When people imagine themselves traveling through time, they don’t think about the smells. Why would they? Why ruin what should be a fun thought exercise with that detail?

When the national media and fossils over 40 like me reminisce about the Knicks/Pacers rivalry through the 1990s, a lot of the time a lot of the fossil record only exists in trace amounts. The headlines endure: “Reggie Miller in an animated discussion with Spike Lee”; “Johnson is fouled — and hit!” The nostalgia, too, in a folk sense. But nobody warns you about the pain, what it feels like when the stakes are this high. There’s no manual for processing the Knicks’ 138-135 Game 1 loss to the Pacers. How could there be? There’s literally never been a loss like it.

I know it hurts, but history bears repeating: with 2:51 remaining, the Knicks were up 14. The Pacers needed four different Hail Marys to come through to get this game to overtime. All four hit:

I don’t have much else worth sharing, or at least nothing ready to share yet. Quoth StopCapingForTheRefs: “Sickening game.” That about says it — an atypical fall-from-ahead collapse by a group who usually seal the deal when ahead late in games. I leave you to your contemplations, and if you’re anything like me to the bitter taste of blood and ulcer a loss like this leaves in your mouth.