Knicks show fire against Nets

As this year's pre-season concluded the Knicks did not end with a win, but they may of shown a message to the division rival Nets. They won't back down. In the first half Eddy Curry plowed over his defender and dunked the ball. However, not only did he dunk the ball with emphasis but with his defender lying on the ground he appeared to be talkng a little trash. Maybe Curry is starting to listen to his coaches, something he seemed incapable of doing last season. Curry also had an impressive stat line for the night. Scoring 19 points on nine boards, and he even threw in four assists.

However, Curry was also one of three Knicks who fouled out. Richardson and Curry both played over 30 minutes before fouling out, but Channing Frye inexcusably fouled out after 11 minutes of work. Although, he did score 10 points while he was in the game, but Frye has now fouled out of three of the six pre-season games, and he is averaging only one more rebound than foul per-game. Not good.

The Knicks also threw in a couple of other plays that showed fire throughout the game. Such as Stephon Marbury talking smack to Vince Carter, while Carter was on the bench and Marbury was behind the three point line wide open. However, no event showed more pizazz then the pushing match between Mikki Moore and Steve Francis. Francis "swooped to the hoop" for an apparant tear drop but Moore met him in the air for a relativley forceful collision. However, Francis took exception and he got up from the floor, dusted himself off, and pushed Moore back. It seems like Isiah wants to institute some of what he did with the Pistons in the late 1980's. Isiah's Pistons were then notorious for starting brawls (after all, they did have Dennis Rodman) and they even upset some opponents. Isiah seemed to be pushing the Knicks to do the same against the Nets, and Isiah even admitted to the media he was almost telling his players to fight back. Saying

We're coming from a long way's down in this league. You've got to scratch and you've got to fight and you've got to claw, and when you play against the better teams in this league -- and they're one of them -- the better teams don't like when the teams at the bottom give them a hard time.

In fact, at the end of the game Lawrence Frank gave Isiah the cold shoulder when Isiah went to shake his hand.
I like it. I like it a lot. I have a feeling eventually it may be taken too far, and a suspension or two will be handed out, but it would be worth it to strike some fear into opponents. Think about it, would you want to play defense on Ron Artest, a player who can snap any minute? If the Knicks can play like they did on Friday, with the intensity not neccesarilly the results, we should be looking at a drastically improved team, and record.