The Knicks Fix

NOTE: The game ended too late for any of our print editions, so here's the postgame story. Also, for anyone who was looking, due to some technical difficulties, I couldn't post a pregame blog.
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By Alan Hahn

PORTLAND, Ore. – There are defeats that come late in a lost season that can be labeled as the final nail in the coffin for a team. Last night’s 94-88 loss in overtime to the Trail Blazers here at the Rose Garden might have been the first nail for the Knicks.

Before a national ESPN audience and in a game that took three hours to finish, Jamal Crawford had what he called “the worst game I had in my life,” which included a 6 for 27 brickfest from the floor in 50:44. Crawford, who had 13 points, missed his final 12 shots of the game, including a potential game-tying three-pointer with 16.3 seconds left in overtime. Crawford also missed a potential game-winning shot just before the final buzzer of regulation, when the score was tied at 81.

“My team depends on me, if I don’t come through it’s on me,” Crawford said. “I take responsibility for this. I played awful.”

The Knicks (14-32), who played without Eddy Curry and Quentin Richardson, who were both out with the flu, dropped to 0-4 on this five-game West Coast trip, which ends Saturday night in Crawford’s hometown, Seattle, against the Sonics. They are a season-high 18 games under .500 and slipped to six games behind the Nets and Atlanta Hawks for the final playoff spots in the East.

In his return here to Portland, Zach Randolph heard the boos from the Rose Garden crowd but almost showed up too late to hear them. Randolph, who was allowed by the Knicks to stay at his home in the nearby suburbs, showed up barely an hour before tipoff. He blamed traffic.

Randolph, who said he was surprised by the negative reaction from the Portland crowd, had an otherwise strong game with 25 points and 13 rebounds in 47:44. He was, however, involved in two critical shot-clock violations in the fourth quarter when the Knicks were holding onto a 79-72 lead. The first came with 4:05 left and Randolph had the ball in the corner and didn’t have a chance to shoot before the buzzer. On the Knicks’ next possession, he was dribbling the ball on the post when the buzzer sounded with 3:24 left.

Isiah Thomas was quick to point out that the Knicks had trouble with the shot clock because the ones that are placed above the baskets were not working, so officials at the Garden had temporary clocks placed on the corner of the court.

“I thought with the shot clock being in the postion it was in, a couple of times I don’t think we recognized where the clock was and their instincts were looking up trying to find where the shot clock was and trying to find out how much time was left,” Thomas said. “Sometimes during the game they were calling out how much time was left on the clock. Those violations, a couple of times guys just couldn’t find the shot clock and where it was.”

The Blazers didn’t have the same problem, however. After the second violation, Portland scored on a pair of pull-up jumpers by Steve Blake, who made it a 79-76 deficit with 2:36 left. The Knicks managed just two more points – a score by Randolph with 1:59 left that made it 81-76 – the rest of regulation. Randolph missed a three with 52.9 second left and Crawford missed twice from long range in the final 18.9 seconds.

“I brought us down tonight,” Crawford said.

Perhaps the minutes are taking a toll. It was his seventh straight game with 44 minutes or more. The Knicks have played five games in eight days.

“I don’t want to make excuses; I play a lot of minutes, but no excuses,” said Crawford, whose 41.3 minutes per game is second in the NBA behind only Allen Iverson’s 41.8 with Denver. “I played awful . . . I didn’t pick the right time to have the worst game of my career, on national TV.”

His Seattle buddy, newly-minted all-star Brandon Roy picked a pretty good time to have his best game, which was a first career triple double of 20 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. Roy tipped home his own miss with 28 seconds left in overtime to give the Blazers a 90-87 lead.

David Lee, who started in place of Curry, had this third straight double-double, with 14 points and 15 rebounds. Renaldo Balkman, back from his one-game suspension for elbowing Lakers forward Sasha Vujacic in last Tuesday’s loss in Los Angeles, had 11 points and 10 rebounds off the bench. The Knicks outrebounded Portland 55-41.

Notes & Quotes:.For a seventh straight year, the Knicks will not be represented in the all-star game. In fact, this season, the Knicks won’t be anywhere within All-Star weekend, where last season Lee was MVP of the Rookie Challenge game and Robinson competed in the Slam Dunk contest. It’s the longest all-star drought in franchise history. Four and a half of those seven years were overseen by Thomas. “I think we have some [players] that eventually will be [all-stars],” Thomas said, “but they're not that now.” . . . Balkman disputed the suspension for his elbow on Vujacic.. “I didn’t think I hit him that hard,” Balkman said and added that he felt Vujacic, who scored a career-high 20 points in the game, embellished the play. “He gets hit, all of a sudden he’s hurt and then he goes out there and gets his career high?” Balkman said. “I mean, that can tell you a lot right there.” . . . Channing Frye has escaped the Madison Square Madness, but he still gets asked quite a bit about what is going on with the Knicks franchise. “Everybody always asks me what’s going on, like I’m still there,” he said. “I think everybody wants to know what’s going on. They see all that talent out there and they just want to know what is not making them mesh or come together. But I think they’re getting it together now.” Greg Oden, the first overall pick in the draft, is enjoying his “redshirt” rookie season while recovering from microfracture surgery. A noticeably chiseled Oden has gained 40 pounds since draft day and is weighing in at 293.