All you had to do was look around in Madison Square Garden and it was clear that your ears were lying to you, it had to be. On a good night, in normal times, they can push 19 812 in here, and if you give a good reason for it, they can turn your eardrums to dust.
About 17,812 of these seats were unoccupied as the final seconds were off Tuesday night. We are still some full-time homes of normal normality here, even though there is the promise of reinforcement, which means it is closer to 5000 capacity for the post-season.
While Derrick Rose dropped the clock …
Damn if it does not sound like the Garden in here. Damn if it does not sound like a big spring evening here is supposed to sound. Damn if the collective sound color of just under 2000 people does not sound like a gathering … well, ten times as much.
The Knicks were concluding a 109-97 beat of the Hornets, the first half of a show-me back-to-back that would include an appointment with the Hawks on Wednesday.
For the first time in years, the Knicks played a playoff game because it was essentially. There are a crowd of 4-10 teams in the East, and the Knicks are one of them, and so are the Hornets. The teams in the top six when the music stops on May 16 avoid the play-in. This is an excellent goal.
And it was an excellent test.
“Whoever we play is the most important game, because it’s the next one,” said Rose, who jumped on this merry carpet ride but made sure to enjoy the journey as much as possible.
“I saw a winning mentality here,” he said. ‘Every team that plays against us knows that it’s going to be a hard game and a hard game, and you have to give your best. I saw that I wanted to be a part of it from afar. ”
And this is what he is part of now: a team with a 32-27 record, a team that has won seven in a row, a team that has slipped past the Celtics and finished fifth on Tuesday night with a victory , a team that will have the opportunity to take No. 4 away from the Hawks on Wednesday – both teams play rugby, both teams are fighting for the title of the biggest surprises in the NBA this year.
Tuesday you could see it all. You could hear it all. The Knicks struggled the first 24 minutes, allowing the Hornets to almost bury them with 69 percent shots from outside the three-point line. But the Knicks would not be buried. They came back. RJ Barrett, who could not buy a shot early, could not miss. His 24 points in 40 minutes included six tries.
His improvement through the week – sometimes through the game – remains a sight to behold.
“It was a lot of hard work,” Barrett said.
It reflects the team. There was no reasonable predictor who saw them play a match in what officially qualifies as the end of April for a top four series, and yet we are here. There was no way to believe that the garden, after years of neglect, would be a place where joy and hope and true optimism would find a foothold.
And yet it was here: the last seconds of another home win that disappeared from the clock, fans on their feet, fans who made enough noise that if you closed your eyes the lie could almost be believed. Because it sure sounded like a full house. This is how important basketball is supposed to sound. And feel like.
“It’s important for us not to get lost,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said, trying hard to get a startling story going. ‘If you start thinking about stripes, you can forget Atlanta. It’s easy to get off course.
‘Focus and concentration are all that give you intensity. We need to stay focused on what lies ahead. ”
There is little concern there. Rose and Julius Randle have Thibodeau’s back on the floor, and do not let their teammates daydream. Even Barrett, all 20 years old, has an old-soul, old-school mindset that rejects his birth certificate. They know that the good times are not guaranteed. But they also know them when they see them.
Or as was the case Tuesday night when they heard it.