This is why Knicks basketball can be maddening. Because for one reason or another, this team — with one of the NBA’s most talented starting fives — often waits until it has no other choice before playing its best basketball.
Then, just like that, the switch flips.
Suddenly, the urgency returns. The desperation kicks in. And when the moment demands their sharpest edge, the Knicks finally deliver — reminding the world that, when locked in, their ceiling belongs among the league’s elite.
The pressure was at its highest in Game 6 at Madison Square Garden on Friday — a golden opportunity to close out a playoff series at home for the first time since 1999. The alternative? A trip back to Boston’s TD Garden for a winner-take-all Game 7, where the Knicks were run off the floor by 25 points in Game 5.
That opportunity wasn’t wasted.
Twenty-six years after their last NBA Finals appearance, the Knicks are four wins away from going back.
If they plan to take that next step — if they hope to follow the blueprint of assistant coach Rick Brunson, who played on that 1999 Finals team — then Game 6 has to become the baseline. Not a blip. Not an outlier. The bar.
No more playing with fire. No more waiting until the third quarter — or until they’re down 20 — to punch back. The Knicks must start Round 3 the way they ended Round 2: throwing haymakers from the opening tip.
And on Friday night, they didn’t stop swinging.
The Knicks delivered their most complete performance of the season — maybe their only true 48-minute effort. When Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla waved the white flag late in the third quarter and Jaylen Brown fouled out with his team buried, the scoreboard told the story: Knicks 92, Celtics 51. A 41-point lead — the largest playoff advantage in franchise history in the 28 years the NBA has been tracking play-by-play data.
“They’re the defending champs for a reason,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said before tipoff. “So we have to play well for 48 minutes. We can’t have a stretch where we let them go on big runs because of the variance of the three. We’ve got to make sure we handle that.”
Handled.
After trailing by double digits in every prior game of the series, the Knicks flipped the script — pummeling the Celtics in a wire-to-wire 119-81 rout to punch their ticket to the Eastern Conference Finals, their first appearance since 2000. The reward: a showdown with Tyrese Haliburton and the peak-and-pace Indiana Pacers, starting Wednesday night at MSG.
Now comes the hard part: bottling that energy, that execution, that urgency — and opening Round 3 with it.
Indiana is a different beast. Yes, Boston was compromised. Jayson Tatum’s ruptured Achilles in Game 4 crippled their title hopes. Kristaps Porzingis was sick and limited. The Celtics had firepower on paper, but in reality, they were limping into Game 6.
Without Tatum’s rim pressure and shot creation, the Celtics were reduced to isolation-heavy offense and desperate kickouts for three. The Knicks were ready. Brown scored 20 points but turned the ball over seven times and fouled out. Payton Pritchard (11) and Al Horford (10) were the only others to crack double figures. And after torching New York for 34 in Game 5, Derrick White was held to eight points on 3-of-11 shooting in the closer.
A serious response from a serious team — finally playing a serious 48 minutes.
That’s the only blueprint moving forward. If the Knicks play full games, the Finals are within reach. But if they slip back into old habits — short bursts of brilliance masked by long lapses — they’ll be punished by a Pacers team that’s deep, fast, and well-rested.
Indiana just ran the East’s top-seeded Cavaliers out in five games, using a 10-man rotation and relentless pace to grind Cleveland into dust. That same formula knocked the Knicks out last season. This time, New York’s healthier. The roster is retooled. Gone are Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and Isaiah Hartenstein. In their place: Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns. But the rotation remains tight. Thibodeau played just seven in Game 6. The Pacers will test that depth.
Still — the edge now belongs to the Knicks. Game 6 proved that when fully locked in, New York isn’t just tough — it’s terrifying.
They respected Boston’s pedigree. But when it came time to close, the Knicks didn’t flinch. They didn’t hesitate. They overwhelmed the defending champs.
Now the challenge is consistency. Game 6 can’t be the high-water mark. It has to be the standard.
Because this team has the talent to make a run at something real. The Celtics were wounded, but still dangerous. And the Knicks did what serious teams do: they took the gift, and crushed it.
Now, it’s time to show the Pacers the same thing.
If the Knicks can keep their foot on the gas for four more wins, the Finals are theirs to chase.
And if Game 6 was any indication, the chase might not be far away.
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