The Knicks had me fooled. A eight game winning streak, Phil Jackson the head of operations, the Hawks losing and playing a Cavs team without all-star Kyrie Irving. This was the situation going into Sunday for an Knicks team battling to make the final and last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. I didn’t really write too much during the win streak, I guess I didn’t want to interrupt good play. Or maybe because I was in shock to see a team that played so horrible change things around when post-season was in jeopardy. I must say it was good to be a Knick fan for about a week when the team actually started playing to their potential. During the win streak it actually resembled last year’s team with ball movement and an decent effort on the defensive end. I have to give a lot of credit to Raymond Felton who played better with an higher assist to turnover ratio during that span. Also, with Amare actually logging significant minutes the former all- star at times looked like he found life in those injured knees. With the last game before a five game road trip, it was huge for the Knicks to get a victory at the Garden. And from the first half it appeared as if it wouldn’t be a problem. Well the second half suggested something totally different. The second half, a different team came out on that floor and I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around it. Instead of playing solid defense, and swinging the ball which got them the lead in the first place the Knicks chose to do the exact opposite. It was like the team that found an avid way of losing returned from the dead. The defense was no where to be found, on the offensive side it turned into more isolation plays. It was just a bad showing, and everyone in the Garden was in pure disbelief at the end of the final buzzer. What they saw was a team that thinks they are better then what they are. What they witnessed was a back-up point guard in Jarret Jack drop a season high 31 with 23 of those coming in the second half. And once again the reoccurring theme of not being able to close games has been a huge downfall. It will be interesting to see how the team responds after the tough loss. And if the playoffs are not an option this year then the world will await to see how Phil will begin his regime in New York because change is inevitable.
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