Knicks and Nets Open New Battle Front

From the desks of:

THE HOOPS OF FLATBUSH  and  DUTCH PANTS CAN'T JUMP

NEW JERSEY/BROOKLYN NETS

and NEW YORK KNICKERBOCKERS:

Back in the days when there was very little animosity between them; you know...., when the Nets seemed destined to stay in New Jersey forever, there was the occasional playoff clash between them and the Knicks.  That was when Chocolate Thunder; Otis Birdsong; and Buck Williams led the Nets while Bernard King played on the other side.  They clashed again during the Derrick Coleman/Kenny Anderson days and the Patrick Ewing era.

Then things changed between these teams.  Bruce Ratner purchased the New Jersey Nets and announced his plans to move the team to Brooklyn.  That ignited a new battle on may fronts as the Knicks were now faced with direct competition within the city limits for the first time in their history. 

The first major engagement started with the arenas.  Brooklyn was building a brand new state-of-the-art place.  As for Jim Dolan, after successfully beating down attempts to build a stadium on Manhattan's West Side for the Jets (which would have competed directly with the Garden for big ticket events), he was still in possession of a 1960's relic with sticky floors.  As the Nets' move to Brooklyn was one battle Jim Dolan couldn't win, he fought fire with fire.  He initiated renovations to Madison Square Garden.  In this blog I questioned whether the face-lift would have been undertaken so hastily if not for Barclays Center.  The obvious answer is no, because necessity is the mother of all invention; and in Dolan's case, the Nets forced his hand.




Enter Mikhail Prokhorov, and the battle of the capitalists was really on.  The new majority owner of the Nets struck first.  He had a giant mural painted on a building side on Eighth Avenue right by Madison Square Garden.  Me personally? -  I thought, what a stroke of Bravado!  But Dolan struck back with a billboard featuring Amare Stoudemire smack on the site of Ratner's Atlantic Yards.  Both teams continued dotting downtown Brooklyn as The Billboard Wars continued right up until the Lock-Out.




Then competition between the teams really escalated and a new battle front opened when both teams entered the Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes.  The Knicks won that one; securing their prize scorer.   Dolan threw everything he had at Denver to secure Melo's services because he knows the value of having stars in his arena.  Without them, the show doesn't go on.  Just ask Isiah Thomas.  But the Nets were not without a coup of their own.  Quite literally under the cover of night, they lifted Deron Williams from Utah.




So far the Nets have failed to acquire Dwight Howard from Orlando.  On a long list of things the Nets need most right now, Catching A Break, surely must be among the top two.  Last night they took on the Celtics in Boston without the services of Brook Lopez, Kris Humphries, and Deron Williams.




While the Nets have been getting brutalized by injuries and bad luck, the Knicks have just been brutal.  My shower curtains play better defense than the Knicks.  With the addition of Tyson Chandler, Defense was supposed to be this season's mantra.  So far, they've been a coalition of the unwilling and as resilient as wet toilet paper.




The Knicks have built a front court to rival any in the League.  But they have no point guard and their play is now reflecting their dire need for one.  Coach D'Antoni likes to get offensive shots off within seven seconds.  But for now, he's been forced into a half court game.




Suffice to say, nothing is going right for either team at the moment.  The Knicks can't get a comitment by the players on defense, and the Nets just can't get a committment out of Deron Williams yet.  Which brings us to the latest battle of this fledgling, soon-to-be inner city rivalry.  The ultimate battle of Dubiousness -




...The Battle for Last Place.




ATLANTIC DIVISION STANDINGS - a/o Thursday Morning:

1) - Philadelphia   3-2
2) - Boston   4-3
3) - Toronto   3-3
4) - KNICKS   2-4
5) - NETS   1-6







Mike.BTB

N.Y. Rangers ~ Home, Home on the Rink

From the desk of:  RAISE GRESCH WITH THE GREATS

NEW YORK RANGERS:  The Long Road Home For Tex's Rangers Ends Tonight. 


You can take the Rangers out of Canada, but the schedule makers aren't letting Canada get away from the Rangers just yet..  After a four game tour of the Great White North, the Toronto Maple Leafs will help the Rangers re-christen their partially renovated, old arena tonight in the Blueshirts' home-ice opener. 



Finally, right?  Now let's just hope the 7th Avenue road-warriors don't become strangers in their own house.  Maybe with a new look to the place, they can start a new trend of playing better Hockey at home.  Because if they don't, even with a sprucing up of the joint, the jeering will still sound the same, if not angrier because fans would now be anteing up even more cash to see them stumble at home.



Making a welcome return to the blue line tonight should be Michael Sauer who's been out with a bum shoulder.  And while Marc Staal remains sidelined, maybe the Rangers can get back to utilizing more traditional pairings with Sauer back on ice; not to say that we've been defensively challenged lately...



...The Rangers are still waiting for their forward lines to punch through.  Punch through?  They couldn't stick their way through a wet paper bag right now.  So the second call from this blog goes out again:  Calling all Forwards!  Calling all Forwards!  Come in Forward Lines?  We need you.  Over.



Three things come to mind regarding tonight's first game at MSG-4 1/2.  We get to see Ryan Callahan sporting the C on his jersey for the first time.  It's been a nice ascension through the ranks from Rookie to Captain for him and for us fans to watch. 



Secondly, it's probably best for Brad Richards if this game gets played and put behind him as quickly as possible.  He's still yet to provide a glimpse of the play-maker we hopefully signed to a ridonkulously lengthy contract.  But having to prove his worth all in one night; the first night at home after seven games of pedestrian play on the road; is probably sixty-minutes I'd rather fast-forward.  Then in home-game two with all the extra-fan fare and pomp out of the way, maybe he can finally get around to commanding the first-line and power play for us.  But of course in order to make that happen, we must stop committing dumb penalties ourselves.  I digress.



The last item to ponder is Marian Gaborik.  Is he the scorer from what seems like the ancient past?  Or is he still the apparition from last season?  And what frame of mind will the fans be in with regard to their phantom forward?  Will the Ranger fans show up ready to pounce if he provides flashbacks of the Invisible Man?  Will the home crowd make him feel as if he's skating in soup if he looks even slightly ineffective?  Or, will True Blue fans attend this home stand with an open mind and risk being pleasantly surprised by letting him play with something to prove without us dumping on him?  Then again, since when did four goals in seven games (one of those goals came on the PP) stop Ranger fans from... anything?



We'll see.  In the mean time, Calling all Forwards!  Your Liege needs help.



The Blueshirts' Odysseus-like odyssey to get home finally ends tonight indeed.  But instead of Odysseus reclaiming his queen, the Rangers get us. 



Hah!



Let's go Rangers!




SLAP SHOT:  Hey!  With an almost one billion dollar renovation under way and the lower bowl work complete, I hope the historically atrocious ice surface at MSG was also studied and addressed.  With all that money being spent, and taking into consideration all the reconfiguring MSG's ground floor must undergo to accommodate all the events it hosts, the hope is some new method has been adopted to keep the puck from bouncing around like a Harlem Globe Trotter's prop.  Because while what the Globe Trotters do is intended to be funny and entertain millions, many times the old ice surface at MSG just made the Rangers look plain stupid in front of us.

Last Shots of What We Can Officially Now Call - The Old Garden:

Mike.BTB

N.J. Nets vs. N.Y. Knicks ~ Don't Ignore The Buzz

New York Knicks vs. New Jersey Nets:  You're Lying If You Don't Believe There's A Different Buzz About This Now.

The naysayers can down-play this all they want.  "They" will point to the fact the 6-11 Nets still play in front of sparse crowds in Newark and to their abysmal record last season.  The Nets also had their off-season hopes unrealized to a large extent while the Knicks overhauled their roster with 10 new players including Amare Stoudemire.  I will cede the fact this is not the sexiest rivalry in the Metro area, the NBA, or in Sports.  I know.  The fact both franchises have struggled mightily in recent years pretty much means both teams and fan bases are starting from scratch in a sense.  The Nets had to dismantle their Conference Championship teams and drifted into obscurity out in the No-Man's MeadowLands.  The Knicks' fan base just wanted to get as far away from the Isiah Thomas Inferno as possible.  Madison Square Garden even "had to" initiate a complete renovation because of the damage wrought by Demolition Zeke.  And of course, the building of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn should not go under-spoken.

Do you see it?  If you don't, you're not looking.  The future of this rivalry is very bright because both teams are loosely tied together in a race to be better; not necessarily better than each-other..., just better as a franchise. 

Knick Fan; Net Fan ~ Win, Win.  You'll see.  It's still a vision.  But things are in place for both franchises to have far better days ahead of them than today's 9-9 and 6-11 editions...(namely Cap Space).

Both teams are headed in positive directions.  I myself think the Nets took a major hit when Rod Thorn stepped down and took the Philly job.  But they are still organizationally sound and now reinvigorated with new owner Mikhail Prokhorov.  Avery Johnson is a damn good coach.  Brett Yormark and Billy King still form a smart front office.  The young players on the court, like Lopez will develop and with ample Cap Space, in time, the roster will be augmented.  Right?  We'll see.  In the mean-time, No Sleep Till Brooklyn.

We know the Knicks; - Zeke we hope.., but can never really know for sure, is in the past (?).  Donnie Walsh is good people to have running things now.   Coach D, Amare and LANDRY FIELDS!... ~ We see what's going on and we like the progress.  Right? (I have my issues with Coach D, but I'm cool).

The possibilities for two years from now are pretty bright IMO.  For the Nets, the Knicks, the fans, two Boroughs and the city as a whole, I see good times ahead as fans and as this rivalry emerges (re-emerges?).

Admit this, the days of considering these teams neighborly will end when the Nets settle in Brooklyn.

By all means let tonight's game between the Knicks and Nets serve as a litmus test to see how warm the water is.  This the first time they will be facing each other on the court since the teams started The BillBoard Wars.  Let's see how the players react to each-other tonight.  Let's gauge crowd reaction too.  We'll see where we are with this thing and build from there, here; tonight.  Why not?  Like I said, both teams are positive forward now, not backwards negative.  Coach Johnson is going to Coach a good game.  Bank on it.
Coach D seems to have all the players' attention and functioning.  The game should be a good one.

You have to admit because of the BillBoard Wars, we've all spoken more about the Nets and the Knicks, together, in the same sentences, in conversations, than I'm willing to bet we ever did before.  Am I right? 

Dolan, the Planned West Side Stadium Wrecker, chose to fight his fight with signage and commercials on his MSG Channels thus far.  Mikhail Prokhorov likes to just tell us what he thinks and it's usually a great listen.  He most recently said he doesn't care to be like the Knicks,  nyet..rather, the Lakers were the team to emulate.  He provides classic stuff.  These mighty men of "power" and wealth can only serve to keep us entertained.

You have to admit, and not ignore the BUZZ to this game and these teams today.  It's a low-level buzz, but a buzz none-the-less. 

What started when Bruce Ratner announced plans to bring the team to Brooklyn was just a flare in the middle of nowhere.  No one ever could get a feel for the news with all the "what ifs".  But, here we are.  I drove by the Barclays site today.  There's steal beams rising like mighty Red Woods. We build from this and keep moving forward.

Enjoy the game and start thinking about this match-up in a different way.

NEW JERSEY NETS

vs.

NEW YORK KNICKS

Madison Square Garden

33rd Street and 7th Avenue

NEW YORK CITY

Mike.BTB

John Mara & Jeff Wilpon Speak-out..kinda. HEY DOLAN!!!

John Mara, my dude! - Ripped into his team at season's end and said the results of this season was akin to a
2-14 pathetic effort.  He is angry and he wants everyone working for Big Blue to know it. Good FOR HIM!  And good for us too!

Today, Omar Minaya, but more importantly Jeff Wilpon tried showing a less dark disposition with regards to Ownership's wishes, plans, direction and fan perceptions.  Whatever.  Normally it wouldn't take much for me to go into a tangent about the Wilpons (and by the way I want to hear from FRED).  But today, although I would've liked to see him a little less rosy about his MetLook, Jeff said and touched on everything I usually complain about with regards to METropolis.  I'm agreeable with what Jeff and Omar had to say today at the JASON BAY press conference.

OK....uh

HEY DOLAN!!!?  You wanna say something to us?  My other owners are talking to me loud and clear as of today.  Care to add something to this conversation?  Could you explain to me why Glen Sather's BLUEprint for perpetual mediocracy is so appealing to you?  Just wondering.  Or are you just going to jack-up my cable bill to pay for your MSG renovation?  Couldn't you just get "This Old House"?.  I can't wait to read my future cable bills for the answer to that!

This guy "theDolan(s)" owns my favorite hockey team, my favorite basketball team until the NETS come to BROOKLYN when I'll have to rethink things, the arena I go see and root their play in, the channel I watch their games on and the cable outlet I get my service from.  Do you think we deserve to hear from him more often?  I do!!

I heard from an angry John Mara and a bland Jeff Wilpon in the last two days.  Hey Dolan, drop your guitar for a few moments and tell me why the Rangers are spinning their tires in the Glen-Sather-Cap-Mud.

You've been trying to take Cablevision private for a while now.  You spun-off the Rangers/Knicks/MSG from the parent company.  Why do I get the feeling my cable bill is going to increase once the MSG renovation gets into full swing?  Talk to me JIM!

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