Unprecedented

The Knicks are playing the best basketball of my lifetime.

Good morning! Please place your broom back where you found it after you’re done.

Knicks 144, Sixers 114

I’d like to start off by wishing a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. If you’re a mom (or a mom in spirit) and you’re reading this newsletter, I’m guessing you had yourself a pretty nice afternoon. I know my mom did, not only because of the Knicks, but because she got to celebrate something else as well.

For just the seventh time since she became a mom, my birthday and Mother’s Day coincided on the same date. Thanks to KFS, she’s become a fairly rabid Knicks fan over the last few years, but because she lives in Florida during the winter, we don’t get to watch many games together. It made yesterday an extra special treat.

It would have been special regardless of the final score, although the final score certainly didn’t hurt. More than that, it actually gave us something to root for even after the result was no longer in doubt.

Once they got the lead above 30, I got a little selfish and wanted the Knicks to give me a 43-point lead on my 43rd birthday, but after a Jose Alvarado bucket made it a 41-point game early in the fourth, the teams combined for seven consecutive misses. I figured my special number just wasn’t in the cards. Sure enough, Alvarado promptly nailed a three that put them up by 44, which then got me thinking that the train had simply missed my stop.

Alas, thanks to a 3-pointer from OAKAAK Dalen Terry and a driving layup from garbage time maestro Tyler Kolek, I got my wish after all. Sensing an opportunity, my wife implored me to stand in front of the television to take a picture, which I did, not knowing who or what was on screen behind me at that exact moment.

I was quite pleased when I saw the result:

This, friends, is the tomfoolery that ensues when you root for a team that has cracked the secret code of basketball.

None of us have ever seen anything like it before. Not like this, not from the Knicks, and certainly not since the championship years. That’s not really in dispute at this point. The only question left is whether they truly are Neo from The Matrix, and no amount of Agent Smiths can make a difference when it comes to preventing the inevitable.

It’s such an odd feeling to watch them right now. Our mind tells us it can’t possibly continue, but our heart is filled with the joy of backdoor cuts and rotations on a string. I thought one of last night’s superchatters nailed it when he analogized this experience to being in someone else’s fancy house and not wanting to touch anything for fear of breaking it. It’s not that we don’t realize what we have. We are fully aware. We just don’t want it to end, and are using every ounce of our karmic powers to will its continuation into existence.

I tried my best to live in the moment yesterday. To appreciate these goings on as they were happening. To not look ahead or back and just be present for one of the singular accomplishments in the eight-decade history of this franchise.

I was to an extent, but I also couldn’t help myself, not on the day I started a new 365-day countdown to the next number on my docket. 43 years isn’t nothing, and while there have been some lean seasons in that time, there have also been some great ones. The Knicks have actually made the playoffs during more of my years on this earth than they haven’t. In 17 of those 43 years, they’ve even won a round. Just based on simple math, that’s better than most other teams can claim over the same time frame.

And yet as I fired up the postgame show after the win, I had frighteningly little hesitation proclaiming this as the best Knicks team of my lifetime.

Longtime readers know I’m not someone who takes history lightly. I fondly remember both Finals runs, and each of those journeys were filled with significant accomplishments by warriors who made this city prouder than it had been in decades. The ‘94 team could have won it all if they’d caught a few more breaks. I’ll always wonder what a healthy Ewing could have meant in ‘99.

But with apologies to both of those squads, we’re now dealing with a different animal.

Don’t believe me? Consider this:

The Ewing Knicks played 153 playoff games between Patrick’s arrival in 1985 and his departure in 2000. If you add up the margins of victory from their seven biggest wins in those 153 games, you arrive at a total of 171 points.

The current Knicks have won their last seven games by a combined total of 185 points.

This last performance set the record for most points in a playoff game in franchise history, breaking the record they set 10 days ago when they closed out the Atlanta Hawks. They also set a record for most made threes in any Knick game, playoffs or regular season, with 25, including 11 in the first quarter alone - the same number of made threes they had in their entire four-game Eastern Conference Semifinals sweep of the Hawks in 1999.

Aesthetically, the only comparison I can come up with is the 2014 Spurs, who avenged their Finals loss of the previous season and played what was essentially perfect basketball to close out the LeBron era in Miami. It may seem sacrilegious to compare a team on the cusp of the Conference Finals to the last, most glorious gasp of a proud dynasty, but the hyperbole has been fully earned.

If nothing else, they are playing like a team whose self-assuredness of purpose is that of an NBA champion. At the same time, even with all of that confidence, they’re approaching every possession with the desperation it deserves. That is a tightrope few have walked; even fewer when you consider only teams with the collective skill to win it all. That the last two games unfolded as they did without the assistance of OG Anunoby speaks to the embarrassment of riches we’re dealing with.

We have been waiting so long to see it. 53 years since the last title. 27 years since the last Finals. Six years since this regime arrived. Four years since the prince that was promised. Two years since they went all in. One year since they put their money where there mouth was. And barely two weeks since a must-win Game 4 against the Hawks - a moment that had us all wondering if the good times ended without us even realizing it, under a barrage of threes from Aaron Nesmith.

Only when you consider the history can you have proper perspective on the present. To that end, it was unsurprising that the most popular sentiment I heard after the final buzzer was “we deserve this.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I know that if any fan base does, it is this one.

Two straight conference finals. An evisceration of a long time rival. Complete two-way synergy. Silencing of critics. Heroes abound.

It’s all there, or at least as much as it can be with two more legs left in the journey.

If and when this ride finally comes to a stop, we won’t soon forget the thrill of a lifetime it gave us. In the meantime, please remain buckled and make sure your seat is in an upright position. The true flight of the 2025-26 New York Knicks is about to begin.

Best we’ve ever seen?

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

East Finals, here we come.

This time for the win.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”