Knicks 109, Bulls 104: Hello, goodbye
The reinvented late-season Knicks notched their first four-game win streak of the season behind phenomenal play of a young upstart, and in spite of lackadaisical play from their highest paid player.
What does this sentence mean: “Time flies like an arrow”? Some think it means time is linear and finite; others, that time is straight and true, inevitable. Some say it speaks to time moving so fast; the older we get, the quicker it seems to pass. Reasonable interpretations.
What if “time” were a verb, and “flies” a noun? Now it’s more like using a stopwatch to time how fast flies can go, the way you would an arrow. What if “time” were an adjective, describing a type of fly that was literally made up of time particles and that had a positive impression of arrows? Entirely different interpretations. Still reasonable.
Do you know the fable of the pitcher and the crow? A crow comes upon a pitcher with water in it, but when he tries to drink it, finds it’s too far down. The bird tries to tip the pitcher over, but can’t. Finally it drops pebbles into the pitcher until the water rises high enough to drink. Some people think the moral is that persistence pays off. I can see that. I favor another interpretation. When desperate times and desperate measures get together, they make a baby, and 9-10 months later necessity gives birth to invention.
The late-stage reinvention of the 2022 New York Knicks continues after their 109-104 win over the Chicago Bulls last night at Madison Square Garden. A season-high fourth straight win keeps their slim play-in hopes alive on a night Charlotte lost but Atlanta won. The Hornets visit MSG Wednesday. Semi-meaningful games in late March? The Wilpons would approve.
These Knicks earned a rep for blowing big leads this year, but against Detroit and now Chicago they’ve pulled out two games they led most of the way but nearly lost. The Bulls were David, slingshotting their 2-pointers and free throws. Goliath is the role Gotham was born to play: the Knicks made twice as many 3-pointers as the Bulls (12-6). Sometimes 3>2 means a cigar really is just a cigar. Nothing more. That’s one interpretation, anyway.
Another interpretation is that “NBA player” is a uniquely odd and brutal field to work in. You basically work in arts and entertainment, but unlike Broadway stars or singer/songwriters, you can be sent to an entirely different job in an entirely different part of the country – sometimes even out of the country – completely against your will. Even if you’re really, really good at your job. And when your contract is up and you’re free to work anywhere you can find work, millions and millions of people will slide into your mom’s DMs threatening to kill you for leaving their city. These same people will want you traded for cap space six months later.
Your mental health is publicly discussed and diagnosed by millions over all forms of media. Your mental health means nothing to these people, so long as you entertain them. You ever call into work ‘cuz you just can’t get out of bed? Can’t face the world? That’s a mental health day. That’s self-care. For an NBA player, it’s a cardinal sin. Just ‘cuz the money’s guaranteed don’t mean they won’t make sure they make you earn it.
A tale of two power forwards, the best of times, the worst of times, the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness, the epoch of belief in Obi Toppin, the epoch of incredulity at Julius Randle’s Luciferian fall.
The season of Light.
The season of Darkness.
The spring of hope.
The winter of despair? If that’s your thing, here’s a thread of Randle not giving a damn from this game alone. Criticism of Randle is dry kindling for some of you uglier miracles of life, but his body language was kinda awful. If he’s too hurt to rotate two feet into the paint, he shouldn’t be playing. If his quad doesn’t let him box out on free throws, he shouldn’t be under the rim. I don’t know what’s the deal there. I gave up on knowing long ago. Either he’s going to ask for a trade/be traded, things get better next season, or this ice age moves into year two, AKA year one of his four-year extension. What a strange marriage Randle and the Knicks have had.
A year ago Randle was celebrated while Obi seemed a man without a country, stuck on the depth chart behind an All-NBA Second Team honoree who led the league in minutes played. Now Randle tests the limits of bottomlessness while Toppin continues the best stretch of play in his young career – a stretch, it should be noted, that coincides with Toppin getting more opportunity than ever; he’s played 20-plus minutes in four of five games for the first time in his career. Toppin brings dimensions no other Knick does. He scored eight points in the first nine minutes of the fourth, the kind of meaningful contribution that releases the pheromones that let Thibs know when it’s time to pull someone who’s playing well.
Randle’s New York hello, his year one, was evidently uninspiring, as the Knicks drafted Toppin a year after giving Randle a three-year deal. Randle’s star turn in year two seemed to suggest Obi would be saying goodbye sooner than later. This year, Randle seems dimmed. Toppin’s ceiling is open to interpretation. His play of late is not. Cat’s balling.
