FanPost

Pistons, 110, Knicks, 96

Although I may be the only person who noticed it, judging from the game thread, the New York Knickerbockers played a basketball game. All be told, it was pretty gross: the Knicks were out-played, out-manned, out-shot, out-run, out-rebounded, out-hustled, out-defensed (word?), out-strategized, out-blocked, out-stolen, out-ball-movemented, out-Walter Herrmannded, and, most importantly, out-healthied by the Detroit Pistons. Pretty much the only thing the Knicks bested Detroit in was our serious out-ejectioned category. But we'll get to that later.

First off, can someone calculate our Kelly Tripucka win percentage? Gotta be close to -.015 percent.

So the Knicks suited up nine fellas for tonight's game. Two of them were new acquisitions Tim Thomas and Al Harrington, one of which was Jerome James, and one of which was not Stephon Marbury. Towards the end, when the Knicks were down a lot, I almost wanted them to play Jerome, because, like, he's getting payed mucho dinero, and I'd at least like to mock him, but D'Antoni stuck with his 8 man crew for all 48. Seeing as this was the first time I'd seen two of our newest players in action on the 2008-9 Knicks, here's what I'd say:

Al Harrington: looked flat, and was quite awful. Yes, Al led us in scoring with 25, but took 24 shots, most of which were short. He spent a long time not playing for the Warriors post-trade request, so it's understandable. As someone who was obsessed with the Warriors while Matt Barnes wore orange and... whatever they're secondary color is, I can wholeheartedly attest to Al being a good player. But he's still a little bit off.

Tim Thomas: Tim is a good shooter, don't get me wrong, whereas I am not, but Thomas has a similar shot to me, in that he has an equally similar chance of hitting the shot as he does completely bricking it in such a fashion that he looks like a friggin awful shooter. He hit one three off the heel, and I think one was a banker off right rim, which was just hideous. But when he hits it, it's a swish. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I still kinda want to challenge Mardy Collins to a 3-point shootoff style competition, just for poops and giggles.

I kind of said it earlier, but the Knicks straight up got dominated. There was no facet of the game in which the Knicks were better. We went on a brief run to cut the Pistons' lead to single digits late in the third, but it was kind of a joke. Even after Knicks baskets - when you'd expect a D'Antoni team to be somewhat alert - the Pistons were pushing the ball and scoring with ease. So pretty much nothing went well. It was a really ugly game.

MSG issues of the evening: First off, Gus Johnson repeatedly referred to Allen Iverson as "Ivo". This is not one of Allen Iverson's nicknames. I would've accepted "The Answer", "AI", or, like, "Allen", or "Iverson" but Gus kept going to "Ivo". Which might be a good nickname for Mark Iavaroni or something, in retrospecct. The other MSG issues were in the "crowd shot" category. The weirdest was approximately 45 seconds of footage of 12 year old black girls linking arms and singing along to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" out of a timeout, before finally revealing that the words were put on the scoreboard, but for most of the time, I was just freaked out, and the other - and this is according to a friend I just spoke to who also watched the game, I didn't see this particular incident myself - was that apparantly out of another timeout, MSG showed a Knicks fan sitting in the stands - as they often do - but instead of the commentary crew offering a comment like "good to see a fan on the road" or "hey, the knicks have support all across the country", all that happened was that Kelly Tripucka just said the words "Knicks fan" and then nobody said anything for like 20 seconds. 

Further on the Billy Joel subject, The Palace at Auburn Hills has some serious music selecrtion issues. I'm pretty sure they played the Hava Nagila at the end of the first half.

I mentioned ejections up above. This was a mighty poorly officiated game, and I'm not sure how to say it. There was a moderately bullshit clear path foul on the Knicks, an overwhelmingly bullshit flagrant on Amir Johnson (who's a friggin monster, by the way - blocked about 43 seemingly uncontested layups tonight), a bunch of pretty bullshit calls, and Wilson Chandler got ejected for a) punching a ball in frustration after arguing a call and b) really I'm not quite sure.

I also mentioned injuries up above. Of the ten active to play Knicks, one, Nate Robinson, sustained a groin injury prior to the game, one, Jerome James, is Jerome James, and three, Q, Wilson, and Al Harrington, appeared injured at some point of the game. We were this close to having to recruit one of those Billy Joel lovng tweleve year olds to put on a jersey and man the point.

About the point, a lot of one-on-one play tonight, which was disconcerting, especially when most of these one plays involved Al Harrington short threes. 

I comment on awkwardly pale white people all the time, so I don't feel uncomfortable saying that if there was an opposite of albinism, it would be called "Tim Thomas syndrome." 

Also in the "I have nothing to say" category, a host of Pistons seemed to get pretty much every offensive board. One of these was Kwame Brown. I rest my case.

I freakin love garbage minutes, and this game was chock full of em. The Knicks alloted about two of them to Malik Rose, which was disappointing as a fan of garbage minutes, but the Pistons did not disappoint, bringing in Walter Sharpe, of whom I did not note anything, Will Bynum, who I saw playing for Maccabi Tel Aviv last year and did quite literally nothing of note, and Walter Herrmann, who's a gunner/defender, and of whom Gus Johnson said, and I quote "you will never see someone with larger hands". 

Anyway. A depressing evening. I plan on attending Jamal Crawford's homecoming Saturday night, and perhaps, if, again, nobody watches, recapping, and perhaps being moderately coherent/humorous, as I failed to be in this post, but, we shall see. Anyway, enjoy your thanksgivings, and, in short, the Knicks, as of 2008-09, are completely poopyhole-fucked. 

By the way, Wilson Chandler and David Lee played pretty well.

Anyway, like I said: poopyhole-fucked. Goodnight.