For this, Derrick Rose is supposed to be too old. There was supposed to be too much wear and tear on the tires. The engine is not supposed to jump and hum, just like before. And he is certainly not supposed to be the most important player on the basketball floor, in the most important moments of a game.
Yet he was there Sunday afternoon in the garden. The Knicks had already blown a 14-point lead over the Pelicans, and after that some, less than three minutes before, stared at a seven-point golf, threatening their five-game five-game streak, 2,000 fans wondering if they should try to sneak downstairs for an early train ride.
Except that Derrick Rose, 32, said, “Hang on.”
“He’s a dog,” Julius Randle would later say with his voice dripping with respect. “He’s a winner.”
And even now, it’s not just reputation, not just old low-definition videotapes and yellowed newspaper clippings. He hit a free throw to make it six. Hit a 6-foot to make it four. Skip 3, 90 seconds to sneak the Knicks inside 101-98.
And then, 7.8 seconds into regulation, less than 3, Rose reminds the world why he spent time in his life as the greatest point guard on the planet. Even elite point guards sometimes forget how much time can take 7.8 seconds, sometimes wither and panic and throw up a hero-ball special. You see it every night.
Rose’s first option – Randle in the corner – is covered. Seconds melted away. He started driving, with enough ferocity that Lonzo Ball believed he was serious, and threw Reggie Bullock into the corner. More seconds melted away, but many more of them remained. Few point guards remember it at the moment. Rose het. When he saw the opening, he hit Bullock in the corner. Bullock did his job and sent the game to overtime.
Twenty minutes later, the Knicks walked 122-112 winners off the floor.
“This is what Derrick has always been,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said at the end of the game. The Knicks improved to 31-27. ‘He’s an excellent teammate, always puts the team first, he’s had a hell of a career. Except for the times he was not healthy, that’s who he is. No moment is too big for him. ”
The whole day felt like an extensive party in the garden, an interactive treat for the people in the house. There was a second showdown with Randle-Zion Williamson within a week that drew. All the old audible standards were exhibited.
‘M! V! P! ” they sing for Randle.
When Randle’s winger was about to do something, they joined the PA man: ‘R! J! BARRETT! ”
When a stop was needed, the old assistance came: “Deee-FENSE! Deee-FENSE! ”
When the officials became involved: “REFER! YOU! [STINK]! REFER! YOU! [STINK]! ”
The Knicks were not always great, but the 2021 Knicks were, resilient and undoubtedly. There was a remarkable moment in OT when Brandon Ingram of New Orleans was elevated for a dunk but intercepted by the Knicks’ Nerlens Noel, who rejected the jam and then fell hard in front of the court and looked injured.
In a flash, four of Noel’s teammates jumped off the bench and got up – while the game continued on the other side of the court. It’s probably not 100 percent legal, but the crowd loved it. And Noel quickly jumped back to join his teammates once he was on his feet.
Yet it was Rose who completed the day, even in the free basketball section, and stole Ingram’s ball in the Pelicans’ first possession of OT and hit the driving force that gave the Knicks the lead.
“I don’t have to do much,” Rose said when she was in the books for 35 minutes, 23 points, five assists, plus 22 days. “Back in Chicago, I always had the pressure on me. Now I just see what the game needs. ”
Thibodeau was obviously there in Chicago when Rose was at her peak, when he won an MVP, when he was the basketball equivalent of the kid with the 99 km / h fast ball that overwhelmed everyone and never the art of pitching had to learn. . Rose is now a pitcher and an artist, and his coach is as enchanted by what has become his old star as anyone.
“Early on as with most players, he did it with talent,” Thibodeau said. “He did not have the experience he had now. Now you combine the spiritual part with the talent and you have a different kind of player. ”
“He always lets the right read,” Bullock said.
Rose said: ‘I haven’t had such a finish line in a while. I enjoy it. ”
Sunday afternoon in the garden, while returning to some old molecules of magic, Derrick Rose just decides he’s not having fun yet. You are never too old for that.