Eight months ago, I previewed the New York Knicks‘ season (and every other team’s) by having a conversation with myself. Inside me there were two wolves: one believed, like Spike Lee, that this would be the Knicks’ year, and one was skeptical of their ability to duplicate last year’s conference finals run.
The funny thing, now that New York is on the verge of making the NBA Finals for the first time this century, is that the believer in me was psyched about the team’s two big offseason additions: Guerschon Yabusele and Malcolm Brogdon. The former was out of the rotation four games into the regular season; the front office miraculously turned him into Jose Alvarado at the trade deadline. The latter retired two days before the Knicks’ final preseason game.
No, Yaubsele did not turn out to be “exactly what they needed: a proper 4 who can space the floor, post up mismatches and defend 5s when necessary.” And no, Brogdon didn’t end up reminding everybody why he won Sixth Man of the Year in 2023. Those misses, though, have mattered about as much as Mitchell Robinson’s preseason revelation that he’d “started my own farm” in Nashville. That’s because, in the 10-game winning streak that New York is on, the team and its believers have been proven frightfully right about everything else.
After the 121-108 win in Cleveland on Saturday, a reporter joked that coach Mike Brown, seated at a podium on a stage above the assembled media, was “looking down on us like a king and peasants.” Up 3-0 in the series with a chance to sweep on Monday night, Brown did everything he could to avoid sounding high and mighty, attributing the team’s magical month to the players, the assistant coaches, the front office and “a little bit of luck.” Unintentionally, though, some of Brown’s answers functioned as victory laps.
Echoing the plan he presented last September, Brown said that the Knicks were having success offensively playing out of concepts rather than set plays, making quick decisions, touching the paint and attacking before the defense is set. He said that he’d reduced the staters’ minutes and used a deeper bench in the regular season because he’d learned from Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr that this can pay dividends in the playoffs. He said they had always wanted to peak at the right time.
Until relatively recently, it wasn’t clear that Brown’s grand plans would amount to anything. He’d come in saying the right things about getting Jalen Brunson off the ball and becoming a more well-rounded team, but Brunson’s usage rate and on-ball percentage dropped only marginally. As the regular season went on, New York simplified its approach on both ends, and, after a rough stretch in January, it started “icing” pick-and-rolls, Thibodeau-style. In a Game 2 loss against the Atlanta Hawks in the first round, Karl-Anthony Towns was jarringly uninvolved down the stretch. In a Game 3 loss in Atlanta, Mikal Bridges played 20 scoreless minutes and the team shot 28.6% from deep.
Given what has happened since, though, both the slow start to the playoffs and the inconsistency during the regular season seem completely irrelevant. Or, if you ask Brown, necessary. The Knicks have evolved into the type of team that can solve problems on the fly. They’ve beaten Cleveland with Brunson scoring 38 points and with Brunson scoring 19 points (and dishing 14 assists). Towns hasn’t always been able to facilitate as easily as he did in previous rounds, but he’s not forcing the issue, and he has zero turnovers in the last two games. Brown isn’t running plays for Bridges or OG Anunoby, but they combined for 43 points on 25 field goal attempts in Game 3. Off the bench, Landry Shamet has been a pest, a bucket and a revelation.
New York still has to finish the job against the Cavs. The historic run the Knicks are on, though, vindicates all the major decisions they’ve made in the past few years. They bet on Brunson and Towns torching teams that try to guard them conventionally. They bet on Anunoby, Bridges and Josh Hart wreaking havoc on defense and the stars staying solid enough to survive. They bet on Brown diversifying the offense, experimenting with lineups, expanding the rotation and raising the ceiling. The skeptic in me is shocked, and the believer didn’t even envision it coming together all at once like this.
Before Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson said that his team needed to find a way to “halt their momentum.” Three losses later, he acknowledged that the Cavs still haven’t been able to do so. At this point, given the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder’s various injuries and the possibility that the two teams could keep knocking each other around for a while, it’s fair to wonder if anybody can slow New York down.
