This is no longer just the NBA Finals, the search for an NBA Championship has become a crusade for the Knicks. Listen to Larry Johnson talk about the mindset of his team as it takes on the Spurs tonight in Game 4 at the Garden.
“We’ve got a lot of rebellious slaves on this team,” Johnson said yesterday, the morning afterthe Knicks put the word “sweep” out of the Spurs vocabulary and replaced it with the word “fear” by running off to an 89-81 victory to trim San Antonio’s lead to 2-1.
What exactly does Johnson mean by rebellious slaves?
“We don’t have a lot of mainstream, we don’t go with the mainstream,” said Johnson, who scored 16 points Monday and defended Tim Duncan, despite giving up five inches. “We’re in a different stream with this team. We’ve got a lot of rebellious slaves. We don’t go along with the masses.”
The Big L is becoming the Big LJ-X. It is that “Knicks-against-the- world” attitude that has kept the team together through all the adversity. They are the Manhattan Misfits.
The general manager, Ernie Grunfeld, who put together enough talent to withstand major injuries and still make it to the Finals, has been fired. The coach, Jeff Van Gundy, who is beloved by veteran players like Johnson and Patrick Ewing, has withstood a Cablevision Coup and was nearly fired twice and still hasn’t been assured he will be back next season.
Ewing, the defiant head of the Players Association, battled back from major injury only to go down in a heap again – and, according to sources – may still make a Willis Reed-like appearance in these Finals. Latrell Sprewell could have been named comeback player of the year after being tossed from the league last year for choking his coach. Allan Houston was said to be too soft to make it in New York and is now a unique threat – a player who can actually shoot the basketball.
And then there is Johnson, who was hit with a $25,000 fine by the league Sunday for bad behavior, not to mention his litany of past sins.
“We’re all on the same page,” the former UNLV Runnin’ Rebel said of his teammates. “We wear our hearts on our sleeves, which hurts us at times and helps us at times. We don’t like you – which has been my motto my whole life, growing up. I don’t like that person, that person don’t like me. Fine. That’s mutual respect. Stay away from each other, but don’t come to me and smile and stab me behind my back. I make it known I don’t like you, that way we don’t have to communicate.
“You know what this team kind of reminds me of this year,” Johnson said. “Vegas, Coach Tark. Coach Tark, excuse my French, ‘F’d the world. F the world.’ We ain’t got time to try to be liked by the world. We’re trying to win a basketball game. What’s you want to do? Win a basketball game or be liked by the world. We want to win basketball games.
“That’s why, to this day, every last one of those players on that Vegas team, I’d die for. They’re my brothers. They weren’t my college teammates, they were my brothers. We had each others’ backs. To this day, they’ve got my back.”
Considering all that, what would it mean to win the title?
“I know it’s a Cinderella Story, but it would be overwhelming, man,” Johnson said. “It definitely would cap off my trials and tribulations because I’ve been through it, I’m still going to go through it. The more I go through it, the more I learn.”
Johnson, along with Ewing, is Van Gundy’s most trusted ally. When Van Gundy was talking about the character of his team yesterday, he was talking about Johnson when he said, “I’ve really got good guys to coach. I think the quality of guys you have to coach in the league is critical in getting through the tough times. We’re fortunate we have good guys.”
Players who are not just happy to be the first No. 8 seed to make it to The Finals.
“I asked Jeff when we made it to the Finals, if that’s all we wanted to do,” Johnson said. “I’m not here to win a game. We got the team to win a championship, not to win a game. We got the team to win the championship. There’s no big discrepancy in talent. They do things well, we do things well. Whatever prevails.”
The Knicks respect Duncan and David Robinson, but they don’t fear the Spurs because they know that Mario Elie & Co. are so beatable. The Spurs’ thoughts of sweep made the Knicks that much formidable.
Even though the Spurs lost Monday night. the San Antonio city fathers are still going ahead with plans for a parade route. The Knicks aren’t getting much respect, although Robinson, the classiest player in the NBA, said yesterday, “If you’re going through a series thinking you’re going to sweep everybody, you’re fools and we don’t think that.”
“Why would you even think sweep?” Johnson asked. “We’re good enough to beat them four games. They’re good enough to beat us four games. It’s going to be by heart, who executes the best, who wants it the most, a little luck.”
The Knicks, Johnson’s band of rebellious slaves, have traveled all those roads in these playoffs. Tonight’s test is their biggest yet. The crusade marches on.