Warriors 111, Knicks 101: Then came Midway
It only took a few minutes for Golden State to stop the Knicks in their tracks.
In May of 1942, the United States military was the 2022 New York Knicks. They’d spent six months getting beat all over the Pacific Theater. Their opponent was quicker, sleeker, more aggressive, it seemed. Then came the Battle of the Coral Sea, a first in history: over the four-day battle, neither navy ever saw the other. It was fought entirely with planes launched from aircraft carriers. The U.S. earned a draw, which felt like a win. Then came Midway.
The Knicks are often not as gifted as their opponents. They’re not a big physical team; they’re not remarkably athletic; the passing and shooting is pedestrian. Most of the season their record has been a draw, thanks in part to how often they’ve never seen their opponent’s biggest battleships – LaMelo Ball, Joel Embiid, James Harden, Rudy Gobert and Nikola Jokić all missed games New York won. After opening their West Coast swing with a couple of high-altitude comebacks, they climbed a game over .500, which for them felt like a win. Then came Golden State.
A month after the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway took place. Japan threw most of its carriers behind the gamble that conquering Midway would give them a key base for future attacks against Fiji, Samoa and Hawai’i. It’s a fascinating story, the unfolding of the battle and all the little things that cascaded into major decisions that literally turned the tide of the Pacific Theatre, World War II and the history that followed. The same logic that doomed the Japanese led the Knicks to a 111-101 defeat in Oakland San Francisco Gentrificationville. Both events only took a few minutes.
It was standard practice for the Japanese navy to launch their planes in one large, coordinated attack; they didn’t send them out in separate waves. There’s obvious logic in that thinking – nothing settles a fight like a knockout punch. Because the Japanese fixated on their way of doing things, of never launching an attack until it was fully coordinated, they got caught in a bad way: the U.S. planes, which had been launched in separate waves, sighted the enemy fleet while their planes were having their bombs switched between land- and sea-specific, and not for the first time. Japan was waiting for everything to be perfect; while they did, their enemy struck first, and hard. The U.S. destroyed most of the Japanese navy’s power in the battle, and from Midway on the war turned against Japan.
It is standard practice for the Knicks to launch more 2-pointers and free throws than their opponent. There’s obvious logic in that thinking, particularly for a team that doesn’t have many 3-point shooters – if you can’t knock the other guy out, death by a thousand cuts might work. Team Paper Cut outscored the Warriors by 21 at the foul line and nearly equaled them inside the arc, yet lost by double-digits because this game was decided by knockout: Golden State was up double-digits three-and-a-half minutes in and finished +27 beyond the arc.
The Knicks were stunned, the battle lost. What of the war?
While Midway is considered the turning point in the Pacific Theater, we view it that way from the privileged perch of history. Despite the magnitude of the battle, it’s not like Japan surrendered afterward, or fought with less intensity. The next major battle, the one often paired with Midway as sparking the American military’s three-year winning streak to end the war, was Guadalcanal. Guadlcanal, unlike Midway, was not decided in a “fatal five minutes,” nor was it a partial fight against an unseen foe, like the Coral Sea. Guadalcanal lasted six months. 30,000 Japanese died, the vast majority from disease and starvation. U.S. casualties were so high the government spent years refusing to release the numbers.
Six months from now, the NBA will hold the draft lottery during the conference finals. The Knicks will not be in the latter. What about the former? Where should they aim for, given what we’ve seen 20% into this season? Does losing in the second play-in game or the first round of the playoffs do anything for this franchise? Do they learn anything watching Giannis Antetokounmpo or Jayson Tatum or *shudder* Trae Young asserting their dominance? The last time the Knicks “learned” something from the playoffs, they brought in Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier.
While the Knicks were loading their planes for this game, the Warriors were already airborne and ready to strike. New York has two more chances to make this a winning road trip: Sunday afternoon in Phoenix and Monday night in Oklahoma City. It took the U.S. military three years after Midway to win the war. Three years from now is 2025. If history is our guide, the tides will turn then.
