Lost in the runup to March Madness last week (at least for non-Knick fans at large) were two Knick performances at home that effectively shut the door on any hope for the playoffs, to the Nets and Kings. The nature of the NBA is that dispiriting, underachieving performances happen, to teams at all levels. And they even happen in the crucible of a playoff race. Teams play horribly, smart bloggers get upset (yes they do), the end of the world seems near. It happens to the great teams, it happens to the terrible ones. The season is just too long to have most teams playing at a consistently high level.

You could even detect signs of these disastrous performances to come in the successful road trip that preceded this meltdown homestand. One, giving up 65 points against the Bucks in the first half in one of the worst shows of defense all year, even for a defensively challenged team. Then you had the first half against the Timberwolves which featured some of the most unwatchable basketball played by any two teams in the NBA. And even in the overtime victory against the Pistons, which featured a genuinely exciting comeback, the Knicks were outrebounded 64-39, and saved most of their inspiring play for the final quarter and overtime.

Of course, the Knicks have done this before. The last time things looked this promising on a road trip (the "moral victory losses" to the Suns and Lakers in December), the Knicks came back and had their worst three game stretch of the season, losing at home to Milwaukee by 24, the Celtics on the road by 19, and the Timberwolves by 13 at home. As Clyde so often puts it (an ongoing refrain for this year's season), the Knicks can't handle prosperity, and it especially bites them in the ass when they return home to play games against very beatable teams.

Still, it was a shock to see the Knicks come out so lifeless with so much on the line against a New Jersey Nets team without Devin Harris, a Nets team that had just completed a poor road trip with a blowout loss to the Nuggets. Perhaps the Knicks could have taken a lesson from the Denver Nuggets and played proper pick and roll defense against Dooling, Carter and Lopez.

But the failings were not so much tactical (even though there was plenty of poor execution), as they were mental. MSG likes to show D'Antoni at the end of his pre-game speech to the players, and occasionally you can catch a glimpse of the whiteboard where the game notes are written. One thing that was written large enough to read was something along the lines of "Watch Carter...likes to shoot two feet behind three point line". And what did the Knicks do? Permit VC to score 19 straight points, including four 3 pointers from precisely those 2 to 3 feet behind the line.  Other Net players that eventually went off on their own runs were Chris Douglas-Roberts (who torched Nate) and Brook Lopez (who likewise punished Lee, though in fairness to Lee his help let him down a great deal on several occasions).

The game against Sacramento was (to a sickening degree) even more of the same: fall behind 15-0, came back to within one, then gradually let the lead build back up to 19 at halftime, and as much as 30 by the third quarter. This was even more shocking than the Nets game, because the Nets without Devin Harris still have enough talent to be competitive. The Kings have won 15 games all year and are more accustomed to *losing* games in the way the Knicks did at the Garden last week -- they don't build 30 point margins and win in laughers.

If we look at the glass half-full, we can say that it's surprising this hasn't happened more often to such a flawed team -- the Knicks have been within six points or less of their opponent with under five minutes to go in virtually every game since that dreadful three game stretch in December mentioned earlier.  Only the Rockets, the Lakers and the Warriors have led by large margins throughout the fourth quarter and not allowed the Knicks a chance at winning the game since Christmas of 2008. Another way of saying this is that in the last 40 games, the Knicks have given themselves a chance to win in 37 of them...which points to another reality about this team, for all its personnel changes and varying lineups: they've been 17-20 in these games, showing a less than great track record in being able to close out tight games.

The latest collapse may also be a physical breaking down in terms of injuries -- Duhon most conspicuously (the team has not been the same since he hurt his ankle on the West Coast road trip at the start of February), Lee more recently, and then Hughes and Harrington with smaller but still significant ailments for a team with so little margin for error.

But these losses hurt -- because for a team that's been cut plenty of slack as it sheds salary, such poor effort rips at the foundation of competitiveness and the new culture of accountability, winning and playing hard that D'Antoni and his coaching staff have worked so hard to build since they first took the job. D'Antoni has been careful not to fault the players' effort, and indeed, they do seem to be trying -- and it's only two games. At this point, the cynics say, let's be done with talk of the playoffs and focus on the draft and what next year's team will look like (a lot like this one, I'm afraid).

But the greater questions of leadership and the character of this team and its key players have yet to be determined -- even rentals need to have their roles, and someone needs to lead. And what these two losses did was throw everything up in the air yet again, even as they closed the door to this season.