The Knicks, for all intents and purposes, played one of their worst games in a fortnight last evening. Amar’e Stoudemire was off for three quarters, the supporting cast was quiet, Toronto’s Andrea Bargnani — or “giant Italian Zach Braff,” as Posting and Toasting’s Seth calls him — lit up the defense for a career night, and some slap-happy refereeing led to a choppy, ugly game across the board. This is absolutely the type of game the Knicks have lost over the last decade. And then, in the fourth quarter, Stoudemire took over … and Raymond Felton made a ridiculous, remote-controlled three-pointer with two seconds left. And suddenly: The Knicks had won their sixth in a row.
The Knicks haven’t won a game like that yet this year, a last-second crazy-shot type of win. Most of their wins (and their losses) haven’t even been all that close, at least not nail-bitingly, anus-tighteningly close: A quick glance through the memory brings up the tough loss to the Nuggets, that double overtime win over Detroit, and this one. But this one had that Felton shot, and Amar’e’s fourth-quarter brilliance (eighteen points, and big baskets every time down the court; to be fair, he had to hit those big baskets because he couldn’t stop Bargnani on the other end), and lest we forget, this: