We’ve tried. We really have. This is the 50th season that the Knicks and the Nets have shared the Atlantic Division of the NBA. You would think that by now there could be some kind of rivalry between the two. It shouldn’t be a lot to ask.

This is a basketball city, isn’t it? Maybe it was harder to sell when the Nets were on Long Island, or in Piscataway, or in East Rutherford, or in Newark. The Nets took that 35-odd-year sojourn around the suburbs and nothing could ever quite take.

But Brooklyn vs. Manhattan?

That should matter, shouldn’t it? That should be sellable. These four games they play every year should be holy wars, secular basketball crusades, two games at the Garden, two at Barclays, and let the buildings crackle like the Philly schools when they gather to play their Big Five

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