A month after celebrating the 50 year anniversary of their last championship team the New York Knicks returned to Madison Square Garden on Monday night for the first time since the captain of the only two championship teams in franchise history made his transition and went dancing with the ancestors.
Before their game against the Houston Rockets every Knick wore #19 jerseys in pregame warmups to honor Willis Reed who memorably limped onto the Garden court in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals, after injuring his thigh in Game 5, and helped propel the Knicks to beat the Los Angeles Lakers, giving them their first championship in team history.
With that backdrop this year’s Knicks went out and laid the smack down to a young and bad Rockets team who are counting the days until their offseason break. The Knicks on the other hand are tuning up for the playoffs and won the game 137-115 behind a career high 40 points for guard Emanuel Quickley. Said Quickley of the game, ” this was a must win. Winning definitely solves a things.”
The Knicks now have a 2.5 game lead over the Brooklyn Nets and Miami Heat for the #5 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs with six games remaining in the regular season.
The Knicks hosted the Heat Wednesday night before going to Cleveland Friday night.
