INDIANAPOLIS – Eleven months after the Knicks, as Pat Riley once knew them, were killed off by the Pacers, the outline of Charles Oakley’s body was still on the floor, exactly where it had been run over by Antonio Davis.
The new, decidedly unimproved Knicks returned to the scene of the crime yesterday, looking for some justification that Oak’s old body was not sacrificed for a younger one in vain, that they had become more athletic, better, and had closed the gap on one of the strongest heirs to the Bulls’ throne.
The 108-95 rotten egg the Knicks laid allowed no rose coloring, however, and not just because the newer model exchanged for Oakley, Marcus Camby, did not play with a pulled groin. Jeff Van Gundy wouldn’t have used Camby much anyway against a team that pounds like Ernie Grunfeld’s head at the thought that for all the Knicks have changed, the result remains the same.
There is, of course, some risk in labeling any regular-season game a watershed, or ignoring the Knicks’ squeaker over the Pacers at the Garden last week, or the fact that Chris Dudley and Larry Johnson gave 21 and 30 minutes, respectively, yesterday on one good pair of knees between them. That said, there has been nothing in the Knicks’ previous 32 games to suggest that yesterday was just a bad day for a team that has been uncompetitive on the road all season.
Even with a truncated season and all its potential built-in aberrations, 18-15 is exactly what the Knicks are, both in record and performance. We would add personality, too, but truth is, they don’t have one, other than for turnovers and technicals, both of which hurt them yesterday after, despite it all, they somehow got it back within four as the fourth quarter began.
They were overpowered physically, were beaten off the dribble and had, with Patrick Ewing shooting 5-for-15 and avowed starter Latrell Sprewell unable to turn over his engine again with a two-point first half, no real means of offensive operation – except for three treys by Charlie Ward, who otherwise played terribly again.
The only steps forward the franchise appeared to have taken were by Sprewell on two of his turnovers. Like their individual defenders yesterday, the Knicks, as a whole, are caught betwixt and between.
In a half-court conference, Sprewell makes them a running team, but only for the minutes he plays, most of which render Allan Houston useless. Camby is a project, unusable as yet against teams like the Pacers, serious contenders who make this amalgamation in New York uniforms look silly.
“We were giving [the Pacers] every option that they have in their book offensively,” said Chris Childs. “I don’t think that losing bothers us enough.”
Knicks don’t care enough is a good sound bite, for sure, but it’s hard to want to fall on your sword after every loss.
The Knicks, as currently constituted, can’t match up physically with the Pacers and don’t have enough open-court players to beat them the opposite way. They can run a little, but Ernie Grunfeld is having an increasingly difficult time hiding from the fact that this is a poorly put-together team. A normal season, with actual practice days, could file down rough edges, but round pegs will never fit square holes.
Even with the Bulls scattered to the winds, trying one more time with the same old team wasn’t going to bring New York a championship. The Pacers and Jazz were more finely aged than the Knicks, who had beaten themselves too many times to have earned the right to try again with the same cast. The Knicks had to get younger, better and most of all, smarter.
But the pieces they acquired had to be part of an overall scheme, not just specific, one-for-one upgrades. If either Sprewell or Houston, who are redundant, are turned into a point guard, then maybe Grunfeld will have something, but to add another shooter, albeit a selfish one, instead of a distributor, will only continue to make little sense.
And while it is arguable whether the Knicks really had any chance at Stephon Marbury, its hard to dispute that Grunfeld has slapped the cuffs on himself with a $64 million payroll, little wriggle room under the cap when an opportunity like Marbury popped up.
The old Knicks couldn’t have made it through the window left open finally, by the breakup of the Bulls. And there was little chance that this season, any changes they made were going to bring them a championship. We could live with that, if we could see the new Knicks needing mostly time and tuning. But if you believe that, then you believe that yesterday they almost found the Easter Bunny.