The Knicks Fix

If you're a Knicks fan, this is this season's first real moment of truth. Your team can prove a lot over the next very difficult stretch of games.

The Knicks lately have proven to be very watchable. They no doubt compete and have proven time and again that you can never count them out until the final buzzer. Is all of that -- plus the development of Eddy Curry as a dominant post player, the transformation of Stephon Marbury into someone who gives a gritty effort on both sides of the ball and a healthy supporting cast that is starting to understand their respective roles -- enough to pull the Knicks out of pretender mode and into contender mode?

We'll know over the next seven days.

It starts with a killer weekend against some old friends: The Nets on Friday at the Garden. The Pacers Saturday in Indiana. The Heat on Monday in Miami.

Isiah Thomas seemed to already begin stoking the fire -- perhaps his greatest trait as coach -- under his team. The Nets can continually talk about how they view the Knicks as just another game (so says Richard Jefferson), but don't believe it. And don't believe that Lawrence Frank hasn't forgotten about some of the hard fouls from the preseason finale in Jersey, when the coaching staffs from both teams exchanged words after the game. And when Thomas seemed to get pleasure out of annoying the Nets, who have worn the New York-area basketball crown for a while now (and are on their way to invade prime Knick territory, Brooklyn, very soon).

No, Friday's game will be the most significant Knicks-Nets game since they met in the playoffs in 2004 (and even that seemed too one-sided to matter).

And with the Knicks two-games back of the Nets in the Atlantic, Thomas wants this thing to get hyped. He knows it's a statement game not just for where the Knicks are in the standings, but where they are in reclaiming the status as New York's hoop kings.

“I hope it become one of the most intense rivalries that we’ve seen in a long time," Isiah said on Wednesday. "I hope it becomes that. Rivalries are good. Having an enemy is not a bad thing. To get a little respect on the block you’ve got to have a couple of enemies.”

The Knicks seemed to have gotten through their worst times this season, from the awful start and the ugly brawl. The Nets, with Jason Kidd's very public divorce and trade speculation that involve Kidd, Jefferson and Vince Carter, seem in the midst of a trouble. But if that's true, it's only off the court. On it, the Nets have won seven of nine games and are inching closer to .500.

The Knicks have slowly gained respect as they have won 8 of the 14 games since the Dec. 16 brawl and played with a relentless spirit that is a Thomas trademark. He's been very good at developing that Us-against-The World mentality.

"We’re not a group that’s looking for sympathy," Thomas said. "We’re a group that is trying to gain and get respect. I take pride in the attitude that we fight.”

OK, let's see it now. And we don't mean hard fouls and bravado. Let's see what you're made of, Knicks.

Eddy Money

I took a seat next to Eddy Curry at his locker after the Wizards game and said, "What's up with you and the foul line lately? Suddenly you're Larry Bird."

Curry smiled. "I know."

"Seriously," I said, "are you doing anything different?"

He raised his eyebrows as he gathered his stuff and said, "The leather ball."

The numbers supported his theory.

Curry is shooting 48-for-66 from the line, which is a respectable 72.7 percent, in the seven games since the New Year, when the leather ball was reintroduced.

In the 33 games prior to that -- and using that synthetic ball the NBA implemented at the start of the 2006-07 season -- Curry made just 143 of 248, which is a 57.6 percent clip.

Gotta be the ball.

Deep Thoughts

Jared Jeffries hit three jumpers - deep jumpers - against the Wizards. It was so out-of-character even some of the Wizards personnel were asking each other when the last time they remember seeing him hit a long-range jay. But it looks like the extra work Jared has put in is paying off . . . Would it bother you as readers and fans if you happened to see someone you know who covers the NBA for a prominent national media outlet finish an interview with a star player by giving him a hug and saying, "You know I'm your boy, right?" . . . At the Verizon Center, the visiting NBA team now use the locker room of the WNBA's Mystics. When Thomas and the Knicks arrived for the shoot-around, they seemed hesitant to enter the room with "MYSTICS" written on the wall next to the door. Someone joked that he had been demoted to the WNBA. Thomas, whose good friend Bill Laimbeer has had a very successful run as coach of the WNBA's Detroit franchise, chuckled at the thought and said, "Not yet."