Surreal Sunday

10 thoughts on 10 straight wins.

Good afternoon! As promised, here’s a more comprehensive postgame wrap up following last night’s big road win. PSA: the next KFS newsletter will be after Game 4, as I’m going to spend the rest of today spending a little QT with the fam, which may or may not involve going to see a small green muppet with mystical powers.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. Enjoy the vibes.

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.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”