Lakers 113, Knicks 105: Madison Square Symmetry
The Knicks’ winning ways hit a GOAT in the road as they fall to LeBron, AD and L.A.
LeBron. The Knicks. There’s symmetry there. A palindrome, a perfect reflection. The shape of this recap works the same. The sentence lengths in this here paragraph are patterned after the Fibonacci sequence. First one word, then two, three, five, eight, 13, 21, 34, and 89, then the same sequence backwards, down to one. Last night’s 113-105 New York Knicks’ loss to the Los Angeles Lakers reunited James and the Knicks, two basketball icons, so often linked without ever actually getting together, two ships passing in the night. In 2003 the Knicks were four years removed from their last Finals, and while James’ future looked smooth and bright the Knicks neared a rupture in their continuity; today New York is the rising power in the conference, while James – four years from his fourth ring – is closer to getting a grandchild than a fifth.
The 89-word sentences require a certain depth of punctuation marks to properly execute, not dissimilar to the job facing Jalen Brunson last night, who came into this game with a purple-and-gold target on his back you could see from space, seeing as the Knicks were without Julius Randle, OG Anunoby and Quentin Grimes, and therefore a ton of playmaking, shooting and space, conceded at the opening tip: no team after 1998 would start a frontcourt of Isaiah Hartenstein, Precious Achiuwa and Josh Hart unless they were playing slam ball.
Last night’s game was a reflection of James’ career: the prodigy whose first NBA teammates, after going 17-65 without him, claimed before he was drafted they already “had players better than him at his position,” that James, whom they chalked up to something between “a high-school player” and “Caron Butler,” might “come hop on [their] bandwagon” – their 17-65 bandwagon – versus the 39-year-old G.O.A.T. short-lister whose teammates overcame a six-point deficit entering the fourth, thanks to Austin Reaves and Taurean Prince combining for 23 in the frame.
Meanwhile, Brunson faced constant, omnipresent double-teams and blitzes the entire final quarter, which aside from some garbage time-ish late baskets pretty much nullified him as a scoring threat while at the same time revealing the Knicks were quite simply out-gunned: the other six Knicks to play in the fourth combined to score just eight points. It was a night for rarity: every LeBron game at MSG from this point on could be his last, while the Knicks fell for just the third time in 18 games this calendar year. The Association knows better than to write off a team led by James and Bill Russell Anthony Davis, certainly . . . and yet. A duo who’ve combined for more disappointing seasons than not have their skeptics. The Lakers are currently ninth in the West. Two games from the lottery. Three from sixth. Their fate? Unwritten.
And? The Knicks? What of them? The loss doesn’t mean much. I mean, they need to get healthy, yes. They’re still snugly ensconsed in the Milwaukee/Cleveland/Philadelphia neck of the conference. Their extended staycation after opening the season as road warriors runs another eight days, the next game Tuesday; they’ll host Memphis. Going 8-of-30 from deep in the first, third and fourth quarters is nobody’s idea of a good time, though neither is playing without four players who’ve started at one point or another this season. It’s hard to go vroom while running on fumes: four New York starters played 40+ minutes, including 45 from Brunson (including the entire second half), and while Mama said there’d be days like this, even she didn’t imagine nights where the only bench players to see action were Deuce McBride, Jericho Sims and Malachi Flynn.
So as we enter the final 89-word sentence, the Knicks, now 50 games into their campaign, head into the final 32 in a place few but them likely thought possible, a perspective the no-longer-a-kid from Akron can relate to; James grew up in a world where Michael Jordan’s primacy went without question and has, at the very least, made it a question — so, in honor of that, and the Knicks having so much story left to tell, the recap ends here, enjoying the present and excited for the future.
