So I went to the Garden on Wednesday night to watch the Knicks play the Magic. It wasn’t the greatest game to watch but the end was exciting. It had been a couple of years since I have gone to MSG, so being back there was great. And it was packed too. I was surprised to see so many people showing up to a weekday game against the Magic. But the fans showed up in force. Again, not the most enthralling game to watch but it was definitely great to be back at the Garden.

I’ll go more into the great feeling of returning to watch the Knicks in another post, though. Something has been bothering me the last three games about the Knicks and I need to express it here before I go postal on my co-workers. That something is Larry Hughes. I’m not going to say that that was a bad trade because we gave up three players that didn’t do much anyway, but D’Antoni needs to stop playing him. He sucks. Big time. I can’t put it any simpler than that. On Wednesday, for example, he hit his first shot; a nice mid-range jumper towards the end of the first quarter. And then he just decided that it was Larry Hughes time. For some reason he thinks he can just take people off the dribble and puts up these ridiculous shots that he couldn’t make even if he was a werewolf (that’s a Teen Wolf reference. Lame, I know, but I’m hung-over at work on a Friday morning … deal with it).

Out of angry curiosity, I looked over the box scores of the three games he has played with the Knicks (they’re 1-2 since trading for him, by the way). He’s played 46 minutes as a Knick and just filled up the stat sheet with 10 points, 3 rebounds, and 27 tatooes. And those are total numbers, not averages. And you got to wonder why teams are playing such soft defense on him when he’s shooting a scorching 4-22 from the field over those three games. Most telling about how much he has killed the Knicks is during those 46 minutes that he has been embarrassing himself on the court, the Knicks have been outscored by a combined 22 points by their opponents. Sit him down D’Antoni – or, better yet, the next time you visit Detroit, tie him up and leave him in an alley. In the words of Drago: “If he dies … he dies.”

Plus without Hughes, we’ll get to see more of the Rooster. Danilo got some prime time minutes against the Magic and played great in the fourth quarter. He’s already become one of the most popular Knicks on the team and he rarely plays. (Me and my friends came up with a great nickname for Hedo Turkaglu also because he torched the Knicks on Wednesday night: the Turkish Assassin. I’m not sure if he’s Turkish but he’s got “Turk” in his last name and it just sounds so badass.)

We finally get rid of freakin’ Marbury and Hughes steps right in to take his place as the player that will destroy the Knicks this season. Gallinari, save us.