Four Keys to Winning Game 2

I was 17 when the Knicks marched heroic but hobbled into the ’99 Finals, following a bone-smashing triumph over the Corn Field Fuckfaces, our brave Achilles felled yet spirits strangely high off the fumes of a four-point mega-miracle that frankly feels in hindsight like the single-most passive-aggressive gift god ever bestowed upon a team and its fans. 

A very specific brand of 17, mind you: sullen, hopelessly in love, wondering when that next nug of shitty brick weed might magically appear in my nightstand drawer. I was also weirdly delusional about soooooo many future prospects—fame, a pure libertine existence, the amorous epiphany I was sure she’d have, how the Knicks were surely poised for another decade of contention. 

Even Jim the Emo-Optimist John Hughes Caricature knew the Spurs were gonna turn our dudes into helpless flesh pretzels. I had better odds of successfully proposing to Eliza Dushku in an AOL chatroom than the Knicks did of taking two games in that series. 

[Editor’s note: Dushku—aka Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer—worked as the babysitter for a Knickerblogger reader/commenter from Boston. This shit runs deep, y’all]

This ain’t that. Not by a logo three. No sirree. 

What a win.

What a fucking statement.

What a wondrous parallel universe. 

Seventy percent of teams that went up 1-0 wound up winning this thing.

Go ahead. Savor it. Roll it around the ol’ teeth cave for a sec. 

Still three mountains left to scale. But the way these boys are climbin’… 

The next attempted ascent begins in a little over four hours. So what wiles should the Knicks employ to ensure another summit?

These four are at the top of my list:

1. WEATHER THE FURY

The baby monsters are gonna be RIPSHIT. Mitch Johnson probably hauled their asses back into The Frost at 4 a.m., strapped ‘em into Ludovico Technique chairs a la A Clockwork Orange (they probably made Wemby’s giant bony ass sit on the floor), and force-fed the Spurs ephebes a supercut of all their overzealous dipshittery from Game 1. 

Far be it from your humble washed blogger to suggest we couldn’t withstand a 24-to-9-ish blitz in the opening minutes. But I don’t wanna fuckin’ find out. Despite playing like total dingbats for the back end of the first quarter, the Knicks’ opening salvo was low-key massive. They’ll need an even stronger one to stop these anime demons from putting ‘em in a hopeless hole. 

We escape the first down 10 or fewer, they’ll live to regret it—and maybe not for long. 

2. LET KAT COOK

One of the prime talking points heading into game 1 was Wemby ghosting Hart. That the Spurs didn’t really crank that lever till the second half was somewhat mystifying—though not nearly so much as the way in which the Shaolin Wraith chose to guard KAT (sheer pube-sniffing proximity). 

Karl made him PAY, using that gargantuan first step to put Wemby on his hip, barrelling toward the tin like a rutting elephant bull, and angling himself in such a way that 1.3 Aliens wouldn’t have the length to contest. It was genuinely impressive shit. 

*If* homeboy starts out guardingKAT again, expect him to back off just enough to take away any decisive drive—but not so much as to bequeath KAT an easy, standstill three. The upshot? This could provide the requisite space for Control Tower KAT, that alluring alter-ego we’ve all come to laud. OG flashing with a helpless Champagnie in pursuit, Mikail on a slippery curl, Jalen alone in the corner off a Hart backscreen. Possibilities abound. 

But if the Spurs go ghost? That likely means one of Vessell or Champagnie on KAT to start. And if THAT’s the case. We’re talkin’ a trough full of Meow Mix for your boy. 

The great thing about our newly-mature and poised center is that he’s playing a downright cerebral style of ball. He’s (cliche alert!) tAKiNg wHAt tHE dEFeNsE gIVes hIM—and responding accordingly. The tools to defang any possible coverage the Spurs might chuck at him were always at KAT’s disposal; he finally, circa the third game against the Hawks, figured out how to best deploy them. 

Like Aaron Gordon letting go of the idea that his value is predicated on being someone’s first option, he’s transformed into an apex—nay superstar—role player. 

It’s a winning package, and one that no one expected to arrive here and now. 

3. NEUTRALIZE THE NUNS 

We get it. Sports nuns are fun. Sister Jean, Dyan Cannon, things of that nature. Lookatem’ with their replica jerseys and boxes of popcorn and smiley camera waves! How an entire battalion of conventuals inspired by a saint born into dismal poverty and whose life(‘s work) was dedicated to aiding those who endured the same can somehow afford pretty decent tix to SE-VER-AL NBA Playoff games is a question I’ll leave to Scott Pelley’s journalism jeremiads.

It’s a cute story. 

And it ends today. 

Like the superhuman athletes they thumb their rosaries to galvanize, these holy hoops-lovers can be prone to the occasional stinker. Maybe the butter-flavored palm oil made the beads too slippery. But mark this agnostic’s words: They’ll be bringing it tonight. 

It’s imperative that we meet that energy. Dust off the old Milton Bradley Ouija board and conjure the ghost of every dead Knick. Sacrifice a goat in your living room. Find some way—any way—to get Whoopie Goldberg in that arena, decked in full Mary Clarence regalia. Whatever it takes. No matter the risk. Damn the fire and thunderbolts.

Let’s send ‘em to bed early. 

4. DESTROY THE ALAMO (AGAIN)

When I was five or six, not long before the Knicks became my permanent dark obsession, I was *really* into Davy Crockett. Coonskin cap, fake flintlock rifle, the whole nine. I probably watched the Alamo scene in the eponymous Fess Parker joint 600 times. My parents were—and remain—fundamentally good and decent people. I have no idea what the fuck they were thinking letting their impressionable son mainline THAT bullshit. 

By ’99, I knew better—about the atrocities Crockett committed, the evil cause he came to support, the ragtag band of antebellum racists that got turned into Swiss cheese by an abolitionist Mexican general. 

I remain intractably convinced that the shitty little mud church where Crockett and his comrades made their futile final stand is the ultimate source of the Spurs’ once-and-future power. 

Donald Trump is a galactic nebula of shit. I hope he walks straight into an open elevator shaft at MSG. There’s no hell hot or endless enough for his marque of evil. 

This is his last chance at redemption.

Clear the area, of course. No need for casualties. Just tell Trump Letitia James is taking a tour inside. 

All of this will undoubtedly upset the nuns. That’s fine. We’ll send them a box of Rodman shirseys for their troubles. 

“Remember the Alamo!”? Fuck THAT shit. 

“Remember the Knicks in Fo, Fo, Fo!”?

Now that’s got a (very large) ring to it.