By InsideHoops.com

Below are unedited notes taken live at Madison Square Garden. It's Knicks vs. Orlando, and tonight, Patrick Ewing's jersey is being retired at halftime.

InsideHoops.com also interviewed Jeff Van Gundy and got some key insights about Patrick Ewing as well as the league in general. That, along with the rest of this info, is coming later tonight.

InsideHoops Reports Patrick Ewing Night Live from MSG:

8:05pm ET - in pregame warmups, fans started chanting "Pat-rick Ew-ing!" right from the start of the Orlando Magic introductions. Not the entire garden chanting, just some guys in the cheap seats, but still. Ewing was not introduced. As someone who is born and raised in NYC, I had chills right from the first burst of crowd noise... before tipoff, David Stern was up on the giant screens hanging from the ceiling, paying his respect to Ewing... thas usual, a Jay-Z song chanting "New York City!" was the tipoff music. Yeah, Jay-Z's a New Yorker... Kurt Thomas isn't playing tonight. So, the best big man on the court tonight is Orlando's Drew Gooden... The second guy on the big screen to talk about Ewing was former Knick Mark Jackson, who said Ewing is "simply the greatest New York Knick ever." At 5:30 left in the first quarter, Patrick Ewing, decked out in a brown suit and red tie, came out of the center tunnell, apparently just finished with pre-game interviews. The crowd spotted him and immediately gave a standing ovation, before busting out the "Pat-rick Ew-ing" (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap) chant. It lasted about a minute. Fans know that the time to really go crazy is during the actual halftime ceremony... During the 4:08 timeout, Larry Bird, sitting in a living-room, was on the big screen and uttered a few words for Patrick... Ewing is sitting two seats in from the halfcourt tunnel, courtside. The person in the first seat is Michael Jordan... This is ugly basketball... At 3:30 left, Shawn Kemp entered the game. The fans didn't know quite what to make of that... After the first quarter, during the break, Allan Houston was on the big screen, and he ended with this about Ewing: "He played 100%. And he sweated a lot." ... John Starks is in the house. He was on the big screen early in the second quarter, then stood up to wave as the crowd gave him a standing ovation... Charles Oakley, Doug Collins, Alonzo Mourning, Charles Barkley, Gerald Wilkins and Clyde Drexler are in the house... John Thompson, Willis Reed and Mike Jarvis are in the house...

The halftime ceremony ruled.

Check back late tonight for the rest of this, plus a Jeff Van Gundy interview, and more.


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