This is the month when the new Knicks have turned into the old Knicks, the ones with all the Hall of Famers who won the only two titles the team has ever won. This is the month when the Knicks have rolled an 11 in the postseason the likes of which no NBA postseason has ever seen, when they have gone all of May without losing a game, when they have made their fans and the city believe they can win it all for the first time since the ’73 Knicks, because this team really has looked like that team, the one with Clyde and Willis, with DeBusschere and Bradley and Earl the Pearl.
It is no longer hoops sacrilege to talk about this team, trying to win one title to go with the two the old Knicks won, with that team. This isn’t about who they have played. It is about how they have played, passing and running and defending and making shots from all over Atlanta and Philly and now Cleveland, and 33rd St. most of all. No Knicks team has ever played better than this.
You wondered what they would do in another closeout game, with this chance at a sweep in Game 4 in Cleveland on Monday night. And before you knew it they were making 3’s from everywhere — again. They were beating the Cavs down the court — again. And they were nearly ahead by 30 in another playoff game before the first half was even over.
There was a point early in the second quarter when ESPN’s Lisa Salters asked Karl-Anthony Towns about what the Knicks needed to do with Donovan Mitchell, who had come out hot for the Cavs.
“Stop him,” KAT said.
They didn’t have to, because the Cavs couldn’t stop the Knicks, because no one can stop them right now, because they are as good as anybody, and that means whomever comes out of the Western Conference. Eventually the final score was 130-93, and the Knicks were finally on their way back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.
Sweep the Cavs. Sweep the 76ers before that. Lose two games to the Hawks in the first round because of two last-second baskets. No losses since April 23. Never a run like this, even in the glory days.
It was so different the last time the Knicks made it this far, 27 years ago, only a five-year wait that time from 1994, when they had come so close to winning the first title since the glory days, having led the Rockets 3-2 before going back to Houston and losing Games 6 and 7 at the old Summit.
That time the Eastern Conference Finals ended at the Garden, ended against Reggie Miller and the Pacers on a night when the famous Knick killer shot 3-for-18 from the floor. Patrick Ewing, hurt, was in a suit, and Larry Johnson had gotten hurt in the first half. But Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell — Houston mostly on his way to 32 points — carried the Knicks the way they had carried them all of that basketball spring, as the Knicks were about to become the first No. 8 seed to ever make it all the way to the NBA Finals.
Chris Childs ended up dribbling out the clock at the very end, and then there was Jeff Van Gundy, who had done everything right the way Mike Brown has done everything right this time, hugging Houston when it was over.
There was Patrick Ewing on the court when it was over that night, smiling and saying, “We’re going back to the big show. The big dance.”
Patrick never went back. Neither did Van Gundy and neither did the Knicks, not until Monday night. So this one in Cleveland on Monday night was for all the times when they fell short. This was for ’97, when the Knicks were on their way back to the Finals, one hundred percent, until that fight between Charlie Ward and P.J. Brown at the end of Game 5 in Miami ended up ruining everything because of the suspensions that followed.
This was for the way they went out in the conference finals a year ago, mostly because of that crazy shot Tyrese Haliburton made at the end of Game 1 at the Garden. And this was for the season before that, when OG Anunoby was hobbled and Jalen Brunson suffered a broken hand before Game 7 of the conference semis was over, and it was the Pacers who seemed to be making shots from everywhere at the Garden that day.
Of course there are still four games for the Knicks to win, if they can, against either the Thunder, the defending champs, or Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs. Both of those teams think it is their time. But nothing that has happened with the Knicks — nothing they have made happen — can possibly convince them this isn’t their time, their moment, to finally be back on top. The new Knicks having turned into the old Knicks in front of our eyes, almost out of nowhere from when they were down two games to one to the Hawks.
The Cavs looked as if they were making a run in the third quarter, cutting the lead to 16. But then Towns and Mikal Bridges made 3-pointers, of course they did, and just like that the Knicks lead was back to 22 points, 78-56. Brunson, the great Jalen Brunson, lobbed one to OG Anunoby and OG threw one down, and it was 80-56. A few second later OG threw down a put-back and it was 84-56.
They were going back to the Finals. Still trying to write what would be one of the biggest and loudest New York sports stories of them all, in there with anything the city has seen. Back to the big show now for the Knicks, at long last, back to the big dance.
