’s own Bernard King with Ewing was dashed after King went down with a devastating injury in March of 1985, a few short months before Dave DeBusschere hit the jackpot in the Patrick Ewing draft sweepstakes.
Yet the team made us dream when they drafted players like Mark Jackson and Rod Strickland, acquired Charles Oakley and found surprising talents like John Starks and Anthony Mason.
But then we ran up against the Pacers, Heat and of course Michael Jordan and the Bulls.
Those granted Knicks fans emotionally devastating moments courtesy of Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller, Tim Hardaway and of course Charles Smith pump faking the team out of a long-awaited victory over MJ and the Bulls
Then the team made the NBA Finals in 1994.
It was a moment that would have erased the pain of the past and removed the painful memories of #23 holding up the NBA trophy as we all sat at home utterly defeated.
But between OJ going on his run during Game 5 and John Starks’ infamous 2-18 shooting travesty in Game 7, the Knicks gave us all heartbreak and loss once again.
There were other moments of potential glory, such as the 1999 NBA Finals, but like every other big moment in team history, Knicks fans were left wallowing in tears and heartache once again.
Since those times, the Knicks have maintained a headlock on the “most frustrating team in the league” award.
From horrible management stemming from the corporate suite to bad trades to poor draft picks, the team has continued to let its loyal fanbase down year after year.
Last year, they gave us hope yet again after making the playoffs.
This year, they’re demonstrating why those hopes were clearly false.
Since the 90s, the team has lacked an identity. Back then it was tough defense and bullying in the paint. You came down the middle at your own risk.
In 2021, it appeared that their defensive identity had been resurrected.
But 2022 has proven that their defense is even worse than their offense. Their string of blown leads in their recent road trip attests to that fact.
In this season’s first five months, the team has one winning month (October, finishing 5-1). Since then they’ve gone 6-9 (November), 6-9 (December), 7-8 (January) and currently sit at 1-7 in February.
They are as bad at home (13-17) as they are on the road (12-17).
After Wednesday night’s loss, Kevin Durant piled on to fan misery.
Yet despite all of this- all of the pain, heartache, bad players, losing seasons, horrible reputation and trolling- we Knicks fans refuse to stop being fans. For New Yorkers, it’s something innate at birth to support and cheer for a team that has refused to reward us with a single ring in almost five decades.
Every winning team in the league has star power, an identity, and a leader.
The Knicks need someone, or something, to rally around and lead the team out of the funk they’re in. Kemba should have been that player, but for some reason, he’s fallen victim to the curse NY-born and raised players often suffer from when they play for the Knicks.
New York has time to regroup and correct the issues that are hampering them, so a turnaround is not impossible.
But if they wait too long, it will be another season of more heartache and disappointment for long-suffering Knicks fans.
I hate being right, but when it comes to the Knicks, being right about them doing wrong is simply another innate talent.
