I had the Blazers against Knicks game circled on my calendar for months. Here was my chance to see a hometown team do good in one of the most historic arenas in the world. I was going to experience my new city with a slight flavoring of my old. I expected heated rivalry, crazy fans and a tension-rich environment.
My first disappointment came when I found out New Yorkers treat going to a Knicks game like going to a coworker’s birthday party: you show up a little late, you leave a little early, and it’s something to talk about at the water cooler the next day.
They fill half the seats, spend most of the game in line for beer and only really get loud when the t-shirt gun comes out. They tend to hold circular conversations about LeBron James, and if or if not he will be wearing the orange and blue next year. For a team whose motto this year is, “Declare Your Team,” they tend to focus on declaring and declaring and declaring a team that has yet to exist (next year’s team) starring a guy under contract for a completely different organization (the Cavs).
Within the first five minutes of play, I was certain that my Northwest boys were going to show these city kids how to play. Some hard work. A little grit. You know. Plus, the Knicks are basically that creepy older Uncle who lives in the basement this year, only coming up out of the shadows at the temptation of free beer or pizza. Or in this game’s case, Danilo Gallinari coming alive somehow. It would be a cakewalk.
However, in what has seem to become a yearly Blazer tradition, we were hit hard with the injury curse. Oden down with a knee injury, Rudy sidelined with a faulty shoulder, and Coach McMillan bedridden with a ruptured right Achilles tendon. Added to the Travis Outlaw and Nicolas Batum injuries, it’s beginning to get a little bit spooky. By my count we’re a good month and a half past Halloween, so let’s quit with the tricks already and get some treats.
Still, we put up a fight. For a while. But for the most part we were sloppy, we were lazy and we spent more time on the floor pleading for calls than making plays.
In one series of events, when the Blazers had managed to pull within eleven points with a little under six minutes to play, Jarryd Bayless tried to split the defenders on his way to the hoop only to lose control of the ball and wind up on the ground. As the Knicks galloped to the other end of the floor to a smattering of applause (which judging how the fans behaved the entire night, a smattering of applause is HUGE in Madison Square Garden) he held out his palms to the ref like a child instead of getting up and going after the ball.
Then, a little bit further on in the game, Brandon Roy started to heat up. He was making his signature tear-drops in the lane and his change of speed was giving the Knick defense fits. I started checking Knicks fans in my periphery, excited to finally show off how my Blazers get down. After rattling off two buckets in a row he split the defense again, but this time dished off to Joel Przybilla for what should have been an easy dunk, but which was instead volleyball spiked into the ground (it was a serious, I-miss-Oden moment). As Chris Duhan ran the ball down to the other end, Roy dragged his feet and let his head drop. He knew it. I knew it. Even most of the New York fans, despite spending more time gossiping about appearances by Celine Dion, Rihanna and the guitarist from Def Leppard than watching the game, knew it.
We had our chance, we had our shot, and we blew it. We blew it in the most famous arena in the country.
With three minutes to go, Knicks fans began streaming for the exits. Some were excited, but most were simply not.
“Yeah, yeah,” I heard one guy say, “it’s like this is the one night we can be happy this whole season.”
Well it was for me, too, and now it’s been taken away. I DO NOT want to talk about this at the water cooler tomorrow.
