Ding dong, the Knicks are dead (in the water) ...

Sorry, don't mean to pile it on, but I just can't help myself ...

Celtics light up Knicks (boston.com)

Boston (12-2) improved to 8-0 at home this season. The Celtics' best home start was 12-0 in the 1984-85 season.

"In the past, we haven't given [the fans] a whole lot to cheer for," coach Doc Rivers said. "So now they are. They're here. They have great energy. You feel it and the players feel it. It's good."

Most of the fans stuck around for most of the fourth quarter. Why? Probably to see just how badly the Knicks would lose.

Smoke signals loud and clear (boston.com)

Say hello to the 2007 New York Knicks. Clowns to the left. Jokers to the right. As dysfunctional families go, the Knicks make the Osbournes look like the Cleavers. This team needs Dr. Phil more than it needs Dr. J or Dr. Jack Ramsay.

The Knicks made their first visit to Boston last night and were thrashed, 104-59. It was another Belichickian win for the locals, who improved to 8-0 at the Garden. Ray Allen played the part of Tom Brady and Paul Pierce was Randy Moss. Doc Rivers kept the Celtics in shotgun formation deep into the third quarter. The Celtics led by 52 midway though the fourth. What a beating.

It's times like this we really miss Red Auerbach, and not just because the Celtics have the best record in the NBA. Red would have loved what is happening to the Knicks almost as much as he'd enjoy seeing his Celtics back on top.

A hard Knick life as Celts embarrass New Yorkers (bostonherald.com)

[W]ith a national audience peering in on cable, appearances were important. The Knicks, apparently, didn't get the memo.

The Celtics followed the hype onto their biggest stage of the season, running their home record to 8-0 with a wild 104-59 win over the Knicks that was so overwhelming, not a single New Yorker reached double figures until Nate Robinson's meaningless 3-pointer at the buzzer.

"Boston came out with a playoff-type intensity, a national television game, and we didn't respond to that type of energy, and it's disappointing," Knicks coach Isiah Thomas said. "We're not ready for prime time yet, that's for sure."

Thanks to Robinson's shot, New York was spared the wrong kind of immortality. His bomb pushed the Knicks over the franchise low of 58 points, set on Dec. 15, 2000, against the Utah Jazz.

The Knicks also just missed becoming the lowest-scoring Celtics opponent in the shot clock era, leaving the burden on a Milwaukee team that scored only 57 points on Feb. 27, 1955, in Providence.

"Of course I am embarrassed. We lost by nearly 50 points," Knicks guard Stephon Marbury said. "I'm angry. I'm always angry when I lose, but that was just flat-out embarrassing. To lose that bad was just ridiculous."

Rock bottom (nypost.com)

Isiah Thomas viewed last night's nationally televised matchup vs. the vaunted Celtics as a chance to put the Knicks on the map.

Instead, with a motivational lift from Quentin Richardson, the Celtics blew the Knicks out of the new Boston Garden, blew them off the NBA map, blew them off the world map, blew them all the way to Mars by the time this disgusting 104-59 carnage was over.

...

The players were devastated and talked about being embarrassed. Thomas ripped the team for playing selfish.

Eddy Curry bolted out of the locker room, brushing off reporters. Zach Randolph and Malik Rose talked in choked tones. This 45-point loss was so sickening a new Isiah Watch could begin anew as the Knicks (4-10) try to erase the stench tonight vs. Milwaukee at a potentially venomous Garden.

...

In an incredible display of surrender, with 8:09 left and the Celtics mounting a 50-point lead on Eddie House's jumper, a Knicks fan sitting behind the basket ripped off his blue Knicks jersey, threw it onto the court in a rage and marched up the stairs and out of the building as Celtics fans applauded.

There was a very brief "Fire Isiah" chant from the Boston crowd, and TNT's Charles Barkley predicted Thomas' demise with a Milwaukee loss tonight at the Garden. Unfortunately, that's not happening.

Knicks are a flop in prime time (nytimes.com)

Fifty-two points separated the Boston Celtics from the Knicks late Thursday night, and it was hard to say whether the biggest gap was on the scoreboard, or between Coach Isiah Thomas and his players.

The Knicks' first nationally televised game in years turned into a nationally televised humiliation — a 104-59 rout that served as a striking indictment of the Knicks' resolve. They appeared to be playing near one another, as opposed to with one another. The scale of their defeat calls into question whether players are either turning on Thomas or perhaps on one another. They all dismissed the idea, but Thomas blasted his players for playing "extremely selfish."

Celtics destroy Knicks, 104-59 (newsday.com)

A league-wide joke? That's what TNT commentator Reggie Miller considered the Knicks earlier this week. After Thursday night's 104-59 spanking by the Celtics at TD Banknorth Garden -- and not to mention, on national television -- they were no doubt an even easier punch line.

Charles Barkley, who worked in the TNT studio for Thursday night's broadcast, put up a graphic of his Knicks Fav Five, which consisted of Patrick Ewing, Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bill Bradley and, Barkley added, "No One Today."

No one Thursday night, for sure.

The hope for the Knicks was that they had turned the corner after Monday's win over Utah; that their troubles from that miserable week out west and all the controversy that came with it were behind them. That they could prove on a national stage that they should be taken seriously.

Quentin Richardson even tossed a log on the fire when he said the Knicks didn't have any fear of the Celtics' "Big Three" of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. "We're not in awe of them," Richardson said. "They ain't won no championships."

For the time being, they can claim to have you by as many as 52 points (95-43) in the fourth quarter and hand you your worst loss in over 27 years. The 45-point deficit tied the third-worst loss in franchise history, set Feb. 20, 1980 in a 131-86 thrashing at Indiana. The franchise's worst all-time loss was a 62-point defeat at Syracuse on Christmas Day, 1960.

The 59 points scored by the Knicks is the second-lowest output in franchise history. Nate Robinson's three-pointer at the buzzer avoided the record, which is 58 points, in an 89-58 loss to Utah on Dec. 15, 2000.

"We played horrible, that's the bottom line," Quentin Richardson said. "Take nothing away from them, but at the same time, we played horrible."

Celtics embarrass Knicks by 45 points (nydailynews.com)

A new prime-time comedy debuted on TNT last night. It's called the "Isiah Follies" and it is about a basketball team that can't shoot straight, play defense or even pretend it cares. How in the name of Red Holzman can the Knicks trail by 52 to the rival Celtics?

Knicks can't dismiss this grand debacle, but they can dismiss Isiah Thomas (nydailynews.com)

[I]n their 104-59 debacle, their most lopsided loss to their hated Atlantic Division rivals, the Knicks showed no heart, no fight, no nothing.

This early in the season, this kind of a defeat is inexcusable, unless the players are looking to run off the coach.

When he finally showed up to address the media out in the hallway, Isiah Thomas was asked if his team quit on him.

"No," he said outside his fast-emptying locker room.

Well, what's he supposed to say, yes?

"We didn't compete," Thomas said, stating the obvious.

"I don't know where this game came from," he said.

He didn't want to know, to be truthful. This kind of game is every coach's nightmare. This was Thomas' bad dream. You know what he said only a week ago about not foreseeing any changes this year, meaning he didn't see himself getting fired? If Thomas' team responds to his coaching with a few more games like this one, Jim Dolan is going to have to amend that statement.

By firing Thomas.

Which is the way it has to work.

Daily Dime: more Knicks and bruises (sports.espn.go.com)

It was scarcely more than a week ago that I cautioned never to declare anything a new low for the New York Knicks, because one can always be certain that no matter how bad things may look at the moment, there's always the distinct possibility no, make that the distinct certainty -- that something even more horrific is in store.

But dare we say the same thing again after watching the Knicks embarrass themselves anew Thursday night in a 104-59 loss to the Boston Celtics?

Well, there's always Friday night.

And if the Knicks pull a stink job at home Friday night against Milwaukee to match the bomb they laid on Thursday night, it'll immediately be time to re-raise the subject of whether Isiah Thomas' tenure as coach and president of the team is down to its final hours.

It was clear and evident to all Thursday night that the Knicks are a team that have quit on their coach, the TNT broadcast crew repeatedly observing that against the Celtics they played with the body language of a team playing out the string in April.

Given that it's still November, not April, we must agree that we've never seen anything quite like it.

It'll be a feisty crowd at the Garden on Friday night, a crowd that'll come prepared to lay it on Thomas thick should the game get away from the Knicks as quickly and as thoroughly as it did Thursday night.

If the Knicks lose by 40 again, the venom will be so poisonous -- especially if owner Jim Dolan is taking in the game from his usual front row seat -- that it might actually leave Dolan with no choice but to cut the cord with Thomas in order to be seen as doing something to placate the team's ever-shrinking fan base.

There comes a point when enough is simply enough, and that point may be imminent. One more quit job from the players, especially if it comes Friday so close on the heels of this latest debacle, and Thomas is going to have to go. But then again, even if it's the only move that makes sense for Dolan, history shows that it probably means he actually won't do it.

Still, the law of averages has to work in favor of common sense at some point, and common sense clearly shows that Thomas has to be in severe job jeopardy after a loss that pushed the Knicks from a 9.5 to a 10 on the laughingstock meter.

Things couldn't get worse than that, could they? The answer, of course, is yes, they could. And how could they possibly outdo the new low they dropped to on national television Thursday night? Perhaps we'll find out Friday, and then we can turn our attention to seeing whether Thomas makes it though Saturday.