THERE was no reason to keep anything inside any longer, no need for inhibition, so the people inside the Meadowlands Arena let their voices spill out of the arena, into the night, maybe all the way across the river. Maybe loud enough for Madison Square Garden to have a listen to how its kid brother in the Jersey swamps was doing.
How was little brother doing?
Two nights, two teams, two clinching victories, two teams heading off to the Finals, that’s how. On Friday, the Devils staved off an epic playoff collapse, leap-frogged into the Stanley Cup Finals. And now the Nets had finally rid themselves of the Pistons – and survived a scare late in the game when Jason Kidd came down all wrong on his ankle – to secure themselves a second straight spot in the NBA Finals by winning their 10th straight playoff game.
The final score was 102-82, but the Garden probably didn’t need the specifics. Over on 33rd Street, it was another empty playoff night in another vacant playoff spring. You don’t think the Garden heard what was happening eight miles away? Fuhgeddaboutit.
This morning, the Garden must feel like Greg Brady, that time Bobby beat him in the pull-up contest. Or Mike Maddux. Or, maybe, the all-time stepped-on, put-upon, overlooked big brother, Fredo Corleone.
MSG: “I was your older brother and I was stepped over.”
Meadowlands: “That’s the way Pop wanted it.”
MSG: “It ain’t the way I WANTED IT!”
Yes, of all the miseries that lately have befallen the world’s self-appointed most famous arena, this has to qualify as the all-time weekend from hell. And so the fans of New York City – starting with fans No. 1 and 1A, both named Dolan – are going to have to swallow hard and close their eyes and maybe take a shovelful of sugar to make this most bitter medicine go down.
Nine short years after the Rangers and Knicks kept the Garden’s lights on all the way to the end of June in an unforgettable tag team of championship aspiration, the poor cousins across the Hudson are perfecting the same trick, determined to take that old parlay one step forward: two titles, one address, and one future have-to-see-it-to-believe-it sign that would surely soon grace the highways and byways connecting the outside world to the Meadowlands:
“Welcome to East Rutherford, N.J. Titletown, USA.”
“I think what it tells you is that New Jersey’s got a heck of a lot to cheer for because they have two awfully good teams,” Byron Scott said yesterday morning, a few hours before his Nets joined their corporate brethren in the Finals. “I think that’s a big feather in the cap of the fans around here.”
Now, much the same way Patrick Ewing and Mark Messier weren’t exactly bridge partners in that fabled spring band summer of ’94, the Nets and Devils haven’t shared much quality time together at YankeeNet company picnics. Not one Net admitted to having seen a Devils game in person this year, even though Kidd is seen exhorting the Devils during one of those endless break-in-the-action video screams at the hockey games.
“I watch ’em on TV, though,” said Richard Jefferson, a native of Arizona, which is likely never be confused with Saskatchewan as a hockey hotbed. “For a long time, the Devils were the only thing Jersey could hang its hat on, before Jason Kidd came here, before the rest of us arrived. It’s great to see them keep it up.”
Great, depending on where you sit, of course. From Teaneck to Totowa, Mahwah to Morristown, this truly is a marvelous coup, especially after years of hearing thousands of lame Jersey jokes. In the office of Lou Lamoriello, the Machiavelli of the Meadowlands, who may be entering his last great victory lap as a swamp boss, these are also heady days.
Of course, inside the Garden, there aren’t a lot of laughs these days, though whenever you hear one, it echoes for about six hours inside the empty arena. It’s time to ready the Canyon of Heroes for a busy couple of weeks. Not the one on Lower Broadway. The one on Paterson Plank Road.
