Going the Distance

In a battle between two heavyweights, the Knicks - led by their improbable, undeniable superstar - were the ones still standing after the final bell.

GOOD MORNING KNICKS FANS!!!

Let’s DO this.

Game 4: Knicks 97, Sixers 92

In a New York minute…

Not once but twice, Philly threatened to take a sizable advantage in this game: with a 12-2 run in the first that put them up a dozen, and then a 10-0 run early in the third that broke a 51-all tie. Both times, the Knicks responded, and they arrived at the fourth quarter up one after a Jalen Brunson 3-point play to end the third. That set up a battle of wills that will not soon be forgotten by anyone who witnessed it. Just 36 total points were scored in the final frame, with just a dozen made field goals. The two teams had waged war, but in the end, only one was left standing…

The Only Thing

In the last scene of Rocky (a movie written by a struggling New York actor about a down-on-his-luck Philadelphia boxer - so, a fairly appropriate analogy for this series), Apollo Creed whispers to Rocky Balboa that there ain’t gonna be no rematch. Balboa, in turn, tells Creed he doesn’t want one.

And why would he. A rematch was never Rocky’s goal to begin with - nor, for that matter, was winning the match.

He merely wanted a chance to prove to himself that he could last 15 rounds with the champ.

If he did that, win or lose, he could be proud.

For Rocky, like so many of us just trying to make it from one day to the next, pride went an awfully long way - not in the seven deadly sins sense, but in being able to put your head on the pillow at the end of a long day knowing you gave it everything you had.

With all due respect to Philadelphia, New York has a trademark on giving it everything we got. We don’t know any other way. It pours out of us like the sweat on Jalen Brunson’s brow. There’s an unspoken code amongst us - those who dare to dream that we can make it here (and thus, anywhere). We are stubborn. One might even say foolish.

So how fitting it is that these Knicks - these incorrigible, indomitable, indefatigable Knicks - find themselves in this position, up 3-1 in the series after last night’s 15-round heavyweight fight for the ages, precisely because they refuse to accept their fate.

By any conceivable metric, the Knicks should be thrilled just to last 15 rounds. If you’d have told any NBA fan before the season that New York and Philadelphia would be squaring off in a playoff series in which Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey would combine for an efficient 60 points a night and where Julius Randle would be in street clothes, they’d have told you the Knicks would be well-served being down 3-1 so long as they played competitive ball.

If you’d have told that same fan that New York would be up by just one point with six minutes remaining in a road Game 4, and that they would convert just two field goals over the final half of the fourth quarter, they’d have called you a loon for suggesting the Knicks could win the game.

Just go the distance. That’s all anyone has any right to expect from a group that is already down Julius Randle, and added Mitchell Robinson and Bojan Bogdanovic to the list of maladies last night. The Sixers are Creed, with their one-two, inside-out attack that no defense can truly game plan for. On paper, you can’t build a better foundation to a basketball team.

But teams aren’t built on paper, and least of all this one, which has been forged in the fires of Mordor by a madman who treats winning like air.

If you were going to conceive of a single player who could topple the Embiid / Maxey duo, it wouldn’t be a 6'2" guard who (last night, at least) needed to score almost all of his points from the most treacherous part of the court for someone his size.

But basket after majestic basket, Jalen Brunson continues to show everyone exactly where they can stick their convenient narratives.

Long story short, what we are seeing should not be possible.

Then again, the best way to get a New Yorker to do something is by telling they can’t do it. That they’re too weak, or unqualified, or simply that there’s someone better for the job.

You wanna bet? Watch me.

And that, more than anything else, is why we have fallen head over heels for this team. It isn’t just Jalen Brunson, who is perhaps the most relatable New York superstar in modern history. He is a vital part to the story, and the closest thing the NBA his to a real life Rocky, but you don’t win a heavyweight fight like this behind one man, even if he did score more points in a single outing than anyone in the 394-game postseason history of the franchise.

No, there is something about this team that resonates on a far deeper level than a superstar who we genuinely love rooting for. They espouse so many other qualities that New Yorkers hold sacred. When combined into a whole, they can take on anything and anyone.

First, not having your best is no excuse for failure. That’s Josh Hart not making a field goal but still being positively vital to this win…

…or Donte DiVincenzo saving his only two threes for the moment his team most desperately needed them, making their charge late in the third quarter.

Second, you must always be ready to seize opportunity when it knocks. That’s Precious Achiuwa, who went from out of the rotation to playing the final 13:35 with Mitch down and I-Hart in foul trouble. All he did was show up with the biggest block of the game after a shook Joel Embiid challenged Achiuwa’s rim defense rather than putting up a wide open jumper.

Third, when Plan A isn’t working (and Plans B, C, D, E, and F aren’t going so great either), you must never, ever give up, even if it means going outside your comfort zone.

That’s OG Anunoby, who reminded everyone that the whole “he can switch onto point guards and centers alike” isn’t just a hollow talking point.

Fourth, this team embodies the spirit of this city because they are every low man on every totem poll - the one whose boss doesn’t have time to hear an excuse. “Just get it done” are four words everyone has heard at some point in their working life. What happens next is up to you. Either come through, or don’t.

Last night, as the Knicks were missing 10 of their final 12 shots with three players on the floor who had sat for a collective total of seven minutes, style points did not matter. 11 offensive rebounds - seven by individual players and four more “team” offensive boards - did matter. It was another example of the how and the who being inconsequential. No one would remember how valiantly they fought or how undermanned they were if the final result was a loss. The win was all that mattered.

Somehow, some way, they did it, not only making it to the end of the 15th round against the best, but being able to raise their arms in victory as they exited the ring.

These are your New York Knicks.

A team for the ages.

Not only because they are great.

But because they are us.

Play of the Day

Cheating here, but also not really.

Yes, there are two clips below, but they are inextricably intertwined, not only because one came immediately after the other, but because they perfectly summarized why one team won and one team went home unhappy.

Part 1: Philly gets a second opportunity after a long rebound on an Oubre Jr three caroms to Kyle Lowry. He immediately gets the ball to Embiid, who is doubled by Brunson, momentarily leaving Lowry open.

Except by the time he gets it back, Deuce McBride has already made the rotation:

Next swing is to Maxey, but Precious - who teleported from covering Oubre to hedging on a potential drive to coming up on Tyrese, all in the span of about 1.8 seconds - is there to wall off the drive.

The final kick is to Harris in the corner, who was theoretically open, except Josh Hart gave the sort of effort on a close out that should not be possible in minute-47 of a basketball game of this caliber.

Clank. Knicks get the board (because what board didn’t they get), one bucket away from being able to breath a tad easier after being down much of the night.

That got us to Part 2, and this question: would the Sixers be up for the sort of defensive possession that the Knicks just put forth in their building?

Not quite:

To stick with the boxing analogy, this is what throwing in the towel looks like on a basketball court. The Sixers had given all they could give, and it wasn’t enough.

One body blow too many, and just like that, they were done.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Precious Achiuwa

⭐️ ⭐️ OG Anunoby

The fourth quarter was defined by these two men more than anyone.

Anunoby received the Embiid assignment the majority of the time after Hartenstein got into foul trouble late in the third, but Precious’ speed and tenacity at the five spot is a big reason why the gambit worked. The Knicks didn’t sacrifice size or speed with Achiuwa guarding a Philly perimeter player, and if he needed to switch onto Embiid, he was more than up for the task.

As for OG, the defense is what will get him paid an ungodly sum of money this summer, but his offensive contributions here were nearly as valuable. He scored 16 points, all on 2-point shots, while tying a career high (and setting a new playoff career high) with 14 ferocious rebounds.

More on these guys coming tomorrow.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Jalen Brunson: For several hours after this game ended, I tried mightily to sort out the cognitive dissonance of what I had seen.

On one hand, this was the ultimate team win, with contributions up and down the roster. Anunoby, Achiuwa, Hart…all defined the game in one way or another. Others came through with plays necessary to securing the victory. Their belief and confidence in one another is second to none. The whole is so much greater than the sum of the parts - a rarity for this organization for much of its history. The win was about so much more than just one person’s effort.

On the other hand: Patrick Ewing, Clyde Frazier, Willis Reed, Bernard King, Carmelo Anthony, and anyone else you want to name. None of them ever scored more points in playoff game while wearing the uniform. Arguably, none ever had a better offensive performance with as much on the line. Brunson’s effort last night, with his team down multiple bodies and his second and fourth leading scorers combining for three (3) field goals, is why we watch sports.

So is this the Brunson game? Or is it about the team, first and foremost?

I’ll leave that for history to decide. Here’s what we do know:

47 points, 10 assists, one turnover. In all of NBA playoff history - thousands of the highest stakes games imaginable - only one player has ever topped that stat line: Damian Lillard in a 2OT loss in 2021, when his 55 points, 10 dimes and single turnover weren’t enough to defeat the Nuggets.

The thing about that game is that the Blazers scored 140 points. This was a different animal entirely.

It is inconceivable that Brunson should be able to do what he is doing.

Yet he does it, again…and again…and again.

If you’re still surprised, you simply haven’t been paying attention.

Tip-Ins…

🏀 Mitchell Robinson tried his best to give is a go before the game, warming up on the court before meeting with the trainers, but he just wasn’t able to make it work. He did offer some words of encouragement afterwards.

🏀 Bogey played under two minutes, leaving with a turned ankle after Nic Batum dove for a loose ball and landed awkwardly on his lower leg.

🏀 With the exception of the first 2:25 of the fourth, when Donte relieved Jalen so he could get a quick rest, and the final seven seconds, when I-Hart came in for rebounding purposes, the five-man unit of Brunson, McBride, Hart, OG and Precious played the entire fourth quarter.

That group hadn’t played a single non-garbage time minute together in the regular season or the playoffs before this game.

🏀 Talk about resilience. The Knicks shot just 1-of-7 on threes in the first quarter and 33 percent overall, but never let go of the rope. For the game, they made just 25.9 percent from deep. They’ve only shot worse from long range in nine games this season, losing seven.

🏀 More resilience: Josh Hart played all of the fourth quarter and most of the third with five fouls, yet found a way to stay on the court. Isaiah Hartesntein didn’t pick up a single foul in the first half, but accumulated five while guarding Embiid in the third.

🏀 The minutes. My God, the minutes. They’d have been taxing in any game, but in this, they almost counted double.

OG played 47. Hart played 46. Brunson played 44. And in what might be the story of the game for Philly, Embiid played 44, but unlike Thibodeau’s Knicks, his conditioning was nowhere near up to par, and it showed big time down the stretch.

🏀 Unsung hero of the game: Deuce McBride, who scored 13 on 4-of-7 shooting in 27 minutes. What a sixth man he’s become.

🏀 There were no shortage of exhilarating moments from this win before we even got to the last 12 minutes. OG had a thunderous dunk over Embiid in the second quarter, and then later in the period, he blocked an Oubre shot that led directly to Deuce’s second consecutive triple, putting the Knicks in front. In the third, we had Joel Embiid doing Joel Embiid stuff, throwing an elbow towards Jalen Brunson that the refs completely missed and Embiid seemed to forget about when Brunson confronted him shortly thereafter:

Joel Embiid: dirtier than an issue of Hustler and not nearly as entertaining.

On the bright side, the play seemed to send Brunson to new heights, as he scored nine of New York’s next 11 points as they trimmed a 10-point deficit to three. After that, every possession felt like life and death. Check out tomorrow’s newsletter for a full reap of a memorable fourth.

Up Next…

Game 5, for the right to move on to round two, is Tuesday night.

Final Thought

That was as big a win as I can remember this team getting since the 90’s.

Hyperbole? Find me a better one with more on the line.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”