The Pale Rider looked more like the Dead Man Walking.
Keith Van Horn, with a complexion that suggested he had spent two fun-filled weeks in Antarctica, trudged out of the Meadowlands last night before the Nets tried to run their home winning streak to eight against the Knicks. Van Horn was laid low by a flu and cold bug that has swept through the New Jersey locker room.
And the battle of attrition was on.
In the Nets’ locker room, Van Horn’s stall was empty while those of Michael Cage, Scott Burrell (the starter in Van Horn’s place) and Michael Cage were filled with bodies in varying degrees of illness.
But there was little sympathy over on the Knick side where they were quickly trying to recover their “Nine Men, One Mission” video. Marcus Camby was out with a bum left ankle. Charlie Ward was back home in bed with the flu. And Kurt Thomas was off wherever guys who throw elbows into an opponent’s throats go to spend their suspensions.
The veteran Cage admitted he was still weakened from battling a cold, flu and “being wrapped in sweat all day” Monday. McIlvaine admitted he “had felt better” and Burrell was closest of all the ill to being fit.
For the Nets, the problem was trying to find some offense in the absence of Van Horn, their No. 2 scorer at 18.6 points a game. Burrell will battle at the four spot defensively, though decidedly undersized. But Burrell is not the scorer Van Horn is. So it figured that Stephon Marbury would be needed to score more. And that the Nets would try to put on their track shoes.
“We have to come ready to battle. Always [against the Knicks], it’s going to be a war,” said Marbury, who has been directing the offense for the Nets virtually without fault in recent weeks.
“Without Keith, I have to step my game up. Everybody has to step their game up,” continued Marbury. “I’m not going to do anything that I haven’t been doing. I’m going to do the same things but I know that if Keith is not going to play, it’s going to be different. You have to go out and you have to perform. If somebody goes down, it doesn’t mean anything. It can’t.”
The Nets expect Van Horn back for tomorrow night’s affair with the Magic, New Jersey’s final game of the millennium (not that it really means anything, but we figured we’d point that out). But Don Casey will worry about that tomorrow. Last night, his concern was trying to figure out the Knicks’ defense.
“We’ll try to put a little more pressure on the defense because they’re very good in the halfcourt game,” Casey said of the Knicks. “They worked their way to the Finals because they have a good knack for winning close games. Now if we can be a little disruptive…”
Won’t matter. Against the Knicks, you have to be a lot disruptive to have a chance. Even without Ward and Thomas and Camby.
“They’re a great help team,” assessed Marbury, who was pitted against ex-Net Chris Childs in the starting lineup with Ward out. “When they’re playing against a good point guard, they help extremely well. They cut your seams off and make you do things you don’t want to do. They are just a good help and recover team and they protect the basket really well.”
For the Nets, the game carried real significance, even with the diminished numbers on the Knick side. New York still strutted into the joint with the likes of Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston and Patrick Ewing and a recent dominance on the Nets (they whacked New Jersey by 10 in the Meadowlands on Dec. 4). The Nets were coming off a victory over the Bulls. Beating Chicago means about as much as swimming medals in the Sahara. So the Knicks, before a sellout Meadowlands crowd, were a definite measuring stick. And the Nets insisted they were ready.
“The whole point about playing in a game like this is you have to come ready and guys have to step their games up,” Marbury said. “We have to initiate early in order for us to win the game and guys have to step up.”