On Basketball: At the Point for the Knicks With Time Running Out

It was May 6, 1990, and the Knicks were protecting a scant lead in the fourth quarter of a decisive Game 5 at the old Boston Garden, when 33-year-old Larry Bird drove the baseline and went up for an uncontested reverse dunk.

“Him, of all people, trying to dunk — and missing,” Jeff Van Gundy, then a Knicks assistant, recalled of that Sunday afternoon.

With the invisible leprechaun in charge of making sure the ball splashed through the net taking a nap, the long rebound settled into the sure hands of another 33-year-old, this one in Knicks road blue. Maurice Cheeks quick-dribbled his way to the other end to nail a pull-up jumper.

Just like that, the building was drained of certitude and the Knicks pulled away to a victory that sent their grinning general manager — an old Celtics-hater named Al Bianchi — into the cramped corridor to puff on a victory cigar as Red Auerbach, the Celtics’ patriarch who would not live to see another Celtics title, walked by.

Twenty-one years later, we have a potential re-enactment at the point of attack with 34-year-old Chauncey Billups manning the position for the Knicks as they return to the playoffs for the first time since 2004 on Sunday night at TD Garden in Boston.

Like Cheeks, acquired for Rod Strickland in 1990, Billups joined the Knicks (with Carmelo Anthony) around the February trading deadline at the cost of a younger point guard (Raymond Felton).

Like Cheeks, he came with a championship ring to impress and inspire his wannabe teammates.

Like Cheeks, who had had many playoff battles in Boston during his prime with the 76ers, Billups has no great love for the Celtics, as a former conference rival with the Pistons and as a top 1997 draft pick dealt away by Rick Pitino’s Celtics after 51 games.

In effect, and in further indictment of Pitino, Billups was traded for Kenny Anderson.

“Everybody thought that I hated Rick and Rick hated me, and that wasn’t the case,” Billups said.

“Rick had signed for a lot of money. When I got traded, he just told me there was a lot of pressure on him to win and he wanted to get a veteran point guard.

“But it was tough to get traded at that point in my career. Third pick in the draft, you feel like you’re going to be there for 9, 10, 11 years.”

Instead, Billups became a journeyman, a perceived bust, wearing five uniforms in six years before evolving into an All-Star, Mr. Big Shot, in Detroit.

There are no hard feelings, no residual anger, he said, about his short-lived stay.

“My first couple of years, I did,” he said. “But none of the guys I played with, nobody’s really there anymore.”

Don’t believe Billups isn’t relishing this opportunity to participate in what promises to be an old-school, hard-knocks series because that is how these Celtics play and that is how his no-frills Pistons, champions in 2004, went about their business.

And for those who contend that the Knicks are playing with house money, in Stage 1 of their grand renaissance, Billups would argue on a more personal level that time is of the essence, just as it was for the point man 21 years ago.

In Game 5, 1990, Cheeks played all 48 minutes, had 21 points and 7 assists, his last great N.B.A. occasion.

After the Knicks beat the Celtics, breaking a 26-game losing streak at Boston Garden, they lost in the next round to the Pistons of Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars.

Cheeks did return for the next season — one of turmoil and regression — but was gone by the time Pat Riley revitalized the franchise in the fall of 1991.

Who can say that Billups, like Cheeks, will not ultimately be a drive-by Knick, one of their few tradable assets next season, assuming the team picks up the option on what would become a $14.2 million expiring contract?

By next February, Billups could be part of the bait for Chris Paul or some other leveraged free-agent-to-be.

For now, his matchup with the crafty blur named Rajon Rondo is being called a key to this much-anticipated series.

“Although they got a lot of Hall of Famers, he is the kind of guy that makes them go,” Billups said.

But for all the talk about Billups’s chances of keeping Rondo in front of him, Coach Mike D’Antoni does have another defensive option, Toney Douglas.

Hence, the more important order for Billups will be on offense, not allowing the Knicks to make the Celtics’ lives easy by giving in to quick-jump-shot temptation. To win close games, the Knicks must execute in the fourth quarter against a premier help defense, space the floor, drive the ball, get to the free-throw line.

From Billups, they will need big shots, but also a calm, steady hand, an approach that doesn’t let his younger teammates succumb to the notion that time is their ally and the big February trade wasn’t really for now.

For Billups, there may be no playoff tomorrow in New York, and that is not the worst mentality to take into a series against the proud and favored former champions.

Because history does tell us that even the leprechauns are not a slam-dunk.

 

Stoudemire Stands Out and Buys In to Lift Knicks

Amar’e Stoudemire was shooting jumpers. Practice would not begin for another three hours.

“Leadership by example,” the assistant Phil Weber marveled later, recalling the scene. “There’s no substitute for that.”

From the moment he arrived in July, the 28-year-old Stoudemire has been the face of the Knicks, but also their conscience, their work ethic, their grit, their steady voice.

Two more stars, Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, arrived in February, and the spotlight widened to accommodate them. But Stoudemire remains the Knicks’ foundation, and the primary reason they will end a seven-year playoff drought Sunday night in Boston.

The gratification is evident in Stoudemire’s smile and words, and in the praise that flows from everyone around him.

“I think that he, for the first time, thinks that this is his team, and he was responsible for getting us to the playoffs,” Coach Mike D’Antoni said Saturday, adding, “He took it on his shoulders in good times and bad times, going, ‘It’s me.’?”

If the Knicks have any chance of upsetting the Celtics in this first-round series, it will begin once more with Stoudemire, their fantastically skilled power forward, who averaged 25.3 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks this season.

And if matters grow tense, if the Knicks’ resolve wavers, it will probably be Stoudemire who pulls the group together and steadies them — “the one constant voice,” as D’Antoni said, who keeps pushing them forward.

D’Antoni has long admired Stoudemire’s skills and athleticism, but he was not always so enamored of his demeanor. Nor, it should be said, was Stoudemire always so enamored of D’Antoni’s coaching style.

They spent four mostly glorious seasons together with the Phoenix Suns, lighting up scoreboards and making deep playoff runs. But as expectations rose, so did the tensions. Stoudemire was never fully dedicated to defense. D’Antoni did not always connect with Stoudemire, who other than Steve Nash was the Suns’ most important player.

There were concerns about Stoudemire’s maturity and his commitment while recovering from a knee injury — issues that were detailed in “Seven Seconds or Less,” the book that chronicled the Suns’ 2005-6 season.

As the book’s author, Jack McCallum, recalled in an interview last week, Stoudemire “was just an immature kid who didn’t do his rehab as assiduously as he should, wasn’t a great teammate, was sometimes selfish and did lock horns with Mike over that, no question about it.”

Some of those who worked with D’Antoni and Stoudemire played down the issues between them. But McCallum, who had unlimited access that season, said the tension was real.

“I’m pleasantly — and emphasis on pleasantly — surprised by what’s happened,” he said of the successful reunion.

Stoudemire was just 22 when D’Antoni began his first full season as the Suns’ coach in 2004. D’Antoni was somewhat of a rookie himself, having spent nearly a decade working in Italy. Both are headstrong.

But they have evolved since their bitter parting in 2008, when each took veiled shots at the other after a shocking first-round loss to San Antonio. D’Antoni was forced out and joined the Knicks for a painful overhaul. Stoudemire and the Suns struggled under a new coach, Terry Porter.

The time apart changed everyone’s outlook.

“I’m much more appreciative of what he brings,” D’Antoni said, adding, “I always had him, so I didn’t know what it was without him.

“You get a little jaded,” D’Antoni continued, “and the pressure’s on you to win a championship and you don’t appreciate all the things that he’s done. I also think that he’s gone to a level that makes you appreciative of it. So it’s a little give-and-take on both our parts. I think the guy’s terrific, and he’s doing an unbelievable job.”

D’Antoni’s private evaluations of Stoudemire have been just as effusive. He told one friend that Stoudemire has become just as strong a leader as Nash is.

Cynics viewed this reunion as a marriage of convenience: the Knicks needed a franchise player after being snubbed by LeBron James. Stoudemire needed a team that could afford to pay him $100 million.