THE last time it really felt this way inside Madison Square Garden was a Friday night, June 2, 2000. Nobody knew it at the time, but it was the last time Patrick Ewing would ever wear a Knicks uniform. The Knicks were playing the Pacers, which used to be an annual rite of late spring around here. And Reggie Miller went off, a corollary rite.
“Seems like a long time ago,” Patrick Ewing said with a smile Wednesday morning, remembering Game 6 of that 2000 Eastern Conference Final, remembering how Miller scored half his 34 points during the fourth quarter of a 93-80 Pacers victory. “Seems like a long, long time ago. Another lifetime. Another guy.”
Ewing was walking out of The Palace at Auburn Hills following a morning shootaround, not looking a day older than he did on June 2, 2000, the 13th time and final time in his life as a Knick he would walk away from a season following an aggrieving playoff elimination. Really, the way his eyes focused into a far-off gaze, you could tell the noise from that night, the electricity, the buzz, was still ringing in his head, filling his memory.
Memories were all that remained in the vast chasm between June 2, 2000, and last night. There has been little to fill the void since Miller’s gaggle of 3-pointers ushered the Knicks out of those playoffs, whisking Ewing off to Seattle. In the interim, there have been exactly three playoff games (two of them losses) the next year, against Toronto.
Other than that, there only has been artificial incentive. Ewing’s return in February 2001 was one of those nights. The night they retired his jersey last winter was another, spiked by the extended ovation given Jeff Van Gundy that night. The basketball? There has been so little to cheer about that there has been almost nothing to anticipate.
And that’s always half the beauty of a big basketball night at the Garden. That’s always half the fun: the waiting. The lead-up. The talking about it beforehand, and the nervous anticipation as tip-off approaches. Sometimes, the games even surpass our wildest expectations. Doesn’t matter. A big game at the Garden always means waiting all day for it to arrive. We got so spoiled around here for so long, we forgot what a wonderful gift that really is.
Last night, we got another one of those games, maybe the first one in the 3½ years since Reggie jabbed another shiv in the Knicks’ hearts that long-ago June night. As you walked the streets of Manhattan yesterday, people wore Knicks stocking caps. They exchanged Knicks small-talk. On West 44th Street, a freelance street vendor sold Knicks gear at a discount, and reported business was going well.
“I figured I’d sit on this stuff forever,” he said, pointing to his dusty old merchandise.
There wasn’t a playoff game awaiting everyone at the end of the business day. Just a brand-new reason to think there may be one sooner than anyone could have imagined. Stephon Marbury knows what the Garden is all about, of course. He was in the building during the 1999 NBA Finals, eating his heart out, the full extent of just how far away he was from this in his then-home in East Rutherford sinking in.
“This is where I belong,” he said earlier in the day, hours before he would wear the white home uniform for the very first time, against Jeff Van Gundy’s Houston Rockets. “Definitely, it’s the place for me as far as basketball, as far as off the court, being able to be part of the scene that goes on in New York.”
New York wanted to buy into this, too. It was all around the town yesterday, east side and west side, in the outer boroughs, in the burbs. For the first time in forever, there was a reason to spend the day anticipating what would be happening in the heart of midtown last night. The Knicks entered eight games under .500. Didn’t matter. For one day, if felt like Game 7 of the NBA Finals was at hand. It was a fine bit of illusion.