COMMENTARY : Knicks Failed to Get Job Done

ORLANDO —  The game, another big game for the Knicks in Orlando, began to get away from them in the third quarter this time. The Knicks were starting to lose to Shaquille O’Neal and the Magic again, and they responded with a flagrant foul from John Starks against Horace Grant that really became a five-point play for the Magic. They responded with a technical foul from Anthony Mason. These things have actually worked in the past against other teams. Maybe O’Neal and Penny Hardaway and the rest of the Magic are too young and too talented to care. Or notice. Maybe they are just too good.

The Magic beat the Knicks for the third straight time this season in Orlando Arena. The score was 118-106. The playoffs were supposed to be starting last Tuesday night, on the last night of February. They started very badly for the Knicks. O’Neal ended up with 41 points. It seems like he always ends up close to that against the Knicks, who are still supposed to be the best defense in the world.

Patrick Ewing scores a lot of points (32) and the Knicks tried to act very tough and then Shaq dunks the ball.

It felt like the playoffs in the Knicks’ locker room before the game, which was as quiet as the NBA Finals last June. Of course, the Knicks had to approach the whole thing that way. The Knicks already had played the Magic twice in Orlando and lost. Once, in December, they had been humiliated. On Feb. 3, they fought Orlando all the way into overtime and then played like scared rookies, shooting 0-for-10 from the field. They lost by a basket. Tuesday night was supposed to be different. Once before the playoffs they wanted to show they could beat the Magic in Orlando Arena.

The Knicks could not do the job. They played the Magic even until halftime. Then the Magic stretched the lead past 10 points. There was no one area of the game you wanted to talk about, other than the fact that O’Neal gets nearly 40 points against the Knicks every time he plays them and makes scoring points as easy as he does in one of his soft drink commercials. The Magic were just better when they had to be. And no matter what was happening in the game, you knew they could always pound the ball into O’Neal and get a dunk or a layup or a soft hook shot or even a jump shot.

He is the biggest star in sports right now. He and Hardaway, when they are through, could turn out to be the two best players to come into pro basketball since Michael Jordan. They do not have the Knicks’ experience, or the Knicks’ defense, and they have still not won a playoff game, which will change soon. They have Shaquille O’Neal inside. They have Penny Hardaway outside. They get enough moments from Horace Grant and Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott. And the Knicks have gotten one game from them this season, at the Garden in November. It seems like four years ago, not four months.

“This is big,” Charles Smith said before the game. He spoke softly in the locker room and still his words came out loud, because there was not much conversation, just the sound of assistant coach Jeff Van Gundy writing down ways for the Knicks to beat the Magic on a big white board.

“This is very big,” Smith said. “A lot of times people talk about a playoff-type atmosphere during the regular season, and we want to laugh. But this one feels like the playoffs before they ever throw the ball up.”

And across the room, Derek Harper said, “There’s an air about this that we’ve created a new rivalry.”

Harper was talking about a rivalry for this season. It felt that way for so much of the first half Tuesday night. It really did feel as if the playoffs were beginning on the last night of February. The Magic had a 40-point first quarter, which meant he Knicks did not bring any playoff defense to the first 12 minutes. But then Hubert Davis came off the bench to hit some jumpers and Smith kept getting loose for jumpers around the basket and Ewing hit some shots in the middle of the second quarter. The Knicks took the lead with a 13-3 run at the beginning of the second quarter, then Shaq came back at them, and the Magic finally took a 61-57 lead at halftime.

The Knicks were right there. Again. This was the game of the regular season for them if they could win it. Maybe they could even kid themselves across March that they could catch the Magic for the best record in the Eastern Conference. Even if they could not catch the Magic, they could show that they could take a game at Shaq’s house. Maybe the two teams will meet in the Eastern Conference finals, maybe not. If they do, and the Magic are getting four games out of seven at Orlando Arena, the Knicks know they must win one game here if they are going back to the Finals.

And the Magic took the game from the Knicks in the third quarter. Grant went to the basket and Starks gave him a cheap flagrant hit, because Starks can still do that. Grant made two free throws. Hardaway made a free throw when the Knicks were called for an illegal defense technical. Starks stole the ball, lost it, the Magic got the ball back and O’Neal dunked the ball. Suddenly the Magic led 66-57. The night exploded right there. The Knicks tried to stay in there. But they had been hit, and they knew it.

Ewing did not do well enough against O’Neal Tuesday night. The Knicks hardly ever give the other team a 40-point quarter. They did Tuesday night, with huge stakes. They did not keep Grant off the boards enough. They did not guard Anderson and Scott well enough when O’Neal was finally covered, or sitting on the bench because of some foul trouble of his own. The Knicks have been the second-best team in the Eastern Conference all season.

In the third quarter, when so much was on the line for them, they played second-rate basketball. They gave the Magic some hard looks. Ewing got a technical to go with Mason’s technical, and Starks’ flagrant. But there is always a time in Orlando when the Knicks are the ones who play like the scared rookies.

Maybe it will be different if the Magic have to beat them four times in the Eastern Conference finals. Maybe it will be different in the Garden on the last day of the regular season. And maybe the Knicks aren’t good enough to beat this team. They have experience on their side. They have Ewing and all the veterans. Then the Magic pass it to Shaq and he dunks the ball and the Magic win again.