Magic 89, Knicks 83: "Jason Smith's bucket chart is a thing of beauty"

Well this game was cruel on the eyes. Hideous Knicks shooting and some choppy playmaking both ways. This game was bound to come down to who could make the most of their mismatches. The Magic hitched their interim offense to Nikola Vucevic and the rest of the guys worked off of him. Jason Smith had a great first half but completely disappeared in the second half. The Knicks, without Carmelo Anthony, had nowhere else to turn. They tilted Tanqueray tonics, tying together tiny tankinis, trying to tan, toweling. Though typically toiling together, the team thoroughly tip toed through the terrible tulips.

- Let's start with the good stuff. Jason Smith's first half of basketball was really fluid, really Triangular, and doggone it people liked it. I was particularly excited because it felt like the power of Anthony Mason was flowing through Jason's number 14 jersey. There was one pretty cool Triangle play in the first where the entry pass was made and Jason crushed Victor Oladipo on a screen that Jose Calderon was able to zip past and fade to the corner. That does it for good stuff.

More Jah, though. Late in the first half Amar'e Stoudemire, ever concerned with making the Knicks phenomenal, got so excited for Jah's hot start that he jumped into him and jammed his shooting hand. Nobody else was able to pick up the slack.

In the game thread, Melo's Bucket Hat Collection said that Jah's bucket chart was a real beauty, and he wasn't lying. This concludes our Melo's Bucket Hat Collection Bucket Chart Section.

- If this is Amar'e Stoudemire's last game as a Knick, he played like he makes a lot of money to just fuck around.

- Vucevic was a human battering ram out there. Overtaking the Knicks with brute force. The rest of the Magic spun off around him dashing and attacking the lane. This guy gets the job done all around the league, so New York shouldn't feel too upset that he torched them yet again. 28 points, 18 rebounds and maybe 15 fouls drawn.

- Elfrid Payton was the catalyst for a ton of Orlando's quick looks. He's a poor-shooting, vicious Tasmanian devil. Other than that, he kinda reminds me of Pablo Prigioni. The whole time Calderon was on the floor, Payton just saw ham. He repeatedly stuck his fork into Jose's dribble and was a whirlwind getting past him to the hoop. The kid looks like a pioneer of the Klondike got lost and just laid down to die on his head. But he can play ball.

- During the "Clyde-o-scope" segment previewing some of the All Star festivities, Clyde called Kenny Albert "Kennedy". I would have called him "Frankenstein Face Ass".

- Tim Hardaway vomited a little bit outside of his mouth and into a cup (supposedly). Then sprung to the locker room to finish the job into a trough urinal in James Dolan's surveillance room (supposedly). That's what's worth talking about around here, so jam some shad3s on and get nutty.

So, New York has now lost five in a row. That's ten (10) wins (New Yorker joke alert) and FORTY-THREE (43) losses (the worst of the worst alert). We have the All Star Weekend coming up and the Knicks' next game will be a Robert Randolph infused schedule loss against the Miami Heat next week. The games are the games, and with Melo likely shutting it down very soon, it's really more intriguing to look at what else is going on out there.

Special note here before I wrap up. Anthony Mason is in the hospital, in critical condition, and it's far too soon for that. His mother turns 90 tomorrow, and I'm sure the only thing she wants is her baby boy. Please send out your most positive vibrations to the family, and to Anthony. Hopefully he's just as fierce as we remember him! We need you to pull out this stop, big fella!