Knicks 117, Spurs 114: The baseline & the bump
The best teams are consistent. And magical. And better than you think. And full of surprises. Christmas Day, the Knicks were all those things in victory
This is a time of year for extremes. In one famous story, a king afraid of a prophecy hunts a newborn boy whose parents are strangers in another land. In another, a rich old man is visited by four ghosts trying to warn him about the spiritual poverty he’s blind to and neck-deep in. In a third, the New York Knicks came back in the fourth quarter to spurn the San Antonio Spurs 117-114.
The resurgent Spurs are led by the league’s youngest superstar in Victor Wembanyama and one of its oldest in Chris Paul, who also happen to be at the extreme end of NBA body types, with Paul the height of a typical human male and Wembanyama that of a ring wraith. The two teams represent different ends of the competitive continuum, with New York now just 2.5 games behind Boston for the Atlantic Divison penthouse while San Antone’s loss dropped them into a tie with Phoenix for 10th in the West (pending the Suns’ outcome later tonight versus the Nuggets). The Knicks, down eight with seven minutes to play, were saved by neither a kindly manger owner nor the posthumous pleadings of Jacob Marley. They were saved by the baseline and the bump.
The baseline played the second-most minutes for New York, was their fourth scorer in double-figures, led them in rebounds and was second in assists. If the starting five were siblings, Josh Hart would be the middle child, easy to overBlook given the gleam of Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, and the greater size, strength, shooting and athleticism of OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. Except Hart is impossible to overlook. His stat line is always on shuffle, a dozen boards one night, a half-dozen dimes the next, couple steals the game after that. And just as often with Hart, as was the case today, all three in one game.
After a Paul three pulled the Spurs within three with 41 seconds left and the Knicks nearly turned over the inbounds, Brunson missed a pull-up. Somehow Paul, Anunoby and Devin Vassell finishing in a three-way tie for the rebound resulted in the ball ending up in Hart’s hands. He dished out to Brunson – from his butt, lest you think he does anything casually – who dribbled out most of the rest of the shot and game clocks, then had his pass to Anunoby in the corner by celebrity row nearly intercepted by Vassell before reaching OG, whose desperation three clanged off the iron.
If it hadn’t, it would’ve been a 24-second violation and the Spurs could have run something scripted and probably involving the only 88-inch person in the building, he of the previous 42 points and six 3-pointers. But if ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas, and though tis the season to be jolly tis also the season for depression and suicidal thoughts. Back to basketball. The shot did clang. The rebound was up for grabs. Jeremy Sochan went for it.
Sochan looks and plays straight outta the Dennis Rodman dojo, an open devotee of the gods of chaos. Nine times out of ten, there’s a 60/40 chance that ball is his. But he couldn’t quite control it when it hit his hands, and then it came down to Sochan versus Hart. Sochan is a disciple of chaos. Hart is its demigod. He plays like water, filling whatever cracks materialize on a given night: six assists here, couple steals there. Water builds, a crescendo, one wave crashing after another, and another. Hart does too. Night after night. The baseline.
The bump comes when everything’s come perfectly together and there’s no more thinking or reacting, just being, all pure glowing honey and oozy love. That’s Bridges’ game at its best. Glowing honey. Oozy love.
When he’s hitting, the Knicks hit a different level, and in this Manhattan matinee he hit the heights like Spiderman the day he first comes fully into his powers, poured in 41, his most as a Knick, including 15 in the fourth. The Garden was buzzing with each fadeaway while the ghosts of franchise fadeaways past smiled from up in the pinwheel heights. King. Ewing. Melo. Afflalo.
Ha! Gotcha.
Implicit when a good team trades away a good player for someone who isn’t their replacement is there being someone on the roster they think is ready for more. One reason the Knicks could trade Immanuel Quickley was they knew Deuce McBride was in the wings; one reason they could trade Donte DiVincenzo was they knew Mikal Bridges was going to get most of the minutes at the two-spot. Games like this make clear why. It wasn’t that Bridges played out of his mind performing his Melo-like midrange machinations. It was the ease of the brushstrokes that electrified the artwork. Bridges can do this. He probably will again. Quiet or loud, stars still shine.
If the Grim Reaper turned out to be Wembanyama, would that change your feelings about death any? I don’t mean some secret identity Wembanyama with some tortured super-hero past; I mean the Wembanyama you see in highlights and charming interview clips. If that dude were the Grim Reaper, I think I’d feel better about dying. He’s already having the same effect as a basketball player: there’s this dumb, animal awareness that this man in some way represents the end for teams that aren’t the Spurs — not today, not any day soon. But there’s this slow-dawning sense that this Death Star in sneakers will be operational sooner than later. 18 rebounds, four assists and four blocks, in addition to the aforementioned how’s-your-fathers, and the obvious scale of how much greatness he’s yet to inhabit is mind-boggling.
Imagine trying to think of something God would be ashamed of. So ashamed it’s completely off the multiversal map, buried where no one can ever know. What would that have to be? How off-the-radar extreme? That’s Wembanyama. Only the opposite of God’s shame. Pride.
That’s hardly our concern here and now. In winning their fourth straight, the Knicks, 20-10, snapped a two-game home losing streak. Next game is Friday against the Banchero-less, Wagner-less (Franz and Moe!) Magic. If ever you could say a team “should” go on a nine-game winning streak, it’s these Knicks, and that’s accounting for three in a row on the road – Orlando and a back-to-back in Washington. There are long days later in the schedule. Harder days. As for now, whether your bag is Hart’s palpitatious play, Bridges raising your consciousness or the simple joy of watching the Knicks win, brother is this the place to be.
