Knicks at Hawks

I don’t know who just called that time out but we needed it.

This game is crazy!!!

We’ve gone into our predictable end of game offense. Give Crawford the ball. If he’s doubled give it to Zach. We’re shooting jumpshots when we need to be crashing the glass.

We are up 1…lets close this shit out111111

Why is Q back in the game???

Bad quarter by both teams.

Where’s N8??? We need a 3.

LEE HAD HIS HEAD UP HIS ASS! ALL NIGHT!

A game we needed. A game we should’ve won.

SH1TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

zach played 45 very active mins. somebody jab an intravenous in ‘im.

Get those ping pongs balls ready—the Knicks need to be where Miami is right now.

If they gonna lose let them lose big!!!!

Lee and Craw did a poor job of finishing this game. We went downhill once Lee throw that cross-court interception unnecessarily. Jay Bee is right, David Lee should have been pulled. No athlete wants to admit he is tired. That’s what a coach is for. That was a game we needed.

Bibby knows how to end a game.

Did any of you guys see Devin Harris run roughshod over the Bucks. Of course, if the Knicks had beaten the Bucks it would have been because the Bucks were missing a ballboy or something. Nevertheless. Harris and Diop make the Nets a new team. Not good enough to beat Detroit, but good enough to separate themselves from the bottom of the back and to be better than Toronto. I guess Frank won’t lose his job anytime soon. Some people just get lucky. Rod Thorn was patient and got what he needed.

Oh well, the magic number draws closer.

TILL THE END!!!! No quit …no tank!

Peaceman,

We cool and everything but why are do you believe in this losing team the way you do.

For the whole season they haven’t shown they can turn it around and win more that two or three games in arow(even that’s sometimes a challenge for the Knicks). I know anything can happen—but I’m not holding my breath for it to happen or I’ve been dead a long time ago. (Like five games into the Knicks season)

Hey Anti

All we can do is dream…

dream dream dream that the Knicks either make the miracle run or hit this years big lottery draw.

But I still aint for tanking the games purposfully this year.

I hate that the NBA rewards the likes of Miami. Again the N.B.A. needs to rework its lottery rules to add additional disinsentives to tanking teams, and reward competing despite a difficult season.

Orange,

I’m not really into tanking the season—-and the Knicks are still getting paid a lotta momeny to play and at least try to win—but I think they allowed themselves to lose to many games to pretend they can all of sudden start winning then become playoff bound. I’m not that much a positive thinker at this point.

And so that we are clear. I don’t ever declare myself the winner of any competition. I don’t need to. The loser knows even as he is screaming to others “look at me, I won.” Winning defines itself and creates a new power and energy towards more winning.

And even then on a personal level, winning is just a temporal state. It is a moment in time that begs you to move on ASAP and get the next victory and the next and the next. Winners are addicts. They hate losing. They feel it to the depths of their soul forever. You ask Michael Jordan what he remembers about his career. I bet you in private it will be that one shot he missed that still bothers him; that championship he didn’t win. Ask Magic the same thing and he’ll remember the season he came back from injury and screwed up enough to keep the Lakers out of the Championship.

The Knicks are still in it, but I know that every lose pushes the playoffs farther and farther away. When that end comes, I will find somehting else to do with my time; something that is about winning in one form or another.

Later.

Anti, I love you and there is nothing you can do about it.

You are absolutely right that the answer focused on I. But your question to Peace asked for an answer focused on “I”, not the Knicks. You asked “why do you believe in this losing team the way you do.” We agree with the obvious as stated by the record; the Knicks are currently losers. You asked why I “believe” losers or those believed likely to stay or be losers receive my faith. You have my answer.

When the Knicks collectively think as I have expressed, they will be on the path of champions. I wish I could transfer my belief to Eddie Curry. He does not believe and Isiah has been unable to get him to believe. The Knicks don’t believe that their teammates believe in winning. But I believe that one is not born with a winning attitude or a winning vision; a stable vision is born from effort and results. It is an internal hunger that is like a famished beast. A winning attitude is relentless and ultimately unwavering. The Knicks do not have that, but I believe they will. Yoou believe it won’t come till the luck of theping pong balls provides a winning attitude. I won’t protest your vision. I won’t denounce your vision. If it comes to the ping and the pong, I hope you are right — perhaps it is as likely to create a winner as a trade or adding one or two pieces through free agency. I don’t know. But I know that I will not be satisfied with a a ball being sucked to make my team a winner next season.

First off, no one should feel too defensive about believing good things will come from the Knicks this season. It’s an admirable quality/trait to continue to believe in the positive in the face of overwhelming negative “reality.”

It’s all good
There is rational belief and irrational belief. If it’s over something that doesn’t really affect your day-to-day life, I don’t think it matters a great deal which kind of belief it is (rational or otherwise) if it’s about something positive (we will ignore the annoying conundrum that wishing “positive” for the knicks will necessarily mean “negativity” for their opponents ). Expecting a string of wins (hell, expecting any win) from the Knicks, at this stage of their development, is hardly calling on the four horsemen.

Is it “rational” for someone stricken with a particularly deadly form of cancer to belieeve s/he’s gonna beat it? Possibly not, but who’s it gonna hurt? If it works out, the person gets to live! Nothin wrong with that.

So irrational belief in Knicks success this season is not a big deal, it’s not hurting anyone. Mebbe it’s like the kind of belief a mother might have in her troubled multiple-offender son, that he can work it out and be somethin one day. Nevermind that the odds say he’s likely to end up living out his life behind bars (and if he’s Black, the odds are scary enough as it is, just comin outta mama’s chute). No, nevermind them daunting odds, she is gonna BELIEVE that he will wind up a positive contributor some day anyway. Can’t hate her for that.

Sometimes you beat the nearly-100%-fatal cancer, sometimes the badass child winds up the famed civil rights lawyer. More often you wind up the losing side of the Alamo.

But at the end of the day, mebbe the real difference between the “they can still win it” camp and the rest lies in the idea of control/influence.

The mother crying over her wayward child might still have some influence over the behaviour. The deadly-cancer-stricken person has no choice, if he wants to live, but to believe he can win b/c the alternative is DEATH (setting aside the very real data that suggests mindset can have an effect on serious illness).

barkley and jordan in their playing days had a lot of control over what they did during a basketball game. But there is a very good reason why they are no where near as successful in gambling as they were in their basketball careers, despite their very confident, positive outlook on life. It is the reason why you have insurance for yourself and your family because belief that things will work out in the end is not always enough.

Lottos aside, strong and firm belief in positive outcomes is necessary to success, but it is not always sufficient. I’m not sure that belief in oneself should translate to belief in things/people/events over which you have little or zero control. There might be something to the “collective will/belief” idea but I’m not convinced it works all the time. Especially not when you’re dealing with an extremely stubbon owner and general manager/coach. Interventions don’t always work.

Froma Knicks fan perspective, we have little control over this gaggle of fragile egos. They have shown us time and time and time again that, collectively, taht they do not have the stuff this season to win more often than they lose. One game it’s a crawford brickfest, the next it’s a bad pass by Lee, in another it’s Curry’s lack of defensive jump, in some others it’s zeke’s coaching; sometimes it’s all those things, but it’s always somethin. The boat has too many little leaks and not enough fingers to plug them.

Now if you choose to ignore that “reality” and believe til the math lops off all possibility, that the Knicks can/will turn the ship around, then there’s nothin wrong with that. It just shouldn’t be the attitude that defines fandom.

Oprah has this one line that always stuck with me: whenever someone shows you who they are, believe them.

The Knicks and Obama are showing you who they are. BELIEVE THEM.

As always, jus’ bloggin. Good morning all.