The loudest I\u2019ve ever heard Knicks fans at Madison Square Garden was May 16, 1997.<\/p>\n
Game 6, Knicks vs. Heat. 48 hours earlier, P.J. Brown lit the match that David Stern\u2019s dumb de jure brain fanned into the fire that torched the \u201890s Knicks last shot at MJ and the Bulls, ergo their last shot at a title. 19,763 New Yorkers cheering their team is one thing. Add a righteous indignation to the mix and you get a sound like none I\u2019ve heard before or since. The sound of bloodlust.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m old now. Old enough that day after day I see more and more people I\u2019m older than, and fewer that I\u2019m not. Old enough to recognize the ties that bind me to the New York Knickerbockers differ from those that connect me to my other sports loves. Old enough to feel like I know something too many people have forgotten, or never knew. Old enough to realize how much the world has passed me by, too.<\/p>\n
The first year I followed the Mets, they won the World Series. The first time I sat to watch an entire Rangers playoffs, they won the Stanley Cup. The first two times the Giants made the Super Bowl, they won. And the first season Manchester City stood up on both legs to challenge for the league title, they won, thanks to a miracle finish that still makes me tear up whenever I see it. I\u2019m literally crying with joy re-watching it now.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the Knicks.<\/p>\n
The Knicks are the team I\u2019ve followed the closest. Other than a few games at the end of the Isiah Thomas era, I\u2019ve watched just about every game I could see since 1990. They\u2019re as much a part of my identity as anything else. But my history with them is . . . different.<\/p>\n
The Knicks did not win it all the first year I watched them. They finished 39-43, got destroyed in the first round. The next year, they shocked the world going up on the world champion Bulls, took them all the way to Game 7. The Mets would have won that game. The Messier Rangers would have. Man City? Definitely. But not, bless \u2018em, my Knicks.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m old enough that the young fans are scaring me. For me and for them. The same inherited idiocy that led a generation of Knick playoff virgins to radicalize Trae Young *before* that series even started has loads of nudniks now flying off at the mouth about how the Finals are over, the Knicks are set to sweep, yada yada yada.<\/p>\n
The third year I followed the Knicks, they were up on Chicago 2-0 in the ECF, riding a 27-game home winning streak. This may sound crazy now, but in 1993 everyone I knew (mostly dumb young people) shared the same thought. The Bulls and Knicks are evenly matched. No way they\u2019re beating us four straight, or four outta five! Reader, they did.<\/p>\n
The next year, the Knicks led the Bulls 2-0, then lost three of four. The next round, they led the Pacers 2-0, then lost three of four. In \u201897, they led the Heat 3-1, 3-2 when the teams met for that decibel-record Game 6. MSG lifted their severely shorthanded heroes to a 10-point lead after one. Four at the half. Two after three. It wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
Again, I am old. In elementary school, calling someone \u201ccommie\u201d might start a fistfight. The first album I ever bought was a tape cassette \u2014 \u201cBad.\u201d I remember when conservatives were upset that there were too many teen pregnancies, whereas today they say there\u2019s too few<\/a>. The world is not the same.<\/p>\n And neither are the Knicks. The \u201990s Knicks were practically a thought experiment: What if an NBA team were the \u201885 Bears on defense with an offense straight outta James Naismith\u2019s nightmares? The few great teams since then had flaws from here to eternity. The 2013 Knicks were eerily similar, as far as roster construction; one true superstar and a bunch of worker bees is never gonna beat a group of murder hornets. The Thibodeau Knicks could score but not defend, defend but not score, and when they could manage both they were still more shallow than Pearl Harbor<\/a>.<\/p>\n I wrote this months ago and so far it\u2019s held up: this is the best Knicks team I\u2019ve ever seen. Elite offense, elite defense, elite starting five and a progressive bench that\u2019d rather build on what\u2019s good than settle for it. Everything they\u2019ve done this season, to this point, has only strengthened the feeling that this could be, should be the group that does the impossible.<\/p>\n I will be even if they win tomorrow night. I will be if they\u2019re up 10 at the half in Game 4. Until the final buzzer sounds on the fourth and final win, or Mitch Johnson pulls his starters and waves the white flag before then, I\u2019ll feel ill thinking about the Knicks winning the series. I think a lot of middle-aged fans will.<\/p>\n When Man City were on the cusp of reversing decades of ignominy \u2014 if you think the Knicks have been a punchline, study City\u2019s history before 2008 \u2014 older fans expressed more hesitance to believe in them than the younger fans I knew. Until City\u2019s very last kick of that 2012 season, the oldheads were right. They looked set to blow it, all the way until they didn\u2019t. Ever since, they\u2019ve been a rocket ship ride always headed up, up, up.<\/p>\n I\u2019m willing to be the last fuddy duddy to believe in what\u2019s happening with these Knicks. There are words I\u2019d like to share about it, feelings I\u2019m feeling I want to shout so the whole world hears me. But until\/unless the final buzzer sounds on that fourth and final Finals win, I can\u2019t. I\u2019ve always believed they were capable of such great heights. But there are some moments too intense to imagine, realities that only register once you\u2019re in them. What a time to be a fan. What a twisted nest of joy and anxiousness.<\/p>\n I hope the Garden is the loudest it\u2019s ever been tomorrow night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The loudest I\u2019ve ever heard Knicks fans at Madison Square Garden was May 16, 1997. Game 6, Knicks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,104605,590,85],"class_list":["post-722717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-knicks-features","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}