Yogi Berra may have some competition for over-understatement of all-time.
Forget “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over” – Monday night, after his team’s win over the Bulls, Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau had a Yogi-esque take on his team’s 4.5 game deficit with six to play:
“You're never eliminated until you're eliminated,” Thibs quipped, a truthful statement even if that notion seems a formality waiting to happen sometime this week. “I don’t want a quitting spirit to our team, I want to keep fighting.”
That elimination was actually closer to reality one week ago, but the Knicks’ 109-104 win over Chicago was their fourth dub in a row, and brought the ‘Bockers to 34-42 on the season. The Hawks, now 38-37 after winning two straight, sit 4.5 up and have a game in hand, and theoretically could eliminate the Knicks as soon as Wednesday night if they defeat Oklahoma City and the Knicks lose to Charlotte.
Then again, the original quip worked for Yogi’s ’73 Mets, who came back from a 13-game deficit in the regular-season to end up winning the pennant, so perhaps Thibs and his youngsters can experience déjà vu all over again.
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“The big thing is we're playing all these young guys and they're getting valuable experience,” Thibodeau said. "I want to keep fighting, so until we're eliminated, we're going to keep fighting. And we've got a number of guys that are growing and that's what we're trying to do. I don't believe in that other stuff."
To be fair, even if they fail to reach the play-in tournament, it has been a strong surge to end the season for the Knicks, who are 9-8 since the break but have notched all nine of those wins in the last 13 games. It may be too little, too late in the end – or, as Yogi would say, it got late early – but Thibs can take the positive from that run.
"Since the All-Star break, I think we played really good basketball," Thibodeau said. "Unfortunately, we didn't have some wins to show for it early on. But we were playing well, we were playing against good teams. We've had a heavy road schedule and this team has responded."
If he needed one more Yogi-ism to copy, Thibs could have said “we made too many wrong mistakes,” but perhaps he’d rather hang his hat on this one: you can observe a lot just by watching.
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