Can You Define Effort?
The mockery at the Garden continued last night. Rarely do I get a chance to truly drink in the experience of watching a full Knicks game. Last night, I came close. I got home from work in time to tune in from the second quarter through the final merciful whistle. And then, the proverbial cherry on top, the Isiah Thomas press conference.
Whereas there is plenty to directly criticize about the Knicks abysmal play during last night’s 108-82 shellacking at the hands of the Golden St. Warriors, where the Knicks were generally putrid (as a stellar 29 turnovers can attest), as usual the magnetic force that is Isiah Thomas somehow manages to grab our attention . This time it’s for his comments during the post-game press conference.
Thomas has already shown Knicks fans a penchant for painting things “rosy” with utter disregard for what may have happened on the court on a specific night. Last season, Thomas would typically address the media following embarrassing home losses with tidbits about all the players he thought performed well, thoughts on the team’s “good energy level” and various spins on how the final score was somehow not indicative of the game’s competitiveness. Last night was different.
Last night was different in the sense that Thomas did not spin his team’s performance (well, not totally). He said they were bad and that the boos were “deserved.” He said the team’s play was “on him.” One can take sides on that “on him” comment and the meaning of all that nonsense later, but here was my “Isiah is out-of-his-f-in-mind” moment last night. In what seemed like the most obvious question of the evening (outside of “how did you feel about the booing and “Fire Isiah” chants), a reporter asked point-blank: “What did you think about the team’s effort tonight?”
Good? Good? GOOD???!!! I was, literally, speechless. In fact, I still am. Hey, Isiah, can we chat about word selection for a second? Do you have trouble with adjectives? Here are just a few suggestions which may have been more appropriate to modify the noun “effort”:
ABYSMAL
EMBARRASSING
ATROCIOUS
AWFUL
UNBELIEVABLE
HORRIBLE
UNPROFESSIONAL
HUMILIATING
LACKLUSTER
MISSING
LACKING
ABSENT
PISS-POOR
In all seriousness, Thomas’s answer was not just funny or weird (although, it was both those things too), it was insulting to any Knicks fan. Having played basketball and watched a good share of it in my time, there have been few games I’ve witnessed that could be more shining examples of flat-out lousy effort…of giving up…of laying down…of throwing in the towel…mailing it in…ok, you get the point.
Bad shooting and poor execution are one thing (and the Knicks covered off on both of those categories with their typical splendor), but, in every aspect of the game tied to hustle, the team did not even show up (rebounding aside…although the Warriors throw up a ton of shots, so that stat is not that telling):
On multiple occasions, Curry and Randolph were barely making it back to halfcourt by the end of a Warriors possesion at the other end.
In the second half, when one would think the Knicks would be desparate and energetic, they looked tired, lethargic and flat.
Their laziness manifested itself, among other ways, in what seemed like a dozen loose ball fouls in the second half alone.
David Lee was lifeless, which I’ve never seen before.
Floor burns were remarkably off early for the holidays.
29 turnovers.
3 steals.
We could go on forever, but it’s just too depressing. We’re not sure of all the answers, but we do not one thing. The answer to “what did you think about the team’s effort” should have been anything but “good.”
Adjectives. One more thing to add to Thomas’s list of deficiences. Tick-tock, tick-tock. When oh when will the bell toll?
Can You Define Effort?
