Knicks took James Dolan's words to heart and now they're a win from the NBA Finals
CLEVELAND — It is a rare occasion that Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan speaks on the Knicks, but in January he appeared on WFAN and set a high bar for the franchise, offering up a belief that “We want to get to the Finals, and we should win the Finals. This is sports and anything can happen. But getting to the Finals we absolutely got to do. Winning the Finals, we should win.”
With this pressure placed squarely on their shoulders, the Knicks took the court that night and were beaten soundly in a 31-point loss to the Detroit Pistons, an awkward misstep attempting to live up to the expectations that they were burdened with. But if it took time and seemed unlikely in the moment.
The Knicks took the court in Cleveland Monday night with the opportunity to meet the moment, to live up to the lofty standard in front of them.
On the verge of reaching the NBA Finals with a 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals and 10 consecutive postseason wins, they were reminded Monday of the challenge and what it meant back then with the weight pushing down on them.
“We better get to the Finals or we’re going to get traded,” Josh Hart joked of the thoughts at that time before adding, “not pressure, because I think that’s the goal that we all kind of have. Obviously, it hits a little bit different when the big dog says it. But that’s the goal that each and every one of us has. And we’re our own biggest critics, so this kind of adds a little bit more fuel to that internal fire of the hunger to get there.”
Maybe they didn’t need to hear it said it out loud because the baseline for success had already been set six months earlier. Just days after the season ended just short of the NBA Finals goal, the Knicks lost in the Eastern Conference Finals to Indiana and the team fired coach Tom Thibodeau, the man who had led the team from years of dysfunction to contention. If that wasn’t good enough, anything less certainly would be a failure for the team as it returned every key piece of the roster with a new coach in Mike Brown.
“I mean, we all had that aspiration regardless,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “So we didn’t really need to hear that because we all wanted that moment. We all wanted to see that especially after last year being in the Eastern Conference Finals and coming up short. We understand that we’ve got to take that next step. So what he’s talking about is also how we all felt. We wanted to go out there and we wanted to take that next step. Get past the Eastern Conference Finals.
“It was historical last year. The city went crazy and it was awesome to see the city so alive, but there’s new standards now. There’s new expectations and we’ve raised the expectations so we knew what we came into this season to do and what we want to accomplish and we’ve just go to keep our head down and continue to focus on the goal at hand.”
The Knicks have managed to do that and that night in Detroit seems far removed. That loss was part of a 2-9 stretch that seemed to derail the hopes as much as any words from the top of the organization.
Overcoming obstacles throughout the season, adapting to the new coach and new systems, the Knicks' list of accomplishments seems to have already measured up to what was lost last season. The 53 wins surpassed last year’s 51, the team picked up an NBA Cup championship over the San Antonio Spurs, one of the teams on the other side of the bracket trying to reach the Finals, and they have dominated the opposition since a minor bump in the form of back-to-back one-point losses in the opening round.
“The regular season is full of peaks and valleys and ebbs and flows,” Towns said. “That’s how a regular season goes. And you kind of expect a run like that to happen at a certain part of the season. it was just the most [inopportune] time, especially when things weren’t looking great and New York fans, rightfully so, are not the most patient. So we understood that.
"Tough stretch for us but it also helped us grow and be more unified and understand that if we continue to believe in each other, we continue to lean on each other, we can get out of any situation regardless of it’s a 2-9 run in the season or it’s a [22]-point deficit in Game 1. As long as we continue to believe in the goal and continue to lean on each other, we’ll be fine."
While they constantly preach how the closeout game is the toughest game you’ll play, the Knicks beat Atlanta by 51 points in the first round, then destroyed Philadelphia by 30 to finish off a sweep in the conference semifinals. And as they spoke Monday morning they were still stressing the desperation that they have played through the postseason with, no matter how far ahead they were.
“I mean, just continuing to let everyone know the expectation, you know?” Towns said. “The desperation and the mentality that needs to be present for all 48 minutes. Like I've always said, this is the toughest game of the year. The one that ends someone’s season is the toughest game. So you’ve got to go in there understanding that it’s going to be two times harder than the game before, and before that, and everything, so you’ve got to meet the moment.”
Still, the Knicks have seemed through this run to not only be the team playing with that desperation, maybe fueled by expectations and maybe by experience. Whatever it is, they have found themselves at the most opportune time peaking after the roller-coaster moments of the season, far from the failures of last season and from the cold night in January.
“I don’t want to consider us peaking at this moment,” Jalen Brunson said. “I still think we have a lot of work to do. Us as a team, I’ve said this all year, we just want to get better every single day. That includes the times that we’re in the playoffs because there’s still time to learn, still time to get better. That’s how I’ve always thought about it. I haven’t really had the time to really kind of wonder where we are as a team. All I focus on is how can we get better from the day before.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
