On full display at Madison Square Garden, all game, all night, were all the elements that have established these Knicks as the city’s most intriguing nightly show. There was Kristaps Porzingis, still scuffling, but still scoring 25. The other four starters also reached double-figures.
Carmelo Anthony’s replacements were superb — 12 points and 16 rebounds for Enes Kanter, 16 points (and five 3s) for Doug McDermott off the bench.
All of this was wonderful. All of this has been wonderful. All of it contributed to the 107-85 thumping the Knicks laid on the Clippers, and the 9-7 record the Knicks wake up with this morning, and the continuing conversation the team keeps contributing to water coolers and saloons all about town.
None of this has been nearly as helpful as the biggest boost the Knicks have gotten in the early portion of this season: a heavy dose of home games, affording so many opportunities to get to know each other, and learn to play together, before extremely warm and supportive Garden gatherings.
Chicken-or-egg question: Are the crowds warm and supportive because the Knicks have played well, or have the Knicks played well because the crowds have been warm and supportive?
“The crowd brought it tonight,” said McDermott, whose arm-waving, fist-pumping punctuations to his deep jumpers are like catnip for the crowds. “We followed their energy all night.”
It is a similar blueprint, night after night: struggle early, spot the other guy a lead, surge back as the momentum builds, take a lead, give it back, seize control at some point in the second half. They are 8-3 at home now. You can do the math: you know what that makes the road record, there’s a batch of road games to come, all the good that’s been built up can be washed away in a hurry in strange ZIP codes.
All fair. All true.
This is also true: the Knicks have taken advantage of the schedule they were given. They’ve learned to love the Garden, something that sounds like it should be more natural than it’s actually been in past years, when the regulars have often grown testy waiting for the bad stuff to come.
Not this year. The crowds are warm. They are supportive. They come without the artificially elevated expectations of years past, and simply assist in the cause.
“A lot of basketball is confidence,” coach Jeff Hornacek said before Monday’s game. “They’re not just winning games but feeling good about themselves, and so when they come to practice they have more spring in their step. Having the crowd behind us helps a lot. It’s lucky for us the schedule worked out that way.”
Sure it is, and good for Hornacek for recognizing it, not apologizing for it. By November’s end, the month will include 11 home games to just four road games. They’ll eventually have to answer for that; January, for instance, they’ll play just four home games all month. The piper has to be paid, always.
But by then? Who knows what this team might be by then. Confidence is a funny thing. And if there’s one thing we know about these Knicks, it’s that they are a wholly confident team at the Garden right now.
That may surprise you if you remember the times Mike D’Antoni and Derek Fisher would mutter about the exacting customers and their cutting observations — “It can be a very … tough … room,” D’Antoni said in 2010 — but it doesn’t at all surprise Doc Rivers, the Clippers coach, who remembers how much of a co-star the Garden was in the Knicks’ rise to prominence almost a quarter century ago.
“I don’t think there’s another arena alive that has the history that Madison Square Garden has,” Rivers said before watching his team lose a ninth straight game. “Not just basketball history. it has sports history. It’s a special place.”
What’s interesting is the nature of these Garden assemblies that’ve come to nourish this team, because they haven’t exactly turned Knicks tickets into “Hamilton” yet, or Springsteen on Broadway. There were 18,848 people inside the Garden Monday, about a thousand under capacity. Six of the 11 games have failed to reach the magic number of 19,812.
The Garden loves and lauds sellouts. Of course, those full houses aren’t always helpful; ask Anthony how much he enjoyed the collective grumbling of 19,812 when things careened south for him. Still, these crowds, even the smaller ones, have been warm, and supportive, and they’ve given these Knicks an easy entrée to this season.
The frequent-flyer miles are still to come, and that may well turn things upside down. For now? The Raptors are in town Wednesday. They toyed with the Knicks last week. It seems unlikely their task will be quite as simple this time, and any good real-estate agent can tell you why: Location, location, location.
