We’ve tried. We actually have. This is the fiftieth season that the Knicks and the Nets have shared the Atlantic Division of the NBA. You would think that by now there could be some variety of rivalry between the two. It shouldn’t be a lot to ask.
This is a basketball metropolis, isn’t it? Maybe it was more durable to promote when the Nets were on Long Island, or in Piscataway, or in East Rutherford, or in Newark. The Nets took that 35-odd-year sojourn around the suburbs and nothing could ever fairly take.
But Brooklyn vs. Manhattan?
That should matter, shouldn’t it? That should be sellable. These 4 video games they play every 12 months should be holy wars, secular basketball crusades, two video games at the Garden, two at Barclays, and let the buildings crackle like the Philly colleges when they collect to play their Big Five City Series.
But it doesn’t matter. And in truth, you could argue that it’s never mattered less. The Knicks woke up lengthy enough to ease to a 113-100 win at Barclays on Monday evening. It was their second highway win of the season. But all day, in the hours main up to this recreation, there was a caveat that always comes with these video games at Barclays.
Technically, it’s a highway recreation.
And that’s a unhappy fact. There were 18,019 folks at the recreation. That’s a sellout. There were 10,000 Knicks followers there. That’s an situation. It is. You get some Yankees invaders at Citi Field, and vice versa, but never enough to carry the day. Sometimes Rangers followers can infiltrate at UBS or at Prudential Center; you are never confused who the home team is.
Jalen Brunson reacts during the Knicks’ Nov. 24 win against the Nets. Charles Wenzelberg
You are here. You maintain ready for that to change. You maintain ready for the groups to be good at the same time, but that’s never labored out. Somehow, in their fiftieth 12 months sharing a market, they have performed precisely 10 playoff video games against each other, each successful 5 apiece, in only three sequence: 1983 (2-0 Knicks), 1994 (3-1 Knicks) and 2004 (4-0 Nets).
Valuable prizes if you keep in mind one factor from any of them.
This is what Nets coach Jordi Fernández had to say after the recreation: “The energy was there, but as the game went on I thought our energy and purpose started to fade.”
Jalen Brunson makes an attempt a shot during the Knicks’ Nov. 24 win over the Nets. Charles Wenzelberg
This is what Knicks coach Mike Brown had to say after the recreation: “While they’re going though this process, you can watch the last couple of games, they’re playing hard. You could see the marked improvement they’ve had since we’ve last played them.”
Look, Brown is Fernández’s mentor and Fernández is Brown’s protégé, so you’re in all probability never going to see the equal of Rex Ryan protecting the Giants Super Bowl logos with a black curtain before a 2011 recreation at MetLife Stadium. The closest there’s ever been to any actual rancor was 1993, when John Starks broke Kenny Anderson’s wrist.
(Of course at least half the Meadowlands was occupied by Knicks followers that day, so the response was far more muted than it should have been.)
The worst half is, it’s really attainable that we’re in the midst of the least attention-grabbing period of a completely uninteresting non-rivalry. Monday was the Knicks’ twelfth straight win over the Nets, which corresponds with the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson-led rise since 2022. But instantly before that, the Nets had won 9 in a row and 13 out of 15 — corresponding properly with the Nets’ transient window of the Kevin Durant/Kyrie Irving partnership.
Here’s the worst half, when you actually think about it:
The most memorable recreation the Knicks and Nets have ever performed against each other was in all probability an exhibition recreation on Oct. 18, 1975. The Knicks were just coming off the biggest stretch in their historical past and still had Clyde Frazier, Pearl Monroe and Bill Bradley; the Nets would quickly win their second ABA title in three years and had the nice Julius Erving at the peak of his powers.
Dr. J scored 33 factors, including a 25-footer with two seconds to play. Afterward he crowed, “There’s a new No. 1 in New York!” It was a good sentiment. It never occurred. Not then, not now. Knicks-Nets that evening 50 years in the past at Madison Square Garden, drew 7,723 followers. That sounds about proper.
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