Every Time I Think I'm Out...
The Knicks - again - did what the Knicks do.
Good morning, from your favorite bi-polar basketball scribe, writing about our favorite bi-polar basketball team…
Knicks 108, Rockets 106
36-21 (W1); 22-8 at home
About seven years ago, I had a female colleague at my teaching job that I became friendly with. We worked with a lot of the same kids and shared the same workspace, so we got to know each other a bit over the course of the school year. That Christmas, knowing I hosted a little podcast that I was passionate about, she got me a custom made Christmas ornament in the shape of a basketball with the words “Knicks Film School” inscribed across it.
Naturally, when I brought the ornament home to put on the tree, my wife asked me where it came from, so I told her.
Wait…a girl made this for you?
Oh dear.
Being lucky enough to exist in the sort of trusting, loving marriage that I did (and still do), I was honest in response to my wife’s inquiries, including the inevitable one about my colleague’s physical appearance.
“Well, she’s not unattractive, but she’s certainly not my type, and besides, even if she was, it wouldn’t matter because I’m so hopelessly devoted to you” was something along the lines of what I said, of which I’m fairly certain only the first four words registered.
And with that, my fate was sealed. Not for a day, or a month, but for all of eternity.
To this day, every time that basketball comes out of the box of ornaments, my wife perks up with a big smile on her face and exclaims “oh look, it’s the gift from daddy’s girlfriend!” before dutifully handing it over for me to hang. She always follows this up with “I kid, I kid,” but there is much truth in jest. I’m quite certain that long after our kids are moved out and we no longer need to put up a Christmas tree, we will nonetheless continue to do so, just so my wife can keep having the satisfaction of this magical holiday tradition.
The lesson, as those of you who are married know full well: wives may forgive, but they never, ever let you forget.
Thankfully, fandom doesn’t operate by the same rules.
“Crash out” is not a term I was familiar with until recently, but I know it to be the textbook definition of my response to Thursday’s home loss to Detroit.
As I alluded to in my chat message Friday morning, the confluence of events contributing to that loss concocted within me a Molotov cocktail of frustration and despair. Even with all the trials and tribulations that have taken place in the 16 months following the ballyhooed summer of 2024, I don’t think I’ve ever been more down on the Knicks than I was after that game.
If this was a relationship with a person instead of a basketball team, my response to that game would have been equivalent to hanging a lipstick stained dress shirt on the tree instead of a Christmas ornament. I’d have been cooked. There’d be no getting back in, no “forgive and forget.” The door would have been shut, once and for all.
What a damn shame that would have been, because barely 48 hours after what I considered to be their most dispiriting loss of the season, the Knicks came back and gave us what has to be in the running for their very best win. I’ve never been so happy that in fandom, unlike in life, bygones really can be bygones, and there’s always a seat at the table for the prodigal son.
Not that the table looked like a place any of us wanted to be just over a minute into the fourth quarter.
