Image via Complex Original
11.
Madison Square Garden has seen many of the NBA's finest performances. It's a shame so many of them came from players who weren't on the Knicks.
While the Knicks have had plenty of great moments as a franchise, they've often been on the wrong side of some of the best performances ever. It's never a good look to be the team that players break records against, but playing in the world's most famous arena will open you up to some historic beatings. Especially if it's the 1960s and they're playing Wilt Chamberlain.
Patrick Ewing put in work at The Garden and Carmelo Anthony holds the record for most points in a single game at the arena, but those achievements still don't eclipse what Pete Maravich, Michael Jordan, or Chamberlain (seriously, Wilt the Stilt was New York's reckoning in human form) did to them. In honor of last Saturday's 20th anniversary of Jordan's "Double Nickel" game, here are 10 of the Biggest Single-Player Ass-Whoopings Handed to the Knicks. So much hurt here, guys. So. Much. Hurt.
10.Logo Stamp
Date: 12/14/1965
Rick Barry has 15 50-plus games in his NBA career. He was a pretty good scorer, and the Knicks know this since he scored over 50 points on them twice within a 13-year span. The biggest one was the first, when he dropped 57 points on a Knicks team that was en route to another losing season. As you'll surmise, the '60s wasn't a great decade to be a Knick.
9.People Like You Don't Play With People Like Us
Date: 4/12/2009
The Heat may not have been great in that 2008-09 season, but they were still good enough for the playoffs, and way better than the Knicks. To demonstrate, Dwyane Wade decided to score a career-high 55 points. By the second-to-last game of the season, the Knicks were already out of the playoff race. So this was extra salt in the wound, and New York would have a couple of extra months to lick them.
8.Splash, Splash, and Then Another Splash
Date: 2/27/2013
Granted, it wasn't as bad as what Klay Thompson did to the Kings, though this was still a rough moment in the Knicks' last good season. New York was going through a February where it finished with a monthly record barely above .500 and was 1-4 in the five games before playing the Warriors. Unfortunately for the Knicks, Curry wasn't trying to let them be great. That 54-point performance had New York kicking themselves for not going after him in the 2009 draft. However, Curry had the misfortune of playing a Knicks team that still knew how to win games; Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith scored 35 and 26 points, respectively, to grab the 109-105 win.
7.Can't Stop The King
Date: 2/4/2009
If LeBron James is the second coming of Michael Jordan, it makes sense a game like this had to happen at some point. The Knicks were clearly still recoiling from what Bryant did to them (see below). James, young and remorseless, decided to postpone their healing process by dropping 52 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. As if the Knicks needed to be humbled more.
6.Not as Bad as the Raptors, But Close
Date: 2/2/2009
Basketball's equivalent to “New York New York,” where the Mamba is kicking the shit out of the Knicks instead of Snoop Dogg. Bryant didn't just break the Knicks, he set the record for most points scored in Madison Square Garden. Isn't that sad? The name at the top of your own home arena's record books is of a guy playing on the other coast. Luckily for Knickerbocker fans Carmelo Anthony would re-break that record with 62 (in three quarters) in 2014.
5.Nine Seconds to Night Night
Date: 5/7/1995
Of course, Reggie Miller's performance on May 7, 1995 is far from being the most commanding of the list — although 31 points isn't nothing to scoff at. But…you know why this is on this list. It wasn't just that Miller was the central figure in one of the most horrifying sequences in Knicks history. New York allowed it to happen. Those nine seconds don't happen if Anthony Mason (bless his soul) doesn't make that bad pass and John Starks—the symbol of passion over smarts—doesn't decide to foul a Miller of all people. The only thing poor Knicks fans and Spike Lee could do was watch.
4.Pistol Pete's Unlimited Clip
Date: 2/25/77
In yet another NBA great's career-high performance against the Knicks, Maravich decided to make the most of his middling Jazz squad by putting on a highlight show. Maravich was getting buckets at will on this night, from impossible trick shots to those from deep downtown. The legend ended up with 68 points on 26-for-43 shooting. Plus, you can even argue that Maravich was the only one to stop Maravich that night; he fouled out with a little over a minute remaining, killing his chances of reaching 70.
3.One of the First of Many
Date: 11/15/1960
Elgin Baylor earns a place in history for being one of the fathers of Knicks ass-whooping. The Lakers great took it upon himself to give what still stands as one of the biggest torchings the Knicks ever suffered. He broke the NBA single game record with a 71-point performances on top of 25 rebounds.
On the game, former Knicks player Johnny Green simply said, “Elgin did nothing unusual in that game…It was just a typical Baylor performance. He just came down the floor, his teammates would clear out an area, and he'd shoot—a jump shot or a driving layup, followed up by a rebound if he missed.” But is it unusual if New York got worked the hardest by Baylor?
2.Michael Jordan's Double-Nickel
Date: 3/28/1995
It's not a Jordan comeback until the Knicks get yoked up, smacked up, and clapped up by M.J. Enter yet another chapter of Jordan lore: the Knicks' '90s subjugation continued via a 55-point, 21-for-37 performance. Of course, this was Jordan's biggest game of his short season. You think that this was the game where it dawned that Starks threw away New York's biggest chance of winning a championship that decade?
1.Killed by Stilt
Date: 3/2/1962
You thought what Michael Jordan did to the Knicks in the '90s was bad?
73 Points at The Garden on Nov. 16, 1962
62 points at The Garden on Jan. 29, 1963
59 points at The Garden on Dec. 25, 1961
58 points at The Garden on Dec. 15, 1964 and Feb. 21, 1960
55 points at The Garden on Jan. 30, 1962.
Also, no one wants to be that one team who let a single player put up 100 points on them. Take a wild guess what team let that happen.