Jeff Van Gundy got a little angry when he sensed his club didn’t have the same edge during yesterday’s practice at Purchase.
Van Gundy indicated the Knicks wasted their extra day of practice and all the players confirmed their coach was ticked off they weren’t working nearly hard enough to prepare for tonight’s Game 2 against the Raptors at the Garden.
“What we did, we got nothing done,” Van Gundy said. “We didn’t do what we set out to do.”
Perhaps blame it on the television-induced two days off between games that figured to have an adverse effect on the winner of Game 1.
“I don’t know if you could say it was the same [intensity] as it was before Game 1 but the good thing is today is Tuesday and the game is Wednesday,” said Allan Houston.
“I do think we realize how important the next game is after you win a game in the playoffs,” Houston said. “This game is even bigger. It will be up to each individual to say, “am I really ready and really as hungry as in Game 1 to play this game tomorrow?’ That’s where we have to all get to.”
The Knicks say they understand the wire-to-wire victory in Game 1 at the Garden is just a small start to disposing of the sixth-seeded Raptors. A Knick loss tonight changes everything, forcing them to head to Canada with the best-of-five series tied at 1. There, the Raptors would have a chance to close out the series at the first-year Air Canada Centre, where the Knicks have never come close to winning in two tries.
“We don’t want to give them the homecourt advantage,” Game 1 defensive hero Latrell Sprewell said. “We don’t want to have to go to Toronto and have to win two games. These guys are tough. We want to win [today] and finish it out on their floor. We don’t want to come back here and play [Game 5].”
Indeed, the thought of heading to Canada dead even is scary. “We’ve played terrible there,” Sprewell said of the 91-70 and 86-71 losses. “I don’t think one guy has played up to their abilities there. I don’t want to go there for two games. I just want to win [today] and win the third game. That’s why it’s almost as big as Game 1. That’s how I look at it. I hope my teammates feel the same.”
During last season’s run to the Finals, the Knicks won Game 1 in each of the first three rounds. But twice they dropped Game 2. Each of those series began on the road.
“We can’t sit here and think we played a great game,” Houston said. “We didn’t play a great game. We played well enough to win.”
The Knicks played a great first quarter Sunday – maybe the most supercharged period of the season – but still gave their fan base sweaty palms at the end despite Vince Carter’s 3-for-20 airball-infested playoff debut.
After bursting to a 27-8 lead after 11 minutes against the stage-frightened playoff virgins in Game 1, the Knicks lost that playoff edge and needed Larry Johnson’s tiebreaking 3-pointer from the right wing with 42.4 seconds left to pull away and win 92-88.
“They’re going to play better and we’ve got to do better also to win,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t think a whole lot of our players played well in Game 1. We’ll have to be a whole lot better in Game 2.”
Indeed, only Sprewell, who hounded Carter and pumped in 21 points of his own, LJ, and Chris Childs could claim to have excellent games.
Houston came out in a frenzy at the start, draining 11 first-quarter points but then faded as has been his recent habit and watched Tracy McGrady outplay him. Patrick Ewing was mostly off, as the Garden crowd had every right to groan when he touched the ball in the last two minutes.
Off the bench, Marcus Camby, now a free man, appeared more concerned with cursing out ex-plaintiff Butch Carter than crashing the offensive glass. He was no factor.
“I definitely expect them to come out with more intensity knowing they’re in a hole,” Camby said. “I know they came in here thinking they’d get a split.”
