Line-in-the-sand moment allows Knicks and their fans to exhale

At last, you could sense the desperation. Sure, it was only Game 14. Yes, in an 82-game season, there is little reason for there to be even a whiff of desperation attached to Game 14. But you could see it among the Knicks players, as they played every possession — both ends of the floor — with a rare ferocity.

You could hear it, and sense it, among the 16,792 inside Madison Square Garden on Monday night who, across most of the game’s first three quarters, feared they were about to see a fifth straight home loss, worried the Knicks’ hot start to the season would be whittled back to .500.

Yes, it is early.

Yes, patience is preferred.

But also, yes: the Knicks needed a fourth quarter like the one that followed, and so did fans who have invested so much in this team for so long. They both needed to see 74-69, Pacers, after three become 92-84, Knicks, at the end. They needed to see Immanuel Quickley and Derrick Rose hit every big shot down the stretch, needed to see defense that Oak and Mase and the X-Man would’ve been proud of.

“That’s who we are,” Julius Randle said.

And sure: it was also a blast-from-the-past to see the Pacers miss 18 of the 20 shots they took in the fourth quarter. That made the old-timers in the crowd beam, though probably not as brightly as Tom Thibodeau, who across those final 12 minutes looked prouder than a father watching his child deliver a valedictory address.

“I liked the energy from the team on both sides of the ball,” Thibodeau said. “I thought we played really hard defensively, and offensively there was great movement and great pace.”

There was a trace of a smile now.

“We play like that,” he said, “we’ll have a great chance to win.”

It was a sign of how the frustration of the faithful had started to bubble and boil when Obi Toppin was given a hero’s greeting as he stripped off his warm-ups late in the third period. Now, Toppin is a popular Knick. But the intended message was hammered home a few seconds later, with Toppin at the scorer’s table, when Julius Randle committed a sloppy turnover.

And the boos rained down like thunder.

Again: patience is preferred. Once upon a time — 50 years ago, in fact — Earl Monroe got off to a terrible start as a Knick. His third game, half a century from Tuesday, to the day, he shot 0-for-9. He had been a bitter enemy, Walt Frazier’s archnemesis, swapped for a pair of popular players in Mike Riordan and Dave Stallworth. Willis Reed had been lost for the season. The Knicks were 7-9 heading into that game with the Phoenix Suns.

And Pearl shot 0-for-9. And an amazing thing happened:

He wasn’t booed. He was, in fact, cheered with every miss.

“It amazes me how patient Knicks fans were with me,” Pearl said years later. “I was an outsider. A week earlier I’d been the enemy. But I was hurt and I didn’t play well right away and it didn’t seem to matter to them. They were patient with me and I appreciated that.”

Now, it was easy being a patient Knicks fan in 1971. They were 18 months removed from a title. They would play in another NBA Finals six months later. They would win a second championship a year later. It was also a time when seasons were allowed to breathe, when every basketball game wasn’t given the apocalyptic importance of a football game.

Still, it was jarring hearing Randle get booed, less than a month after being bathed with “MVP! MVP! MVP!” chants on opening night. Such is 2021, and such is a Knicks fan base starving for relevance.

Randle, of course, heard the cheers later on, too. They all did: Quickley and Rose, Alec Burks (who was terrific on defense and made a couple of killer 3s) and RJ Barrett (12 essential second-half points) and Taj Gibson (a stunning plus-22 in 29 minutes after needing to work overtime after Mitch Robinson tweaked his ankle).

Patience may be preferable. Patience may be virtuous. But performance is what’s truly appreciated here. The fourth quarter felt like a line-in-the-sand moment for the Knicks, even this early in the season.

“I felt like our whole group played with a lot of energy,” Quickley said. “We all came out with a sense of urgency. We wanted to be there for each other, pick up for each other.”

For one night anyway, the Garden was allowed to exhale. The losing streak was halted. The defense was cranked. Everyone walked away smiling. The desperation was met, and it was dismissed. But these are the Knicks. This is New York. This is the Garden. It’ll be back.