The Denver Knicks

I know, I know . . . it's March Madness, and I should be totally focused on the way my UConn Huskies have unexpectedly crashed the Final Four. Not to mention how my blind faith in them (see "Head, or Heart?" -- previous post) has my bracket neatly positioned for a nice little payday.

But the grim reality of my other basketball team -- the New York Knicks -- keeps intruding. I am so bummed at the way they've spiraled down in recent weeks, and I find myself wishing from the bottom of my heart that I could wake up and The Trade would be magically un-done -- and Gallo, Felton, Chandler, and Timofey would be back in blue-and-orange.

Yeah, I'm aware that the Knicks won Monday night over playoff bound Orlando -- but that was just their 2nd win in their last 11 games. And as I watched their spirited defensive effort, I didn't find myself thinking, Hey, look at that energy! I found myself thinking, Why the ---- can't they do this all the time!? Did it really take D'Antoni's line-in-the-sand speech for the Knicks to finally realize there's a game at both ends of the floor? (And btw, what took D'Antoni so long to make that stand?) Are they such babies that they needed to be scolded before they'd actually D someone up? And Melo, with his brilliant 39-and-10 -- is he really such an idiot that he couldn't summon an all-out effort like that until the entire Knicks Nation started calling for his head???

Being old school, at first I didn't want The Trade to go down -- even though my three sons told me I was nuts. For my money, we were winning more than we were losing, playing exciting ball, building with our new "pieces." Amar'e was dominating; things were looking up.

Then, in late December, we went to a Knicks-Heat game in Miami. The Heat jumped out to a 34-18 first-quarter lead and won handily. LeBron and Bosh had typically solid games -- and D-Wade went off for 40. Midway through the fourth quarter, I leaned over to my three sons and admitted, "All right. We need Melo."

The Knicks finally pulled the trigger on the deal. At first, Melo was as advertised -- and more. Chauncey looked like he'd discovered the Fountain of Youth. We went to a Knicks-Utah game at the Garden in early March, and the Knicks won going away. Melo had 34. Stat had 31. I was so intoxicated by our play that my post that week was titled "Deliverance."

That was pretty much the last time the Knicks looked better than abysmal. They've been in a 3-9 tailspin since that game. Melo holds onto the ball for eons while the rest of the team waits for something interesting to happen. Stoudemire looks lost -- neglected and dejected, as Clyde might say. Billups pulled a Rip Van Winkle -- got injured, and came back as an old man. Landry Fields, an early-season revelation, has been lost in the translation. I've seen Chauncey look right through him on a number of occasions, waiting for Melo to get open. (Look at the stat sheet from Monday night: 26 shots for Melo; 10 for Stoudemire; 3 for Fields.)

Not long ago we were in L.A., and I had the chance to take in a Nuggets-Clippers game. There was Felton, dishing and swishing. There was Chandler, clearing the boards. There was Mozgov, being tall. (Gallo was on the bench nursing an injury, but he still looked cool and Euro.) The Nuggets have gone 12-4 since The Trade. And if things don't improve pretty soon at the Garden, I'll have to give some serious thought to rooting for the Denver Knicks.

Or whichever team Kemba goes to.

Hank

Head, or Heart?

I sit in awe as I watch Robby, cold and calculating, fill out his bracket. He's got Kentucky over West Virginia in the second round. Sure, he knows Calipari's a sleazeball -- and that West Virginia represents our conference. But he also knows Kentucky has Brandon Knight and Terrence Jones, and talent out the wazoo. He's going with the better team.

Remember Butler, everyone's favorite underdog from last year's tourney? Sorry, Cinderella -- my hard-hearted son has you going out in the first round to O.D.U.

And then there's UConn. Robby's been a UConn fan since he's three years old. But he's also watched them go a mediocre 9-9 in conference play, and despite their amazing run in the Big East tournament (and his ode to that run in his most recent post), he has them losing to Duke in the Elite Eight.

Robby takes his March Madness seriously. He has SportsCenter on 24/7 -- even while he's sleeping. He stays current with the ESPN blogs. He listens to podcasts on bracketology. But more than that, he watches games. Oh, so many games. And not just the headliners. He'll watch an early-January Ohio Valley Conference game between Morehead State and Tennessee Tech, and store what he sees in his mental hard drive -- just in case one of those teams surfaces in the Big Dance.

I, on the other hand? Sure, I do a little brushing up; Pete Thamel's tournament preview in The New York Times is my go-to source. And I'll sit in on portions of regular-season games with Robby from time to time. (No, not Morehead State v. Tennessee Tech.)

But when I fill out my bracket, all sorts of things intervene between me and objectivity. In deference to conference loyalty, I'm always going to give the benefit of the doubt to a Big East team. There's also Robby's college applications to think about. UNC is the only school so far that's had the nerve to shoot him down -- and they're paying the price: I had them exiting in the second round. The schools he's gotten into, and the ones he hasn't heard from yet? They're all down for deep runs.

And then, of course, there's my UConn Rule: If they're in, they win. That's it. No questions asked. No if's, and's, or but's.

So now, after the first mind-boggling weekend of the Big Dance, where have our respective styles landed us?

Well, my son, Mr. Cold Hard Facts, after reviewing his bracket, tells me you can stick a fork in him. I currently stand in 10th place among the 29 members in my pool. But in the all-important "Best Score" category, I'm #2, and that's because I have UConn winning the whole thing -- which more and more serious March Madness followers are starting to believe might happen.

So maybe there's a place for heart in bracketology after all.

Hank

Mission Accomplished

My older brother Matt: I'm not even sure it would be good for UConn to make a big run in the Big East Tournament.

Me: Are you kidding me? It's the Big East Tournament.

Matt: If they play three, four, five games back-to-back, they'll run out of gas for the real tournament. NO ONE REMEMBERS WHO WINS THE BIG EAST TOURNAMENT.

Try telling that to Kemba Walker. Kemba and friends looked like they cared just a little bit as they took the court at Madison Square Garden for the fifth straight day. They showed numerous signs of fatigue. Kemba spent half the game with his hands on his knees, tugging at his shorts, gasping for breath. Jim Calhoun dug deep down his bench to find guys in order to give the starters some rest. But none of that stopped the Huskies from accomplishing a feat that has never been accomplished before, and in my opinion, will never be accomplished again.

Uconn, which failed to earn a bye in the Big East, became the first team to ever win five straight games to grasp a conference tournament title. Walker logged 190 minutes, the most ever in a conference tournament. He netted 130 points, most ever in a conference tournament. He made huge plays against Georgetown. He drained the buzzer-beater to send Pittsburgh home, breaking Gary McGhee's ankles in the process (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGSI0IgM0gM). And last night, in the championship game against Louisville, with his team down one and less than a minute remaining, he drove past two defenders and made an acrobatic, championship-clinching pass to freshman Jeremy Lamb. And he had that same, ear-to-ear smile on his face the whole time.

Kemba's a New York city kid, and it was pretty evident that he wanted to put on a show in his home town in what was likely the last time he'd play at MSG as a Husky. I admit that his legs probably don't have enough left in them to bring this team to a National Championship. Deep down, he would probably admit that too. But to be honest with you, I don't care the slightest bit. Any damage Uconn does in the Big Dance is gravy at this point. The show that Kemba put on this week was legendary. The highlights will be shown for years to come.

Maybe the Huskies won't win the NCAAs. Maybe they will. But either way, nobody will ever be able to take away the accomplishment of winning the nation's best conference, against all odds. And another thing: Everyone will remember it.

-Robby

Deliverance

I’ve been a New York Knicks fan for over 40 years. I doubt this is something that Robby can even begin to grasp. He’s only 17 years old, and he’s already on his third NBA team: First Orlando, then Houston, and now the Knicks. (He climbed on the bandwagon the moment we got Amar’e.) My oldest son Matt, however, isn’t counting on Robby sticking with the Knicks for better or for worse: He sees him jumping ship for Boston, the Lakers, the Heat, the Bulls, OKC — or even the Blake Show — at the first sign of rough seas.

Over the last 10 years, I’d get asked a lot how I could root for one of the ugliest, most mis-managed and misguided franchises in all of sports — a team with the least likeable cast of characters in the NBA, a revolving door of big-name but totally ineffective head coaches, a smiling-but-sleazy former Bad Boy for a G.M., and an owner whose picture is in the dictionary next to the word “buffoon.”

And I’ve never had a good answer. All I know is if a Knicks game is on, I’m watching. I like to think of it as loyalty, though addiction might be more accurate. And I’ve been so desperately addicted that every time my team slapped on a band-aid — Stephon Marbury or Stevie Francis or Jalen Rose or Zach Randolph or Tracy McGrady — I thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Then came the last two dismal years of shedding salary and being absolutely abysmal, in the name of clearing cap space in the pursuit of King James. I hadn’t been a big fan of this strategy, and when we failed to get LeBron, my thought was: Two years down the drain, for what? When we landed Stoudemire, I dismissed him in this blog as a glorfied D. Lee who could maybe jump a little higher and dunk a little harder.

Well, time to admit I was wrong. Signing Amar’e was the beginning of the turn-around. And now, with the addition of Melo and Chauncey, things are getting downright scintillatiing at the Garden. Sure, I initially bemoaned the loss of some of our young guns — particularly Gallo — but the deal is barely a week old and it’s already “Raymond-who?” for me.

On Sunday night, I watched the Knicks, led by three perennial NBA All-Stars (not a bunch of cast-offs named Eddie Lee Wilkins and Hawthorne Nathaniel Wingo), hold the vaunted Miami Thrice to 86 points in a resounding come-from-behind victory. I watched Melo dominate — slashing to the hole, following his misses, draining silky J’s. I watched Mr. Big Shot make the game’s biggest shot. I watched Amar’e swat away King James’ layup attempt that could have turned the game. I watched the Knicks go on a 16-0 rampage to finish the first half, and a 9-2 run to close out the game.

All this is not to say that when the Knicks play the Magic in a few minutes, they won’t stink up the joint. They’re still a work in progress.

But after all these years, I’ve had a glimpse of The Promised Land. And I really like what I see.

-Hank