Everyone knows the Knicks are an abysmal basketball team. We didn't know just how abysmal, however, until last night's 104-59 loss to the Boston Celtics, in which the Knicks looked about as competitive as a bunch of sick, old antelope being torn to shreds by a pride of lions in the Serengeti.

It got ugly early for New York, and stayed that way right to the finish. The Celtics took a 27-16 lead in the first quarter, and extended that out to 54-31 by the half. Of course the Knicks rallied in the third...actually, I'm kidding, they didn't rally. They rolled over and died, not bothering with defense, refusing to hit the boards, and demonstrating such utter offensive ineptitude that if the Celtics had just pulled their players off the court and let the Knicks try to score undefended, they still wouldn't have been able to make a basket.

Someone needs to explain to me how an NBA team manages to score only 59 points in an entire game. A team with guys on it like Eddy Curry, Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford - guys who are supposed to be able to put the ball in the basket at least. The only answer is that they're not trying hard. That is certainly the case with Marbury, who could be the single-worst point-guard in the history of the NBA. Starbury was 2-6 shooting last night with 4 points, 1 assist and 3 turnovers. 1 assist from your point guard. The Knicks as a team had only 12 assists, which would tend to indicate a lack of crisp ball movement.

Marbury, to his credit, seemed aware of how disgraceful his performance was, spending the fourth quarter on the bench with a towel on his head. Isiah Thomas, who is still for some reason the coach of this team, spent most of the game in an apparent daze, perhaps pondering ways of killing himself or at the very least getting out of his contract.

Isiah is clearly past the point where he thinks anything he says or does will be able to motivate his sorry excuse for a team. He merely sat there on the bench last night, staring blankly, occasionally placing his hand to his chin in a pantomime of pensiveness. The Celtics, meanwhile, spent their evening entertaining their home fans with a display of championship-level basketball, spearheaded by Paul Pierce's 50% 3-point shooting, and Kevin Garnett's 11 rebounds.

The only suspense left at the end of the game concerned whether the Knicks would manage to crawl past 58 points, the franchise record for fewest in a game (they did). Oh, and whether the Celtics would break their own team record for largest margin-of-victory, set in 1970 when they beat the Baltimore Bullets 153-107 (they just missed).

Now the suspense is over whether Isiah Thomas will finally be fired. There really shouldn't be any doubt, but with a bozo like James Dolan running the team, you never can tell.