Duke’s Zion Williamson needed less than four minutes on the Madison Square Garden floor Thursday night to make any Knicks fan consider the potential benefits of tanking for the rest of the season.
A freakish athlete at 6-7 and 285 pounds with a 45-inch vertical leap, that’s as much time as he needed in the second-ranked Blue Devils’ contest against No. 12 Texas Tech to turn the sellout crowd in the World’s Most Famous Arena into the loudest it has been for any game this season. He blocked Tariq Owens’ dunk attempt on the first possession, then about 90 seconds into the game he drove the left side of the lane for a layup.