NBA: Clash of the Streakers - Wednesday on ESPN @ 7pm

Tomorrow night will feature a surely outstanding showdown of two teams from the Atlantic Division in front of a national audience on ESPN at 7pm ET, as the New York Knicks, winners of eight straight, host the Boston Celtics in Madison Square Garden, who are also riding a hot 10 game win streak. 


With the two teams surging and grabbing the headlines early on in the NBA Season, their matchup has spurred the reemergence of the term "rivalry", dating back to the origins of the National Basketball Association. Over the course of their history, the two teams have faced each other a total of 440 regular season games with just under 32% of those games being decided by five or fewer points. The two clubs have also faced off in 12 postseason series', with each side taking 6 series'. 

Neither team nor their coaches is buying into the "rivalry" talk, because over the last 3 years the Boston Celtics have flat out dominated the Eastern Conference, representing the east 2 times in the NBA Championships, while the Knicks haven't won a playoff game in nine years. Today coach Mike D'Antoni said "Wait until we do something and wait until we've threatened them. I don't think [the Celtics are] thinking, 'Oh what a threat this team is.' So we're not there yet." However, I do think all the talk of a rivalry is more of a historic rivalry, rather than a current rivalry, while also hinting that the uprising Knicks, led by Amar'e Stoudemire who has a team record 8-straight games with 30+ points, could be adding a major piece soon either this season or next year [Carmelo Anthony] and this could be the first glimpse of relighting the rivalry that goes back as far as the original 11 NBA teams, and only 3 of them still exist -- and two of them just happen to be facing off on Wednesday Night.