Photo: Brian Babineau/NBAE/Getty Images
The last time the Knicks won a championship was 1973. The last time they even made it to the finals was 1999. But honestly, that appearance shouldn’t count. ’99 was a lockout season — it was the first time the NBA ever lost games to a labor dispute (and the year the league’s locked-out stars played a pay-per-view exhibition game that famously showed most of them completely out of shape) — and only 50 regular-season games took place. And the ’99 Knicks team wasn’t even all that good. It was 27-23 and headed into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed, the heavy underdog against the No. 1 seed, Miami Heat. The Knicks ended up pulling off a shocking upset, winning the decisive game five (there were only five games in the first round back then) by the super-gross score of 78-77, and found their path surprisingly clear all the way to the finals, where they were trounced by the vastly superior San Antonio Spurs in five games. The Knicks were actually better the next season, when they lost in the Eastern Conference finals — the last time they’d make it that far until this year. But trust someone who was there: No one thought they had a chance to win a title in either of those seasons, and for good reason.
The only other time New York has made it to a finals since ‘73 came in 1994. That series they should have won — you can ask poor John Starks about it the next time you see him high-fiving Timothée Chalamet courtside. But otherwise, the Knicks have never had a better opportunity to win an NBA title in most of our lifetimes than they do right now. Their Eastern Conference finals series tips off on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden against the Indiana Pacers, the team that beat the Knicks back in the 2000 playoffs and — oh yeah — last year, too.
I firmly believe there is no bigger story in sports right now than “Will the Knicks make the NBA Finals?” So can they do it?
I believe they can. Here’s how they do it:
1) Stay healthy.
At first, it looked as if the Knicks were going to cruise to a series victory against Indiana in the playoffs last year. They took a thrilling game one and were cruising to a game-two victory when OG Anunoby, trying to finish off a transition break, grabbed his hamstring in pain; he turned out to have a severely strained hammy. The newly acquired Anunoby had been an absolute terror up to that point, and his injury took away the Knicks’ primary advantage and eradicated their depth; this was a team that played Alec Burks, DaQuan Jeffries, and Mamadi Diakite in game six. The Knicks won game two but lost four of the next five. (Anunoby returned in game seven but was too injured to make much of a difference.) The Knicks are thinner than they were last year, but they have more high-end talent: The simplest way for them to beat Indiana this time is to play the Tom Thibodeau style and keep their starting five on the floor as long as possible. There’s no room for error; an injury similar to Anunoby’s last year would likely doom them to the same fate.
2) Have Karl-Anthony Towns play like the All-Star he is.
Karl-Anthony Towns is going to make an All-NBA team this year. He has been an invaluable, essential addition, the sort of transcendent, missing-piece offensive talent the Knicks have been seeking for years. He was also the Knicks’ second-best center in their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Celtics. Mitchell Robinson, the longest-tenured Knick, was a defensive monster against Boston, while KAT was … well, he was fine — a little listless occasionally, with a defensive lapse here or there, but also capable of being his best self, as in the game-six clincher. (Though everyone played great in that game.) KAT is a polarizing figure around the NBA: Is he one of the best shooting big men of all time, or is he a slouching sieve on defense with foul problems who hurts you more in the playoffs than he helps you? KAT can silence every doubter he has ever had in his career over the next two to three weeks. If he doesn’t do so, he may never hear the end of it.
3) Win the first two at home.
Suffice it to say, the Garden is going to be pretty crazy this series; it may burst into flames if New York advances. But despite MSG’s raucous atmosphere of late, the Knicks are only 3-3 at home these playoffs. (Chalamet needs to scream a little louder, I guess.) The Pacers’ primary advantage is their depth, and that depth will become more important the longer this series goes. The thin Knicks want a shorter series, and the best way to win a shorter series is to take the first two games at home and put maximum pressure on the Pacers. True, New York won the first two games last year against Indiana and still lost the series. But still, this is the clearest path to victory.
4) Enjoy an all-time Brunson moment.
Jalen Brunson is already a top-five all-time Knick — he has to be, right? He’s ninth all-time in playoff points despite playing only 36 playoff games as a Knick; he’ll pass Allan Houston (who played 60) by game three. He has taken New York further than Carmelo Anthony ever did. He just won the NBA Clutch Player of the Year award. Considering the Yankees-Mets and Jets-Giants split, he may be the single most beloved NYC athlete of the past 25 years — already. But while he’s having a lot of fantastic moments, many from just last week, he doesn’t yet have A Singular Moment yet — his “Willis Reed coming out of the tunnel” clip, the play that will run on a loop when he makes the Hall of Fame. This series seems uniquely designed to provide him one.
5) Ride the vibes.
I once interviewed Spike Lee for this magazine, and I asked him when he thought the Garden was at its craziest. “Jeremy Lin,’ he said. “That was as loud as I have ever seen it.” Lee might be in Cannes right now, but what he told our Rachel Handler is correct: “It’s a riot in New York City.” The Knicks have been building toward this the entire Leon Rose era, but, really, this is what the Knicks, and the city, have been waiting for for three-plus decades. The Knicks will never have a better opportunity than they have right now. It is standing right there in front of them. All they have to do is grab it.
