Kniks and Nets in basketball, Yankees and Mets in baseball, Giants and Jets in football, Rangers and Islanders in hockey. Journey into the sporting disappointments of the Big Apple waiting for playoff derby to get excited
New York. New York, along with Los Angeles, is the only city in the United States to have two teams in all professional leagues. This is why there are so many derbies in the city, but we don’t think there is the same fever as for the local derby games. Everything changes if the match is decisive to advance in the playoff phase because during the regular season the derbies are absolutely routine, they don’t inflame the fans that much. We in Italy mainly follow basketball which is the most popular among American sports, but the hierarchies here are different: in the interest of the public, football and baseball rule.
Staying focused on basketball that is in the middle of the season The Kniks and Nets met Saturday night for the second time since the season began. Brooklyn won by dominating much of the game, with a maximum lead of 20 points, but the fourth half would have ended differently without the performance of former outcast Kyrie Irving. Irving, the one who couldn’t play for a long time in New York because he hadn’t been vaccinated and who was suspended at the beginning of the season for a tweet with clear anti-Semitic connotations, scored 20 of his 31 points in the fourth half allowing the Nets to win 122 to 115. In November the Nets had always won 112 to 85, just when Irving was out of the team, but Kevin Durant was still in the lineup today stopped with an injury. Brooklyn is fourth in the Eastern standings with 30 wins and 19 losses, New York is seventh (27-24) and therefore for now just a hair’s breadth away from direct access to the final phase of the Eastern Conference.
Only twice have both teams qualified for the playoffs since the Nets became New Yorkers in 2012 by moving from New Jersey. It must be said that in the last twenty years the Kniks have only reached the final six times, the last time they won the ring in 1972. In short, they have not really shone, a symbol of a city that does not have the relevance in sport might assume.
Because there is little to say, the most expensive city, and therefore also the richest, in the world fails to be authoritative in sport. New York in addition to the Kniks and Nets in basketball, has two franchises in baseball, Yankees and Mets, Giants and Jets in football, Rangers and Islander in hockey. The most recent title among all leagues is that of the Giants in 2011. The NFL has arrived at the climax with the Superbowl scheduled for February 12 in Glendale, Arizona, where anticipation is also high for Rihanna’s performance on the mid-game show. New York, after a starring season was eliminated cleanly in the divisional semifinal by Philadelphia. A synthesis match of the rivalry between two nearby cities, so much so that (contrary to the derby of regular season of basketball) the news gave great prominence to the eve and, unfortunately for New York, also to the final result of 38 to 7. During the Italian night they qualified for the most followed sports final on the planet The Philadelphia Eagles which annihilated the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs kicking the Cincinnati Bengals with three seconds left. Unedited final for the Superbowl.
However, not everyone knows that the first championship of a team sport in North America was hockey born in 1893, at the beginning there were only Canadian formations, but it soon expanded to all of the United States. Since 1915, whoever wins takes home the Stanley Cup. The championship began in October and the playoff final is scheduled for January 8 to 18 in the best of five games. The Rangers won the last of four titles in 1994, the Islanders dominated the early 1980s with four straight wins.
The biggest recent disappointment for the city remains baseball. The Yankees after starring in the regular season accompanied by the record of sixty-two home runs in a single season, set by Aaron Judge, they collapsed in the semifinal against Huston, who then won the World Series, disappointing the expectations of the fans of the most beloved team in the city. Even the most glorious, with its twenty-seven titles out of forty finals, but which hasn’t won since 2009. These are no longer the times of Babe Ruth and Joe di Maggio.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Houston have sewn more badges on their shirts in recent years. Being rich is not enough to win.
