Final Score: Wizards 102, Knicks 101

That was some special shit.

Early on, the Knicks did their give-up-tons-of-open-threes-and-transition-buckets-but-force-lots-of-turnovers defense thing, but didn't hit any of their own WIDE open threes to make good on the extra possessions. John Wall killed 'em with dashes to the rim and pull-up jumpers. Martell Webster punished 'em every time they neglected him in the corners, which was a lot. Pablo Prigioni, J.R. Smith, and Iman Shumpert were all ice cold. Amar'e Stoudemire commanded a lot of possessions...straight into Kevin Seraphin's armpits. They fell down 11 at halftime. You just knew they'd make a run then crumble.

They made a run then crumbled. The third quarter was a bunch of fun. Well, aside from Pablo Prigioni ruining his toe for the rest of the month, it was a lot of fun. J.R. finally found some touch from outside, and Tim Hardaway Jr. (hot all night long) and Iman Shumpert (cold and generally terrible all night long) chipped in threes as well. Carmelo Anthony torched Trevor Booker in isolation and the Knicks chewed away the double-digit deficit and spat out a little lead of their own.

BUT THEN: Melo beat doubles with beautiful passes. J.R. stayed hot. The Knicks got some stops. They had a nice little win in hand. BUT THEN: just abject disaster. Howling, bone-crunching, blood-spurting disaster. New levels of idiocy and despair. The Knicks lost their three-point lead when Bradley Beal hit a tough, contested three with 45 seconds to go. Nothing you can do about that. MANY things you can do after that, none of which the Knicks did. One thing you can do is grab an easy two-for-one. You could walk through a possession and still get a two-for-one. But instead, the Knicks farted away a whole shot clock before Beno Udrih-- who played every minute after Pablo went down-- managed to draw a foul just dribbling in a straight line. He missed a free throw. Another thing you can do is put in something resembling a defensive lineup for the next possession, but Woodson left Beno in the game to get utterly torched-- without a lick of help-- by a Beal drive to the rim. Another thing you can do is either use a timeout or hustle up the floor for the buzzer-beater but the Knicks WALKED THE BALL UP THE DAMN COURT AS IF THEY HAD JUST CALLED A TIMEOUT BUT THEY HAD NOT ACTUALLY CALLED A TIMEOUT EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD THREE(?) DAMN TIMEOUTS AND MELO BRICKED SOME DESPERATION SHIT HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN.

I am in D.C. and had to watch that shit on Comcast and the whole crew was just straight-up giggling at the Knicks. They blew that game as if on purpose. If the Knicks had a draft pick, we would be applauding them right now for their daft tanking. There is no draft pick. This team just gravitates toward disaster. They cannot resist.

There will be no recap.