The Knicks now get a big Saturday night at the Garden out of the past, out of the time when Magic Johnson and the Lakers used to only come in once a year for what felt like a one-night-only show on Broadway. They get LeBron James and the Lakers, before they get an even bigger Saturday night, what will feel like Super Saturday to Knicks fans, when the Boston Celtics come to town. There are only three teams in pro basketball with more wins than the Knicks heading into this weekend, and the Celtics are one of them. The others are the Cavaliers and Thunder, who have been the two best teams to here.
It is a well-established fact at this point, becoming even more established with each passing game and each time the Knicks keep ringing the bell with this kind of scoring, that they are good enough to go toe-to-toe with anybody in their league. We can see, especially in this latest winning streak, that they are good enough to play with anybody.
And we continue to see something else, in lights, and that is absolutely the most fun Knicks team in 50 years. It doesn’t mean they will become the first Knicks team since 1999 to make it to the Finals. It doesn’t mean they are going to put together a body of work comparable to what Patrick Ewing and them did across the ’90s, the last time we had this much light and noise and fun at the Garden. But what they give you, game to game, before and after they were stumbling against the better teams, is all the season for which any Knicks fan could have asked.
Having said all that? We are going to have to wait, through the massive waste of time that All-Star Weekend has become in the NBA, then through the end of the regular season to see if they are finally good enough to make a run, and that doesn’t just mean to the Eastern Conference finals. We are going to find out if they are good enough to ring the ball in June when, in the words of the great Dave DeBusschere, the money goes on the table. And so you know? No. 22 always threw a colorful adjective before table.
Yankee fans know all about this, over the past several years, at a time in their own history when they’ve done a lot more in the postseason than the Knicks have done in 25 years. They have been champs at being good enough. Just not real champs.
Here is what Nikola Jokic, who has been a real champ and who continues to be one of the best players on the planet, said the other night after the Knicks rolled his team at the Garden:
“They’re a really good team. I think they are the favorites — not the favorites, but, I think [they are] top-five candidates for the title.”
High praise indeed. High bar being set for Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks. A lower bar — Eastern Conference semis — isn’t going to be enough, or nearly enough this time around. Leon Rose didn’t come here to build a team that was only good enough to do that, and to only go that far. Rose was tired of being in the middle of the pack and now the Knicks sure aren’t there. After the Knicks did roll Jokic and the Nuggets the way they did, with LeBron and the Lakers on their way and the spotlight is going to be as big on Saturday night as it has been for the Knicks all season, they were only one game behind the Celtics in the standings. One.
Big Saturday night. Bigger one in a week. All last season, once we saw how truly great a player and point guard Jalen Brunson had begun, how the other ‘Nova Knicks organized themselves and their games around him, the main event was supposed to the Knicks finally make it back to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2000, and getting their shot at a team that would go on to win the title.
We all saw what happened. They never made it up to Boston because everybody, including Brunson, broke down and they lost to the Pacers in seven games, the last one at the Garden. In the end, they came up one round short of what the Knicks did 25 years ago, when they limped into their own series against the Pacers; when they were the ones who broke down before making it back to the NBA Finals.
Now here they are, trying not to break down again by spring, even as Thibodeau once again rides his starters hard. And by the way? Two things can be true at the same time. It is without question that Thibodeau continues to be one of the elite coaches in his sport. But without sending the minutes posse after him, how can the amount of minutes he is playing his starters not give even the most passionate Thibs defenders pause as they take a good, long look down the road?
For the moment, though, Knick fans should just try to enjoy the moment, even if parts of this season have been a rollercoaster ride. They should enjoy seeing their team go at LeBron this weekend and then Tatum and Brown and Old Friend Porzingis next week and, at the same time, seeing all those guys going up against the Knicks and against the place, which will be even more full-throated than it has been all year. These are good times, and sometimes great times, even if these fans get eventually their hearts broken again.
No trophies will be handed out over the next week. No titles won. And no matter. Just win these next two Saturday nights. Who wouldn’t have signed on for two exactly like this in February after the way things ended at the Garden last May?
