COMMENTARY : The Knicks Have a Weak Supporting Cast

At the end last Tuesday, having watched Michael Jordan build a night that will be remembered as well as anything he has ever done, after one of the most remarkable performances in basketball history, Patrick Ewing still tried to stand in there with Jordan. Ewing just needed some help. The rest of the Knicks could not give it to him. It happens that way more and more.

It was just another night of the season when John Starks and Charles Oakley, who are supposed to help Ewing the most, seemed to be on some sort of paid leave. They were the second- and third-best Knicks last season, when the Knicks nearly won a championship. This time they are not even close. If they had shown up against the Bulls, Jordan could have scored 65 points and the Knicks would have won the game anyway.

Jordan only scored six points in the fourth quarter against the Knicks. All of a sudden, it was Ewing who couldn’t miss. Even when Jordan had made it to 50 points, it seemed the Knicks could still take the game. Ewing scored 25 points in the second half and 14 in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t enough. Ewing has played this kind of game before against Jordan, and lost. He has played it all the way back to college. Jordan has always had better players around him, even on nights when he doesn’t need them very much.

At North Carolina, Jordan had James Worthy and Sam Perkins. Now he has Scottie Pippen, Toni Kukoc, B.J. Armstrong. The two best Knicks after Ewing are Starks and Oakley. Both were All-Stars last season. This season, they have been the opposite. Even when healthy, both have played like journeymen, and nothing more. The Knicks paid them a ton of money in the preseason, and ever since the two of them have played as if they want to end up on the list of players who will be made available to expansion teams.

If they don’t pick up their games, and soon, the Knicks won’t make it past the first round of the playoffs. Starks in particular has had an awful season. Oakley hasn’t been much better. Of course he had to be given time after coming back from surgery on his toe. But that grace period is over now, and it’s time for him to start doing the job.

Oakley was out-rebounded by Pippen and Kukoc Tuesday night. Starks was 4-for-10 against the Bulls, scored 14 points, and fell down on the last play, when the Knicks had a chance to tie. Something always seems to happen when Starks has the ball at the end of the game. There is always a better chance it will be something bad than something good.

We are a month from the playoffs. The longer Oakley and Starks go this way, the less reason there is to believe they can change the seasons they are having. Maybe Oakley waited too long to have his surgery and came back too soon. That doesn’t help anything now. Most nights, Starks’ game looks as if it is beyond help. In the last minutes of Tuesday night’s game, he couldn’t do anything at either end of the court.

Even when Jordan is such a remarkable one-man show, he gets help all over the place. B.J. Armstrong made big baskets, as he always does against the Knicks, and his 16 points were more than any Knick except Ewing. Pippen quietly came within two assists and one rebound of having a triple double. The Bulls have problems rebounding the ball, matching up defensively at center and power forward, but they sure are hard to cover when it is their turn to have the ball.

Larry Brown of the Pacers said the Bulls would win the title as soon as Jordan announced he was returning. The day of the Bulls-Pacers game at Market Square, Jordan’s first game back, I asked Brown if he meant what he said, especially since his own team is good enough to go all the way.

“No disrespect meant to my own team, but I meant what I said,” Brown said, and when asked for reasons why, he said he had four. “Jordan, Pippen, Armstrong, Kukoc. You try to guard all of them at the same time.”

And after Jordan got 55 and the Bulls beat the Knicks, Steve Kerr of the Bulls said, “We have as good a chance as anybody, especially since we have Superman on our team.”

The Knicks have Ewing, who is not Superman. Their next best player against the Bulls was Derek Harper. He had a terrific game at the point, but Pat Riley has played him too many minutes already this season, and you have to wonder how much Harper is going to have left if the Knicks do win a round or two in the playoffs. Doc Rivers might not have been able to save the Knicks from Jordan, but he would have at least pushed him around a little and not let him just walk the ball up the court sometimes.

This isn’t about teams like the Pistons. The Knicks have no chance in the playoffs if Oakley and Starks aren’t going to show up against the league’s best teams. As much of a warrior as Oakley has been for Riley, the Knicks have played better without him this season. He has had one game that anybody remembers--against the Nuggets, the night Anthony Mason and Pat Riley got close enough you thought they were ballroom dancing--since coming back off the injured list.