Many laughed at New York's Allan Houston when he proclaimed in the preseason that his Knicks, even with forward Antonio McDyess out with the knee injury, could make the playoffs.

Six months later the Knicks are still in with a fighting chance, involved in a battle with Washington, Milwaukee and Orlando for the final two playoff positions (save for a dramatic collapse by one of the higher teams).

Mark Hale of the New York Post writes that the Knicks may be defying expectations by being in such a position, but Sprewell insists he's taking little pleasure in just hanging in there.

"I'll have a lot more pleasure if we actually get in," he said. "Getting close, it's not quite good enough. The goal is to try to make it and right now, we're in the hunt."

"We're not out of it. And that says a lot about the guys on our team and our competitive spirit and our will to win."

"We realize that we don't have much basketball to play. It's pretty much now or never," Sprewell said. "[We have to] get on a roll because that's the only way we're going to get into the playoffs."