February 18: The Knicks Streak vs. the Bogeyman Somehow the Knicks--the scurrying Knicks--want to make you break out into a cheer. The cornier the better. Like
Who's got 'em on the run? A bit juvenile, huh. Yet the Knicks these days can make you break through normal reserve about a professional sports team. They are winning. That's good. But the way they are winning is a basketball fan's delight. For a decade the team's fumbling and bumbling made cynicism the armor with which every Knicks fan coated himself. Now they are playing basketball the way it must have been meant to be played. (To paraphrase a silly old line, "If Prof. James Naismith were alive, he'd be jumping for joy in his grave"). The Knicks are generating a spirit that must be the essence of what sports arena hubbub ought to be all about. Eleven straight victories; a team record. Twenty straight victories at home. Twenty-eight victories in their last 32 games. Lickety-split, hot damn.
And now tonight these dashiing darlings take their little 11-game winning streak against the ogre himself, Mr. Wilt Chamberlain. The anti-hero, the no-joyboy, the spoilsport who can take the joy out of winning. But no matter what you say about him, he represents a formidable obstacle to the Knicks' streak. Frank Blauschild, the Knicks' assistant coach who doubles as publicity man, gave voice to these fears yesterday while some of the boys were savoring the taste of Knicks success. Blauschild said, "Naturally, I think we can handle the Lakers. We can beat anybody right now. But the big guy is something. The way he plays normally, we can handle him. But now it's a challenge to beat the Knicks. And that's the goose he needs. Now, he's liable to go out and do anything. When he wants to, you know there's no stopping him." The Lakers are in first place in their division by a comfortable margin, but things have not gone smoothly with Chamberlain in his first year at Los Angeles. There's been one irritation after another with the temperamental big guy. One night he somehow managed to work himself up into a royal pout, taking only three shots. That brought a lot of talk, culminating with a cover piece on him by Sports Illustrated. Following the magazine story, Chamberlain busted out and scored 66 points. "Take that world." When Chamberlain was with Philadelphia, owner Irv Kosloff said, "What can you do to make this man play his best or near his best every game?" The magazine article helped for one game, and now the Knicks' streak should help stir him up tonight. On top of that, there's the normal incentive Chamberlain has in New York. He usually has a good game here because it is the big city. And he never has fogotten that Knicks owner Ned irish saw him as a negative influence and refused to try to get hm when Chamberlain made himself personna non grata at San Francisco. The way the Knicks are going it's a blessing they don't have Chamberlain now. Because, even if they won with him, they wouldn't be the exciting, dynamic team they are now. Chamberlain slows up a team. His effectiveness as a seven-foot colossus works at the expense of spectator excitement. Chamberlain's scoring--when he pushes himself to score--consists of overpowering people near the basket and dunking the ball through the hoop. Or overpowering the opposition under the boards to grab a rebound and then moving upcourt well behind the play. Dullsville. The Knicks are a blur of speed, dazzling the opposition with movement. The Knicks fast-break on offense and frequently use an all-court press to harass the oppostion on defense. If a team can keep this up, there's no better way to play exciting, crowd-pleasing basketball. The Boston Celtics did this for a decade. So it comes down to an exciting matchup tonight. Can the exciting fun guys-Walt Frazier, Willie Reed, Dave DeBusschere & Skedaddlers--run rings around the Big Bad Bogeyman? Whoosh-whoosh, wham-wham.
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7. The Glorious Knicks 
