Bucks ride all over Knicks. "You my horsie now, Harrington!"
Friday night the Knicks played the Milwaukee Bucks, and their star center, Andrew Bogut (who also got passed over for an All-Star nod), came out on fire. In the first five minutes he went 3-for-3 for six points, had 3 rebounds and a block. Then it looked like he injured himself and he went to the locker room. Oddly, it was then reported that he’d then miss the rest of the game not because of an injury, but because of a migraine. With him gone, and injured former All-Star Michael Redd already out for the rest of the season, the game should’ve gotten remarkably more easy. Instead, we allowed their defensive stud, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (who by the way is a genuine prince in Camaroon), to be extremely efficient offensively, going 6-of-7 for 16 points. Since that alone wouldn’t have been enough to ensure us losing, we then decided to let second-year bench player Ersan Ilyasova (from Turkey, but not royalty) go for 25 points, nine rebounds, and two threes.
Danilo Gallinari again was a non-factor on offense, only attempting six shots and hitting two. More bizarre, despite being the NBA’s best outside shooter from three-point land, he only went 2-for-6 from the much-closer and not-at-all-defended free throw line. Al Harrington needed 20 shots for 22 points (it’s never good when your shot total is almost as high as your point total — as a counter example, David Lee scored 32 points on 18 shots). If the Knicks still have any delusions about making a push for the playoffs (and honestly, there still is enough time), then these are the games they need to come out fired-up and win.
Buck: "Wait, there are no unicorn over here- D'oh! You're scoring right now, aren't you?"
After scouring the internet, I was amazed at the dearth of material on Dick McGuire. Here was one of the greats, and the only footage I could find of him playing bball was on MSG’s memorial for him. In an age where every moment is recorded of people who are famous simply for being famous (like Paris Hilton or Jon&Kate), it’s sad that the exploits of a true pioneer will likely fade away into nothingness eventually. How many websites do we need devoted to David Hasselhoff? It’s up to us to keep our history alive. How many great films, great books, great songs have been lost? Someone recently said to me that the reason most books from before 1900 haven’t stood the test of time is because they weren’t that great. I have a hard time believing that. Yes, they may not have been Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have books that if they came out today would be considered one of the top 50 books of the year. It’s also not just about whether things from the past are as “good” as things in the present, it’s about understanding how things have evolved.
For instance, one silent film which was considered a shocker at the time it came out was the original “The Great Train Robbery.” If you watch it today, well, probably the recent “Taking Of Pelham One Two Three” is more suspenseful to our modern sensibilities. However, the key to appreciating “The Great Train Robbery” is understanding why it was a shocker. It wasn’t about the plot. It was about a shot that they showed at the very beginning, and then the exact same shot shown at the very end. It’s completely unremarkable to you and me. It’s just a guy looking at us (ie.the camera) and shooting his gun. The thing is that up until that point, they’d never had a person look right at the camera before, so when he shot that gun, the audience was literally instinctively afraid that he was shooting at them. They ducked to the side. In a sense, it was to them what the first 3-D films were to our times. That’s incredible.
Similarly, while doing a bit of research on McGuire, naturally a lot of things came up about his contemporary dribbling maestro, Bob Cousy. There’s an anecdote on him that reminds me of Michael Jordan’s famous improvised shot against the Lakers. The one where he went up in the air for a right-handed lay-in, then seeing Sam Perkins preparing to block it, mid-air MJ switched the ball to his left hand and flipped it in. Here’s the description of Cousy in a 1949 college game from an old Sports Illustrated article:
A little while back I showed some clips from the upcoming ESPN documentary, “Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks.” It’s part of their 30 for 30 film series which features 30 films by known directors for each of the 30 years that ESPN has been around. They’ve got an Allen Iverson film by Steve James (director of “Hoop Dreams”), an LA Raiders film by Ice Cube, plus stuff by Barry Levinson, Gary Marshall, John Singleton, Johnny Knoxville & Spike Jonez, Steve Nash, Ron Shelton (“Bull Durham”), Peter Berg (director of the original movie version of “Friday Night Lights”), acclaimed documentarians Albert Maysles, Barbara Kopple, and more.
But the Reggie Miller/Knicks doc, by Dan Klores, looks darn good. And wonderfully over the top. This is the opening, and ya gotta love the operatic music and Reggie Miller as an almost Christ-like figure. I think I can guess who’s side this doc is on by the title, but it still seems like a fun ride I’ve gotta take. It airs on ESPN on March 14th.
Last night the Knicks came out of the gates stepping gingerly, slightly interested in winning their game. They’d been destroyed on the boards in their last game against Washington just a few days ago. On Washington’s first two possessions, their center Brendan Haywood got offensive rebounds off their misses for easy put back scores. At least David Lee’s jumper realigned itself and he was once again on fire, but it seemed like it’d be a long night again. That said, the Knicks did tighten up their rebounding almost right away. Those two offensive rebounds in the opening would be half of the Wiz’s total offensive boards for the game. In fact, after Haywood got his third offensive board later in the quarter (which, when he then shot it, was blocked by Jared Jeffries), the Knicks would allow Washington to get only one more board the entire rest of the game. That’s some nice work. And necessary work as I mentioned in an earlier blog.
Um, Jared, for a bounce pass you're supposed to bounce the ball on the ground, not your butt...
However, the Knicks seemed fairly disinterested for much of the first half. Kinda like they’ve looked in general. One amazing exception was Larry Hughes, who got an early call off the bench and decided to play with energy this time instead of sulking. He played well enough to get minutes in the second half too, and afterward D’Antoni said that if Hughes keeps playing like that then he’ll keep getting minutes. Of course the bigger more important question is whether this means Hughes will shave his beard. Early word says he’s not ready to commit to that just yet. We’ll keep you on top of this vital news as soon as more information breaks.
Okay, today I’ll introduce y’all to a new type of post that will show up once every so often: “We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Basketballs!” I call it that because, well, the stuff I choose to write on those days will have nothing whatsoever to do with basketball. Sometimes it’ll be random oddities (like the first two items), or things that happened recently (like my last item where I talk about yesterday’s Oscar nominations and my few beefs with it).
—First on the list: a web site called “Selleck Waterfall Sandwich.” What is on this site you may ask? Um, it’s poorly Photoshopped images of Tom Selleck over waterfall pictures… with a random large scale sandwich there too. It even has a theme song, where someone (I think a kid) just says “Selleck Waterfall Sandwich” over and over again. Why someone chose to do this (&keeps adding new pictures) is beyond me, but who am I to judge other people’s bizarre obsessions.
