The three of them - I am talking about Those Guys from Miami - playing this way against the
Celtics, finishing the way they did against the Celtics, is not just a nightmare for the rest of the NBA. It is a nightmare for the
Knicks most of all.
This is just the start of it for
LeBron James and
Dwyane Wade and Chris (Ringo) Bosh in
South Beach, whether they make it to the
NBA Finals this time or not. They aren't going anywhere. It is bad for everybody, and that includes
Derrick Rose and
Kevin Durant and all the other fine young basketball warriors in a sport that is loaded with them right now. It is just worse for the Knicks. Much.
Because if they are ever going to win the team's first championship since 1973, they are going to have to go through LeBron and Wade and them.
Our guys. Those Guys.
And maybe that will be as much of a job for these Knicks as it was for
Patrick Ewing and friends in the early 1990s, when they were asked to go through
Michael Jordan. It doesn't mean that either LeBron or Dwyane Wade is Michael Jordan. Neither one of them is, as immensely gifted as No. 6 and No. 3 are. It sure doesn't mean they are ever going to win as many titles together as Michael won when his wingman was
Scottie Pippen.
Still: They are going to win even if they don't win right now, even if they have the kind of matchup problems with the
Bulls ? provided the Bulls can survive their own matchup problems with the
Hawks ? that the
Lakers just had with
Dallas. It is a fact that
Rajon Rondo was playing one-handed against the Heat, and that
Shaq at the end was broke-down and useless. I still never believed anybody could go 16-0 on these Celtics at the end of a game and at the end of a series the way the Heat did on Wednesday night.
But they sure did. Nightmare on South Beach, just not for
Pat Riley's All-Stars. Just for everybody else in the league. Starting with our kids on 33rd Street. They can tell themselves that they've got their two stars in
Carmelo Anthony and
Amar'e Stoudemire and that another one might be on the way in
Chris Paul. Or
Dwight Howard. The silliness has already begun with both of them. It is the same kind of big, big-city silliness that had people actually believe the 2010-11 Knicks actually had a chance in the first round of the playoffs against the Celtics.
You want to know the reality of this edition of the Knicks, as giddy as everybody got because they made the playoffs for the first time in seven years? The Knicks got swept by a team that nearly got swept by the
Miami Heat. The way the
New York Rangers nearly got swept by a Capitals team that turned around and got swept by the
Tampa Bay Lightning.
