As the great Don Henley once said, in a New York minute, everything can change.
Two weeks ago, the New York Knicks were down 2-1 to the Atlanta Hawks and staring what would’ve been a catastrophic first-round playoff upset dead in the eye. The mob wanted Mike Brown fired and Mikal Bridges benched, if not outright cut. Jalen Brunson was getting outplayed by CJ McCollum. Karl-Anthony Towns was a fourth-quarter ghost. New York was stressed.
Fast forward to Friday night and the Knicks have now won six straight games — three straight to close out the Hawks before taking a 3-0 lead on the Philadelphia 76ers with a 108-94 road victory in Game 3. They are now looking like a lock for the Eastern Conference finals where, no matter who they end up playing, they will be the clear favorite to advance to the Finals (the Detroit Pistons cannot match New York’s offensive firepower, and the Cleveland Cavaliers can’t come close to this level of physicality).
This win on Friday night was not your ordinary victory. The Knicks were without OG Anunoby and the Sixers, back home and playing for their postseason life, came out firing. Joel Embiid returned. Paul George had 15 first-quarter points. With the crowd ignited, it had all the early makings of a desperate Sixers victory to at least make this a competitive series.
But the Knicks had other ideas. This was a professional victory. They just stayed the course. They kept tightening the defensive screws and dug into their bench for major production from Landry Shamet, Mitchell Robinson and Jordan Clarkson (who is suddenly kind of a nasty defender). They got a huge game from Bridges, and let Brunson, who is well on his way to becoming the best Knicks player ever and continues to prove himself as one of the league’s true postseason killers, take them home with 18 of his 33 points in the second half.
At their best, the Knicks have long had the look of a contender. But they’ve never been able to be consistently at their best, and in the past few postseasons, some of their worst traits have shown up at the worst times. It’s different with this team, at least so far. There’s something seriously special brewing with the offense and, more importantly, the defense clicking in unison.
There’s a rock-solid identity here. Everyone is locked into their role. Towns has 46 assists over this six-game run, and his playmaking has unlocked a whole new dimension for a New York offense that now doesn’t have to be so Brunson-centric. Josh Hart is the juice. Anunoby is a top-shelf two-way playoff player, and can now take the time he needs to fully rest his strained hamstring with this series unofficially wrapped up.
Meanwhile, Bridges has turned his postseason, and perhaps even the perception of his entire Knicks tenure, completely around. After posting a bagel in Game 3 against the Hawks, he’s averaging 20.5 points on 68% shooting over the past four games. He had 24 in the closeout game vs. Atlanta. He had 23 on Friday. He’s made seven of his last 13 3-pointers.
Bridges, like everyone in a Knicks uniform right now, is also defending his ass off. George didn’t score a single point after his 15-point first quarter. Tyrese Maxey was only able to attempt 12 shots as New York was hard doubling and fighting over screens (serious shout out to Bridges and Shamet) to stay attached as the bigs moved their feet to keep him from turning the corner. It was a carryover from Game 2, when the Knicks held Maxey to seven second-half points with more turnovers than field goals.
You start going down the list of championship traits, and suddenly the Knicks are checking every box:
- Offense: The Knicks have been an elite offense all year, finishing the regular season with the No. 4 rating and they’re No. 2 so far in the playoffs at 122.3 points per 100 possessions. They are leading the playoffs in paint points and rank second in 3-point shooting percentage. They have every element that you need to dominate offensively in the playoffs: the star creator in Brunson, the multi-faceted big in Towns, shooters everywhere (best true-shooting percentage in the playoffs so far), offensive rebounding (which we’ll get to), transition speed (second in fast-break points so far in the playoffs), the works.
- Defense: Quietly, the Knicks boasted the league’s second-best defensive rating from Jan. 21 forward. They have been stifling in the playoffs, where they have held their opponent under 100 points in five of their nine games so far. They’re pressuring the ball, playing physical as hell, rotating on a string and protecting the paint as they’ve surrendered just 41.3 points per game so far in the postseason. That would’ve qualified as the league’s second-best mark in the regular season.
- Rebounding: The Knicks clean up on the glass. They gave up the fewest second-chance points in the regular season at 13.1 per game, and they have dropped that number to 11.6 in the playoffs (also No. 1). Meanwhile, they are scoring 17.7 second-chance points per game on their end, second only to the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the playoffs, and their 54.4 overall rebounding percentage is the best mark in the playoffs so far.
- Crunch-time killers: The Knicks outscored their opponents by 238 points in the fourth quarter during the regular season. The next-closest team was Cleveland at plus-162. With Brunson captaining the offense, and the defense locked in, you do not want to be in a close game against the Knicks down the stretch.
- Postseason dominance: The Knicks have lost two games so far in the playoffs, each by a single point. They have outscored opponents by an average of 18.2 points per game and their plus-18.8 net rating is No. 1 so far in the postseason.
Keep in mind, these are just the general measurables. When you talk about a team having something “special” brewing, it’s just as much about the less quantifiable stuff. The vibes are off the charts. The energy, the buy-in, the physicality, the flat-out toughness. This team is playing like it knows how good it is, not like the one that, over the last few years, has been trying to find out.
We have to be careful not to get too carried away, as they haven’t been faced with an elite opponent yet, and frankly, they won’t be the rest of the way through the East (Detroit is good but not great; Cleveland is nothing special).
The road to the Finals has never been clearer in the Brunson era, and the Knicks look primed to take advantage.