The interborough basketball rivalry, long pushed and publicized as a thing despite little evidence of its existence, is hard to recognize for Isaiah Hartenstein.
Especially in Brooklyn.
“Is there a rivalry? I mean, I don’t feel it,” Hartenstein, the Knicks center, said. “I mean, most of the time we go to Barclays it’s mostly Knicks fans so I don’t know if it’s really a rivalry at this point.”
Until further notice, the Knicks still own the lion’s share of support from the five boroughs and, quite possibly these days, the better basketball team.
As Hartenstein identified last season, a telling sign of the popularity gap — a distance comparable to LA’s between Lakers and Clippers — is the sea of Knick fans regularly invading Barclays Center for these matchups, an issue for the Nets since their arena opened in 2012.
Whether the Knicks are better remains debatable heading into Wednesday’s game at Barclays Center, the first of four matchups this season between the NYC teams.
But they own a greater record (15-11) than the Nets (13-13), and probably the best two players on either roster with Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle.
Mikal Bridges could provide a legitimate counter argument, but, regardless of how you’d rank NYC’s top-3 players, these circumstances were unfathomable not too long ago.
After Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving spurned the Knicks for the Nets in 2019, momentum was pushing toward a basketball takeover for Joe Tsai’s club.
Instead, Irving set his own franchise aflame, Sean Marks didn’t support Kenny Atkinson, Steve Nash was overwhelmed, fickle Durant was fed up and fickler James Harden quit.
The Nets captured one playoff series in the Durant era and led the league in trade requests.
Now the Knicks-Nets matchups, which Durant relished and dominated, feel like even more of an afterthought following the departures of Brooklyn’s stars.
A college reunion between the Villanova Knicks and Bridges doesn’t quite move the needle. Neither does the debate over the best center in New York City — Mitchell Robinson or Nic Claxton — which lost its sizzle after Robinson’s ankle surgery.
Hartenstein, who grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds in Monday’s win against the Lakers, will be taking up that battle.
“I’m gonna let you all talk about that,” Hartenstein said about the argument over the best center. “I’m not going to get into that.”
Ironically, Randle, who was the Knicks’ safety signing after they whiffed on stars, remains the only player on either roster from the 2019 free agency.
The Knicks essentially apologized to their fan base after signing Randle — issuing a statement that started, “While we understand that some Knicks fans could be disappointed with tonight’s news” — but now he’s the franchise’s second two-time All-Star since Allan Houston.
Randle’s also coming off a dominating performance against the Lakers on Monday night, when coach Tom Thibodeau made sure to match his power forward’s minutes with LeBron James’.
Randle won that matchup despite James finishing with a triple-double.
He’s always extra motivated for games against the Lakers, the team that dumped Randle in free agency in 2018.
And as a result of the gritty victory over the Lakers, the Knicks finished 2-2 on their Western Conference swing — with their five-game road trip concluding Wednesday at place that feels more like home.
“Solid,” Randle said. “We very easily could look at every game and be like we could have won. But to come here and go 2-2 and have a chance to finish above .500 on the road is big.”
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