History will record that the Westchester Knicks defeated the Grand Rapids Charge by a score of 102-90 on the evening of Monday, Nov. 30, 2015. No such statements of mere fact can truly capture the magnificence of what we lucky few witnessed via MSG2 or YouTube.
These Westchester Knicks are pure spectacle. Their style of basketball is designed to blast your retinas with wave after wave of ecstatic hoops carnage. They are the id of sports.
Let's begin with Jimmer Fredette, shall we? Our "Jimmer dominates the D-League" fantasies came true Monday night, and then some. The former lottery pick dropped 37 points (on 17 shots!) in his debut. Surprisingly enough, only six of those 37 points came from beyond the arc. The rest of his field goals came from deliciously slippery sojourns into the paint, resulting in all manner of scoops, layups and fouls drawn:
And that crossover! How can I possibly describe this next clip to someone who hasn't seen it? I feel like Charlie Murphy describing his game against Prince:
Watching Jimmer, you can simultaneously appreciate his offensive creativity and understand why he washed out of the NBA. This was a dude who needed to develop a very specific skillset in order to survive among the best players on Earth; instead, he's pulling this stuff. And it's glorious! Jimmer needs to stay in the D-League for the next 20 years. In this environment, he's Steph Curry. And he's all ours!
Now, can I talk about Jordon Crawford for a minute? No, not that guy. This one spells his first name with two o's. He's also 5'6", described by the Westchester play-by-play guys as a "tae kwon do expert" and sports a pretty sweet man-bun. Here are some of his highlights from Nov. 20:
But none of these tidbits can compare to the insanity surrounding Crawford's biggest fan:
Floyd Mayweather told me he flew out of Vegas on his jet earlier today to watch Westchester's Jordon Crawford pic.twitter.com/gXlf458jbe
— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) December 1, 2015
So Floyd Mayweather, the most famous boxer on Earth (for better or worse), took his private jet from Las Vegas to Westchester just to watch Jordon Crawford. Hell, probably 95 percent of the stars on Celebrity Row only show up to MSG because they're in town and scored free tickets. That's not how they roll in Westchester -- in Westchester, the stars come to see Jordon...and maybe to chat up Jimmer a bit:
Jimmer Fredette said Floyd Mayweather "just kept telling me to shoot it ... so I did."
— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) December 1, 2015
Throw in Thanasis Antetokounmpo, crafty point guard Travis Trice, hyperactive foul machine Darion Atkins and a lumbering center named Jordan Bachynski with a killer Twitter handle (@BLOCKchynski), and you've got the best damn team in the D-League!
Oh yeah, and an actual Knicks played, too. Cleanthony Early made the most of his brief assignment, dropping 19 points and nabbing 13 boards.
He consistently pushed the ball up-court, as he did in preseason (nice!), attacked the glass (nicer!) and shot 4-8 from 3 (nicest!). He still struggles to finish at the rim and fouls too much, for he has been tainted by his time with those other Knicks.
Sadly, Early was quickly recalled by the big club, there to spend his nights forever glued to the bench.
The NY Knicks have recalled Cleanthony Early from the NBA D-League's Westchester Knicks.
— NY_KnicksPR (@NY_KnicksPR) December 1, 2015
I say forget all that! Don't call Cle up; send Kristaps Porzingis down! Send Langston Galloway and Jerian Grant down too, while you're at it! The New York Knicks are the past. Westchester is for the children!