A year ago today, the Tom Thibodeau-led Knicks led the Celtics 2-1 in their second-round series, a pleasant surprise for a team with a top-heavy rotation and a spot in East’s pecking order inarguably beneath Boston and Cleveland. The Knicks were a title contender, in that they could conceivably reach the Finals, and their superior Western opponent could conceivably suffer an injury that tilted the odds New York’s way.
Today, after a four-game annihilation of the Philadelphia 76ers capped with a 144-114
that was not as close as the score suggests, the Mike Brown Knicks have a week off before their return to the Eastern Conference Finals, a series that will either open at the Broadway basilica known as Madison Square Garden or a Michigan arena named after at best the nation’s fourth-best fast food pizza. Today the pleasant surprise isn’t the Knicks’ current position, but a run of postseason play more dominant than any in their history. In anybody’s.
I count 52 best-of-7 series the Knicks have played in all-time, their first back in 1967. They’ve only swept three of them: Baltimore in the first round in 1970, Atlanta in the second round in 1999 and the Sixers yesterday. The first two teams on that list reached the Finals. Good things happen in threes. As seen in their first quarter shot chart.
This one-sidedness would be shocking for a preseason or regular-reason result. Seven of New York’s eight postseason wins have been by double-digits, half by 29 or more points. At one point in the second quarter yesterday the Knicks had 16 assists and only one turnover. There is a good chance the 76ers are one of the 10 best basketball teams on the planet and the Knicks made them look like actors. You know for licensing reasons, whenever you see a commercial for a beer or a medication and people are playing basketball, in jerseys, there are no names on the back? The 76ers don’t deserve to have theirs on theirs. Not after that ass-whupping.
The last few seasons, the Knicks were usually good at scoring or at stopping teams. Now it’s both. Unleashing Towns as a point center unfolded a fourth dimension to their offense. Kamala Harris marvels at the lethality. Jalen Brunson’s completed his hero’s journey, rejecting the temptation to earn comfortable millions like Trae Young, i.e. “I can only move when I dribble”; instead Brunson added a Steph Curry twist by upping his threat off-ball. Mikal Bridges is activated. The bench isn’t a last-ditch resort, it’s integral.
When the year began Josh Hart began it as a substitute. That appeared to be a mistake. Brown considered the evidence and the perspective of people around him and reversed his thinking, returning Hart to the starting five. Seven months later, the Knicks are where they are because Brown is here. His hiring didn’t excite the masses, not like Pat Riley or Larry Brown or Mike D’Antoni’s did. But he’s been the right person for the job. Not that the job is done.
The Knicks will have to wait to find out if Detroit or Cleveland is the last hill to climb before reaching the Finals, but whichever team it is will present new challenges. Neither the Hawks nor the Sixers could cope with either Knick center, KAT or Mitchell Robinson, much less both. Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley are a different class of big man. Ditto Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart.
The 76ers were on fumes this series, having slogged through their battle with Boston with a six-man rotation and not expanding much beyond that against the Knicks. Both the Pistons and Cavaliers are running eight-, nine-deep in their series. The 76ers have little in the way of shooting. The Cavs have lots more. The Sixers can’t stop teams with Joel Embiid and can’t score without him. The Pistons are better at both when their fives play. And neither Detroit nor Cleveland will sound like a subsidiary of MSG. The road ahead will be harder.
But while the journey is only half-finished, it’s left a feeling I’ve never felt before. The best Knick teams of my life were one-dimensional, in the style of the 1985 Bears or 2000 Ravens. Their approach to winning was to completely stop the other team from being comfortable doing what they were used to, then hoping Patrick Ewing outplayed the other team’s star. A lotta the time, he did. But even the best teams of the ‘90s were more about hope than belief. These Knicks are something different.
Quoth Airfeet: “Who would have thought KAT is a better shooting version of Jokic.” Mike Brown and Co., evidently. Sometimes the light that just went off is the dawn of a new age. When the Warriors moved Draymond Green to the center spot, it unlocked something that took the league by storm. Could Point KAT be the same?
In the meantime, the Knicks rest after once again achieving basketball nirvana, while one team that can’t shoot and one that can’t defend fight for the right to face them in the conference finals. These are the good times, friends.
