Sometimes, everything just clicks for a team collectively at the best possible time, and when that happens, it’s magical.

Generational lock in

Depth has a lot to do with it. The Spurs ran up a score pretty heavily at the beginning of games but they didn’t have the juice to keep it going and the Knicks got back into it every time

Because they’re a case study on sum of the parts analysis.

They had 3 guys that had decade old championship chemistry, who individually are good, but become even better when together. Then add in a championship 3&D in OG plus a 7 foot big man that can shoot and playmake and they become a unique match up nightmare for anyone.

Nobody outside of Knicks fans really thought they had a chance.

They’re good. They were healthy. They have guys who don’t give up. The players bought in. They have some great defenders. Brunson is very underrated.

They got hot, and they have a ton of talent.

Mike Brown changed up their offensive strategy and it totally unlocked the team.

They also got to play three straight teams who had just played a 7 game Series so they got an insane amount of rest over everybody else.

(Yes, they were still better, yes, they still deserved to win / can only play who’s in front of you. I am not discrediting them.)

It still probably helped a TON. Rest is huge.

I also think the fact that their offense changed so drastically in the playoffs made it so there was not much tape on em for defensive scheming

Great offense and defense very good in the clutch and improved coaching

They are not one of the best teams ever, they just had one of the best runs ever. If that makes any sense

Everyone was playing the best defense of their lives, shooters were red hot and getting the ball in their spots, and it definitely helped that teams had almost no tape of that KAT-centric offense coming into the playoffs.

Coaching, Talent, Health, Focus

Mike Brown pivoting to make KAT the focal point of the offense was clearly not something the Knicks playoff opponents were prepared for. KAT’s talent, Brunsons off-ball gravity, and the Knicks shooting was purely dominant.

Any time the Knicks offense got stuck, they could change up their lineup to give their opponents a different look. Swapping Shamet, Robinson, or Alverado gave the Knicks a different look on the court that again is hard to adjust to. Unlike most teams, their final 5 players to close a game were not set in stone.

The Knicks only significant playoff injuries were OG’s hamstring that cost him 2-3 games and Brunson’s wrist/knee that he was able to play through.

And the Knicks just never quit. They learned last year against the Celtics that they can win any game as long as its somewhat close by the 4th quarter. They shrug off large deficits and their opponents just didnt have the same focus/mental toughness.

Mamdani

Lots of reasons! The biggest imo is the Knicks have a well balanced roster and teams weren’t able to exploit our weaknesses.

For one, Our opponents really lacked floor generals. Specifically, Harden and Fox were not able to slow the game down and set their teammates up for an easy bucket when it mattered most nor were they able to take advantage of Brunson when on offense. Fox made huge bone headed mistakes down the stretch, and Harden got fucking cooked by Brunson. To the point where even the broadcasters, and every Schmoe watching, were like “why are the Cavs letting this happen over and over?”

For two, we didn’t have a lot of size at the 4, but luckily, neither did the spurs.

Three, for years the gameplan against Brunson has been to take a long defender and have them pick him up full court and then attack him on defense. The addition of Alvarado meant that Jose and Josh could bring the ball up the court and save Brunson the energy on offense. Then on the defensive side, the Knicks were pretty good at pre-switching so by the time the opponents ball handler was able to get a switch onto Brunson, there was only 10 seconds left on the shot clock.

4, and probably the biggest one, KAT is the most talented Knick and his skillset requires teams to gameplan. He can bring centers out to the 3 point line which means Cleveland and San Antonio’s centers were not able to be as effective as they normally are. Add in the fact that we started using him as a passer, and that he really excelled there, and you have guys being fed while cutting to a basket with no rim protector.

Knicks playoff performance in Per Game stats:

Offense:

• 1st in PPG
• 1st in FG%
• 1st in 3PT FG%
• 3rd in assists
• 4th in rebounds
• 6th in turnovers allowed

Defense:

• 1st in opponents PPG
• 3rd in opponents FG%
• 1st in opponents 3PT FG%
• 1st (tied) in opponents assists
• 1st in opponents rebounds
• 8th in turnovers forced

They just played beautiful end-to-end basketball.

One of the most dominant postseason runs in NBA history

Knicks got hot at the right moment and locked in. Everything clicked. Couple that with dude Wemby had Buckner levels of errors.

The team on the floor themselves made comical amounts of mistakes that whole series. San Antonio’s coach got outclassed and was out of his depth. Mike Brown was prepared and on his game.

The power of friendship.

This will, forever and ever, be the best postseason run I’ve ever seen

So I’ve been saying this since the Knicks won: They were not the most talented team ever, nor even this past season. But they were undeniably the best team in the truest sense of the word.

Sometimes a combination of continuity, comradery, and sheer wanting it more can make a team significantly better than the sum of their parts.

People tend to discount this kind of stuff, I’ve heard arguments like “Everyone wants to win, one team having more motivation or friendship or whatever doesn’t matter,” but like, just because they are pro athletes doesn’t mean that they aren’t still people. The emotions, the willpower, all of that stuff still matters.

Everyone wanted it, the Knicks wanted it more. Every other contender has either made significant changes this offseason or is just, you know, the Spurs approaching their primes, but the Knicks only really made moves on the margins, and we all know that if they had lost it would have meant a massive overhaul. They didn’t want to do that, they wanted to win with this group, so they stepped on the gas and never let up.

More talented teams have lost plenty of times in the league to teams who just straight up wanted it more and were relentless. These Knicks were a very talented team right near the top, but they played more as a collective group due to a drive to win together and that made a difference. So they stomped on pretty much everyone, either with blowouts or comebacks, either result just crushed their opponents’ spirits.

Honestly, I’ve watched a whole lot of NBA games, and they way they played in the playoffs…yeah, they might be one of the best teams ever. Not the very best, all the best champions kind of win like this and a few have either more talent (Jordan’s Bulls, KD Warriors, 86 Celtics), or even more willpower or teamwork or whatever (2014 Spurs, at least one of the Pistons Champions), but way up there.

Short explanation: BING BONG!

They know how the mental game of basketball works, they’ve lost a lot of games they should’ve won prior to these playoffs, seeing the Cavs in game 3 with a decent amount of time left in the game just give up on a play and let Brunson walk to the hoop was a nail in the coffin. Even when other teams were scoring it never felt like they were going to win for whatever reason. You just knew the Knicks would capitalize on your every mistake and were capable of coming back if it was a 10 point game in the 4th with 7-8 minutes left. They were actual New York cockroaches where no matter what you do to them you can’t kill them and they felt inevitable. Game 6 against Atlanta was the most locked in I have ever seen an NBA team in the playoffs. Zero lighting up, zero lazy plays even when they are up 40.

Maybe it was just the greatest playoff run by one of the best teams ever. That’s what the numbers say, why should we ignore them?

Knicks had less weaknesses against the Spurs imo

They had something for everything. Especially for the fourth quarter.

Their really only big weakness was Brunson’s iso defense, but they were so good at having him show for a sec like they’d switch, but then having their 3nD guys get right back.

So while I think the Spurs were a better team in general, the Knicks countered them very well. Like Kat taking Wemby out the paint with his shot too.

We had the 5 key C-hampionship elements:

• Continuity — Starting 5 had been through playoff battles together.

• Chemistry — The Team (specifically the Nova Knicks) are there for one another on and off the court.

• Coaching — The players locked in with the Coaching Staff and vise/versa throughout the postseason.

• Consistency — They played Team basketball on both sides of the court; from the starters to the bench.

• Closer — Brunson is HIM.

Consistent defense and the ability to control the pace of the game. Plus insane rebounding and a more defined offensive system than we had under Thibodeau.

They are a badass team and Brunson is better than your favorite player.

They were a great team who benefited from a couple of upsets in the East to play weaker teams than they might otherwise have (Sixers, Cavs). You can only play who is in front of you, and they swept those series to set themselves up in the best position for the finals. In the finals, it was very clear that the Knicks had the benefit of experience vs a young Spurs team whose main stars were on their first playoff run. All of those comebacks were the result of an experienced, veteran team playing at their own pace vs a young team that would get out to big leads but run out of energy and get out-executed in crunch time.

They played 3 teams coming off 7 game series, all inexperienced in deep playoff experience. Things lined up for them and they had a rest advantage most of the playoffs.

They were a good team and got hot at the right time, absurd shooting efficiency from Anunoby and KAT, and they capitalized on other teams falling apart late in games (29 point comeback vs Spurs, Harden getting relentlessly attacked in PnR, Sixers rolling over after Embiid was hurt) and were good at closing games without letting up.

In the aftermath they said they always played like the score was 0-0. Being able to truly, mentally believe that you’re not cooked because you’re down 25 with 7 mins left, is huge. It’s also why they won so often by such large margins, because they played the same when they were up 20.

It’s KAT, one of the most underrated players in history

What gets lost is the funk the knicks were in after they won the nba cup. Everyone on the team brought in and the results showed

Keep going I’m almost there

It was a combination of things and not to downplay how amazing it was - but I assume if you take out the elimination game blowouts (game 6 hawks, games 4 against philly and cavs) the numbers are still amazing but not as historic.

Those elimination game blowouts really “padded the stats” from a team perspective as the opponents sort of laid down and gave up.

They also had a nice rest advantage in every round after the 1st one. Knicks played game 6 against atlanta on April 30th, and the starters basically didn’t play the 2nd half - rotation guys didn’t play the entire 4th. Meanwhile philly played a hard fought game 7 on May 2nd. So they had to play on 1 days rest for game 1 where as knicks had 4 days off. Game 1 of that series was a blowout.

Next round against the Cavs, the knicks last played on may 10th - another blowout where the starters/rotation guys got plenty of rest - where as Cavs played 2 hard fought 7 game series - with game 7 being may 17th - then had to play knicks game 1 two days later on just 1 day rest, where as knicks had 6 days off. Game 1 the knicks had the juice to make the huge 4th quarter comeback.

Same was true for the finals with knicks having 8 days off compared to spurs 3.

So for that i think there was a “snowball” effect. The knicks playing so well got their opponents closed out quicker. Allowing them to stay fresher and also sharpening things with more practice days. Where as the opponents were battling every other day in a game and therefore prob didn’t have much if any practice time.

That and momentum is real in sports. Players are humans and the confidence grew as they played at such a high level as a team and individuals. It carried over to each next game/series. Both OG and Kat played the best ball of their life at the right time - and also a guy like shamet balled out.

As a Knicks fan, I wasn’t surprised. I watch all the games, and ever since they got Brunson, I’ve always believed they had a chance to win. The problem was Thibs’ rotations.

I think the huge unlock with Brown was that he wasn’t afraid to bench guys and play the hot hand, as opposed to Thibs, who never made adjustments and played a 7–8-man rotation basically the entire year. In today’s NBA, that’s not going to work. The Pacers beat the Knicks with fresh legs because they played a 10–11-man rotation compared to the Knicks’ 7.

This Knicks team is going to be a problem. No one you’d rather have closing out a game than Brunson.

What happened was 100% of analysts had it wrong. Think about that next time you place a bet, losers.

For the past two years the starting lineup was really tanking their numbers, but Thibs and Brown both stuck with it. You saw in that Boston series what they’re capable of off of their talent. But you also saw in the Indiana series that the chemistry was lacking.

Sometime in the last couple weeks of the regular season, they made it a point to really get their shit together and figure this thing out. If you watch the last Atlanta game in the regular season for example, you can see the beginnings of the run they went on.

It was always way more of a team chemistry issue than a basketball issue, imo. It took 2 years and a close call for them to put the bs aside and focus on the task at hand.

Enough about the Knicks for a minute because your other point here is a fascinating bit of NBA trivia.

The greatest playoff team ever by net rating (the ‘56 Minneapolis Lakers) lost the only playoff series they played 2 games to 1. They won game 2 by 58 points and lost the other 2 games by 1 point (116-115 both times)! That is absolutely insane.

All the below AND they were able to just solve teams and broke other teams spirits. Yes they went to KAT for Atlanta, but that had its limits against Philly so they went to Brunson against Embiid in space, oh Harden can’t guard Brunson so ISO him, oh they have Wemby and amazing point of attack defenders, have KAT space, Alvarado help with the ball, and Mitch scare him for rebounds. 

Then they just broke teams wills. Philly lost it after the comeback, Cleaveland really lost it after the comeback, and there was never any doubt that the Spurs were done after game 4. Sometimes it really is just a game of wills.

KAT has been known as a traffic cone for years even though he was projected to be a defense first center. Maybe it was just the matchup but he finally turned into a rim protector last season.

Generational run…not everything can be explained. See the Higgs-boson particle…😂

They are/were a well constructed team designed with the playoffs in mind (good depth, star power at the top, flexible in terms of different offensive and defensive looks they could throw at teams and quick to problem solve), and then they ALSO just got super locked in and hot and played the best ball of their lives. They were and are a team that should be considered to be in the mix for the championship - they just played amazingly well on top of that.

The explanation is they were a very very good team playing their best basketball

Maybe this is the greatest playoff run as the metrics suggest.

Right time to get hot. I think most Knicks fans would agree we were not the clear favorite powerhouse team entering the season, or even in the post season. The thing was our team was like an outside contender for the chip where the chemistry just clicked at the right time. We got hot at the perfect time and Mike Brown made some tremendous adjustments to maximize everyone’s talents. KAT played the best defense of his life, all the role players stepped up and did their part. It was just the perfect storm.

It’s a bit cliche, but this was just our year. Everything just happened to click so we had a great season

Nobody mentions that everyone on the Knicks were used to playing 40+ minutes every single game with Thibs (including pointless January games against the wizards) so only having to play in the mid/lower 30s was a game changer. Thats probably the biggest reason why they seemed so energized in the 4th quarter while the other team looked dead

They kept high-rolling the best possible matchup every round after the 1st and no one could stay in front of Brunson after playing NBA playoff basketball for 45 minutes apparently.

KAT played great D and OG turned into Kawhi on offense. There’s more to it than those two though. Essentially, they got it going at the right time.

IMO it also has to do with having star players who are in their athletic prime. You compare them with 2017 or 2001 Lakers and you see the exact same pattern.

Basketball is a team sport, but discussions around the legacy within it leans heavily toward individual performances and accolades. The 26 Knicks team was as a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. The team played better than any individual player gets credited for. KAT, Brunson, Hart, OG are not the names average nba fans like to discuss as “best in league,” who are often deemed necessary to be considered championship caliber. As a result, the Knicks were counted out basically until the end of game 5 by spectators and media, largely because they didn’t have a poster boy leader like Tatum, sga, wemby, etc. That is why you see Knicks fans say “everyone is better than Brunson until it’s time to be better than Brunson.” 

Everything you wrote about is true, and yet peanut galleries still treat it as a fluke, like the Knicks didn’t deserve to win because we weren’t the best team last year. In reality- this is the most defensible championship in a long time

they are a very talented team that caught fire and smoked the eastern conference. spurs spent a ton on the OKC series, so knicks came in with more depth and were a lot more rested. and the knicks matched up great against spurs to begin with. but then to top it off the spurs made so many boneheaded plays and threw games away - keldon johnson underwhelming af, even wemby was doing stupid shit, deaaron fox

This team didn’t care as much about the regular season and the starting five are a perfect fit together. Good mix of bucket getters, elevated 3 and D guys and glue guys. All the cliches

What happened? They put belt to ass.

People have to stop saying the Knicks “just got hot”. They got hot against Philly and Cleveland, but San Antonio shut them down and they were not hot against San Antonio at all

They had advantages in team chemistry, playoff experience, depth, leadership, and clutch-time execution over every single team they faced in the playoffs, while nobody had a huge talent advantage against them. And besides OG’s hamstring and Brunson’s wrist, both of which they were able to play through, they were pretty healthy.

We’ll see if Philly has a talent advantage over NY next year, or if San Antonio can close the gap in playoff experience/execution/clutch decision making.

I think a lot of it was cardio and managing minutes, honestly. The Knicks played their whole lineup, they didn’t push anybody too hard, and their key guys both have unreal conditioning and also weren’t pushed for too many minutes. They did a great job platooning their guards and Jose Alvarado and Jordan Clarkson came up huge by not having those minutes be liabilities (Alvarado’s situation as a NYC high school basketball phenom brought back for this unlikely run made him one of the most motivated deep bench players I’ve ever seen. The front office did a great job of packing the bench with guys with chips on their shoulders without behavior problems.) - Brunson played the fewest minutes per game he has played as a Knick.

They’re taking guys who have great motors (especially OG and Hart - cardio is underrated) and solid experience and they’re keeping them out there with fresh legs and not playing them when they’re burned out. If you’re not putting guys out there when they’re exhausted, you’re getting sharper play, better shooting, fewer mental mistakes.

Being able to give KAT the ball more as a playmaker - and there not being some sort of ego problem in doing that - was also huge in this, not just because it was a hard adjustment for other teams to counter, but because anything that gave Brunson a mental or physical break during the game made him better in the 4th quarter. Brunson and KAT deserve a lot of credit for the way they managed their working relationship with each other - you could tell Brunson really understood what KAT needed and how to lead the team without overshadowing him.

That’s how they beat the Spurs - the played more guys, subbed guys in and out, and got the Spurs’ main guys tired so they made mistakes, and then alternated the main pressure between KAT and Brunson.

This is also what the Pacers did the previous season that got them to the finals, and one of the keys to the recent success of OKC. I think you’ll see more teams doing it in the future.

But you can only do it if your team doesn’t have too many injuries - it’s one of the many reasons injuries really kill you in the playoffs.

Also Landry Shamet had godlike RNG, but you don’t benefit from that if you’re not giving him minutes, and then when he did go cold they weren’t totally relying on him.

Knicks fan here:

While Brunson was certainly great in a few big games (Cleveland G1, Spurs G4-5), he wasn’t really much better than he was in previous postseasons. So it wasn’t like he went to a level we haven’t seen him alone go to before.

A couple guys did in fact have crazy shooting runs. Notably OG and Shamet, even Bridges can fall into this category as well. While this certainly isn’t pure luck, it’s also definitely variable from how these players shoot on average.

Some of this great shooting was also driven by the ability of Brunson and KAT to generate a lot of scoring gravity with their drives, a gravity which increased due to Brunson ’s reputation as a playoff riser, and the smart strategic pivot to initiate offense through KAT posted up.

Probably the biggest underestimation of the Knicks going into the playoffs was KAT’s improvements as a defender. He had a pretty well-earned reputation throughout his career of being a bad defender who took bad fouls, and unless you watched the Knicks alot during the regular season, you would assume that was still the case. But he had become at least a passable defender for a starting center, and the tendency of the dumb fouls had decreased. There was still inconsistency, but there were way more splid defensive games from KAT. Obviously this carried over to the playoffs, most importantly in those games 1+2 vs Wemby.

I think we will know more about last season once we see how they play this season. It was either everything clicking at the right time to go on a historical hot streak or they truly unlocked the best version of themselves and can replicate it. I hope it’s the latter but either way, this past season was a dream come true.

We got hot af

We had Jalen Brunson.

After game three of the Hawks series, the Knicks offense started including more motion and was run more through KAT. Turns out that nobody they faced really had an answer to that

They started to play the offense through Big Purr

Knicks bought into winning more than any other team, they are a team full of professionals, they were the best coached team in the playoffs, they had the best defense/rebounding, and KAT was bullying Wemby. They had the best ball movement of any team I’ve seen in a long time, and every person on that team can shoot threes very well and defend at a high level. Brunson draws attention and opens things up for everyone else, and he can bail them out if they need a bucket

The whole league should be terrified that they brought the same roster minus the Drummond/ mitch swap.

They got thay dog in them

depth, mindset, and experience

Fate

Knicks are a fantastically balanced roster with a lot of depth and size, which makes sense considering they’re one of the most expensive rosters ever. People slept on them because their two best players - Brunson and Towns - have obvious defects on defense, but it wound up being less of an issue that expected (in part because KAT played the best defense of his life). They were also legitimately terrible for stretches during the regular season, so there was this sense that the team was more taped together as opposed to a cohesive unit.

In reality, what they lacked in a superpower, they made up for in flexibility. They could adapt to just about any opponent because they had so many combinations of lineups to choose from. They also matched up really well against each of their opponents. The Spurs were clearly the best team they faced (sorry Atlanta), but they were also a team they already demonstrated they could flummox by blunting Wemby’s impact on both ends. KAT could pull Wemby out of the paint with his spacing, while Robinson and Anunoby were good physical matches to bully him out of position on both ends. Brunson had a very uneven series overall, but Fox and Castle really struggled to do anything on offense to counter. However effective Harper was, he’s only a rookie coming off the bench. Keldon Johnson and Luke Kornet, two essential bench players for San Antonio, where massive liabilities all series.

The Spurs rotations were bone-thin compared to New York’s, so they would consistently mount these impressive first quarter leads…and then bleed out the next three quarters. IIRC it was the most lopsided first-quarter point-differential in Finals history. That speaks to a team that has the better starting lineup, but also could not buy enough rest to sustain their impact over the next 36 minutes; it’s painful to realize they held on for close to 34 minutes each time. They only needed two more minutes of scoring but they couldn’t find it.

In retrospect, the Spurs really should have been buyers at the trade deadline. I don’t think Brian Wright and his team believed this was a championship-level roster yet, so they let our glaring weakness at the Power Forward position slide. Having undersized Julian Champagnie start while rookie Carter Bryant played crucial bench minutes is far from ideal, and was a massive advantage for the stronger, more experienced Knicks front court. Signing Tobias Harris goes a long way to fixing this flaw, and I firmly believe the Spurs win that series if Harris had already been signed.

But what’s done is done. The Knicks found the right window and cashed in at the perfect time. A ring is a ring is a ring, and no one should denigrate what they accomplished whatsoever. That said, it’s also not a huge shocker that they’re not favored to repeat either. They got worse over the summer while the rest of the league improved