Tim Hardaway Jr. spent parts of four years with the Knicks, but the veteran guard-forward had not appeared in a playoff game at Madison Square Garden before Saturday.
Originally the Knicks’ first-round pick in 2013, Hardaway was never part of a winning season with the organization over two separate stints, both of which ended with him being traded away.
But Hardaway, now of the Detroit Pistons, returned to the Garden for Saturday night’s Game 1 in their first round-playoff series against the Knicks — one of several key Pistons with New York ties.
Fellow starter Tobias Harris hails from Long Island and was once a mega-prospect coming out of high school.
Isaiah Stewart, the Pistons’ bruising backup center, grew up in Rochester.
Backup point guard Dennis Schröder began the season with the Nets and was traded twice before he ended up with Detroit.
All four are important role players who helped transform the Pistons from the worst team in the NBA last season to an Eastern Conference No. 6 seed that’s playing with house money against the heavily favored Knicks.
“We’ve been playing basketball our whole lives, basically,” Hardaway, 33, said ahead of Game 1. “Just go out there, have fun, enjoy the moment and stick to what the coaching staff has been implementing all season.”
After the Knicks drafted him out of Michigan, the 6-5 Hardaway finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting in 2013-14 and became a part-time starter the following season.
During the 2015 offseason, the Knicks traded Hardaway to the Atlanta Hawks for the draft rights to guard Jerian Grant. But after two seasons with Atlanta, Hardaway returned to the Knicks on a four-year, $71 million contract.
Overall, Hardaway made 254 appearances, including 131 starts, with the Knicks and averaged 13.8 points per game. He was scoring a career-high 17.5 points per game when the Knicks included him in the January 2019 trade that shipped Kristaps Porzingis to the Dallas Mavericks.
Detroit acquired Hardaway from the Mavericks last summer in a deal that sent guard Quentin Grimes to Dallas. The Pistons had acquired Grimes from the Knicks a few months earlier.
Hardaway was the first of several veterans added by Detroit — Harris and Malik Beasley were the others — to supplement an ascendant young roster that had not learned how to win yet.
Those three, each of them capable 3-point shooters, proved to be strong complements to play-making franchise cornerstone Cade Cunningham, who averaged a career-high 9.1 assists during his first All-Star campaign.
Hardaway started each of his 77 appearances in the regular season, averaging 11.0 points per game while shooting 36.8% on 3-pointers.
Harris, meanwhile, entered Saturday with something Hardaway did not: playoff experience at the Garden.
Last year, Harris was part of the Philadelphia 76ers team that lost to the Knicks in the first round in six games. Harris averaged 9.0 and 7.2 rebounds per game in that series and was held scoreless in Game 6 in Philadelphia.
But Harris’ New York connection dates back much further.
The 32-year-old power forward was born in Islip, N.Y., and split his high-school basketball career between Half Hollow Hills West in Dix Hills and Long Island Lutheran in Brookville.
Harris was named Mr. New York Basketball and a McDonald’s All-American for his senior season at Half Hollow Hills West in 2010 and was a consensus five-star recruit when he committed to play at Tennessee.
He signed a two-year, $52 million contract with the Pistons last summer and averaged 13.7 points and 5.9 rebounds per game in 73 appearances, all starts, this season.
Harris and Hardaway are two of the few Pistons players who entered Saturday with playoff experience. Detroit’s other three starters — Cunningham, center Jalen Duren and forward Ausar Thompson — were making their postseason debuts in Game 1.
“Our preparation is a key factor in why we’re in the position we’re in today,” Harris said before Game 1. “I’m proud of this group. … I know these guys want it and are always eager to learn and listen. We put all that to play every single day.”
Stewart also hadn’t played in a postseason game before Saturday. The 6-8 center spent his freshman and sophomore years at McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester before he transferred to a basketball prep program at La Lumiere School in La Porte, Ind.
Now in his fifth NBA season, the rim-protecting Stewart, 23, is a driving force in the physical identity that the Pistons embraced during their turnaround.
Also fitting that description is Schröder, whose hounding defense continues to pester opposing point guards.
The Nets originally added Schröder in a February 2024 trade with the Toronto Raptors, then traded him to the Golden State Warriors in December. Less than two months later, the Warriors then spun Schröder to the Pistons in the multi-team trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Bay Area.
Schröder, 31, averaged 10.8 points and 5.3 assists per game in 28 appearances, including eight starts, with Detroit.
Detroit also rosters Daniss Jenkins, who played point guard under Rick Pitino at Iona and St. John’s, but he appeared in only seven NBA games as an undrafted rookie this season. On Thursday, Jenkins was named to the G League All-Rookie Team after averaging 21.2 points and 7.2 assists per game for the Motor City Cruise.
The Pistons (44-38) went 3-1 against the Knicks (51-31) in the regular season and averaged 13 made 3-pointers per game in those meetings, during which they shot 41.3% from behind the arc.
But Hardaway — who played in 42 playoff games with the Hawks and Mavericks, including a trip to the NBA Finals last year with Dallas — cautioned against reading into that head-to-head success against the Knicks.
“It’s a new season now, so all that stuff was preparation,” Hardaway said. “We worked our tails off to get to this situation, to put ourselves in this position, to go against a phenomenal team.”
