Knick Knack

So the Knicks did it again on Wednesday night, winning at the buzzer on David Lee's tip-in of Jamal Crawford's inbounds pass in a rather improbable double-overtime ending. It's that time of year in which the Knicks have historically had a lot of success winning games in this fashion.

For most, it brought back memories of one particular game, though for our purposes, we'll reference three such contests.

The first is the obvious one, the Knicks victory over the Bulls on January 15, 1990, when Trent Tucker took an inbounds pass with 0.1 seconds remaining and flipped in a 3-pointer at the buzzer for the win. The laws of mathematics, as well as common sense dictate this kind of play to be an impossibility, but the NBA was not prepared for this kind of dispute in it's first season using tenths-of-a-second to measure the final minute. The basket led to the creation of what's known as the "Tucker Rule" which states that the only way that you can score in such circumstances is off a tip-in, as the Knicks executed perfectly.

A lot was made in the media of how Michael Jordan, who played in that game (and shot a paltry 9-24) was at Madison Square Garden for this most recent one. So was Patrick Ewing, who scored 33 points in that victory, one that upped the Knicks to 26-10, 17-1 at home.

The play for Tucker was actually designed as an alley-oop for Ewing that went awry (Jordan stayed back, preventing the lob pass and forcing Mark Jackson to pass to Tucker instead). It's just as well because Ewing probably would have missed it.

While I will be happy to talk about what a great player Ewing was, making buzzer-beaters was not his forte. In fact, in his entire Knicks career, he only made one walk-off basket.

It so happens that we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of it, and oh by the way, Michael Jordan was in the house for that one too. I'm talking about December 25, 1986 (2 months to the day of Bill Buckner's error) when the Knicks and Bulls met on Christmas Day.

The Bulls took an 85-84 lead on a 3-point play by Dave Corzine with 6 seconds remaining. The Knicks response was to get the ball to Tucker, but on this occasion he happened to miss a long jump shot after being challenged by Corzine. The rebound tipped off Jordan's hands and came right to Ewing, whose short shot in the lane went through the nets as the horn sounded.

Jordan told the media afterwards: ''It was a great shot but a desperation shot. Tomorrow he will be in church and say his prayers of thanks.''

The Knicks have had their share of Christmastime miracle wins (one against the Celtics comes to mind) but the one most similar to Wednesday came during the championship season of 1969-70. That year, the Knicks couldn't miss- literally. They started 23-1, as my dad likes to tell me, and had improbable victories, such as the one on December 25, 1969, against the Pistons.

Briefly recounted in Dennis D'Agostino's Garden Glory, the story goes that the Knicks found themselves down one after a Walt Bellamy layup with one second remaining. New York called time and came up with a response- an inbounds pass from Walt Frazier to Willis Reed, who caught the ball in mid-leap and laid it in at the buzzer. As Reed noted in the book about the play "...I don't think we ever ran it again. Or if it did, it never worked again."

At least not until Wednesday night.

True Metkerbocker fans know...Since the 2004-05 season, the Knicks have had six different players make a game-winning buzzer-beating shot: Lee, Stephon Marbury, Nate Robinson, Michael Sweetney, Tim Thomas, and Jamal Crawford.

I should point out that I have no plans to start a site titled "Knicks Walk-Offs and Other Minutiae" anytime soon, as much fun as something like that would be.

Isiah It Ain't So

It feels the slightest bit appropos, on a night in which there is Knickerbocker jubilation (James Dolan is said to be dancing in the streets) thanks to a walk-off buzzer beating finger roll by Stephon Marbury over Jazz center Mehmut Okur (translation of which is "My Ogre"), that we find some sort of Mets tie in. Wouldn'tcha know, I found one?

I suppose it would make sense to use this space to find a Metsian equivalent to this Knicks victory, but I choose not to write about the 26 instances in which the Flushing 9 went from a 1-run deficit to a 1-run win on one swing of the bat, or the subset of 16 occurrences in which they accomplished that down to the final out (closest thing to a clock winding down we've got). One of the reasons for that is because I've already penned essays on nearly all of them already.

It would also seem logical for me to use this space at some point for one of my rant-and-rave sessions about the Knicks president/general manager/coach/waterboy/excuse-maker, but this seems to be not the right time for that, coming off such dramatics. Instead, the humanist in me (inspired by Diane Chambers) has found the good in Isiah. Or at least an Isiah.

Based on a search of Baseball-Reference.com, only one player in major league history has spelled either his first or middle name "Isiah" (others have had a similar pronunciation, but different spelling, which comes into play later in our story). That would be Ron Isiah Calloway who made the big leagues with the Expos in 2003 as an outfielder and was reasonably decent, at least for a few months.

Calloway's best moment that season (and for all intents, his career) came on June 5, 2003, where the Angels and Expos were tussling in an interleague clash in Puerto Rico. With Vladimir Guerrero out of the lineup, Calloway started in his place. The Expos had a 4-1 lead with ace Javier Vazquez on the hill, thanks to Calloway's three-run home run off John Lackey, but couldn't hold it through the end of regulation.

The Angels rallied from a 5-2 deficit with two runs in the 8th, then tied things with two outs in the top of the 9th in odd fashion. Closer Rocky Biddle struck out Jeff Da Vanon but the pitch got away from Michael Barrett, allowing Chone Figgins to race home with the tying run.

The result was a game that dragged on for a total of more than 5 hours. Neither team scored until the 14th when the Angels loaded the bases, thanks in part to back-to-back errors. Troy Glaus then singled in two runs, giving Anaheim a 7-5 lead into the last of the 14th.

Our good friend Endy Chavez started the rally for the home team, with one out in the bottom of the frame, with a single. Orlando Cabrera and Jose Vidro followed with hits, with Vidro's scoring Chevez, to cut the deficit to 7-6. Though Brad Wilkerson struck out, Vidro stole second. Wilfredo Cordero then walked to load the bases and stretch the game out to a conclusion.

The interesting thing was the matchup: Calloway against the Angels pitcher, Mickey Callaway (same pronunciation, different spelling). Newspaper accounts describe Calloway's subsequent two-run walk-off single as "stroked" to left center, but I prefer the term "driven" since it fits the golfing nature of the last name. Regardless, it was a nice moment for a guy who survived four years of playing Class-A baseball to make the minor leagues.

Mets general manager Omar Minaya, then with the Expos, must have taken notice of such moments from Calloway, because he claimed Calloway off waivers and got him to spring training in 2005. Alas, Calloway couldn't make the big league roster and spent the year in Norfolk, thus earning him status under the category "NeverMets." After a year with Norfolk in which he hit .263 with 10 home runs, Calloway departed as a minor league free agent and signed on with Pawtucket, for whom he played in 2006.

For those who need reminding, a NeverMet is someone who is indirectly part of the team (either through spring training invite, temporarily on roster via trade, claim or signing, or other such purpose) who never actually plays for the squad in a meaningful game.

It's also the term I wish I could use to describe the relationship between James Dolan and the other Isiah, but unfortunately, that's not the case. Sorry, couldn't resist the cheap shot even on a happy night.

True Metsiahs know...Frank Thomas (no relation to the Knicks president/general manager/coach/excuse-maker) had three walk-off hits for the Mets, including one of those 26 "One run down to one run ahead" winners. Here's the link to my write-up

http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/02/doubting-thomas.html

The long and short of it

Well, Saturday was an eventful day at Madison Square Garden as both the Knicks and Rangers pulled out improbable walk-off wins.

For those who missed it, the floundering Knicks had their nicest moment of the year, as 5-foot-7 munchinesque rookie Nate Robinson hit a rainbow 3-pointer from the corner at the overtime buzzer, giving the hometown team a victory over the Philadelphia 76ers.

They changed over the Madison Square Garden floor to ice and at 8pm the Rangers and Washington Capitals faced off at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers failed to hold a 2-0 lead and were lucky just to get the game to a shootout after Jaromir Jagr got called for an illegal stick in overtime. The goaltenders put on a show big-time in this edition of bonus pucks and it appeared that the Capitals were going to win after scoring in the 14th round. But defenseman Jason Strudwick tied it for the Rangers, and then after rookie goalie Henrik Lundqvist stopped Washington's 15th shooter, 6-foot-6 Rangers defenseman Marek Malik capped the night with a Gretzkyesque tally, shooting the puck after pulling it back through his legs, then did a Statue of Liberty pose to celebrate.

I'd write more, but after seeing the ridiculousness of these game-winners a few times on the highlights, I'm laughing so hard that I can't think of a good approach.

Anyone out there know the last time the Knicks and Rangers won in walk-off fashion on the same day?

True Metketball and Metkey fans know...The shortest Met in team history was 5-foot-5 outfielder Ricky Otero. The tallest was 6-foot-10 pitcher Eric Hillman. The shortest Mets to record a walk-off hit might be a good subject if I decide to follow this up in the next day or two, so we'll keep you in suspense for now...The tallest, I've already written about, 6-foot-7 first baseman Tony Clark.

Houston, We Have a Walk-Off

The NBA season opened Tuesday, so you had to figure at some point this week that I was going to chime in with a basketball walk-off story.

The problem I had in trying to come up with one is that my team, the Knicks, hasn't had a lot of significant walk-off wins in the time that I've been following them. Yes, there was a Trent Tucker 3-pointer off an inbounds pass with 0.1 seconds remaining that never should have counted in the first place, and I recall Patrick Ewing hitting a buzzer-beater to beat the Bulls sometime about two decades ago. But unless you count some shots of recent vintage by those imposters presently wearing the Knicks jerseys (the Jamal Crawford's of the world), I can't think of too many others.

So I'm going to expand the definition of a "walk-off shot" slightly to relate the story of one of my favorite Knicks games, and it's particularly timely given the recent retirement of a well-known Knick.

One of the knocks on the NBA is that people say you only need to watch the fourth quarter of a game and that the rest can be glossed over. In my case, for Game 5 of the 1999 Eastern Conference quarterfinals on May 16, between the Knicks and Miami Heat, I only needed to watch 58.5 seconds because that was all I had a chance to see.

That weekend, I accepted a Trenton Times assignment to cover my alma mater (The College of New Jersey) in the NCAA Division III Women's Lacrosse championships in Baltimore. Overnight trips were rare, but I got one as part of this gig, since the semifinals were early Saturday and this figured to be a lock to be a two-night stay, since my alma mater is a women's lacrosse dynasty (of the 100+ game winning streak kind). Friday night I watched the Knicks gag away a fourth-quarter lead, frittering away a chance to win the series. That meant, almost certainly, that I'd miss Game 5, since I'd likely be covering TCNJ in the championship.

Then, something quite odd happened on Saturday. TCNJ, which never lost before the championship game, fell to Amherst in the semifinals. That meant a change of plans. I was now assigned to cover a college softball game (TCNJ vs Montclair State) in Glassboro, NJ.
I don't usually like to see the alma mater get drubbed, but once Montclair put a bunch on the scoreboard early, a blowout was a perfectly acceptable result (objectively speaking as a journalist). It meant I would get back to the newspaper with the chance to see the end of the game.

The second half was just starting as I got in the car and it was a low-scoring struggle. I wasn't quite as attached to this Knicks team as I was in 1993 and 1994 when I had half a season ticket and attended all the home playoff games, but Game 5 against the hated Heat was a big, big deal.

There was talk head coach Jeff Van Gundy would be fired if the Knicks lost, and that didn't sit well with me. Van Gundy, like me, was a Division III guy (Nazareth) who related very well to the everyday fan because he seemed like an everyday kind of guy (he drove an old car, ate McDonalds and watched nightime soaps like Melrose Place). Of all the coaches on all the teams I've followed, Van Gundy is my favorite.

The game turned into a race against the clock, both for the Knicks and myself. I never go more than a hair above the speed limit when I'm on the highway, but on this day, I allowed myself two hairs, in an effort to get back just a little bit quicker. Gus Johnson had radio play-by-play duties that day and, no offense to Gus, it wasn't a satisfying listen. The Rowan campus is about an hour and 15 minutes from the Trenton Times offices. I'd estimate I made the drive in about an hour and 12 (so much for speeding).I got upstairs to the sports department after Terry Porter had drained two clutch free throws to give the Heat a 77-74 lead. Fortunately from a purely selfish perspective, only one other person was in the office, so I could watch (and even pump my fist slightly) to my heart's content. I had made it in time. And as it turned out, so would the Knicks.

Out of a timeout, the Knicks got a little lucky. Latrell Sprewell missed on a driving eight footer, partly altered by Alonzo Mourning, who jumped out to challenge. That left Patrick Ewing alone for the rebound and Mourning, out of position, hammered Ewing, his mentor, before he could get a shot off. It was Mourning's fifth foul and Ewing made both free throws to make it a one-point deficit with just under 40 ticks left.On Miami's next possession, Porter brought the ball upcourt, and found Tim Hardaway, who shook free around a pick to get by Knicks point guard Charlie Ward. Latrell Sprewell raced over, and as Hardaway drove, Sprewell knocked the ball away. Off a scramble, the Knicks and Larry Johnson had the ball with 25 seconds left. The Knicks called timeout to draw up a play.

The Knicks finished barely above .500 at 27-23 during the labor-dispute shortened regular season and were the No. 8 seed. On the penultimate play of the game, they looked like such a team. Sprewell went around a Ewing screen on the right wing, but the play broke down right there. Sprewell and Ewing (playing on a bad achilles) exchanged passes as if the ball was a hot potato. Sprewell juggled the ball along the sideline, and it went out of bounds, but the officials signaled the ball went off Porter, and belonged to the Knicks (slow-motion replay on my part, totally inconclusive) with 4.5 seconds left.

Over the previous 13 or so seasons, the Knicks had a play they would run in such a situation. My name for it was "Give the ball to Patrick Ewing and stand around and watch." Most of the time that didn't work out too well. In the final seconds of games Ewing made a few big shots, but he missed many more.

Allan Houston's wife was eight months pregnant at the time, so it's somewhat understandable that his mind was not fully in Miami. Houston had a lousy season sharing the basketball with Sprewell and a lousy Game 5 for the first 47:55.5. No one would have blamed him if he had stood 25 feet from the hoop and watched Ewing miss.

But Houston didn't. Instead he came to the top of the circle and took the inbounds pass from Ward. Guarded by Dan Majerle, Houston sliced past both him and Tim Hardaway. Sprewell sealed off Terry Porter in the lane and the 6-foot-10 Mourning got caught in that logjam too. Ewing, a few feet to Houston's left, called for the basketball, but by that time it was too late. Houston committed to make his move.

Houston's shot was a terrible one, par for the course for what was a 4-for-12 afternon to that point. He elevated at the right hand edge of the lane, leaned forward and floated the ball off his fingertips. The only good thing was that he had a clear look at the hoop, even though Majerle tried to swat at the back of his head.

Statisticians will tell you that shooting percentages in the final few seconds of basketball games are far, far lower than at any other point. That's because, more often than not, you take ridiculous shots like this one. They're not supposed to go in. And they don't.

Except that this one did. It hit the inside of the front rim, and instead of caroming straight off, had enough backspin to carry off the backboard (just above the square above the hoop) and through the net with 0.8 seconds remaining. The Heat got one last chance, but couldn't score. Go figure, the Knicks had won.

The championship dreams of the Knicks flickered through a four-game sweep of the Hawks and a stunning six-game upset of the Pacers before fanning out for good in the finals, as New York was totally overmatched against the David Robinson/Tim Duncan-led Spurs. They did not go quietly into the night though, losing the decisve Game 5 at home despite a terrific effort.

The Knicks of the 90s were battlers who never gave an inch of space on defense and fought and scrapped, and played hard as a team for the full 48 minutes. That has since devolved over the last five years into the group we've seen the last few seasons, one that has often been inept and lazy defensively. I'm trying to convince myself that this season could be different because of the hiring of Larry Brown as head coach, but I'm not sure the team will ever be successful with the ownership and management that is currently running the club.

Houston retired a few weeks ago, his knees having given out. We'll miss him and the way basketball used to be at The Mecca and long for the memories we now view on videotape.

True Metkerbockers know...Two playoff wins by the 1999 Knicks coincided with the dates of Mets walk-off wins. On May 23, the Knicks beat the Hawks in Game 3 of their second-round meeting, and John Olerud finished a five-run ninth-inning rally with a two-run single to beat Curt Schilling and the Phillies, 5-4. On June 9, while the Knicks won a thriller in Indiana in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Rey Ordonez got the winning hit in a 4-3, 14-inning triumph over the Blue Jays.

I Was A Walk-Off Baby (another tale of self-indulgence)

I'm going to interrupt my Mets-related chatter to tell a brief story and perhaps it explains my interest in all things walk-off and buzzer beater. Basketball is a hot topic in New York City with the Knicks hiring Larry Brown as their head coach earlier this week, so we'll tell a hoops-related tale for this weekends entry.

The date was January 30, 1975 and the Knicks were on the road, taking on the Atlanta Hawks. My mom and dad were big basketball fans during the glory days of New York's basketball franchise. My dad was at Madison Square Garden when Willis Reed limped on to the court for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals and not long after that he met my mom. They got married on November 8, 1970, better known as the day that a New Orleans Saints kicker named Tom Dempsey set an NFL record by kicking a 63-yard field goal to beat the Detroit Lions. My dad's job on Wall Street enabled him easy access to Knicks tickets and I've been told the story on more than one occasion of how my mom had to practically carry him out of the Garden the day the Knicks came back from 18 down in the final minutes to beat Lew Alcindor and the Bucks in 1973.

The 1974-75 Knicks season was kind of the equivalent of 1991 for the New York Mets, the season that began optimistically but instead found the team headed on a long road to mediocrity. The 1973-74 squad was an aging group that lost in the Eastern Conference Finals, basically the last hurrah for the likes of Reed, Dave Debusschere and company. A six-game win streak put them at 17-8 after 25 games, but reality set in, as it became clear that big men Phil Jackson and John Gianelli could not match the production of their predecessors. On January 30, when they were scheduled to conclude a three-game, three-night stretch, the record slipped to 25-23.

It makes sense that my parents were at home following the game that night. After all, my mom was nine months pregnant so it's not like they were going to be out and about..

What they heard in listening to WNEW-AM was that the Knicks got out to a comfortable 18-point lead and proceeded to fritter it away, despite solid play from Jackson, Gianelli and Earl Monroe. The lead was still 11 with six minutes to play and six points with 1:40 but Atlanta mounted a furious comeback. The Hawks tied the score at 115 when Tom Henderson drove past Jesse Dark for a layup with two seconds remaining. Red Holzman called timeout right as I apparently started to get a little restless in the womb. Apparently I had a sense, even then, that something important was going on.

Holzman called a play the Knicks had tried unsuccessfully in the past, a lob play from Walt Frazier to Gianelli. This time, everything worked very well. Gianelli (referred to in the New York Times the next day as "much-maligned") got free off a screen. Frazier made a perfect pass and the result was a buzzer-beating hoop and a Knicks walk-off win.

I'm going to guess that my dad got pretty excited by the victory, even in that season of false hope (the Knicks finished 40-42 and lost in the first round of the playoffs). Having watched him for as long as I have, that seems like a safe bet. My mom got excited too, a few minutes later, when she realized her water broke. They quickly cabbed it over to Mount Sinai Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side, not too far from their residence. I'm happy to admit I wasn't an overwhelmingly lengthy labor. I was born the next morning, enabling me to share a January 31 birthday with the Hall of Fame trio of Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks and Nolan Ryan).

I bring this up partly because I wanted to write something a little different this weekend, and partly because I turn 30 1/2 on Sunday. That's significant, because I've officially crossed an important, unfortunate border. I can no longer say "I just turned 30" now that we've reached the midpoint. Instead, according to proper Metiquette, I must go with the "I turn 31 in January," which to be honest, isn't something I'm looking forward to doing.

True followers of Metiquette know...The Mets have had 3 walk-off wins on July 31 and all three came against the Pittsburgh Pirates.