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The Forever Man

Overwhelming.

It’s the best word I can use to describe what yesterday felt like.

Overwhelmed with joy. Overwhelmed with excitement. Overwhelmed with sleep deprivation. Overwhelmed with history. Overwhelmed with content.

That last part is really resonating with me at the moment. All I wanted to do Sunday was go back and rewatch the fourth quarter, the immediate aftermath of the win, the trophy ceremony, and all of the postgame interviews I could find, but of course none of that ended up on my docket. Even with the entirety of my post-championship resting consisting of a two hour nap, I had to kick the content consumption can to today thanks to my daughter’s gymnastics competition followed by back to back to back shows last night. Hopefully by the time I go to bed today, I’ll have actually had a chance to imbibe in the vibes I’ve been waiting 32 years to experience.

In that sense, this reminds me of another one of those special days that made my top-five list, when my wife and I got married and felt like we needed a full week to debrief and decompress from the wedding. The way I feel right now, you could give me until the end of July and I don’t think I’ll be able to take it all in, sort it all out, and properly appreciate all there is to appreciate about what we just witnessed.

But we have to start somewhere, and today’s newsletter is as good a place as any. In the days and weeks to follow, I’ll be going on several deep dives - about the individual players on the roster, how they came together, who deserves the most credit, and which moments will stand the test of time - but for right now, I want to take a beat and get the biggest broad brush stroke out of the way. After that, we can take the time to fill in the finer details, and give this Knicks championship (still doesn’t feel real!) the fine wine treatment it deserves.

And what brush stroke would that be? I’ll give you one guess…

For as much as we all love Jalen Brunson here, I’m not sure any of us can fully wrap our heads around the unique nature of what it is we just saw.

To wit…

• Taken with the 33rd overall selection of the 2018 NBA Draft, Brunson isn’t the latest draft pick to win Finals MVP. That honor goes to Nikola Jokic, who was taken 41st overall in 2014. Other than Jokic though, Brunson is the only player taken 30th or later to attain this honor. In fact, since 1969 when the award was first handed out, only three other players taken after the 15th pick have won Finals MVP: Joe Dumars, drafted 18th; Tony Parker, drafted 28th; and Dennis Johnson, drafted 29th.

• Unlike Jokic, Brunson just pulled off the rare double feat of leading the playoffs in scoring and winning the NBA title in the same season. The last player to do that before him was LeBron James in 2012. Before LeBron, it was Shaquille O’Neal in 2000. Before Shaq, it was Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon in the 90’s. That’s the entire list of people to pull this off in the last 50 years. Brunson now joins the group.

• At 32.6 points, Brunson’s NBA Finals scoring average is the 22nd highest in any finals series in NBA history. The only players who have attained a higher average are Michael Jordan, Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor, Shaquille O’Neal, Jerry West, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Dwyane Wade, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon.

• In the last two minutes of clutch time (score within five points either way) across all five Finals games, Jalen Brunson scored 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Every other player in the series combined to score 30 points on 8-of-24 shooting in those situations.

• Brunson had a personal 10-0 run in the fourth quarter of Game 5 to tie the game at 83-all after the Knicks were down 83-73 with 8:21 remaining. He personally outscored the entire Spurs team 15-7 down the stretch of this game.

• Jalen joined Michael Jordan, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bob Pettit as the only players to score at least 45 points in an NBA Finals closeout game.

• With that 45-point outing, Brunson tied Wilt Chamberlain for the 8th most 38+ point playoff games in NBA history with 15. Wilt played in 160 career playoff games. Brunson has appeared in 86, but has only started 79. The only active players with more 38+ point playoff games are LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

• With a total playoff plus/minus of +235, Jalen Brunson finished the postseason with the third highest cumulative playoff plus/minus in NBA history, trailing only his teammate Karl-Anthony Towns at +258 and Steph Curry, who was +245 for the 2017 Warriors. The other names above +200 for a single playoff run are Draymond Green, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Ben Wallace.

• At just under $35 million, Jalen Brunson was the 47th highest paid player in the league this season.

I threw that last one in there not only for shits and giggles, but to underline the importance of what Brunson has meant to this franchise.

When he signed his contract extension in July of 2024, he had already established himself as a player fully capable of succeeding on the greatest stage in the NBA. The only question left was whether Leon Rose could properly highlight that preternatural ability by surrounding him with the right pieces. Of course, by signing the extension that he did, he made it feasible for Rose to execute the additional moves necessary to complete a championship roster.

We said at the time how much that decision evoked a desire to win that went above and beyond what most superstars would even consider. Saturday’s accomplishment is, in many ways, the completion of a journey that began not when Rose signed Brunson to a free agent contract in 2022, but when he signed that sub-max extension two years later.

Look again at those bullet points above, and some of the names alongside Jalen’s on those lists. They are the crème de la crème of the NBA. Ever since LeBron James made it clear in 2014 that his days of taking discounts were over, superstars uniformly followed his lead for the next decade. Until, that is, Brunson decided to pave his own path.

The result has been a resounding, undeniable success.

Forget just the title. Brunson has now led the Knicks to eight postseason series victories since he arrived. In the same time frame, Kevin Durant has zero playoff series victories. Ditto for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Steph Curry has two. LeBron James and Luka Doncic have three apiece. Donovan Mitchell has four. Nikola Jokic has six. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jayson Tatum have seven.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Jalen Brunson is the best winner in the NBA at the present moment. As Benjy told me after Game 5, “you don’t solve Jalen Brunson. Jalen Brunson solves you.”

Looking across the larger New York sports landscape of the last 30 years, the two names that most come to mind are Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. If anything, Brunson has the best traits of both. Mariano was the ultimate closer, while Jeter was the guy you’d most at the plate with the game on the line. Mariano was unflappable regardless of the situation, while Jeter’s intangibles overshadowed a skill set that gradually became underrated the more he racked up wins.

Does Brunson’s Knicks championship surpass the ‘98 Yankees for best New York title team of the modern era? What about the ‘07 Giants? Or the ‘94 Rangers, who ended a drought one year longer than the one the Knicks just erased?

Whatever order you have them in, that is the conversation Brunson has put the Knicks in, except I’d argue that he was more vital to this championship than Jeter, Rivera, Eli and even Messier were to theirs. Does he slot more neatly alongside Joe Namath? Lawrence Taylor? Or is he simply a modern day combination of the two greatest Knicks from a previous era, Willis Reed and Walt Frazier?

Ultimately I think what makes Jalen Brunson so special is that he defies comparison. There has never quite been another NBA player like him, just like there has never been another New York superstar cut from exactly the same cloth. His combination of poise, confidence, humility, perseverance, grit, competitiveness and selflessness is unheard of in modern sports. His “brand” is deflecting the spotlight in an era when everyone yearns to seek out the brightest lights possible. He is a walking anomaly, and not just in the way he dupes giant humans who are hell bent on stopping him. He defies convention as much as he does defenders.

He is Jalen Brunson, who may or may not go down as the greatest Knick of them all by the time he unlaces his high tops for good, but is undoubtedly a living legend smack dab in the middle of his prime.

No stat or accolade can fully capture his impact.

The forever man who led a forever team to the promised land.

Maybe it’s time to stop doubting him after all.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

It was June 22, 1994, at the Summit in Houston, Texas.

I’m not even sure I knew what state Houston was in, only that they had a basketball team, and that basketball team was better than our basketball team, my beloved Knicks

And they were beloved. Even though my father had only just introduced me to this sport the previous fall, I had become fully hooked on this team in that very short span of time. I don’t know what it was that got me so addicted. I’d been to baseball and football games, but neither latched onto me like basketball, and specifically like the Knicks, who I could tell instantly were very, very good, even knowing nothing about the NBA.

Watching the nightly battles of Patrick, Oak, Starks and Mase became a part of my routine, like soccer practice or Sunday mass, except unlike those events, every Knicks game I watched carried with it the promise of exhilaration. Often times, that promise was fulfilled. I loved the fact that we were usually the better team. I liked hearing the platitudes that were sung about them on sports radio. I yearned to read Mike Lupica’s regular tributes in the paper. I felt such joy anytime I put on that No. 33 jersey and got to wear it around my friends. I enjoyed everything about being a Knicks fan.

Most of all, I loved that there was always a tomorrow. Even after losses, they’d play another game. The fun kept going, and going, and going, with no end in sight. When the playoffs started - what exactly the playoffs were, I probably couldn’t say, but I knew they were important - things didn’t change. We beat the Nets, and then the Bulls, and then the Pacers, and surely we would beat the Rockets, because that’s what the Knicks did. They won. And they would keep winning until there were no games left.

Or so I thought, right up until that night - June 22, 1994 - when the music stopped, and another team got to sit in the only chair that remained.

I didn’t understand it. The thought of the Knicks not having another game to win was such a foreign concept to me that I cried myself to sleep less out of sadness than out of disbelief. It’s like someone told me Santa Clause wasn’t real. The brief incubation period of innocence had expired, replaced by the harsh reality of fandom.

Before long - maybe the next morning, I don’t remember - I got over it, realizing that, hey, the Knicks would have another chance to win it all next year. Surely they would climb the mountain then. They had to. They were the Knicks. My beloved Knicks.

And then next year came and again ended in heartbreak, this time even earlier, and of a more painful kind. The pattern repeated the next year, and the next year after that, and the next year after that. 1999 brought a magical run, and even though it too ended prematurely, I was weathered enough in my fandom to appreciate the accomplishment for what it was, which was a longer run than any reasonable person could have ever anticipated.

But it still wasn’t a title.

From there, the years began to pass like waves crashing against a shoreline. The pain of those earlier disappointments gave way to a new kind of tragedy, one that an 11-year-old me couldn’t possibly have envisioned in my darkest nightmares.

Five years became 10, 10 years became 20, 20 years became 30. Over that time, I’d dipped in and out of die hard fandom several times as life took hold in ways that relegate pastimes to their rightful place in the pecking order. Still, I never let go of the rope, which is to say that the Knicks’ success (or lack thereof, usually to an extreme degree) never ceased to have real, genuine meaning to me. Far more meaning than it should, frankly, and that was even before I decided to turn my pastime into something more, and watched as it eventually transformed into my profession.

As that evolution took place, I wondered whether turning my fandom into a full time job would impact how deeply I cared. It did, but not in the way I might have anticipated. Now, I wanted it even more. I wanted it for me, yes, but I wanted it for all the people I interacted with on a daily basis. People whose stories I’d heard and read and internalized as if they were my own. People who, like me, didn’t know where to find the off switch, and even if they did, wouldn’t have had the will power to use it.

What I started to realize, and what crystalized once the team became a full-fledged contender two years ago, is that my fandom, like the fandom of so many, had morphed into something else entirely. No longer was it a matter or rooting or wanting or hoping. We were now on a mission - a mission to see this team do something that we’d long thought wasn’t possible. A mission to overcome all the odds, all the doubters, and all of the history that said a team built in their mold, with their personnel, was not fit for June basketball.

The first mission began last April, and after the highest of highs, we were reminded how deep the lows could be. 31 years after I cried myself to sleep, Tyrese Haliburton put me right back in my childhood bedroom like no time had passed at all. After that loss, in that fashion, for the first time in my life, I wondered whether all the stress was worth it.

This time, it wasn’t nearly as easy to talk myself into “there’s always next year.” I’d been through three decades worth of next years. At some point, it’s probably best to take the hint the universe is sending you. I would never stop rooting, never stop hoping, and never stop engaging in this project that seemed to give so many people so much joy.

But belief? I wondered if after all these years, my supply had finally run out. I had become resigned to the fact that there would always be a void that existed within me, the one created back in 1993, that could only be filled by seeing the Knicks win a championship. There were certainly worse fates in life. It wasn’t the end of the world. It was only sports, after all.

If only I possessed those powers of self-persuasion.

As the playoffs began, and we trailed Atlanta, the void seemed to grow. I became more convinced than ever that my grandchildren would have a better chance of seeing the Knicks win a championship than I ever would. We’d missed our chance last season. Game 1 would live on in that void rent free, likely until I no longer had it in me to write or talk about this team.

And then a funny thing happened:

We won. And then we won again. And we won again, and again, and again.

As the wins piled up, you would think that the void grew weaker. That the victories, resounding as they were, batted down its defenses, causing it to cave in on itself like a fort being attacked from all sides.

Not so. If anything, the opposite was true. Each win only reinforced that when the inevitable moment of truth came, it would bear more heartbreak and more suffering than anything that came before it.

A sweep against Philly. A sweep against Cleveland. Taking the first two against San Antonio. Completing the largest comeback in playoff history in the most dramatic fashion possible. One win away from glory. One lousy, measly victory away from eternity.

By this point, the void was working overdrive to sustain itself, but it refused to collapse. Down 15 with under 15 to go, it was as if none of the previous 15 victories had even occurred. One win away from glory might as well have been 100. The total inversion of my experience watching the Knicks 32 years ago was complete. What was once a team I believed would find a way to win was now a team I was convinced would find a way to lose, despite all the evidence of the previous two months pointed to the fact that all they did was find ways to win. This was the maddening dichotomy festering inside of me - the only reality my conditioning would allow me to accept.

Even after yet another rally, and yet another chapter to add to a tome of comebacks that was now more robust than ever, I waited for the heartbreak.

OG at the line, 7.7 to go, misses the first. That was the opening. He would miss the second, the Spurs would get the ball, and somehow, some way, would get off a three, or get to the line, make the first, miss the second, put back the rebound, and win in overtime. Game 6 and Game 7 would follow the same script.

We would not win. We could not win. The void would never be filled. Not as long as I was rooting for the outcome that would fill it.

These were the thoughts that flooded my mind as the second free throw fell through the net.

I saw it, understood it, knew what it meant. I quickly went through the various scenarios that would have to unfold for the Knicks to now lose, but before I could even get past the first of those, Wembanyama’s shot missed, falling into the hands of a Knick, and no Spur was there to foul and extend the game.

That was it. It was over.

They had done it.

The void, 32 years in the making, was finally gone.

As tears of joy filled up my eyes, I knew what I was watching, and yet I still didn’t believe it. I watched one Knick after another raise the Larry O’Brien trophy high above their head, including Jalen Brunson, who solidified his place in franchise history, NBA history and New York sports history all at once. I watched them celebrate this achievement they’d worked their entire lives to celebrate, and still, I didn’t believe it. As hour one of the postgame show became hour 10 of the postgame show, and I read the comments of literally hundreds of fans who had spent their lives praying for and dreaming about this day, I still didn’t believe it.

Even now, after writing every word you just read, and taking you on a journey that I know every one of you has your own version of, I still…don’t…believe…what happened.

But it did happen.

The New York Knicks are champions of basketball.

The New York Knicks are champions of basketball.

The New York Knicks are champions of basketball.

Eventually, if I write it and say it and read it enough times, I know it will sink in.

Just not yet.

32 years is a long time. Too long, apparently, to erase in an instant, or a night, or even a morning.

That’s fine. I’ve waited this long. What’s another few hours, or days, or even weeks.

However long it takes, I know the wait will have been worth it.

Because whenever the reality finally, fully takes hold, there will be no taking it away.

The Knicks are champions, today, tomorrow, and forever.

They did it.

They really, actually, finally did it.

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Oh, the Knicks can win the NBA championship tomorrow evening in San Antonio. Read that again if you need to.

But first, we must get to today’s newsletter, and my top 13 most unheralded moments from a comeback for the ages, plus Stars of the Game.

Lastly, shout out to the KFS merch department for getting these OG tees out in no time, with an assist from the legendary Mike Breen. What a call.

Reliving A Dream

Manic. Delirious. Euphoric. Hysterical.

Yes, we were all there. Probably still are, one sunup removed.

That’s not why Game 4 was a lifetime moment though.

It was a lifetime moment because you could pick a random win on a Tuesday night in February of 2006, or 2016, or 2026, and the odds are that all of the above descriptors would still apply, at least if you’re reading this newsletter. We earn the right to lose our minds in the biggest moments by bringing the same level of passion to the smallest ones. It is a disease, but it is our disease.

Which brings us to today, a day to reflect and appreciate, but also to anticipate, as the job is not yet finished. If you don’t believe me, just ask Jalen Brunson.

As far as adjustments or keys to Game 5, I think we’re now deep enough into the series where we know what needs to be done. On defense, continue to have appropriate aggression, and be ready to weather a mini-shooting storm to keep your shell intact. Nothing easy, stay in front, and keep those close outs disciplined. Most of all, don’t make your life on defense harder than it needs to be, and please clean up the goddamn turnovers. Offensively, the playoffs and finals leader in total plus/minus must stay on the court, so please KAT, do not give the zebras an excuse to ding you with an early foul. I’d give Deuce and Clarkson a shot in the first half, but be ready to pivot quickly. Shoot when open. Quick decisions remain paramount, which is why Jose Alvarado may have to see his first 20+ minute game of the playoffs. Get up the floor fast, and trust the pass.

Ultimately, the Game 5 winner likely won’t be decided by X’s and O’s any more than Game 4 was. I just pray that it won’t take a Halley’s Comet level rarity to secure New York’s first title since 1973.

How unlikely was this win? After Wemby converted a put-back that only Wemby could convert with 9:33 left in the game, the Spurs had a 99.6 percent chance of winning according to ESPN.com:

But it gets better.

My good friend Ray Marcano did some internet digging, and found that according to Second Spectrum and NBA tracking data, the probability of a player in OG Anunoby’s circumstances successfully tipping in that game winning bucket was between 12 and 15 percent.

So if we take that 12 to 15 percent and apply it to the 0.4 percent chance that remained with 9:33 to go, by my math, the Knicks win that game roughly 1 in 5000 times. They have played 6691 games as a franchise, regular season and playoffs combined.

But hey…if you’re going to use your one chance, what better time to use it?

Of course, so much needed to go right for the OG’s tip to even matter. More than that, a lot needed to go wrong for San Antonio, which is where we’ll start our retrospective.

Do I find it fitting that one day after the league decided not to upgrade a clear flagrant foul on Victor Wembanyama, the Knicks began their comeback with two free throws that came as a result of a Wemby flagrant?

Why yes. Yes I do.

After watching Vic in this postseason, there’s little doubt in my mind that he’s an immature, dirty player who thinks his status as the GOAT-in-waiting gives him the right to play by his own rules. Count me as shocked - shocked - that a Frenchman has been undone by his own arrogance.

After Towns hit both free throws, JB missed a three, which led to three consecutive attempts around the rim for Keldon Johnson, none of which went down. It was one of those little moments that make you raise an eyebrow, like “if this thing ever gets interesting, we might look back at those misses and wonder.” And here we are.

From there, we got our first real push of the comeback, an OG semi-transition dunk…

…followed by a Brunson triple:

For as much as the Wemby flagrant may have kick-started things, on the Anunoby flush, you can see the first signs of the big guy tiring out. Either that, or he has decided that challenging OG at the rim is not a business he’s willing to invest in. Hard to blame him.

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I’ll preface this by saying that my daughter has never been interested in watching basketball with her dear old dad despite my early attempts to get her into the sport. I realized pretty fast that I was ice skating uphill and never pushed my luck.

If anything, I felt fortunate that she didn’t dislike the Knicks for taking me away from her as often as they did. Goodness knows I couldn’t blame her if she did.

But over the last few weeks, as watching this magical, improbable run has become a family affair in the Macri household, for the first time in her life, she has shown interest in the team that helps daddy make his living. It has been a delightful surprise, made even better by the fact that she seems to genuinely enjoy watching.

Even so, I was shocked when I saw her emerge from her bedroom last night with this:

Don’t pay any mind the second apostrophe. We’re still working on the finer points of grammar, writer to daughter. Overall, I think the bubble letters are pretty strong, and I love the joinder of orange and blue within. Admittedly, I may be biased.

I put the sign up behind me for the live watch along we did, which turned into a hate watch not long after tip off. By the middle of the second quarter, when it became clear that this was not the sort of game worth keeping our kids up late for on a school night, my wife Dolores took them to bed. To her credit, she tried to stay up even as the team was down big, but eventually gave in to her own exhaustion.

That it, of course, until she was awoken by some very loud noises emanating from the basement. Thankfully she was the only member of the household whose sleep was disturbed by my outburst, although part of me wished the kids had woken up as well.

Over the last year, starting with the 2025 playoffs and running right up until today, I’ve started to think about sports and family as part of the same conversation. It started when my dad, who introduced me to the Knicks, passed away a little more than a year ago. It forced me to examine myself as a father, and whether my energy and attention was too divided for their needs. This precipitated the decision to leave teaching and take on KFS as a full time gig. Over the course of this season, I’ve still struggled to find the right balance between these competing interests, and no matter which way I turn, I inevitably feel like something or someone is getting short-changed. There are times I’ve wondered if it was all worth it, usually when I feel like I’m failing at both.

And then, on the same night my beautiful, perfect, amazing Scarlett Rae gave me this sign, the Knicks gave me one of the five greatest moments of my life.

Not only is this not hyperbole, but I didn’t even need to think very hard about the list, as four of the five were already set in stone. The births of my girls, the day I got engaged, and the day I got married will always have their spots secured. I’m sure if you’d have asked me about No. 5 before last night, I would have come up with an answer that had something to do with sports, but trying to pick just one of several dozen to hold that sacred position would have been a fool’s errand. There were just too many contenders on roughly equal footing.

Until last night.

Game 4 of the 2026 NBA Finals was, without question, the greatest moment of my life as sports fan. It stood side by side with the days Scarlett and Isabelle were born, which were largely filled with stress, anxiety and a great deal of pain for my wife, but ended with the most unbridled joy imanginable.

How fitting.

It was an equally perfect compliment to my engagement and wedding days as well, because I have only ever had two true loves of my life. One is betrothed to me by law, the other by something that can only be defined by hopeless obsession. The fact that I can tell you exactly where I was when New York drafted Maciej Lampe, and how I was certain he would be the next great Knick, is not accompanied by a marriage certificate per se, but that’s only because the divorce rate is high enough as it is.

Speaking of my better half, you would think that Dolores, being of sound mind and body, would have taken issue with being woken up from her deep sleep last night. She certainly did at first, with a healthy dose of confusion on top because she knew the score of the game before she fell asleep. And then she looked at the TV, and read the words “Greatest Comeback In NBA Finals History” written across the bottom of the screen, and confusion begat more confusion, because how in the world could they have won that game?

And then, like a light bulb turning on, she got it. No explanation needed. I had lost my mind because the Knicks done went and lost theirs. As the person in this world who knows me the best, she realized instantly that I had experienced a religious event even though she didn’t witness the sacrament in the moment.

Talk about irony. We did see it, and we still didn’t believe it.

In those few seconds, as I tried to gain some modicum of composure, my mind instantly flipped back to this duality I’ve been pondering for the last year. For a win to mean so much to so many, I wondered: How can we not describe our fandom as an extension of our family? They are two sides of the same coin. Only our families and our teams can make us feel this wide a range of emotions. Sometimes, on those rarest of occasions, we feel the entire range in a single night. Those are the ones that stay with you. Those are the ones you never forget.

Well, we got one. Did we ever get one.

By the grace of God and Ogugua (although maybe not in that order), the Knicks created a memory that will be shared for decades between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives. They reminded us why we give so much of ourselves to this indescribable passion. Why we take time away from our loved ones to check scores on our phone, or duck out of a dinner to watch a game at the bar, or spend 100 nights a year arguing into a microphone about the Tao of Thibodeau instead of reading bedtime stories or watching that new show like we did when we first got married.

These are real sacrifices, and ones we all have to reconcile with in our own way. The balance isn’t always perfect, and sometimes we let losses get to us more than they should, but those pitfalls are offset by the joy we share together when a night like last night takes place. When the impossible became possible. When fantasy became reality. When an alien crash landed into the middle of midtown. When a kid from Christ the King became a legend.

The best part is that we got to experience this night as an entire community, not only comprised of relatives by blood, but extended family that reaches across city, state, country and continental lines. Last night, an entire world of die hards who bleed orange and blue held hands and jumped off the same cliff in unison. We all know magic when we see it. We know how rare it is. We know not to take it for granted. We know it is a dish best eaten family style.

I will go to bed tonight this morning feeling luckier than I ever have, save for the four days I mentioned above, not only because I get to share this moment with all of you, but because I know what awaits me not long after I hit send.

At about 7:15 am, I will see my daughter who made me that sign, and she’ll see the smile on my face, and she’ll instantly know what she slept through. She’ll laugh, and we’ll hug, and she’ll pull away and say “wait, how many points were they down by?” and I’ll laugh, and I’ll tell her, and she’ll give me that look of bright eyed wonder that only a child can produce.

I can see her face now as my own face wells up with tears I didn’t know I had left.

Out of the mouths of babes:

Let’s. Go. KNICKS.

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Oh yeah…the league was too cowardly to retroactively upgrade the Wemby non-flagrant, because of course they were. Count me as unsurprised.

Redemption

I got up yesterday morning with the intention of writing a full comprehensive breakdown of what went wrong on Monday night. I got about three words in and realized I didn’t have it in me, for three reasons.

First, the worst mistakes - the turnovers - were so blatant that my analysis would be limited to “seriously, guys?” I’m also not about to channel my inner-Kenny Atkinson and lament how at least half of these 10 consecutive 3-point misses to begin the fourth quarter…

…were great looks. The reality of facing a Wemby-led defenses is that you often have to live by the three and die by the three. The Knicks have lived far more often than they have died in this postseason, so one bad stretch, albeit at the worst possible time, does not give us the right to complain.

The second reason I want to go in a different direction today is because, the more I thought about it, this game can be best summed up by a classic New York sports quote from yesteryear:

The Spurs came out playing to win Game 3, perhaps emboldened by losing the first two games at home and saying “fuck it.” The Knicks, on the other hand, played not to lose. They were hesitant. They were indecisive. They were tight. They were nothing like the team we’ve been spoiled by for the last month and a half. As a former teacher who knows the feeling of getting observed by the principal on day when you don’t have anything close to your best stuff, I’m not going to subject the Knicks to that same indignity.

The last reason I’m not going hard on the film today is more empathetic in nature. For 46 days, these Knicks were largely infallible, and then for one night, they made a few too many mistakes. Moreover, for as frustrating as it was to watch them in the moment, we can’t disassociate those mistakes from the petri dish they were created in, and I can only imagine how much the officiating has thrown all of these guys off their game. Its not an excuse, but it is at least a partial explanation.

(Zach Zarba, please: be the change Knick fans hope to see in the world)

Anywho, in the spirit of positivity and not completely forgetting that this team just had the second longest postseason winning streak in NBA history, today I’ll go through all five starters and give one stat-based reason for optimism moving forward (and maybe offer a bit of helpful advice here and there), starting with…

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That was rough.

Spurs 115, Knicks 111

In retrospect, expecting the Knicks to win 15 straight games to end the season was always a bit silly.

Then again, over the last month and a half, New York has given us reason to believe many things that would have seemed silly not too long ago.

By overcoming so many odds, they put themselves in a position no one could have possibly imagined: up 2-0 in the NBA Finals with consecutive home games on the docket.

Now, one of those home games has been decided, and for the first time in 46 days, it was not in their favor.

It doesn’t mean they lost the series. It doesn’t even mean they lost home court advantage. Five months ago, five weeks ago, heck, even five days ago, most of us would have signed on the dotted line to be up 2-1 in the NBA Finals. That’s exactly where they’re at, and there’s no reason to believe they’ll approach tomorrow with anything other than the requisite urgency it deserves. For as much as it feels like they lost command of the series last night, they can snatch it back just as quickly.

And yet…

Game 3 stung.

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The Garden Awaits

Before we get to the good, let’s deal with the almost very bad.

After putting up 97 points in 42 minutes against the vaunted Spurs defense, including 72 points in one 30-minute stretch of game time, the Knicks had to hang on for dear life to secure the victory. It was in many ways the inverse of Game 1, except that New York was able to finish off their 14-point comeback while San Antonio fell just short.

It’s too simple to point to the best players on each team and say they were responsible for their team’s respective fates, especially since Wemby largely outplayed Brunson in the fourth quarter on Friday night, but it’s also not unfair to note what each guy did in the final two minutes of Games 1 & 2:

• Jalen Brunson: 4-for-6, 10 points, one steal

• Victor Wembanyama: 1-for-5, three points, two turnovers, one (big) foul

Experience takes many forms, including whether or not your top guys have been in massive spots before. Over the last four years, Brunson has now been on the court for 121 “clutch” minutes in which the margin is five points or less in the final five minutes. After Game 2, Wemby’s total is now 28.

Even so, the Spurs nearly pulled this off. How did they do it, and more importantly, how concerned should we be moving forward?

Let’s start with the offense. On the first possession after the Spurs cut the deficit to 12, Brunson purposely draws Wemby on a switch and works the defense to get the ball to KAT down low, but Julien Champagnie makes a great play on the ball for the block. On the next possession, Wemby is on KAT and JB draws the Champagnie switch. As he drives, the Spurs liberally help off New York’s shooters behind the arc - first Fox off Mikal and then Harper off Deuce. They counted on Jalen wanting to take the shot as opposed to kicking it out for three, and they were right, but he badly missed the sort of floater that usually goes down. If it wasn’t already clear that it wasn’t his night, this made it so. New York retained possession after the ball went out of bounds, but with little time left on the clock, a desperation Deuce moon ball found iron.

The next shot came with 4:35 to go and the Knicks up seven. The Spurs were betting that Brunson would milk the clock, as he’d done on the previous two possessions, and that the Knicks wouldn’t look to take a three. They were half right on the first count - Brunson took almost the full eight seconds to cross half court - but otherwise miscalculated. Brunson noticed Devin Vassell loading up middle and ignoring Mikal Bridges in the corner, so he rifled a pass to his former Nova teammate. Mikal sidestepped a hard-charging Vassell into an open three but he missed the shot.

On one hand, you could accuse the Knicks of falling into the same trap that the Celtics did last year and bailing out the defense by taking a three even though they were winning the game. On the other hand, an offense facing a Wembanyama-led defense isn’t often afforded the opportunity to pick which good looks they have. The previous possession, New York took a different road and got the same result. At the end of the day, you just have to make shots.

Next possession, the Knicks finally got the ball to Towns, who was covered by Harper on the perimeter with Wemby on Shamet in the strong side corner. JB and OG worked a nice off-ball double screen that sprung Brunson rolling down an open lane, and KAT hit him in stride, but Champagnie left Anunoby to contest the shot, which didn’t hit rim as Brunson hit the deck hard. Was it a foul? Regardless of the answer, it surely wasn’t getting called in this game. Either way, this is exactly the sort of result they’ve been getting from the KAT -led offense over the last six weeks. The ball just didn’t find the bottom of the net.

If you’re keeping track, that’s two outstanding defensive plays by Champagnie, who is on the lesser end of San Antonio defenders, and two misses by Brunson that he’s certainly capable of making. On the next possession, we got another decent look from Brunson, this time from deep, after San Antonio’s pressing defense left just nine on the clock when New York ran its first action. The culprit here was the Knicks’ inability to get the ball up the court faster because of the absence of a second reliable ball-handler. This is where you’d love to have Hart on the floor.

After a great Bridges steal, we got the Brunson missed three where no one was within 15 feet of him. Again, it’s hard to complain about any wide open look against this defense, and this was as wide open as they come.

From there, we got three possessions down the stretch where Brunson gave up the ball and allowed someone else to initiate. If ever there was ever a clear indication that Jalen wasn’t right, this was it, which is by far the biggest reason I’m not sweating the end of this game. Jalen will be better.

On those three possessions, Shamet found OG in the corner for the 3-point shot that he was fouled on (after a review, of course; thanks Tony), then Anunoby got himself a nice running layup that missed (but credit to KAT for getting the Knicks an extra possession on the offensive glass, which led to a BLOB Brunson up and under) and finally we got Mikal dirving into no man’s land - a play which I’ve watched a half dozen times and can’t make heads or tails of what Bridges was thinking, but if anyone deserved a pass on Friday night, it was him.

On the other side of the ball, the comeback began when New York was a little lackadaisical getting back in transition after going up 14, which led to some Harper free throws, and that was followed by a nasty Fox step back triple after he got the Brunson switch. Tip your cap. Next possession, Fox again found Brunson, but this time he worked his way into the paint and converted a nifty runner.

This possession really emphasized Hart’s absence, although one could easily argue Deuce should have been on Fox instead of on Champagnie in the corner. Either way, New York’s defense didn’t have peak personnel, which is partially why Hart was back in the game in the closing minutes.

Next time down, Wemby pulls off probably his best one-on-one possession of the series and scores a banker off KAT. Again, tip your cap. After that, the Spurs had a 5-on-4 when Brunson hit the floor on the aformentioned missed runner, and with Towns left guarding two on the perimeter, Vassell nailed an above-the-break triple in semi-transition. Lead down to two. The next bucket came after the wide open Brunson miss, and the Knicks never got matched up in transition, leaving JB on Harper, who drove in for the easy score. Tie game. After OG’s free throws, Fox again targeted Brunson, who was now on Champagnie, but instead of giving up the switch, he tried a hard hedge and recover. It was a poor hedge and Fox split the defense, forcing KAT to step up, which led to a Wemby alley-oop.

If we’re issuing a diagnosis, the first thing is that Brunson just has to be better, but we said the same thing about his offense. We’ll probably never find out what was up, but he was not right on Friday. Second, you miss Hart when he’s not on the court, plain and simple. Third, the transition defense has to be better, which brings us to the last two San Antonio buckets, both of which came in transition.

First we saw Harper race up the floor and barely beat KAT’s block for a goal-tend, which was immediately followed by the Bridges turnover. That set the Spurs off to the races with numbers, leading to the Wemby and-one. The Bridges turnover is why you see Brunson commandeer so many possessions down the stretch. Going a step further, Jalen’s drives where he ended up on the floor also led to transition or semi-transition opportunities for San Antonio. That’s why so many of those Brunson-led possessions at the end of the game conclude with an attempt from the midrange. Not only do those shots give you a better shot at offensive rebounds, but it’s much easier for the half court defense to be set.

I saved one more defensive possession for last, which leads us right into…

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ OG Anunoby

⭐️ ⭐️ Mikal Bridges

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Karl-Anthony Towns

The way the Spurs had been getting such good stuff attacking Jalen Brunson, you might wonder why they ever got away from that down the stretch. My guess is that they felt the Knicks would be better prepared for it, perhaps with Brunson executing a better hedge and recover than he did earlier. Either way, they had to feel that barking up a different tree would yield sweeter fruit.

Hence, the Fox/Wemby pick & roll we get here, which has two potential benefits. First, Fox can simply beat KAT off the dribble, and if he doesn’t, they still have a 7'4" guy isolated on someone nearly a foot shorter.

Towns takes away the first option, doing well to stay in front of Mike Brown’s former points guard, but the real magic is what comes next. Yes, Wemby towers over Bridges, but San Antonio forgot that Mikal’s arms are longer than a supermodel’s legs. The entry pass wasn’t even thrown low and Bridges still tipped it away.

That tip was key, because even though Wembanyama ends up with the ball, Vic a) has now lost post up position and b) is staring down OG Anunoby instead. As a result, he has to settle for a contested three, which doesn’t even hit rim.

I found it fitting that the best defensive possession of the series involved these three guys, because in a way, this entire game was Leon Rose’s Sistine Chapel. On a night when the Roommates just didn’t have it, the Knicks needed to rely on Rose’s three biggest trade acquisitions to carry them. Not only did they, but they did so on both ends of the court in a way that fully expressed Leon’s vision when he executed those moves over the course of nine months.

This is probably the play from the first three quarters that has gotten the most attention, and deservedly so. Rewatching it a few times, I’m fairly certain KAT goes up with the intention of shooting, but adjusts in mid-air to hit Bridges in the corner.

The magic of KAT was never that he’s some brilliant one-on-one player - a “walking bucket” as the kids say. Yes, he’s one of 10 players ever to score 60 or more points on two different occasions, and the only center besides Wilt to do so1, but on most nights, the way Towns beats you in through his overall package of skills.

That has come alive this postseason. KAT is currently one of three seven-footers ever, joining Wilt and Kareem, to average at least five assists per game in a postseason stint that lasted at least 10 games. I don’t know of five other players in the league right now who would even try this pass, let alone consistently complete it:

Speaking of anomalies, how many players today have a 3-point shot so proficient that a 7'4" guy needs to play up on them to prevent it, but are also powerful enough to rise up through Wembanyama and body him out of the way to throw this down.

And then when you isolate KAT and OG on the same side of the court, there’s no great way to cover it. If Wemby guards Towns, you’re getting a matchup advantage with OG. If it’s the other way around, you get this:

I froze it for a few seconds to start to emphasize the positioning. Wemby had to help off the corner to close up a potential driving lane for KAT, but even he can’t get back to Anunoby in enough time to prevent the drive, which concludes with another power finish.

When you see buckets like this, it’s incredibly easy to get frustrated by possessions at the end of the game in which Karl doesn’t touch the ball. I get it. There’s no great explanation other than that defenses are a little less locked in to start the game, and in a fourth quarter, guys will be more apt to help off and then fly around in recovery. The more passes you make, the more likely a turnover becomes.

I get it. I still wouldn’t mind seeing it.

I saved one of my favorite possessions for last, in part because it was the one that gave the Knicks a lead they would only temporarily relinquish:

The best part about being Mikal Bridges in this offense is that it’s the equivalent of being a supporting actor in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Quentin often get great performances from his stars, but his real magic is using those leading men and women to amplify supporting characters and make them unforgettable. Here, some off-ball trickery between Brunson and Bridges gives Mikal a floater directly in his comfort zone.

Again, this was always the vision: A+ supporting pieces surrounding two stars whose individual skill sets would boost the impact of each other and those around them.

They are now two wins away from making good on that vision.

The journey continues tonight.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

No, you didn’t dream it.

I think.

(BTW, I’ve been sending out more free posts than usual, including today. I just want as many Knick fans as possible to enjoy this as I’m enjoying it. As always, if you’re a free subscriber and want to up your game, dare I say there may never be a better time to do so :-)

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Still Processing

I’ve been a Knicks fan for 33 years, the last nine of which I’ve spent writing or talking about this team in some form or fashion. In all that time, I can’t ever remember waking up the morning after a game feeling like I do today.

Part of that is obviously the stakes, and this being the first NBA Finals I’ve experienced since I was a teenager, but it’s more than that.

The Knicks have not officially won anything, yet by winning the first two road games in this series, they have put themselves in the same position as 38 other teams in NBA history, and those teams have emerged victorious 33 of 38 times. Only five teams (the ‘69 Lakers, the ‘94 Rockets, the ‘04 Mavs, the ‘17 Celtics and the ‘21 Clippers) have come back to win in this scenario.

There’s a similar record of 32-5 for teams that go up 2-0 in the NBA Finals. The only five teams to come back from that deficit are the ‘69 Celtics, the ‘77 Blazers, the ‘06 Heat, the ‘16 Cavs, and a team that Mikal Bridges remembers quite well, the ‘21 Bucks.

And then finally we’ve only ever seen two teams take the first two road games of an NBA Finals: the 1993 Chicago Bulls and the 1995 Houston Rockets. Both won the title, although Charles Barkley’s Suns were a John Paxson triple away from forcing a Game 7 in their own building.

This is all to say that the Knicks have put the Spurs in a position where, were they to come back, it would serve as one of if not the most improbable postseason comebacks in league history, and for a team whose three best players have an average age of 21 no less.

Then again, the Knicks are in the midst of their own run that is already in the running for the greatest playoff stretch the NBA has ever seen. 13 straight wins, 11 by double digits, with a postseason net rating of positive 18.1. For comparison, the ‘16-17 Warriors that went 15-0 before allowing the Cavs a gentlemen’s sweep had a postseason net rating of positive 12.9. The Shaq & Kobe Lakers that went 15-1 en route to the 2001 title finished at a positive 13.4. It bears repeating: we have never before seen this level of dominance on this stage, in New York or anywhere else.

Put the two together, and we have this cognitive dissonance that the 2026 Knicks will either be known for one of the most spectacular achievements in the history of the sport or for one of the most spectacular collapses in the history of the sport, with little gray area in between.

That brings us to last night’s win, which walked the exact same tightrope. For a 30-minute stretch in the middle of the game, the Knicks outscored the Spurs by a margin of 72-46, dominating in every way a team can dominate - with their starters, with their bench, with shooting, with defense, with experience, with skill, and with a whole lot of goddamn grit. When New York went up 97-83 with a little over six minutes left, ESPN’s win probability gave them a 98.2 percent chance of winning. That wasn’t quite as high as the Knicks in Game 1 vs Indy last year or the Cavs against the Knicks in Game 1 this year, but it was pretty darn close. That was followed by several minutes of basketball that made Obsession feel like Mary Poppins, but ultimately concluded with a happy ending.

Reconciling the first 42 minutes of the game with the last six will be as much of a challenge for the Knicks over the next two days as it will be for us. We can only guess how much confidence that final stretch gave the Spurs, and how much that confidence will be offset by the disappointment of the loss combined with the challenge of going into Thunderdome on Monday night.

And then on top of all that, we have to grapple with an officiating crew that seemed to be possessed by the ghost of David Stern.

By the end of the night, I was half expecting Tony Brothers to eject and immediately suspend any Knick player who wasn’t sitting quietly on the bench with his hands folded and eyes on the floor.

Ultimately, I’m just happy that we don’t have to worry about what our emotions would have been if they lost, with an internal tug of war between anger over the egregiously poor and borderline disgraceful officiating and disappointment over being so close to what now feels like a commanding lead. Still, sitting here almost 12 hours after the game end, I’m fucking pissed. Pissed.

I didn’t know my ass from my elbow in 1994, but I distinctly remember my dad explaining to me how the league was trying to litigate Riley-ball out of the NBA and that’s why the Rockets received such a favorable whistle. Fast forward 32 years, and suddenly the hand checking that had the refs blowing their whistle in the ‘94 Finals - hand checking that was subsequently made illegal later on in the goddamn nineties - came back like baggy jeans in Game 2.

Between that, needing to use a challenge to get the foul call on OG, the Fox double-dibble / offensive foul that wasn’t called, the ridiculous third and fourth fouls on KAT, the Mitch tech, the non-tech on Fox, and the phantom Deuce backcourt violation, how could anyone watch that game and think the fix wasn’t in? Shit, you had Spurs fans calling out the refs for their one-sided calling of the game:

And we wonder why Knick fans feel like we can’t have nice things.

Whatever. I’m going to try hard not to think too much more about that over the next few days, right up until Zach Zarba is announced as the head ref for Game 3. At this point, I’d have more respect for Adam Silver if he named Tim Donaghy the lead official for Monday night.

Instead of all that, I’m going to focus on happier thoughts. In no particular order (and I’ll get into the film on some of this stuff for Monday, as well as a look at what went wrong down the stretch):

• The most ginormous of shout outs to the no-Brunson/no-KAT lineup that completely flipped momentum in the 3rd quarter. The five-man unit of Bridges, Shamet, Robinson, Alvarado and McBride outscored San Antonio 11-6 in 5:04. Spectacular stuff.

• Speaking of which, F*ck ‘dem Picks.

• Karl-Anthony Towns is the halfway MVP of the 2026 Finals and MVP of the 2026 postseason. No disrespect to Jalen Brunson, but this one isn’t close for me. His stretch at the start of second quarter might be the best two-way ball I’ve ever seen from the big man.

• Kudos to Mitchell Robinson. Not only did he guard Wemby on the last two misses, but he went 3-of-6 from the line in a game where very point mattered.

• Landry Shamet had two incredibly defensive plays - one where he channeled Roy Hibbert and went vertical in the lane, and the second when he bothered Wemby enough to force a miss at the rim. He immediately followed that up with a triple to end a 7-0 Spurs run early in the fourth and swipe momentum back for the Knicks. Huge, huge swing in the game.

• It wasn’t Jalen Brunson’s best - understatement of the year - but the shot he had to tie the game may go down as one of the biggest in finals history, and it came 48 hours after another one of the greatest shots in finals history. The guy just finds a way.

• And finally, nirvana:

See everyone on Monday. Enjoy the weekend.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

He missed.

HE MISSED.

Knicks 105, Spurs 104

I went forward in time... to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.

How many did you see?

Fourteen million, six hundred and five.

How many did we win?

One.

There are two types of sports fans:

Group 1: Fans who believe something good will eventually happen to their team.

Group 2: Fans who believe their teams have been put on this earth so fans of other teams can enjoy the friendly confines of Group 1.

I know this newsletter has a diverse audience, so I won’t pretend to know the demographics of my readership when it comes to these groups. Generally speaking, long time fans strike me as more pessimistic, but even that’s an overgeneralization. Ultimately, this is a nature vs nurture argument. Yes, our experiences as sports fans help determine which group we fall into, but we’re also predisposed to skew one way or another.

That’s why I can’t blame my place in Group 2 entirely on the Knicks. I’m sure my own emotional baggage has a lot to do with it.

(My wife is a therapist, and I’ve said to her on several occasions that we should start a sport therapy podcast where we solicit questions from listeners about how their sports trauma is negatively impacting their life away from sports and then dish some advice. I’m convinced this is a million dollar idea.)

Anyway, whatever baggage I brought into my Knicks fandom couldn’t have been helped by watching this team in the nineties. At some point, it wasn’t whether Charles Smith would get blocked, but by whom, and how many times? In this world, Starks always gets blocked, Greg Anthony always falls down, the finger roll always hits iron, and Ewing always gets suspended. People think Knick fans have a complex because the team sucked the better part of two decades. That’s probably true to an extent, but those 20 years have zero to do with the unmistakable feeling of dread that creeps into your belly at the end of a tight game like one of those tortilla chips from the Paqui One Chip Challenge.

The sensation lay dormant for a while, but came back with a vengeance in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals last season. I thought we’d finally vanquished fate when we saw Sam Merrill’s shot rim out in the same spot one year later, but then last night, as the ball left the hands of Victor Wembanyama with two seconds remaining in a one-point game, it was like my entire life as a fan flashed before my eyes.

That shot felt like the last scene in a Final Destination movie. We hadn’t defeated fate. You can’t defeat fate. We’d merely held it off. When it’s your turn to go, it’s your turn to go.

We’re Knick fans. Eventually, our clock always runs out.

And then, somehow…

He missed.

He just…missed.

Fourteen million six hundred and four times he makes it, but on this one occasion, he missed.

NBA history says he wasn’t supposed to miss. NBA history says that this was to be the first of many Finals moments in Victor Wembanyama’s long and storied career, and of course it would come at our expense. Of course our guy - the second round pick who is too small to scale the mountaintop - would have to wear the loss around his neck like a cosmic anvil for the rest of his life. Of course they’d blow a 14-point lead with under six minutes to go. Of course the refs would screw us royally, to a degree so comical at times you’d swear Adam Silver was in on the job. Of course the Knicks would come up small on the biggest stage. Of course, deep down in our gut, we knew it was coming all along.

We joke about sports PTSD, but anyone who watched last night’s postgame knows its no laughing matter. I genuinely could not get past my own shock to imbibe in the excitement of being up 2-0 in the NBA Finals, with the Knicks returning to New York for Games 3 & 4. It’s almost five in the morning and I still can’t believe it now.

Sports fans who fall into Group 1 might read this account and wonder how anyone could be so pessimistic about a team that is now two victories shy of the all time postseason record for consecutive wins. I don’t have a great answer, other than to say it has nothing to do with the current crop of Knicks, who have earned the benefit of every doubt by their unflinchingly inspired play, including by Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, Landry Shamet, and several others last night.

In my best Costanza, it’s not you; it’s me.

This is a disease for which there is only one cure, and that cure will come in the form of two more wins. Get two more wins, and all that prior trauma falls away instantly like the soap you hose off your car during a wash. Get two more wins, and I’ll finally be snapped out of this spell.

After Friday’s victory, shouldn’t I think that destiny has already changed hands and is finally being wielded as a weapon for good and not evil?

Of course not. I will believe nothing without seeing two more wins. But I am convinced of this:

No matter what happens from here on in, this group of Knicks will continue to give everything they possibly have to overcome the demons once and for all. You may not be able to cheat death, but these Knicks aren’t cheating anyone. Whatever they have, they give. Whatever you take from them, you earn. Whatever they’ve done before isn’t as important as what they’re doing right now, because what they’re doing now is the best sports story we’ve ever seen.

These are the Knicks that are two wins away from immortality.

They didn’t cheat death.

They looked it in the face and laughed.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

How crazy was Wednesday night? In my entire wrap up, I didn’t mention that Jalen Brunson went down with an injury not once but twice during the basketball game. I guess that’s what happens when you root for someone made of titanium, as all the evidence strongly suggests. In any case, Brunson is fine, and does not appear on today’s injury report. Mitchell Robinson is probable.

In other Brunson news, the NBA is looking in to two fans who sat courtside in Game 1 and reportedly lobbed some vulgarities JB’s way. Whatever was said clearly got under his skin.

All good. More fuel to the fire…

Back At It

Let’s start off with a stat to back up my Mush comparison from yesterday:

So…can you name all six of these wins without looking it up?

I’ll give you a second to collect your thoughts….

Ready…

3…2…1…

I got five off the bat: Games 1 & 2 vs Boston, Game 3 vs Indy, Game 1 vs Cleveland and Game 1 of the Finals. I had to think about the last one, and landed on Game 1 against the Pistons.

Oops. They were only down nine in that game, even though it felt like 19 before Cam Payne went on his run. The correct answer was Game 4 against Boston, when they were down 72-58 before a Brunson 3-pointer began the comeback.

Even if you can’t recite every one of those, chapter and verse, these Knicks are putting together a resume of comebacks that will stand the test of time. Just like I remember all of the 90’s heartbreaks down to the most minute detail, someday when I’m telling my grandkids about the Brunson Knicks, I’ll be able to rattle off these wins like they happened yesterday.

It makes me think of all the stories I’ve heard about the championship era Knicks, and about how they were the personification of team basketball. Their teamwork, unselfishness and togetherness combined to form an unmistakable identity. I gained even more appreciation for this when I spoke with Senator Bradley a few years ago, because he was honest about how sacrifice wasn’t always as easy for them as they made it seem. Hearing stories like these always put a smile on my face, but they were equally bittersweet because I figured I’d never get to root for a team that was so clearly defined by a particular ethos.

The ‘25-26 Knicks have changed all of that.

They are the Comeback Kings (or the Comeback Knicks, if you prefer). They are never out of a game. They’re often down, but never out. And they will give everything they have until the final buzzer. That is their identity.

And they may have just saved their best for last.

How did they do it? We’ll dissect the anatomy of a comeback shortly, but before we get to the meat of their rally, I’d like to make an addendum to Wednesday’s “Wemby Rules” and add one more to the list:

Rule No. 6: Bodies, Bodies, Bodies

OG didn’t get credited for this steal because he didn’t wind up with the basketball, but it was one of many perfectly timed digs he had off the wing that helped stymie possessions. This was one of the benefits of having KAT on Wemby and Anunoby on a perimeter player, which would up being Vassell for most of the night.

One potential adjustment that was proposed before the series was for OG to guard Castle, which we did see a bit in the game. I expect to see more of that, in addition to Anunoby on Wemby (and if Mitch Johnson finds religion and starts giving his best guard more minutes and responsibility, Dylan Harper). OG can handle all of it, which is what makes him such a special defender.

But the thing that sets him apart, and puts him in the same conversation as Wembanyama, is that he does his best work off the ball. The longer the Knicks can keep their best defender off of one of San Antonio’s premier scorers, the better off they’ll be.

But it wasn’t just OG coming out of the woodwork to get in Wemby’s way:

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Knicks 105, Spurs 95

In one of my favorite movies, A Bronx Tale, there is a character by the name of Eddie Montanaro.

“Mush,” as he was affectionately known, liked to gamble. Gamble on horses, gamble on craps, gamble on anything. The problem is that he wasn’t very good at gambling. In fact, he was terrible at it, to the point that any time he entered a room, luck exited just as quickly.

There’s one famous scene in the movie where the gang is at the race track excitedly rooting for their horse, which is in first place. As the horse is rounding the bend and entering the home stretch, Mush walks down the aisle cheering for the same animal. The rest of the group immediately rips up their tickets, even though the horse was still in first place at the time. The horse indeed wound up losing, but they knew its fate well before the finish line.

Seeing Mush was more than enough.

Which brings me to the 2025-26 New York Knicks, who have become the anti-Mush of the NBA world. They could be down by 10, 15, even 20 points, with scant signs of life to be found. It doesn’t matter. At some point, they will make a run, and almost always, they will turn a seemingly solid lead into a battle for life and death.

Just like when Sonny’s crew knew what was coming when they saw Mush, when opposing teams see Jalen Brunson and his crew, they know things will eventually get uncomfortable.

Like the biker gang who stepped foot into the wrong bar, when crunch time hits for the opposition, now, youse can’t leave.

Sure enough, on their biggest stage yet, the Knicks stuck to the script.

There they were, struggling mightily after halftime, stuck in a 14-point hole and unable to solve the human riddle that is Victor Wembanyama.

But even though it was midway through the third quarter and they couldn’t buy a basket, we never got the sense that the game was slipping away. They didn’t flinch. They didn’t blink. They didn’t crawl up into a ball and forget what got them there. They merely trusted their preparation, trusted each other, and began their inevitable comeback, one possession at a time.

The comeback, laden with one defensive stand after another, reminded of a certain phrase we’ve been hearing a lot of from this group. The saying, now uttered on the regular without context, is “0-0.” It’s a reference they’ve come to adopt about their mentality going into each game as this winning streak has stretched out longer and longer. Whether they’re up 1-0, 2-0, or 3-0, they have entered each new game like the score of the series is 0-0.

Watching last night, it became clear to me that this mantra doesn’t just apply to the time between games. It goes for every possession of the night. Whether they’re up big, down big or somewhere in between, they approach each possession as if they score of the game is 0-0.

Obviously the intensity ratchets up in the appropriate moments, but they never get rattled, no matter how much things may not seem to be going there way.

And with all due respect to the man who is three wins away from etching his place into the 21st century Mount Rushmore of New York sports, no single player on the team personifies this mentality more than Josh Hart.

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…as well as this video of Mitch dribbling, shooting and doing other basketball-related activities on the court. Mike Brown was coy when asked about what Robinson’s injury designation will be for tomorrow’s game, but I’m betting he’ll be cleared by medical and he’ll play.

Reminder that we’re live tonight for both the watch along and the postgame. Hope to see everyone on the KFS YouTube channel then.

The Wemby Rules

My goodness, has it been a long time.

The last morning we woke up with a Knicks Finals game to look forward to at night, JLo’s “If You Had My Love” topped the music charts and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me was No. 1 at the box office. All-Pro wide receiver Justin Jefferson was also born on Wednesday, June 16, 1999, while Payne Stewart was getting his final practice shots in ahead of the 99th US Open. What a time to be alive.

Zooming in on the NBA, the league’s oldest player just so happened to be gearing up for his second NBA Finals. 40-year-old Herb Williams made his debut in 1981, lasting nearly two decades in the NBA. He would go on to play 1:48 against the Spurs, and would announce his retirement shortly after the series ended.

On the other end of the spectrum, Dirk Nowitzki wasn’t the league’s youngest player at the time - that designation went to OAKAAK Al Harrington - but he was the player active in 1999 who went on to last the longest, playing until the 2018-19 season. In that final campaign, he’d spend some time mentoring a rookie guard out of Villanova who tonight will take the same Finals stage that Dirk once did, attempting to lead the Knicks to the most improbable NBA title since Nowitzki’s Mavs in 2011.

That was Dirk’s second shot at a title, of course, with his first getting railroaded by a precocious Miami guard who got a slight assist from some helpful referees.

Dwyane Wade wasn’t the youngest Finals MVP when he won it in 2006 - Kareem, Magic and Duncan all had him beat, and Kawhi and Tony Parker would be younger winners after D-Wade’s title - but he remains one of the youngest “best” players on an NBA champion at the ripe age of 24. Many times when elite players have made their first finals before turning 25, things haven’t gone quite so well.

KD was 23 in 2012. LeBron was 22 in 2007. Shaq was 23 in 1995. Hakeem was 23 in 1986. Those are four of the 15 greatest players ever, all of whom went on to win multiple titles, but they had to take their lumps first.

Will Victor Wembanyama join them, or add his name alongside the likes of Wade, Duncan, Bird, Walton and Kareem, all of whom climbed the mountaintop without first failing on the final leg of the journey? If he does, he’ll put his Spurs next to Bill Walton’s 1977 Portland Trail Blazers as the only teams in NBA history to win it all with no playoff experience on their collective resume.

Needless to say, Game 1 will be important, although maybe not as important as we think. The loser of the opening game of the finals has gone on to win seven of the last 15 NBA titles, including last year’s Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder joined the 2022 Warriors and the 2013 Heat as the only home teams to lose Game 1 in the last 15 years, yet all three went on to win the championship. On the flip side, the 2021 Bucks, the 2016 Cavs, the 2012 Heat and Dirk’s 2011 Mavs all lost on the road to open their respective finals and still wound up holding a parade.

So…with that precedent, should we be rooting against the Knicks tonight? Not quite. In the Brunson era, the Game 1 result has aligned with the series result nine out of 10 times, with the lone exception being the 2024 east semis. Does that result change without OG’s hamstring injury? We’ll never know.

Funny enough, the Knicks have won a road Game 1 of the NBA Finals twice in their history, in 1953 and 1972. Both times they not only went on lose the series, but did so in five games, which has happened just two other times1.

Again, this year has been all about re-writing history. What’s a few more notches on that belt?

To do so, New York will not only have to worry about scoring enough against the human riddle that is Victor Wembanyama, but stopping him on offense as well. To that end, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Wemby is a one of one force on offense just as much as he is on defense, as the Knicks well know by now.

Not only does Wemby’s height make him close to an automatic bucket if he gets deep post position (see: 75 percent on shots at the rim in the regular season; 73 percent in the playoffs, both on significant volume), but his ability to lead a fast break at 7'4" gives San Antonio’s offense a dimension that no other team in the league has outside of maybe the Denver Nuggets.

And then when Wemby’s not in the game and your defense thinks it can breath, they can smell that relaxation like chum in the water and attack without hesitation:

Contrary to popular believe, Phil Jackson’s beloved UniKornet has not dominated the Knicks this season. The Spurs did win his minutes in the NBA Cup, but San Antonio has been outscored by 24 points in his 34 minutes across the other two games.

Even so, every minute without Wemby on the court becomes a massive one for the opposition. You almost feel like you have to score every time down the court, and when you give up a basket, the points seem to count for double. The fact that the Spurs are more or less even in 254 postseason minutes with Kornet on the floor is a testament to the roster they’ve built around their superstar.

But we know what this series will come down to. The Spurs have had an offensive rating of 112 or higher during Wemby’s minutes 13 times in these playoffs. They’re 11-2 in those games, and one of the losses came when OKC hit 45 percent from downtown. In the four games that the Wembanyama minutes have produced an offensive rating of 107 or lower, San Antonio has yet to win. Not coincidentally, those are the only four playoff games in which Wemby posted an effective field goal percentage below 53 percent2.

Translation: if you hold down Vic, you hold down the Spurs.

So how exactly are the Knicks supposed to do that?

By following the rules, of course.

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Knicks Spurs Preview Part 1: Knicks Offense vs Spurs Defense

Styles make fights.

If you’ve ever watched an episode of KFS After School or NBA Takedown, you’ve probably heard my illustrious colleague Jeff Johnson utter this phrase.

It’s his way of saying that matchups are everything in the NBA, and some teams are just better suited to play certain opponents more than others.

Here’s the thing about the playoffs though: at some point, if you want to win the title, you’re probably going to have to beat every type of opposition. That’s why the last team standing is often the most versatile in addition to being the best. In many cases, their versatility is their greatest strength.

There are no shortage of ways to think about this concept. Which team forces the most questions while having the most answers? Which team leaves the most on the table while taking the least off of it? Which team forces the most adjustments while being able to stick with their preferred style for the longest?

In the very best playoff matchups, all the questions, answers, compromises and re-calibrations are over midway through the series, and the guesswork gives way to your best versus my best with everything on the line. If that’s the case, I like New York’s chances. While the Knicks don’t enter this series as the favorite, they have undoubtedly been the preeminent shape shifter of the 2026 postseason thus far.

Just think about all the ways they’ve won these dozen games. We’ve seen Brunson-centric and KAT-centric. We’ve seen Hart wreaking havoc and five-out majesty. We’ve seen Towns at the five, Mitch at the five, and then both at the same time. They’ve switched, they’ve doubled and they’ve hedged. Through it all, they’ve dominated.

To win one more round though, they may need to save their best David Blaine impersonation for last. On the other side of the bracket awaits an opponent who specializes at taking away the thing that has defined them the most.

If there is one thing that has characterized New York’s run through the East, it has been their ability to generate easy looks at the basket.

According to Cleaning the Glass, no team in the postseason is taking a higher rate of their shots at the rim than the Knicks, and only the Hawks and Celtics converted a higher percentage of those attempts (and Atlanta and Boston were 10th and 15th among 16 teams in rim frequency, respectively). Thanks to an offense that is operating at peak capacity, no defense has been able to take away or stymie these high percentage looks, and that’s helped New York be on pace for the highest playoff efficiency in league history.

But every unstoppable force eventually comes across an immovable object, and the Knicks are about to meet one in the form of 7'4" extraterrestrial who has single-handedly dominated the western conference playoffs - and that’s without even looking at what he’s done on offense.

Thanks in large part to Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs are allowing teams to shoot just 55.5 percent at the rim in the postseason. That’s not only the lowest mark in the league, but it’s four percentage points below the next closest team (Detroit, at 59.4 percent).

And that isn’t even the best stat to showcase the Wembanyama effect. Overall, the Spurs are allowing the seventh lowest rate of shots at the rim among the 16 playoff teams, and the second lowest among the eight semifinalists. That’s pretty good. When Wemby is on the court though, the opposition’s rim attempt rate drops by 14.1 percent, which is the highest drop of any player in the postseason and the second highest dip in the last eight playoffs.

It’s not hyperbole to say that no player since Bill Russell has had this level of impact on the defensive end. That is the puzzle the Knicks will be tasked with solving, and we can start to uncover some answers by looking back at the tape of the three previous matchups this season.

Watching the start of the NBA Cup, the San Antonio lineup we see is almost unrecognizable from what we’re going to get on Wednesday night. Not only is Victor Wembanyama not starting because he was still working his way back from an injury, but Harrison Barnes is still in the first five1. Even more than that, Luke Kornet is guarding Karl-Anthony Towns.

Sure enough, New York’s first basket of the game is a Towns triple:

Putting a traditional five on KAT not only activates Towns as both a playmaker and a pick & pop / driving threat, but it also makes life easier for everyone around him.

For instance, this play would never happen if a center is helping off Josh Hart as opposed to hugging KAT, regardless of whether or not that center is Victor Wembanyama:

Needless to say that the geometry of the court instantly changes when Wembanyama enters the game, which is where we’ll now focus our attention.

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On the Mitch front, head coach Mike Brown said that Robinson did “individual stuff” in practice but has yet to be cleared by the medical staff before he is a full participant. Hopefully better updates are in store before Wednesday night.

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Re-Writing History

We’re here.

A rematch 27 years in the making (or, for Spurs fans, five and a half months in the making).

To kick off an abbreviated week of NBA Finals preview coverage, I’d like to travel back in time…back to a time before any of the current finals participants were in the league, and in fact before a majority of them were even born. Knicks coach Mike Brown was a video coordinator with the Denver Nuggets, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson was a promising middle school prospect on the Seattle hoops scene, Jeff Van Gundy was fighting for his job, Gregg Popovoch was toiling away as an anonymous assistant, and Leon Rose had recently signed his first NBA client, an undrafted guard from Temple University who was finishing up a stint in the Australian National Basketball League while awaiting the birth of his first child, a boy, who he would name Jalen.

It was at this time that we learned of the most influential NBA decision of the last 50 years that didn’t involve Sam Bowie or Michael Jordan. It was a decision that changed not only the course of Knicks and Spurs history, but the history of the league as well.

30 year ago this month, MJ’s Bulls were in the midst of marauding their way to the fourth and most impressive championship of the Chicago dynasty, but that’s not where our story begins. No, our story begins about an hour from where Jordan went to college, where a different NBA dynasty was about to be born.

We just didn’t realize it yet.

On May 10, 1996, Wake Forest junior big man Tim Duncan announced his decision to return to school for his senior season, citing a strong desire to complete his degree before entering the NBA draft. In the thick of the prep-to-pros era, just as several highly touted prospects were entering the draft after one college season, and one kid from Lower Merion High School decided to bypass college altogether, Duncan’s decision came as something of a shock. It also removed the presumptive first pick from a draft that would become legendary even without the future 15-time All-Star.

Without Duncan on the board, the Philadelphia 76ers took Allen Iverson, who until last week was the first and only guard of his size to shoulder a hefty offensive load all the way to the NBA Finals. Iverson had a Hall-of-Fame career that defied logic…but he wasn’t Duncan.

Meanwhile, three days before the ‘96 draft lottery took place, the San Antonio Spurs were eliminated by the Utah Jazz in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Not that they were worried. The Spurs had averaged 55 wins a season over the previous seven years, thanks to the most highly touted big man prospect since Patrick Ewing making good on his immense pre-draft hype. With David Robinson having just finished runner up for MVP a year after winning the award, the notion that San Antonio would be in the running for Duncan a year later was more far fetched than finding a salad bar on the river walk.

We know what happened next. Robinson missed all but six games due to injury (and the keenest tank job in the league before that sort of thing was in vogue), Bob Hill was fired after 18 games and replaced by the former head coach of the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, Gregg Popovich, and the rest is history.

But every great great story needs a first chapter, and while Duncan’s Spurs would have been a dynasty regardless of when they got their start, the lockout-shortened 1999 season gave them that opportunity. The Lakers and Blazers were both a year away, and San Antonio made quick worth of both in the West semis and finals before a different beast awaited them in the final round.

Despite losing Patrick Ewing after Game 2 against Indiana, the New York Knicks had finished off the most improbable run in the history of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Unfortunately, even with Marcus Camby finally fulfilling the promise that got him drafted second overall behind Iverson, the Knicks were a big man short of legitimately threatening for the title. I’m as big a Chris Dudley fan as the next guy, but he didn’t stand much of a chance against the twin towers of south Texas. Between that and a hobbled Larry Johnson, the result was never really in doubt.

But if Duncan had come out of college a year earlier, and it wasn’t the gigantic Spurs standing in their way? 8th seed or no 8th seed, those Knicks were rolling, coming into the finals having won 17 of 23 games going back to the end of the regular season. They had six road playoff wins, four playoff wins by double figures, and only three wins in which the final score was within two possessions. No one else in the West posed a huge threat.

In short, if Duncan gets picked in ‘96, I wouldn’t have put it past the Knicks to raise a banner in ‘99.

Alas, he stayed, which meant San Antonio’s first ever NBA championship and the first of five rings for Duncan. 16-year-old me was in the stands at the Garden the night, but I wasn’t thinking about how unprecedented it was for a 23-year-old to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy in one hand and the Finals MVP award in the other. Instead, I was beaming with pride over my Knicks, who became the first 8th seed to make it as far as they did, and were a Latrell Sprewell fadeaway jumper short of bringing the series back to San Antonio.

In the 27 years since, I’ve never felt the same way about a team as I did that night.

Until now.

Of all the parallels between this season and 1999, that’s the thing that resonates the most. Even more than having to face another Spurs team led by another wunderkind ready to kick off another dynasty, the pride I feel about both the ‘99 and ‘26 teams is strikingly similar, not because the journeys were filled exclusively with good memories, but because of the frustration that defined each along the way.

A comparison between the borderline dysfunctional 1999 Knicks and the third seeded, 53-win group we’re watching now may seem wildly unfair, and in one sense it it. The ‘99 group began with even higher expectations, entering the season at +500 odds to win it all, which were nearly half as long as the current edition. Despite that early hope, they were a .500 team with two weeks to go in the regular season.

The 2025-26 Knicks never sank to those depths, not after they followed up a 2-3 start with 18 wins in 22 games. Along the way, they’ve given us more than a handful of genuinely thrilling victories, including the NBA Cup, the Christmas comeback, the Landry Shamet game, both Denver wins, Super Bowl Sunday, and the Houston fourth quarter just to name a few.

But for as high as those highs were, the lows felt just as significant in the moment. Kudos to any readers who never joined me in my despair, because there were times this season when I had far less faith in this team than even the lowest point of 1999. My Detroit crash out will be the thing that lives on in infamy, but I was equally frustrated by the October loss in Milwaukee, twice getting big-boyed by the Magic in November, the Sactown slop fest, Draymond-gate, the MLK Day massacre, the Cleveland no show, the three-game slide in April, and most recently by back to back one-point losses to the Hawks.

If you’d have told me at any of those points that the Knicks would be in the NBA Finals, I’d have first asked how many banged up East teams they had the good fortune of facing in the playoffs, and I’d still have wondered what you were smoking. Instead, they ran roughshod over three mostly healthy teams with a level of ease unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed.

The result is 11 straight wins heading in the NBA Finals, and the chance to do something that was first accomplished by those very 1999 San Antonio Spurs, and that’s win a title and have a double digit postseason winning steak in the same year.

One way or another, new precedent will be established.

For San Antonio, they would have the youngest core of any NBA champion in history. The current title is held by the 1977 Blazers whose four leading scorers were all under the age of 25. The 1986 Rockets, 1995 Magic and 2012 Thunder all made it this far despite relative inexperience, but all fell in the last round. The only other 22-year-old to put a finals team on his back like Wemby has was LeBron James in 2007, and he lost, naturally, to the Spurs. If Wembanyama, 21-year-old Stephon Castle and 20-year-old Dylan Harper can pull this off, it’ll be as impressive an accomplishment as the league has ever seen.

It just won’t be as impressive as if the Knicks can pull off the same feat, in part because for as young as they are, San Antonio followed the traditional NBA path: stink for a few years, get a bunch of high end lottery picks, draft a generational star, and fill out the roster to compliment his talents. Meanwhile, New York’s championship roadmap would have seemed like a magic eye painting not long ago.

If you scour the history of the league, you can find some analogs for a potential 2026 Knicks title. The 2020 Lakers won without drafting a single starter. The 2023 Nuggets won with their best player drafted in second round of a 30-team league, and with two perceived defensive liabilities leading their offense. The 1989 and 1990 Pistons won with a small guard leading the way. The 2004 Pistons won without a single All-NBA 1st Team player on their roster.

But to check all of those boxes at once, with a coach who has been fired four times before getting this job, no less? That’s more unlikely than Hoosiers and Henry Rowengartner put together.

But here we are, and the Knicks - the goddamn New York Knicks - have a real chance to raise their first NBA championship trophy since 1973.

So much is coming to a head as they prepare for this last leg of their journey.

We have Mike Brown, facing off against the team he cut his coaching teeth with and the point guard he guided to All-NBA heights.

We have Leon Rose, trying to do what many said was impossible and turn James Dolan’s Knicks into a championship organization without the assistance of a single tanking season.

We have Jalen Brunson, trying to redefine what is possible for a small, defensively challenged guard and etch his name alongside the giants of NBA history and the titans of New York sporting lore. Greatest free agent signing in league history is on the table, as is a spot in the NBA’s Top 100 list 20 years from now.

We have Karl-Anthony Towns, who would silence a decade’s worth of doubters in a way the league has rarely seen by raising a trophy in his hometown after so many said he didn’t have what it takes.

We have OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart, who would put themselves alongside Dave DeBusschere and Earl Monroe as the greatest trade acquisitions in franchise history. They would join the illustrious group of New York sports role players who elevated above their roles - guys like Mike Richter, Keith Hernandez and Carl Banks - and as a result, will never have to pay for a drink in this town again.

And of course, we have ourselves, the fan base who has been starved to see its team reach the pinnacle of this sport since before Jaws, the Watergate hearings and the first appearance of The Fonz. We have come so close to tasting it, and far more often, have been teased by the illusion of it. Now, finally, they have a team that can do it. Not come close, not just fall short, but go all the way.

We’ll spend the next two days discussing how the Knicks can ensure that positive result we’re all hoping for, but for right now, let’s take a beat and live in the anticipation.

The New York Knicks are about to play the San Antonio Spurs for the right to call themselves champions of the NBA.

Someone’s history is just waiting to be written.

The only question is whose.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

First things first: We still don’t have much more clarity on the Mitch injury, which I wrote about last night. There’s been a few videos floating around the internet which may or may not show the cause of the injury in Game 4, but nothing has been confirmed. The most encouraging sign is an Ian Begley report that “Robinson will push to play” in the Finals, although it will ultimately be up to the medical staff. Fearless prediction: he will play again this season.

Next up: the Knicks still don’t have an opponent.

After a Spurs blowout last night, San Antonio and Oklahoma City will face off in a do-or-die Game 7 on Saturday night. The winner will still have three days of rest before the NBA Finals begin on Wednesday, but they will have expended an awful lot of energy to get there, and will have to contend with a team on an all-time run (albeit one that may now be missing a key piece).

Where does it rank in the greatest playoff runs in Knicks history though? To answer that question, Knicks Film School contributor / legend Ray Marcano takes on a walk down memory lane in a special edition of the KFS Newsletter.

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The Knicks in the Finals: A Brief History

by Ray Marcano

Success may be fleeting, but it’s also invigorating.

We’re now, arguably, in the fourth era of Knicks playoff success, and this one looks to be the most dominant. While fans remember the games, they also recall personal events that accompanied the achievements. For example, while fans won’t forget Reggie Miller’s choke sign, I told my son that professionals don’t ridicule their opponents. He took that lesson through his baseball career, a memory we made from that cheap and miserable gesture.

Instead of recapping the Knicks trips to the finals --- lots of people will do that --- I’ve recapped the eras of Knicks success and what I remember about them. Clowns displacing basketball? No games on TV? The greatest shot in Knicks history?

What do you remember?

The early years: 1946-47 to 1955-56

Knicks make the playoffs 10 straight years, with three straight Finals appearances

George Mikan via YouTube

For three straight years, the Knicks played for the championship, and each year, they lost.

The 1951 finals against the Rochester Royals were steeped in history. The Royals manhandled the Knicks and went up 3-0 before the Knicks won the next three games. The 1951 Knicks remain the only NBA team to lose the first three and then win the next three in the finals1.

They lost the deciding game seven 79-75 because Arnie Risen was too much, averaging 21.7 PPG and 14.3 RPG. Players called him “Stilts” because of his 6'9", 210-pound string bean of a frame. Risen, one of the early greats, was a four-time All-Star, two-time NBA champion and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998. Still, there was a player far more important to Knicks history (keep reading) who played in that series.

The 1952 finals against Minneapolis were, well, weird. The Knicks played games four, five and six as the home team at the smaller 69th Regiment Armory. They got booted out of Madison Square Garden because the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus was in town. Really. It made sense, from a business perspective because of concerns the young league might not survive. And fans can facetiously say the circus was in town a lot during the Thomas/Jackson/Fizdale years (I couldn’t resist).

Anyway, the Knicks faced the Lakers in 1952 and 1953 and, much like the rest of the league, couldn’t handle George Mikan, the league’s first great big man.

The era was the early high point for a team that, beginning in 1959-60, made the playoffs once in a decade and had a losing record eight out of 10 years.

What I remember: Nothing. I wasn’t born yet.

The Rennaissance: 1966-67 to 1974-75

Knicks make the playoffs 9 straight seasons, with championships in 1970 and 1973

The seeds of success were planted a decade earlier.

Red Holtzman, a slight 5'10" guard, played with Risen in the 1951 finals against the Knicks. In 1954, he joined the Milwaukee Hawks as player coach and was fired in 1957 after the team moved to St. Louis. He then served as a scout for the Knicks for a decade before being named head coach in 1967. That move, along with several excellent trades (Dave DeBusschere the best one) propelled the Knicks to success.

Reed vs. Chamberlain via YouTube

What I remember: I listened to the 1970 finals on my small transistor radio, watched the great Sal Marchiano recap the game during the 11 p.m. news on TV, and dissected the box score the next morning in the New York Daily News. I don’t recall many other students at P.S. 100 in the Bronx talking about whether Reed could stand up to Chamberlain and if West and Elgin Baylor would be too much for Clyde and DeBusschere.

We all remember the Reed game, but Jerry West canning a 60-foot shot to send Game 3 into overtime made my heart sink. (The Knicks won in OT)

And I remember crying because I couldn’t watch Game 7 on television.

WABC-TV blacked out the home games in NYC metro area, which was common back then. I didn’t have the fledgling MSG network, which broadcasted the game live. So, I listened on my little transistor radio and quietly cheered when a hobbled Reed entered the game. I most remember Frazier carrying the team in an all-time great performance that I didn’t fully understand until next morning’s newspaper: 36 points, 19 assists, seven boards, all while missing just five shots from the field and being a perfect 12-12 at the free throw line.

1973 was my first foray into Knicks obsession and now I was really pissed. WABC still wouldn’t broadcast games live but showed them on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. Game 3, on May 6, was on a Sunday, and if I remember right, I missed school the next day because I overslept since I went to bed so late.

Game 5, the clincher from the Forum, was broadcast live, and when the Knicks won, I wasn’t happy. It was nice, but my father, who I wasn’t close to, had recently died. I had a typical sibbling rivalry with my younger brother, so we watched the game in silence, which was weird. My grandfather, the most important male figure in my life, didn’t like hoops. So, after the final horn, after the Knicks obliterated the big, bad, Lakers, 4-1, I went downstairs and looked for someone to play stoopball with. Later, I crawled in bed for school the next day, believing another championship would soon come, and not understanding that sports success is so fleeting.

Glory Days: 1987-88 to 2000-2001

Knicks make the playoffs 14 straight seasons, the most in franchise history, and the finals twice

Starks shoots over Olajuwon via YouTube

From a pure numbers standpoint, this was the greatest stretch of success the team has seen.

They were consistent. Rick Pitino, Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy coached most of those seasons, with a little Stu Jackson and Don Nelson sprinkled in. Patrick Ewing, drafted in 1985, was already a star. Savvy trades (Charles Oakley) and unheralded free-agent pickups (John Starks, Anthony Mason) molded the team into a consistent contender.

But success also bore heartbreak. I was convinced the Knicks had the best team in 1993, and they lost to the Rockets 4-3. There was the crushing Game 6 defeat in which John Starks had a chance to win the game and the series but had his three-point shot blocked by Hakeem Olajuwon. The Knicks lost in seven.

In 1999, I was convinced the Knicks were the worst team. They meandered through a strike-shortened regular season to finish 27-23 and snuck into the eight seed. They upset powerhouse Miami, swept Atlanta and got revenge on Indiana before losing to San Antonio in the finals.

What I remember: In all my years of watching Knicks basketball, this was the most gratifying run (yes, more so than now). This team nearly missed the playoffs in '1999 and suffered several injuries. Allan Houston’s shot is the biggest memory, the greatest shot in New York history as far as I’m concerned. His last-second floater stunned Miami and won the first round. For me, the Knicks won the championship on May 16, 1999 by beating the hated Heat. Then they kept going, and even in defeat, provided more excitement than I could have expected.

My then wife had twins in 1989, my son in 1991 and I got divorced in 1996. The Knicks lost in the conference semis all those years, so, yeah.

Resurgence and the Greatest Playoff Run: 2022-23 to ???

The Knicks have, at last, made the finals and they’re doing so in a historic, dominant manner. Losing to the Hawks in the first round in 2021 was a kick in the gut because the Knicks had a resurgent Julius Randle, young talent in R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Mitchell Robinson, and a new coach in Tom Thibodeau. I flew to New York to watch Game 5 and witness the annoying Trae Young go off for 36 points and lead the upstart Hawks to a 4-1 first round spanking. At least the pizza was good.

What I remember and new memories. The team wouldn’t be here without Thibodeau, who instilled culture of toughness and responsibility. James Dola n, the lightening rod owner, deserves credit for hiring Leon Rose as team president and then staying out of his way (from what we can see). The front office gets credit for picking solid starters and rotation players with late first/second round picks and flipping them for today’s corner stones.

Oh, and they engineered the greatest free-agent signing in NBA history that changed the team’s fortunes. Thanks for coming along for the ride Jalen.

I also remember to be in the moment, not get too high or too low, and appreciate we’re watching the best, deepest Knicks team since 1973 and a team on an all-time run. (That’s another debate: Are we watching the best-ever Knicks team? I’m not sure). There’s only one thing bigger, for me, than this Knicks run. I celebrate my 25^th wedding anniversary to my soul mate this year. This could be a year of amazing memories.

What do you remember?

Ray Marcano writes and publishes the Bourbon Resource monthly, and he’s president of the 32 Staves Society. He’s a bourbon lover and long-time journalist who freelances for some of the country’s largest media brands. He’s the former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, a two-time Pulitzer juror, a Fulbright fellow, and was named best columnist in Ohio in 2025. He also covers Fine Wine and Dining in Ohio and writes opinion columns for the Columbus Dispatch/USA Today network.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

In the midst of the most euphoric week the Knicks have had in more than half a century, we got multiple reports tonight that Mitchell Robinson is out indefinitely with a broken right pinkie finger and his status for the Finals is unknown.

Needless to say, this news raises all sorts of questions, starting with how the injury happened in the first place. We have no info at the moment, but it’s a safe presumption that if the injury had taken place during a game or organized team activities, that would have been reported. My assumption is that this happened on Mitch’s personal time, which, if true, is obviously incredibly frustrating and massively disappointing.

The next question concerns just how long he’ll be out. Our finest Twitter doctors have already chimed in, and consensus seems to be that Mitch’s timetable will depend entirely on the severity of the injury.

Given that this is a player who never shoots outside of the restricted area and is already the league’s largest liability from the free throw line, he is perhaps better suited than anyone to tape it up and ride, but of course we can’t know whether that’s possible without more information.

If, in fact, he has to miss some games or the entire series, the last question concerns just how much of an impact his loss will be.

Regardless of whether the Knicks play the Thunder or the Spurs, I can see an argument that they can not only get away with OG at the five for the non-Towns minutes, but that this might actually be the best path forward during the time KAT isn’t on the floor. They’d obviously be losing Mitchell Robinson’s offensive rebounding (and as a reminder, he made a massive impact on the glass in the NBA Cup Final), but they would be gaining more versatility on both ends, which could be at a premium in the next round.

At the same time, OG is still less than a month removed from his hamstring injury and pushing him to 40 minutes a night might not be wise. There’s also the issue of KAT potentially getting into foul trouble, and not having Robinson as a stopgap option behind him. More than anything, Mitch is the sort of live wire who can overcome a game plan, and on any given night, can completely change the result of a game. If he can’t play, the Knicks’ road gets tougher. It’s just about how much tougher it gets.

Ultimately, even if Mike Brown goes small as part of the solution, I’d be shocked if at least one of Ariel Hukporti or Jeremy Sochan isn’t prominently involved. Sochan revenge series, anyone? At this point, I’m willing to believe anything.

Look…there’s no way around the reality that this absolutely sucks on multiple levels. It sucks for the Knicks, it sucks for Mitch (regardless of whatever responsibility he holds), and it sucks for us.

But I do not think for a second that New York can’t still win the title, even if Robinson is gone for the year.

It was always going to be an uphill climb. The incline just got a little bit higher.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Stars of the Series

Before we get to today’s Stars of the Series and fully close the book on New York’s 2026 run through the Eastern Conference playoffs, let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that for the first time in their history, the Knicks made it through this round without losing a game.

If we include the conference finals, division finals (which was the NBA’s penultimate round from 1950 until 1970) and BAA semifinals/division finals (1947-49), the Knicks had previously made it to the doorstep of the Finals 17 times. Nine of those times, they lost and failed to reach the championship round. On the eight previous occasions they advanced to the Finals, they lost at least one game every time.

If we look at the history of the Eastern Conference Finals (which goes back to 1971), only six teams won 4-0 before the Knicks: the 2024 Celtics, the 2015 Cavs, the 2003 Nets, the 1996 Bulls, and 1991 Bulls and the 1986 Celtics. Two of those teams (the ‘96 Bulls and ‘86 Celts) are often ranked among the greatest teams of all time, while four of the six won it all. The two teams that lost - the ‘03 Nets and the ‘15 Cavs - lost to two teams in the midst of dynastic runs.

In other words, regardless of what you think of the Cavs, what the Knicks just did is no small accomplishment.

On that note…

💫 Stars of the Series 💫

⭐️ Karl-Anthony Towns: How am I supposed to dole out stars in a series where the team didn’t lose, nobody played poorly, and at least a half dozen players were instrumental in at least one of the victories, if not all four?

With all due respect to Mitchell Robinson, Jordan Clarkson, DEUUUUUUUUUCE McBride and Jose Alvarado (74.1 defensive rating in 29 minutes!), these three spots came down to six players, and only one of those players - spoiler alert, it’s the ECF MVP - was a guaranteed honoree. None of the other five were a sure fire inclusion before I dug into the stats and the film.

The most painful exclusion, but also the easiest one, is Josh Hart. His Game 2 performance was an all-timer and he did so many Josh Hart things all series long that helped break Cleveland’s will, but there are two numbers that I can’t ignore: 130.1, which was New York’s offensive rating with Hart off the floor, and 109.2, which was New York’s offensive rating with Hart on the floor. That discrepancy isn’t all or even mostly Hart’s fault - he did everything possible to punish Cleveland for their strategy - but the Knicks offense also reached unheard of levels whenever Hart hit the bench.

The next guy I’m ruling out is OG Anunoby, who should get a pension from the DSNY for all the dirty work he did against the Cavs.

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No. 11

Late Monday night (or more likely, Tuesday morning), as I was responding to a postgame comment about how far this franchise has come to get where it is today, I was reminded of a game that took place back in December of 2018 that will always stick with me for all the wrong reasons.

It was Christmas break, and my good friend Jeffrey Bellone - originator of this here newsletter and current author of the fabulous Mets Fix - was visiting from Connecticut with his family. We enjoyed some activities with the kids during the day before settling in for a scintillating night of Knicks basketball that evening.

This was something of a big deal for me and Jeff. We connected, bonded and eventually partnered together because of our shared love of the Knicks, but we had only watched a game or two side by side because we lived so far apart. With the Knicks having lost 11 of 12 and sitting a half game above the Cavs for the worst record in the league, we didn’t exactly have high hopes for a win, but we were looking forward to a fun evening regardless. The Jazz were two games below .500, so it wasn’t like we were facing a juggernaut. They might surprise us with a competitive game. Crazier things had happened before.

It didn’t take long before were were reminded that crazier things did occasionally happen…they just happened to other teams and not the Knicks.

The game was essentially over before it began, with the Jazz outscoring the Knicks 39-17 in the first quarter and more than doubling them up 71-34 at the half. Jazz rookie Donovan Mitchell was a plus-33 in 18 first half minutes, while the player who Phil Jackson passed over him to draft instead scored just two points on 1-of-7 shooting and was a team low minus-36.

This was particularly depressing on multiple levels, starting with the obvious fact that Mitchell looked like a star in the making, and the guy we got was shaping up to be one of the great draft miscalculations in Knicks history (and that’s saying something if you know even a little bit about the history of New York’s draft missteps).

But it was more than that. Here were me and Jeff, who had recently embarked on this endeavor with KFS, just dying to produce quality content about a quality basketball team. Not a great basketball team or even a good basketball team; just one that made us feel like we weren’t totally spinning our wheels.

So we did what any enterprising fellows would do: we made lemons out of lemonade.

Old KFS heads will recognize this well.

Jeff used to put out little videos like these on the regular. The ones featuring Ron Baker are the stuff of legend. Despite the fact that the Knicks stunk to holy hell, these videos helped the original KFS Twitter account blow up overnight a decade ago, back when this sort of thing was a novelty on the internet.

The irony of this particular video is that Jeff put the finishing touches on right before that December night we watched the Jazz game together. It featured the aforementioned “other guy” the Knicks picked over Donovan Mitchell in the 2017 Draft.

Unfortunately, no amount of sugar could turn poor Frank Ntilikina from a lip-puckering draft bust into an honest-to-goodness organizational building block, but to hell if Jeff and I didn’t try to convince ourselves otherwise.

And we weren’t the only ones. He debuted this newsletter in late March of 2019, and it garnered over 1300 sign ups in the first 24 hours. I started the KFS podcast the previous fall, and it became a hit almost instantly. I’d love to convince myself that my boyish charm was the impetus of that growth, but the reality is that fans all over the world simply craved the one thing they’d been missing for far too long:

Hope.

As Jeff and I sat there watching the decimation unfold in Utah, hope was in shorter supply than Frankie Smokes’ made baskets1. Yes, Kevin Knox was about to win Rookie of the Month, the Mitch kid looked interesting before he got hurt, we were sure to get a good pick in the upcoming draft, and rumors were swirling about KD having eyes for New York in the summer ahead, but none of that was tangible. The most tangible thing the Knicks had was less than a year removed from tearing his ACL, and even though we didn’t know it at the time, was a month away from getting shipped to Dallas for Dennis Smith Jr, a few firsts and cap space.

When that trade went down, the Knicks were in the middle of a stretch in which they lost 26 of 27 games. Read that sentence again. Now grab a chaser to wash it down.

This was life as we knew it, watching an eventual 129-97 loss in the midst of a 17-win campaign that came at the end of a half decade averaging 25 wins a season. We’d have sank into my living room couch like Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out if we could have.

Now imagine someone would have told us that in seven and a half years, we’d be ending a game in the first quarter against Donovan Mitchell like he ended that Jazz game against us, except that it wouldn’t be a nothing-burger in late December, but Game 4 of the conference finals, for an 11th straight playoff win, 10 by double figures, and a ticket to the Finals waiting at the final buzzer.

I think in that moment, my immediate questions would have been:

1. When did James Dolan sell the team?

2. Did we trade the first pick for AD to pair him with KD and Kyrie, or did we just draft Zion and let him grow with the vets?

Upon learning that Dolan not only hadn’t sold, but had morphed into a model owner, and that Durant would be on his fifth team by 2026, none of which were the Knicks, I’d have pivoted to my third question, which would have been (and this is the God’s honest truth, I swear on my children):

3. Is Frank Ntilikina still on the Knicks?

That’s not drinking the Kool Aide. That’s swimming in it.

But we had no choice. It was self-preservation by disconfirmation. We suppressed the present reality to believe in a future that had no signs of coming.

Except somehow, it did.

And sure enough, a point guard wearing No. 11 who the Knicks chose over Donovan Mitchell was at the center of all of it.

Sitting here now, almost 24 hours since the conclusion of Game 4, I still can’t believe what transpired. I can’t believe the Knicks went from the laughingstock of the sports world to a team playing better than anything we’ve ever seen. I can’t believe my good fortune in coming along when I did, at the ground floor of KFS, allowing me to build up this currency with fellow blue & orange blooded lunatics across the globe. I can’t believe they’re playing a brand of basketball we only dreamed of. I can’t believe the other shoe hasn’t dropped. I can’t believe that I don’t think it will.

Just about the only thing I can believe is how happy all of this is making me. I rarely dared to imagine what it would feel like if we made it to this point, and on the rare occasions I tried, I usually drew a blank. I guess when you’ve been beaten down as much as we have, thanks to one too many blowouts against the Jazz, you start to believe that “next year” will never come.

Except now, for the first time in multiple generations, maybe next year is this year. Maybe next year is right now.

On that note, in honor of the hope that Frank Ntilikina represented, the promise that Jalen Brunson delivered, and New York’s 11 straight wins headed into the NBA freaking Finals, here’s 11 things that put a smile on my face in the aftermath of the best night of my sports life:

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As many of you know, in addition to writing this daily missive, I also host the KFS Postgame Show, and we just concluded the longest postgame in our eight-year history. It is the first time I can recall the sun being up when I finally signed off. It is also the first time I can recall wishing it had gone on even longer, because the feeling I have right now is one I never want to lose, even for the sleep my body is telling me it desperately needs.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

My process in writing these newsletters is usually to save the title for last, and try to think of something that roughly fits whatever drivel I’ve come up with. Today was different. For whatever reason, before I could even start to think about what to write, I found myself dwelling on the appropriate title, with my mind being pulled in opposing directions.

The first direction: We Did It.

The second direction: They Did It.

“They did it” is an easy case to make, with the titular “they” being the Knicks and “it” being winning the Eastern Conference for the first time since before Y2K. “They” - the cavalcade of heroes who are marching towards basketball immortality - should be the focus of our attention, because “They” are the ones who did the thing.

The thing, lest there be any confusion, is not something any of us have ever seen before. They just won the East by a greater cumulative point differential than any team has ever won any conference, surpassing the previous record set by the 2017 Warriors; aka, the team that broke basketball. These Knicks cleared that insurmountable bar, and they did so mostly without breaking a sweat.

If ever there was a “They” that deserved the full spotlight, it is this group of players. That would be true even if they hadn’t been doubted, diminished and occasionally pilloried by the national media and even by their own fans (🙋‍♂️) over the course of this season. That they’re doing what they’re doing in spite of the myriad questions that have plagued them since training camp is all the more reason to marvel at their accomplishment.

And yet…

I went with the alternative option, and titled this newsletter “We Did It” for two reasons.

First, “They” may have made the Finals - their first since 1999, before half of the current roster had even been born - but “they” are also far from done. New York may go into the NBA Finals as underdogs, but only a fool would doubt their capacity for winning the championship. The Cleveland Cavaliers actually put up a fight and made the Knicks sweat for a handful of possessions in the third quarter, and they still lost by 37 points in their own building to begin their summer vacation. Pick any LeBron-led East champ over the last 15 years, when the conference was in shambles compared to what it is now. None trounced the pre-Finals competition like New York just did.

This wasn’t a shot across the bow as much as it was a nuclear bomb dropped before anyone had a chance to evacuate.

For that reason, the real “It” remains unconquered, sitting four wins away, waiting for a final boss to emerge. I reserve the right to use “They Did It” at a later time, but as I’m sure Jalen & Co. would agree, “They” ain’t close to being done yet.

The second reason I chose this title isn’t steeped in logic, but in love. Our love for this team, through thick and thin, no matter how inconceivable their eventual success might have seemed to us at the time.

From Jeff Van Gundy resigning in December of 2001 to David Fizdale smiling and laughing it up in December of 2019, Knick fans have had to live with indignities of every species and genus imaginable for the better part of two decades. For so many of those years, the mere thought of having a team competent enough to win more games than they lost was unimaginable, let alone a team that would waltz into the NBA Finals on an 11-game winning streak. Whereas most fan bases dream of paths to success, we merely dreamt of a day when the overriding emotion of our fandom was something other than shame and despair.

Trudging through those dark days could feel like navigating quicksand on snowshoes. It wasn’t just the losses or the bad trades or the botched signings or whiffed draft picks. It was opening up the back page of the paper and reading a rumor about some asinine thing the front office was contemplating doing, and having that moment when you asked yourself “could they really be that stupid?” You’d tell yourself it’s just Berman stirring the pot, but you also weren’t so naive as to dismiss it completely.

And on and on it went. Another day, another opportunity to ponder whether they’d ever find a path out of the darkness, and who would be the saviors able to take on such a task.

Thankfully, “They” arrived, first in the form of Leon Rose, and then in the form of Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns and finally Mike Brown.

For that, we are eternally thankful, but in order to show thanks today, we must first have persevered through far too many yesterdays to count.

That is why, for as much as today is about the Knicks, it is about us just as much. We did it. We withstood the test of time to have a team that once again rewards our dedication. We never let the dark moments diminish our light, no matter how hopeless it looked. We kept finding reasons to believe, no matter how far fetched or fanciful they may seem in retrospect. We trusted that one day - some day, no matter how long it took - the Knicks would be back playing for the NBA championship.

Now, finally, they are doing exactly that.

Whether they complete that journey or not, when their run ends, we will dole out the appropriate praise and etch their names in the annals of New York sports history like the great Knick teams before them.

Today, though? Today is for us. The fans. Who stuck it out, who never gave up, who drank the Kool Aide long after it had spoiled.

We did it. We made it. We’re here.

The NBA Finals.

Read it again and again and again, until it sinks in. Read it, because no one can take it away from us.

The New York Knicks are competing for the grand prize of basketball.

What a long, strange journey it has been.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. Enjoy the vibes.

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Surreal Sunday

It still isn’t sinking in.

In fairness, I’ve never experienced anything like this as a sports fan, so I have nothing to compare it to.

Reader Chris A compared it to the 2007 Giants run, but I’m not a Giants fan so I can’t say whether that’s accurate or not. I’m also not sure you can properly compare a playoff run in football to a playoff run in basketball because there are so many fewer games. Very different animals.

The closest comp I have as a Knicks fan is the ‘99 playoff run, which seemed guided by destiny, but destiny also had an expiration date in the form of a burgeoning Spurs dynasty we all knew would be too much to handle.

I think the reason this is so hard for so many of us to reconcile is the fact that it is two-pronged, and the two prongs are antithetical to one another. One prong is the “this can’t be happening to us” feeling every Knicks fan has to be feeling. The other prong is the sheer level of dominance. Fundamentally, those two things do not go together. Dominance does not fall out of the sky. You build up to it, see it coming. Thus, when it happens, it does not come as a shock, even if said dominance was once out of character for the group in question.

If you’re reading these words and you anticipated this, or anything remotely like this, take a bow and go play lotto. My guess is that most of you were in the same boat as me coming into the playoffs: cautious optimism fueling the belief that maybe there was a Finals run in them, but also guarded realism born out of experience, with the battle scars to justify it. I’m not too proud to admit that if Doc Brown emerged from a Dolorean before Game 1 of the Hawks series and told me the Knicks would go on to lose in six, I wouldn’t have been shocked. Forget about if he had told me that after Game 3.

And now we’re here, with the highest point differential through 13 playoff games in NBA history, one win from their first Finals in 27 years, and a real chance to end the most notable championship drought in sports.

Our eyes and ears do not deceive us, even if our hearts are still playing catchup.

It’s just…sports, where anything can happen, at any time, no matter how improbable.

Today, it’s happening to us.

Pretty cool.

On that note, here’s six more thoughts on Knicks Cavs, plus three well-deserved Stars of the Game:

Closing ‘em out

It’s weird to be celebrating before the series is over, but at the same time, there’s been 163 times when an NBA team has gone up 3-0 in a series, and 163 times that team has gone on to win. Hard not to at least get the champaign glasses out of storage.

The bigger question is how many games it’ll take.

100 times, teams up 3-0 have closed the series out in four games. 47 times, they’ve closed it out in five. Only four teams have ever forced a Game 7, with the first of those being the Knicks in the 1951 NBA Finals, eventually losing by four points in the final game. Most recently, the second seeded Celtics forced a Game 7 against the eighth seeded Heat in 2023 after a miraculous Game 6 win.

As someone who grew up rooting for the Yankees, I’m obliged to point out the haunting memory of 2004. Because of that nightmare, I’m still on guard up 3-0 even if baseball is a very different sport. There have also only been 40 instances of a baseball team going up 3-0 in the first place, which should factor into this discussion.

This sort of thing is far more common in hockey, with 10 out of the 211 teams that were down 3-0 forcing a Game 7 and four actually winning it. In total, that’s 16 of 414 professional sports teams that have forced a Game 7, and five out of 414 that have won it.

Now that all that’s out of the way, let’s please close this thing out in Cleveland tomorrow night.

Brunson Burner

Last night was the 29th 30+ point playoff game of Jalen Brunson’s career, and his 26th as a Knick.

The 29 puts him, appropriately enough, 29th all time, one spot ahead of Charles Barkley, who played in 43 more playoff games than JB. Every player in the top 30 who is over the age of 32 is in the Hall of Fame. Every retired played on the list is also a member of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team from five years ago. That’s the company we’re talking about.

Speaking of company, Jalen’s playoff scoring average as a Knick is now up to 29.4 points. That would rank fourth all time, behind Michael Jordan, Luka Doncic (who has appeared in the same number of playoff games in his career as Brunson has as a Knick) and Allen Iverson, and just ahead of Kevin Durant (!), Jerry West (!!) and LeBron James (!!!).

Maybe he’s a Tier 1 player after all.

Just sayin’.

Mea Culpa

Speaking of Brunson, I fucked up last night in the clip I included to make my point that the Cavs had let go of the rope.

Not that the defense in the clip I included was any great shakes, but it was 2004 Pistons-esque compared to this:

Hard to blame Cleveland fans for failing to follow the rules.

(As an aside, the Cavs putting out a set of instructions for attending fans to follow is more embarrassing than the Bargnani trade, the Eddy Curry trade and the Ron Baker player option put together.)

D Up

I can’t go so far as to call last night a defensive masterclass, but it was damn close, especially in the second half. There were loud moments, like KAT forcing a jump ball by hard-doubling James Harden on a pick & roll and Mikal Bridges nabbing a steal on the possession immediately following a Cavs timeout, but there were plenty of other quieter moments that simply displayed rock solid coverage, particularly in the pick & roll. Close outs were disciplined, trail defenders stayed connected, bigs moves with urgency, and rotations and recoveries were on point.

And then there were those moments that Jalen Brunson needed to gird up his loins and cover one of Cleveland’s All-Star guards on a switch. The Knicks have done an outstanding job preventing too many of these instances, and the Cavs have definitely gotten the better of JB on several of these occasions, but it’s also a testament to New York’s defense that Donovan Mitchell settled for this shot in this situation:

The Knicks now have the top ranked defense in the playoffs, giving up 104.4 points per 100 possessions.

Turns out their second ranked defense over the final 40 games of the regular season wasn’t a mirage after all.

Changing of the Guard

To go back to Brunson for a moment, the contrast between his shot and Mitchell’s shot in the above clip tells you all you need to know about how this series has gone for both.

On the surface, their numbers aren’t dissimilar - 29.0 points on 50 percent shooting for Brunson vs 26.0 points on 47 percent shooting for Mitchell - but there’s a larger disconnect when you look under the hood.

Neither guy has hit their threes at a commensurate rate over these three games, with Donovan making 32.1 percent of his looks compared to a dreadful 11.8 percent for Jalen. The difference is that Mitchell is attempting 9.3 deep attempts per game despite his struggles whereas Brunson is at 5.7. In place of some of those threes, JB has put his head down and gotten to the line 26 times compared to 16 for Mitchell.

He’s also never stopped trying to involve his teammates. The fact that he’s out-assisting Spida by more than a 3-to-1 clip while turning the ball over the exact same number of times (10) is perhaps the most damning statistic of the entire series.

Now imagine reading all of this to someone four years ago, after the Cavs “won” the Mitchell sweepstakes and the Knicks had to “settle” for their consolation prize from earlier in the summer.

Wild times, indeed.

Unsung Heroes

We only get three stars to give (I don’t make the rules, sorry), so allow me to use this space to praise two guys who had outstanding if quieter games on Saturday night.

OG Anunoby continues to play fewer than his usual allotment of minutes as the Knicks ease him back from injury, but when he’s out there, he looks like 95 percent of himself. Last night that meant getting to the line (a perfect 6-for-6), cleaning up on the glass (seven big boards, usually having to box out one of Cleveland’s bigs to do it) and rediscovering his three-ball from earlier in the playoffs (3-for-4 from deep; over 50 percent for the postseason). If the Knicks can close this out, there’s a real conversation about whether OG will be the best No. 3 guy in the Finals, regardless of who New York faces.

As for KAT, his 4-for-9 shooting line is the most deceiving of the playoffs. Much more representative of his impact was a team-high +23 in a game they won by 13. After an iffy Game 1, the Cavs have had no answers for Towns, who has combined offensive patience with defensive discipline to give the Knicks exactly what they’ve needed in the series.

Awesome stuff from both guys.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Mikal Bridges: The “F*ck ‘Dem Picks” Industrial Complex has officially overtaken the Knicks For Clicks IC on the S&P 500, but that’s old news at this point. Now leading the playoffs in field goal percentage among all 67 players averaging at least 30 minutes per game, we can safely say the Knicks didn’t send enough picks over the bridge(s) for Mikal’s services.

Today, I’d like to re-examine Mikal’s extension, which got a lot of flack as he muddled his way through this season.

Kicking in next season, that extension is now slated to have Bridges be the 56th highest paid player in the league in ‘26-27. That’s right around where it’s likely to remain given likely extensions to be signed in the years to come.

Would any team in the NBA not want Bridges at that value? Only if they’re not in the business of winning championships.

⭐️ ⭐️ Landry Shamet: I’ve already made the case that Shamet is the best minimum contract in the NBA this season. With Tim Hardaway Jr’s unceremonious first round exit and Javonte Green losing his rotation spot in the last round, that’s not even really up for debate anymore.

The new question is whether he’s the best bargain signing for the Knicks this century.

The initial contracts signed by John Starks and Anthony Mason will forever place them first and second in some order in the all-time bargain rankings, but Shamet is absolutely in the convo for 2000 and onward. Before this postseason, that honor would have gone to Deuce McBride, with tips of the cap to Donte DiVincenzo, Isaiah Hartenstain and of course Jeremy Lin. McBride’s larger body of work still has him in the lead, but Shamet is gaining fast, especially after three “BANG!” level triples in the fourth quarter and more outstanding defense on Spida last night.

A little friendly competition never hurt anyone.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Jalen Brunson: Filth:

By my accounting, there have been three second round picks in NBA history who have been the best player on a Finals team, and all have won a ring: Willis Reed, Dennis Johnson and Nikola Jokic. Jalen will now have a chance to add his name to that list.

No superstar in the league today has overcome more skepticism over the course of his career than Brunson. Time to add one more cleared hurdle to that list.

Final Thought

The last time the Knicks were a game away from the NBA Finals, Ricky Martin’s Livin' la Vida Loca topped the Billboard Hot 100.

See everyone tomorrow night.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”