“Nothing can come of nothing.” –King Lear
1. DETRITIS AND DISTRUST
With the 76’ers, Knicks, Lakers, Nuggets, and Timberwolves all having been eliminated, there seemed little point in watching the NBA Finals: the interesting teams were gone, and the two finalists played an unappealing and seemingly retrograde brand of ball. I had watched both quite minimally during the earlier rounds, and the week off between everything else and the anticlimactic Finals had drained what little interest and enthusiasm I had left after the six week assault of the first three playoff rounds.
What infertile soil for pontificating about the NBA!
I thought of Janet Malcolm’s 1983 New Yorker piece, later made into book form as Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession. There, Malcolm explored Freud’s dictum that psychoanalysis, along with education and government, is yet a third “impossible profession,” as “all three deal with deep, complex, and often contradictory needs and desires, making them inherently difficult and fraught with challenges.”
In her later writings (In The Freud Archives and The Journalist and the Murderer), Malcolm details the conundrums and contradictions inherent in being a journalist, concluding that they inevitably lead to the betrayal of their subjects’ trust. Does this make journalism yet another qualifier for the impossible profession list? (1).
A stretch, perhaps, but it’s how I felt about this year’s NBA Finals – watching the inevitable (Boston Celtic domination) unfold involved keeping the fires aflame, not ablaze. Both Conference Finals were let-downs, despite the emergent brilliance of Dallas’ guard combination of Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, who were unexpectedly succeeding in blending their egos and talents into a juggernaut, seemingly a bit like Boston’s.
Nothing can come of nothing? Speak again: three straight Boston victories in the Finals only confirmed my thinking that making anything interesting of this series was indeed impossible. It was particularly agonizing for those of us – scattered through cities like St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles – who suffered through the Bill Russell years and later the reign of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, and Dennis Johnson – agonies that were rubbed deeply beneath our skins and were barely mitigated – maybe even intensified – by seeing Bill Walton in Celtic Green for a cameo role in the 1986 Finals.
As a long-standing hater of all things Celtic, I no longer have the same raw feelings that my Philadelphia friends do. The images of Sam Jones’ bank shots, John Havlicek’s steal, Russell’s countless rejections – no longer burn. I was even able to watch calmly – without losing control – when Jayson Tatum got a Don Nelson bounce off a Celtic rim in Game Seven.
Brad Stevens is not Red Auerbach (2), and however you may feel about Boston co-stars Jaylen Brown, 27, and Tatum, 26, you just can’t hate 38-year-old veteran Al Horford, who is three years the senior of Boston Head Coach Joe Mazzulla, 35, and serving only his second year. And Kristaps Porzingis at 29? He’s a lovable ex-Knick who’s paid heavy dues in his journeyman years with Washington and Dallas.
2. CONFUSION HAS ITS COSTS (ILLUSION DOES TOO)
But hope springs somehow eternal in Celtic haters’ breasts! The game is just too essentially beautiful for us fans to surrender to the inevitable. Illusion persists. Hope dies slowly (3). How did Crosby, Stills, and Nash put it? “Helplessly hoping.”
So: just two minutes into the third quarter of Game Four, with Dallas working to avoid a 4-0 sweep, and leading 67-38 after a vicious alley-oop dunk by 7’ Maverick center Daniel Gafford, there came a play that seemed to change the complexion of everything: with plenty of time remaining on the shot clock, Tatum ambled slowly into hoisting up a long jumper. Suddenly, Gafford, who had just dunked on the other end, leaped high to swat Tatum’s shot away harshly, and then chased the ball down near the sideline, with Tatum futilely diving to grab his leg – in order to prevent Gafford’s free path assault on the hoop – and getting called for a foul as he helplessly groped, to prevent another dunk.
Yes! Heaven! Was this a dream? Boston’s all-league star was helplessly reaching for the leg of the young buck that had just destroyed his shot, in order to avoid yet another thunderous dunk less than half a minute later.
Tuning in late, seeing the score, and watching that play, I suddenly found it “impossible” – in a wholly different sense – to imagine that momentum had not swung dramatically toward Dallas. After all, Porzingis had returned to civilian clothes after playing in the first two games – outstandingly in the first, after having taken a full month off in the earlier rounds. Dallas, it briefly seemed, had figured it all out! And the announcers were telling us that the Mavs, though trailing 3-1, had outscored Boston over the first four games, having mounted substantial – though unsuccessful – comebacks in each of their three losses.
But it was not to be! Back in Boston for Game Five, Dallas went scoreless for the first three minutes, and trailed all game long: 9-2, 13-5, 16-15, 28-18 at the quarter. Little-used Celtic reserve Sam Hauser was launching bombs from all distances and angles. At 50-39, Doncic futilely ran down a deflected pass, throwing it slightly over Irving’s head, sending Kyrie performatively hustling into the seats for the save. With no success, but still on camera, Irving followed the unsaved ball into the sideline box seats.
Soon it was 60-42. Irving was being praised for his hustle when he failed badly at turning a potential steal into an artistic pass. That other rarely-appearing Celtic reserve Peyton Pritchard threw in a 45-footer at the half time buzzer to make it 63-42. It was never a game thereafter. Jalen Brown’s drives put it out of reach.
A Dallas flurry made it seem close: 105-98, with Doncic posting a 32/11/11 triple-double. Going around to shake various hands, Irving performatively demonstrated his newly-acquired sportsmanship, after having a disgracefully poor all-around game, highlighting the contrast with Brown.
The Brown-Irving matchup had proved the difference in the series. A two-way menace during Boston’s entire 16-3 playoff run, Brown was named Finals MVP, as well as MVP of the Eastern Conference Finals.
Tatum, having earned his first ring, was duly acquitted. Doncic’s underbelly, hanging over his waist, was, well, like Kyrie…exposed.
3. LOOKING BACKWARDS AND AHEAD: 1970 KNICKS REBORN AND RELOADING
How many story lines can be borne by just one season, college and pro, men and women? Once you get beyond four or five (dearth of great big men, resurgence of the Knicks, Wemby’s arrival, UConn’s repeat, Caitlyn Clark’s steroidal injection of an already feverishly-fast growing women’s game), every discrete event becomes a story. Is that a measure of the game’s growth? Or a betrayal of its essence? Was this year just a placeholder? Only the late Bill Walton really knew.
Looking back: It was Match Up City when the Knicks faced the Sixers, with partially injured giant Joel Embiid – returned but shaky – coming off an injury that spoiled his early season run at a second consecutive MVP trophy. In Game Three, while battling Bells’ Palsy, and having endured consecutive losses, Embiid erupted with a 50-point game on 13-19 shooting!
But this series was at least equally about the emergence of Jalen Brunson, once Doncic’s side-kick in Dallas, as a true – if unlikely – superstar. Built like a football player, and gifted at getting three yards closer to the basket, Brunson took an NBA-high 330 floaters this season, and had them blocked incredibly rarely. During the regular season, he led all NBA guards with 276 buckets in the paint, trailing only Giannis Antetokounmpo with 86 “And-1” plays.
In New York’s critical 97-92 Game Four victory in Philadelphia, Brunson had 47 points (including several “omigod shots”), to break Bernard King’s Knick playoff record of 46’s. After losing a 6-point lead in 28 seconds and succumbing in overtime in Game 5, the Knicks’ 118-115 Game Six closeout win over the 76ers was just about perfect. Each of the six games was close (average margin of victory: 5.5 points), with multiple classic endings. Brunson averaged 41.8 points per game over the final four games.
As dominant as Brunson was, however, OG Anunoby – when playing – was about equally important. Against the Sixers in Game Two, Anunoby started out guarding a forward, then moved to checking the Sixers phenomenally quick point guard Tyrone Maxie, and finished up on Embiid, whom he held to one fourth quarter point. OG guards all five positions, and does so with great cerebral input, methodically figuring out what he can do to counter an opponent’s anticipated moves. Anunoby is both very smart and a terrific athlete, adapting his defensive posture according to the position of his opponent, cleverly anticipating Brunson’s angles of penetration, setting solid screens, and staying clear of his path.
His versatility and high Basketball IQ are attested to by the 26-5 Knick record with him on the floor (after being acquired in mid-season, and before he was injured), most of the time without injured co-star Julius Randle. He seems to cut, pass, drive, shoot, and defer at all the right times.
The Knicks were a phenomenal plus 22.8 points/100 possessions with him in the line-up. But he’s always been prone to injury, and sometimes plays as if he’s anticipating pain. In his final college season at Indiana, Anunoby tore his ACL. Since then, he’s played in an average of fewer than 60 games per season, and hasn’t played in 70 since his rookie season.
Who says at what point injury solidifies into character? After a dynamic first month as a Knick, he missed six weeks because of elbow surgery, and was hurt yet again during the playoffs, the second injury coming – ironically –late in the game in which he scored a playoff career high of twenty-eight points.
Paradoxically, as strong as he looked and played (able to guard Embiid for the critical fourth quarter of Game Two), there were instances when he seemed almost to collapse, and looked unsure of his footing when he stepped.
To the structural similarity of the Brunson-Randle combination to Walt Frazier-Willis Reed (4), add that the Anunoby acquisition also mirrored that of Dave DeBusschere, just less than halfway through the 1968-69 season, in a trade for 6’11” Walt Bellamy, who, despite his Hall of Fame scoring credentials, was clogging up the middle, and keeping Willis Reed from being Willis Reed. DeBusschere transformed the Knicks into a championship team, in similar ways that the current Knicks were suddenly very good upon adding this uniquely versatile 26-year-old African Brit.
But who can then approximate Bill Bradley, and who Earl Monroe (only acquired in 1971-72, and a part of the 1972-73 champs); or Dick Barnett (the only Knick to play in all 82 games; still around for the second championship, though playing in just 51 games)?
Just think Villanova: there are two excellent “candidates” in Donte DiVincenzo and Josh Hart. Donte D is a true athlete, who seems to expand his game as needed, according to pressure and assigned responsibility. His MVP performance in the 2017 NCAA Final suggested the promise he is now fulfilling. For increasingly longer stretches, he can carry a team, as he showed in the Knicks’ Game Seven loss to Indiana’s Pacers. A fit replacement for Bradley! Josh Hart, though he lacks a strict analogue to any of the Red Holzman Knicks, can play multiple roles.
In case that wasn’t enough to make Boston nervous, they went right to work in the off-season, acquiring yet another Villanova guy in Mikal Bridges, a solid player just below the level of stardom. The well-traveled Bridges, who was acquired from Brooklyn for a slew of future draft picks, comes with what – by today’s standards – is a reasonable salary, allowing the Knicks to shell out $212.5 million to secure five more years of Anunoby’s services, and still avoid luxury tax penalties.
These moves bespeak a concerted move to win now. Or at least to revive the Knick-Celtic rivalry, in memory of the recently departed Bill Russell and Willis Reed. Bridges, too, has had flirtations with greatness (5) though he, like Anunoby, has yet to make an all-star game appearance.
The Knicks’ conference semi-final exit against Indiana was not the only disappointment of these playoffs. Denver’s defending champs somehow lost a 20 point lead – at home – in the third quarter of Game Seven against Minnesota. Nikola Jokic – adult that he is – was characteristically gracious in accepting the outcome: “I think if you play a team seven games and then you lose to them, then you have to say they are the better team.”
What a comedown, though, for those of us who thought of Moby Nic as the possible antidote to Boston’s juggernaut, but the dream of a Jokic-Porzingis battle suddenly faded away. Then we got to hoping that the Timberwolves might be ready, but they were victimized by a quickly jelling young Dallas squad, but one that was hard to watch, as doing so required making some kind of peace with the idea that Kyrie Irving is more simply an asshole than an evil person.
May the Villanova Knicks bring excitement and redemption soon.
Notes
1 In The Journalist and the Murderer Malcolm states: “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.”
2 Upon Auerbach’s death nearly two decades ago, I wrote:
RED NO MORE
–for Arnold Auerbach
To feel the stinging pain
Of losing him whom I so intensely hated
But only now understand
How much I loved.
–2006
3 Well, we all have our problems: just re-watch that Trump-Biden debate!
4 If only Brunson were right-handed, like Clyde! But so what? He can do everything else. It certainly so seemed, with Anunoby out there with him, subtly positioning himself to help.
5 But enough to justify the price? With so much money already spent, those draft picks would have been of very limited value.