The Knicks are NBA champions.
That’s true now; it’ll be true when the season opens against Philly in October, it’ll be true in the Finals rematch against the Spurs on Christmas, and it’ll be true all the way until next June, when history suggests that a ninth NBA champion in nine years will be crowned.
The last team to go back-to-back was the 2017 and 2018 Warriors. Since then, most of the champions have thought they could turn what they have into a dynasty.
The Lakers saw no reason why they couldn’t
do it again in 2021, but they didn’t.
The Bucks saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2022, but they didn’t.
The Nuggets saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2024, but they didn’t.
The Celtics saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2025, but they didn’t.
The Thunder saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2026, but they didn’t.
The Knicks right now see no reason why they can’t win another one in 2027, but the flow of the NBA suggests someone new will take the mantle.
But nobody ever said that ultimate parity would continue forever and ever.
The Knicks won it all 65 days ago; they open their season 64 days from now. We are closer to raising the championship banner than we were to raising the Larry O’Brien Trophy. As we head into the second half of this offseason of celebration, there’s one big question.
Why not us? Why can’t the Knicks go back-to-back?
The History
There have been 13 separate instances of a team winning a championship in back-to-back seasons in NBA history, but a good chunk of those were part of larger three-peats (or an eight-peat in the Celtics’ case). As much as we’ve talked about the last eight years being a stretch of unprecedented parity, there have only been three sets of back-to-back champions since 2003, after six of them from 1987-2002.
Those teams who’ve done it have all had legends of the game:
- 1949-50 Lakers: George Mikan
- 1952-54 Lakers: George Mikan
- 1959-66 Celtics: Bill Russell
- 1968-69 Celtics: Bill Russell
- 1987-88 Lakers: Magic Johnson & Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
- 1989-90 Pistons: Isiah Thomas
- 1991-93 Bulls: Michael Jordan
- 1994-95 Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon
- 1996-98 Bulls: Michael Jordan
- 2000-02 Lakers: Kobe Bryant & Shaquille O’Neal
- 2009-10: Kobe Bryant
- 2012-13 Heat: LeBron James
- 2017-18 Warriors: Kevin Durant & Stephen Curry
Were these players immortalized partially because of these championships? Absolutely. The inroads for the Knicks are likely to be those Bad Boys Pistons teams, a collection of guys who’ll likely never be called top-50 players of all time, but who got it done. Brunson would undoubtedly be one of the greatest point guards ever with another ring, as I.T. is.
But by and large, securing two consecutive titles requires an inner-circle Hall of Famer. Magical runs can happen with really good players and rosters, but dynasties happen with legends.
But didn’t people say you needed an MVP candidate to even win one title? The Knicks pulled a rarity, winning a title without a single player receiving an MVP vote, something not done since the 1978 Bullets and only done twice in total. If any team can defy the odds, it’d be the Knicks.
The Age of Parity
As we’ve all heard more than enough, the Knicks are the eighth consecutive different team to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy since 2019. Why didn’t those previous seven teams go back-to-back.
2019-20 Raptors
Win Difference from Title Year: +2 (60-win pace, shortened season due to COVID-19)
Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in ECSF vs. Celtics
Major Hangup: Losing Kawhi Leonard
All told, the 2020 Raptors were tremendously successful. They’re the only team in the 21st century to lose their leading scorer directly after winning the championship and are the first to do so since the MJ retirements in 1993 and 1998. Nobody expected them to win as many games, let alone go back-to-back, but they finished with the No. 2 seed with a 53-19 record in the bubble.
They did it by committee. 25-year-old Pascal Siakam took another step forward to evolve into the perennial all-star he is now; Kyle Lowry continued his steady presence as the lead guard; Fred VanVleet took a leap into being a borderline all-star; and OG Anunoby joined the starting lineup in his second season as a defensive presence. Add in Norman Powell’s microwave scoring and returning much of their role players, they masqueraded as strong defending champions deep into August.
Here’s the problem. As Joe Mazzulla’s Celtics showed this past season, a team that plays better than the sum of its parts can rack up regular-season wins, but playoff games are won with high-end performance by the superstars. Without said superstar, the Raptors were vulnerable. Kawhi averaged 30.5 points on 49/38/88 in the 2019 postseason, something no Raptor was capable of.
Their elite defense was enough to smother the shorthanded Brooklyn Nets, but they didn’t have enough offense to get past Boston. In a highly competitive series that went seven games, the Raptors had two chances to tie the game in the final 40 seconds that they squandered. If they won that, could they have beaten Miami and got to the Finals? Sure, but they just didn’t have enough to beat that Lakers team.
2020-21 Lakers
Win Difference from Title Year: -12 (adjusting for 82-game pace)
Playoff Outcome: Lost in 6 in West 1st Round vs. Suns
Major Hangup: Injuries
Heading into the 2020-21 season, the Lakers didn’t have the feeling of pure inevitability, unlike some of the teams we still have coming up, but they were still considered solid favorites, especially in the Western Conference. They were the only West team in the top six teams in championship odds before the season.
The team’s regression had nothing to do with losing pieces. They spent the offseason acquiring the likes of Montrezl Harrell and Dennis Schroder to bolster the bench. Sure, they regressed offensively across the board, but they surrounded a fearsome dynamic duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis with the best defense in basketball. If anything, their lack of shooting would’ve done them in come playoff time.
But that wasn’t what took them down; it was injuries. The usually durable LeBron had his ankle rolled up by Solomon Hill in late March, causing him to miss 26 of the team’s final 30 games. The start of the downfall of Davis’ durability came that season as well, missing 30 consecutive games from February to April with a calf/Achilles injury.
In total, the two stars missed 63 games combined, only suiting up together in 27 games, and played 500 fewer minutes together than they did the season before. For much of the second half of the season, the Lakers relied on Kyle Kuzma first-option lineups to keep them afloat, which didn’t go well. They went 19-8 with both stars in the lineup and 23-22 in every other game.
A hyper-competitive West pushed them down to the No. 7 seed, where they matched up with the up-and-coming Phoenix Suns. With both stars returning from injury a week before the postseason, the Lakers were picked as a popular upset pick, but the wear and tear did them in.
In the three games that Davis played start-to-finish, the Lakers went 2-1. He then played 25 total minutes across the next three games, as Phoenix ran the table and went on to come within two wins of their first championship, losing to…
2021-22 Bucks
Win Difference from Title Year: -1 (adjusting for 82-game pace)
Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in ECSF vs. Celtics
Major Hangup: Poorly timed injuries
Remember when it felt like Giannis completed basketball? He was an MVP, a champion, a Finals MVP, a perennial All-NBA First Team talent, and Defensive Player of the Year. By the time he won it all in 2021, he was already a top-five power forward in history by the age of 26. Who knows how high he could’ve climbed?
Outside of the inevitability of Giannis, the Bucks are the best comparison to our current bunch for a few reasons. For one, their offseason was similar, running back an identical core. Milwaukee returned their entire starting lineup, with only Bryn Forbes not returning from their top-eight scorers. They even added a shooting threat in Grayson Allen via trade.
The other thing that makes this team extremely similar is the fact that their championship wasn’t viewed as “impressive” by the basketball world. They “got lucky” that Kevin Durant’s foot was on the line. Injuries took out a lot of their competition. They ran into a young and inexperienced Suns team in the NBA Finals. They entered the following season third in championship odds behind two “superteams” that they had proven they were better than the season prior. Sound familiar?
There was no reason to think they couldn’t do it again in the regular season. Both conference favorites (Nets and Lakers) fizzled out due to injuries and poor team chemistry, while the Bucks went on to win 51 games. They did it on the back of more Giannis dominance, along with All-Star-caliber production from Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton. To make things better, all three played at least 65 games, keeping them upright into the postseason.
There were certainly warts. Their defense slipped to the middle of the pack. Their only in-season response to a season full of going through the motions was trading Donte DiVincenzo for veteran forward Serge Ibaka. They were in contention for the No. 1 seed late in the season, but settled for third behind Miami and Boston. In the first round, they made quick work of a Bulls team that was in a death spiral since January, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
In Game 2, the only one the Bucks lost due to a 41-point masterpiece by DeMar DeRozan, Middleton slipped on a wet spot and sprained his MCL, missing the remainder of a series they didn’t need him to win. The problem was that the injury was severe enough to hold him out for several weeks, a death knell against a hungry Celtics team in the second round.
Despite going up 3-2 with Giannis averaging 34 a night and Holiday stepping up as a second option, the Celtics stole Game 6 in Milwaukee before blowing them to smithereens in Game 7 at TD Garden. Without Middleton’s offense, the Bucks scored under 105 points in five of the seven games, including three where they were held to 95 or fewer. It’s the kind of freak accident that could happen to anyone.
2022-23 Warriors
Win Difference from Title Year: -9
Playoff Outcome: Lost in 6 in WCSF vs. Lakers
Major Hangup: Injuries/Age
The Warriors were probably the team least likely to repeat, just due to the finality of things. It was the last dance of a Big 3 that had defined the late 2010s, and while they were optimistic about some of the young guys on their roster, most accepted that it would take a lot to get them back to this point.
In the offseason, they essentially just replaced the outgoing Gary Payton II with DiVincenzo, who at this point had a depressed stock after injuries and underperformance in Sacramento. Still, they were one of five teams with 7-1 or better odds when the season began.
The Warriors battled a few things in their championship push. It’s hard to ask an aging core, one that was older than any defending champion since the 2014-15 Spurs, to be able to run that gauntlet again, but the main culprit was injuries.
Steph Curry has always been the straw that stirs the drink in Golden State, so the team was fortunate to be able to tread water in the 26 games he missed due to various ailments. Andrew Wiggins was an incredibly vital part of their championship run, but he was held to just 37 games in 2022-23 due to an adductor strain in December and a personal issue that held him out for the team’s final 22 regular-season games. Add in load management and minor ailments for Klay and Draymond, and you get a 44-win season that’s only good enough for the No. 6 seed in the West.
Fortunately for the Warriors, they weren’t really underdogs running into the “Light the Beam” Kings in the first round, feasting on their inexperience and asking a healthy Curry to carry them to the tune of 34 points a night in the first round and a 50-burger in Game 7 in hostile territory. The problems arose when they went toe-to-toe with the 2020 champion Lakers.
The Warriors, at this point, just weren’t good enough. Curry shot pretty inefficiently by his standards, while Klay had some ghastly shooting performances. A healthy Lakers squad that season was pretty good and took down the defending champions in six games before getting swept by the eventual champion Nuggets. There isn’t always a reason behind these things, just that some other team puts it together.
2023-24 Nuggets
Win Difference from Title Year: +4
Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in WCSF vs. T-Wolves
Major Hangup: Bad Playoff Matchup
Nobody really saw the Nuggets coming in 2023, but when you have the best player in the world, you always have a chance to do something special. That Nuggets team is also regarded as having a pretty weak title run, as the league itself lacked an alpha, and by the time Denver got through the West, all that was left was for them to pick the bones of a scrappy No. 8 seed that had already expended so much energy to get there.
Their offseason eerily mirrors what the Knicks went through. They lost a key role player due to the champion tax and an inability to match the contract, as Bruce Brown signed a $45 million deal in Indiana. They were unable to adequately replace him, hoping Julian Strawther and internal replacements could do the job. They entered the following season as co-favorites to repeat with the eventual champion Celtics.
Everything looked normal throughout the regular season, as Nikola Jokic went on to win another MVP, their role players continued to provide him with countless opportunities to share the love, and they stayed healthy aside from a 23-game absence of Jamal Murray. The Nuggets won 57 games, an improvement on their championship season, and only missed out on the No. 1 seed by a tiebreaker with the up-and-coming Thunder.
Denver made quick work of a rematch with LeBron and the Lakers in the first round, but they had to deal with a rising Minnesota team that was a lot more mature than they were in the playoffs the year before. As we saw this past season, this T-Wolves team can give Denver stylistic fits.
Jokic was still great this series, but Rudy Gobert limits his potential to go into god mode. Meanwhile, Karl-Anthony Towns has the ability to torment his defensive limits, something that made him an excellent co-star in this series for Anthony Edwards, who went nuclear. Losing Bruce Brown softened them up in the wing defense department, giving the Ant-Man assignment to the likes of KCP or MPJ, neither of whom could slow him down.
A seven-game series went Minnesota’s way. A slugfest in Game 7 saw the issues that have plagued the Nuggets in the years since. Murray and Jokic scored 69 of the team’s 90 points. They can get theirs, but what happens when they don’t have the ball?
2024-25 Celtics
Win Difference from Title Year: -3
Playoff Outcome: Lost in 6 in ECSF vs. Knicks
Major Hangup: Murphy’s Law
I firmly believe that the 2024 Celtics were, perhaps, the best team the league has seen since the dynasty Warriors. No team had the straight inevitability that they did, dominating the regular season and an admittedly light playoff run with some of the most complete team basketball in recent memory. It was a starting five who could all score, shoot, and defend, with unlimited depth. The second apron always loomed over them, but they felt as much of a lock to repeat as anyone.
In the offseason, they were able to keep things together. They returned essentially their entire roster by extending everyone under the sun. It never felt sustainable in the modern NBA, but it ensured that they would be as dominant a force as they were the year before. Entering 2024-25, they were heavy favorites to win it all.
The regular season showed no reason to believe anything different. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum remained the NBA’s best duo; Payton Pritchard won Sixth Man of the Year, and they had the depth across the board to make up for any minor ailment. The rise of the Cavs and Thunder made things seem like not such a walk in the park, but they were fully healthy come playoff time, so what went wrong?
As we all know, the Knicks were built specifically to topple the Celtics, but that was just one of the multiple reasons they went down. Murphy’s Law dictates that what can go wrong, must go wrong, and that’s what happened to Boston in that series.
Mazzulla ball relies on taking and making an ungodly number of threes. Such reliance carried them to a title in 2024, but also proved to be their downfall. Ugly shooting percentages allowed the Knicks to come back in multiple games, bringing them to the brink. Their stubborness, coupled with the Knicks’ ability to match them on both ends due to careful roster building, made them extremely vulnerable.
But what ultimately rang the death knell was the injuries. Jaylen Brown battled a knee injury. Kristaps Porzingis suffered from a mysterious illness. Al Horford was old. Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles towards the end of Game 4, and although most reasonable fans will conclude that the series was firmly in NYK’s favor, some still hold onto that single moment as the reason Boston didn’t go back-to-back.
2025-26 Thunder
Win Difference from Title Year: -4
Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in WCF vs. Spurs
Major Hangup: Injuries/Bad Playoff Matchup
As stylistically perfect as the 2024 Celtics were, the award for the most inevitable goes to the Thunder, whose expert roster-building made them seemingly immune to the second apron with quick-fix restocking due to Sam Presti’s years of careful work stockpiling assets. After finishing as the No. 1 seed and falling short in 2024, they were a buzzsaw in 2025, even when looking mortal against Denver and Indiana in seven-game sets.
Just like the Celtics the year before, OKC was brilliantly equipped to retain their entire championship roster, only cycling through end-of-roster depth with their billions of draft picks. They entered this past season as the largest favorites to win the title since the 2019 Warriors. 25 games into the season, they were 24-1. This was a coronation.
Until it wasn’t. There was one team that had their number all season, and it was one that popped up out of nowhere. The freakish alien known as Victor Wembanyama feasted on their usually stout center rotation of Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, while their role players and co-stars made SGA’s life hell defensively in all 12 matchups. Sometimes with these teams, another team is just built to beat you, and that’s what happened with San Antonio.
But even then, let’s be honest here. Long-term injuries to Jalen Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, and Ajay Mitchell ate away at them in the regular season, and by the time that grueling Western Conference Finals commenced, both Mitchell and Williams broke under the fatigue of the deep playoff run the year before. Missing two key players in a Game 7 is a death sentence.
The Trends
What are the biggest culprits behind an unsuccessful title defense?
There are three that stick out from our study of these seven teams. Injuries, bad matchups, and roster holes opening up from the championship tax.
Almost all of these teams suffered crippling injuries in their championship defense, either tanking their regular-season seeding or leaving them shorthanded for an opportunistic team to feast in the playoffs. The Bucks lost Middleton, the Celtics lost Tatum, the Thunder lost JDub; it’s all connected.
Especially recently, the forced parity of the second apron has allowed for new teams to come about every year via creative means. The teams that took down Boston and OKC weren’t together the year before, but stacked up perfectly when the time mattered. The fact that superteams are never that super means there are so many stars across the league capable of great things.
There were also cases of losing key players during the season that damage your odds of repeating. The last two champs didn’t have that problem, but the Nuggets really missed Bruce Brown, the Warriors missed GPII, and the Raptors really missed Kawhi.
More than anything? It might just be championship fatigue that causes it. You put so much more mileage on your body in a playoff run, have a shorter offseason than anyone else, and have to rediscover the hunger that got you to the mountaintop in the first place. That’s not to say complacency sets in, but it causes teams to go through the motions.
The Knicks are not immune to any of these.
Injuries and fatigue are not something you can predict, but they’re certainly possible after a long season. But hey, maybe Tom Thibodeau’s parting gift to the franchise was working these guys so damn hard that postseason fatigue feels like nothing. After all, most of the starting five played fewer total minutes this year than last:
2024-25 vs. 2025-26:
Brunson: 2,981 vs. 3,292 (+311)
Hart: 3,539 vs. 2,608 (-931)
Bridges: 3,742 vs. 3,300 (-442)
Anunoby: 3,411 vs. 2,810 (-601)
Towns: 3,156 vs. 2,900 (-256)
The biggest threat might just be opposing teams. Let’s meet ‘em.
The Opposition
Detroit Pistons
2025-26 Record: 60-22
H2H Record: 0-3 (-84 PD)
What Makes Them A Threat: Last Season
The Pistons are the red-headed stepchild of the 2026-27 Eastern Conference. Despite winning 60 games and looking like the next big thing last season, they fell on their faces come playoff time due to offensive inconsistency and their reliance on Cade Cunningham, who, despite trying to do his best 2024 Jalen Brunson impression, turns it over too much.
It’d be foolish to overlook them still, even with the fact that they made only marginal moves in the offseason. Assuming they get Jalen Duren back, he’s going to be their X-factor for postseason success.
Why should the Knicks be worried about them? Some of these other defending champions didn’t lose to the best team, but lost to a team built to stifle them. We saw Detroit pummel the Knicks in every regular-season meeting, and although we now know that was a different team, they’ll also go into any matchup with us with bad memories from 2024.
Boston Celtics
2025-26 Record: 56-26
H2H Record: 3-1 (+32 PD)
What Makes Them A Threat: Mazzulla ball
There’s no doubt that the Celtics are weaker than they’ve been over the past several years after the second apron deconstructed their 2024 championship core and a rather controversial Jaylen Brown trade, but this is a team that stumbled into 56 wins in a perceived “gap year”. They’re always a threat.
I do truly believe that, even if healthy, the Knicks would have smacked the Celtics in Round 2 last year if they had moved on. They were hopelessly overmatched on the interior, relied on too many young shooters to make a lot of shots, and had the Tatum question coming off an Achilles tear. What could change this upcoming season?
I firmly believe that Boston will be a top-four seed again because of Mazzulla’s regular-season philosophy that maximizes his roster; the question is going to be if they can make enough shots come playoff time. Could Baylor Scheierman leap forward? Will the man they kept out of Giannis talks show why? There’s a lot of ifs, but they have the right coach to squeeze it out of.
Cleveland Cavaliers
2025-26 Record: 52-30
H2H Record: 6-1 (+72 PD, incl. playoffs)
What Makes Them A Threat: Anything is possible
Remember how I said Detroit was the red-headed stepchild? Well, if that doesn’t fit Cleveland, they might just be the conjoined twin that got locked in the basement, à la The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror.
It’s quite sad to be a team that entered the second apron last season and will likely be above the first this season and be considered not even a top-five threat to win your own conference, but that seems to be the case in Cleveland. They were co-favorites to win the conference last year after a 64-win season went up in smoke against Indiana, but they disappointed all season long. When they got James Harden, there was renewed hope, only for them to struggle to even reach the Eastern Conference Finals, where they were obliterated and embarrassed.
They spent their offseason praying for LeBron, and he never came. The only reason they could be a threat is the theory that “everything needs time.” The Knicks needed a year to coalesce; why not them?
Toronto Raptors
2025-26 Record: 46-36
H2H Record: 5-0 (+98 PD)
What Makes Them A Threat: Kawhi(?)
I almost didn’t want to put the Raptors on the list, but you have to respect a team that nearly upset the second-best team in the East in the first round and should be adding a top-flight player in Kawhi Leonard, assuming the investigation doesn’t hold this trade off much longer.
The Knicks eviscerated the Raptors in all five regular-season meetings, winning by an average of almost 20 per game. Toronto’s defensive identity rang hollow because they didn’t have an alpha scorer. If Brandon Ingram wasn’t going nuclear, what the hell did they have to offer? Kawhi could give them that, but I’m still wary because of that center rotation.
Philadelphia 76ers
2025-26 Record: 45-37
H2H Record: 6-2 (+111 PD, incl. postseason)
What Makes Them A Threat: High-end talent
The Knicks outscored the Sixers by 131 points in their final six combined meetings last season. Just think about that for a quick second.
The Sixers are a threat, simply because of the talent they added in the offseason. When VJ Edgecombe goes from your clear third option (really second option due to Embiid’s knees) to a corner sitter, that’s legit.
The hang-up with them is the start of this blurb. They have to overcome that gap. They certainly added two guys and some depth that can chip away, but is it enough to turn 6-0 and +131 into 3-4?
Miami Heat
2025-26 Record: 43-39
H2H Record: 2-2 (+2 PD)
What Makes Them A Threat: Giannis and a hellacious defense
Never take an Erik Spoelstra team lightly. Even though Miami was the No. 10 seed and missed the playoffs in 2025-26, adding Giannis for a sum of its parts is great business by a normally comatose Pat Riley and will make them a threat, even if they did seem to lose too much scoring ability this offseason.
Miami’s path to knocking off the champs is based on smothering defense and playing a 2000s-style game. They will likely be starting a quintet that includes Davion Mitchell, Andrew Wiggins, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Bam Adebayo. That’s matchup hell for opposing offenses. They hope the small signings like OAKAAK Tim Hardaway Jr. can supplement the shooting, but their path to a title is purely defensive.
Indiana Pacers
2025-26 Record: 19-63
H2H Record: 3-1 (+33 PD)
What Makes Them A Threat: Ghost of Knicksmas Past
The only team in the last three seasons to send the Knicks home wasn’t present for the festivities in 2025-26 due to a gap year caused by Tyrese Haliburton’s torn Achilles in the NBA Finals. While their shameless tanking wound up backfiring, they’ll still return a theoretically stronger unit in 2026-27 than they had last time we saw them.
They don’t scare you anymore because you’re a Larry and they don’t, but it works like a WWE feud, which Brunson and Haliburton know all too well. I don’t care what you’ve accomplished while I’m not around, you can’t beat me.
Will the Knicks “story” ever truly be complete without proving that they’ve moved past Indiana?
The West
No NBA champion has returned to the NBA Finals since 2019, but if the Knicks can do it, they’ll certainly have some opponents to face.
Oklahoma City siphoned off a bunch of depth to get below the second apron, but they were arguably the best team in basketball when fully healthy. Do the Finals go different if JDub and Ajay Mitchell stay healthy long enough to make it Thunder-Knicks instead?
As young as San Antonio looked last year, it’d be utterly foolish not to believe in their chances this year. That Big 3 is only getting better, and you have to assume De’Aaron Fox’s leash will be shorter when Dylan Harper looks like a stud. There’s a chance these guys win multiple titles in the next five years.
The field has some intriguing teams, at least. The Lakers spent the LeBron bucks on filling out a rather complete roster, but can Luka lead them to glory? LaMelo Ball gives Minnesota a true star point guard for the first time, perhaps ever, but do they have enough to get past the giants? Can someone like Houston or Denver buck the recent trend of constant disappointment to go on a run?
The Verdict
Odds are, the Knicks aren’t going back-to-back.
That’s not any expert analysis; that’s just how statistics work. You’re never inherently likely to win it all.
Only one of the past seven champions has made the Conference Finals in their repeat season, something that we seem to think is guaranteed. Everyone found a slip-up somewhere, whether it was injuries, fatigue, or a new rising power. There’s no telling whether a specific team can avoid it.
The Knicks have the willpower and focus to do whatever they set their minds to. After what this group showed me, I’m not conceding anything. See you in October.
