Famed or anonymous, fast or tall, the New York Knicks be whomping them all

Remember the championship-winning San Antonio Spurs? Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, etc.? How about the Kobe/Pau Los Angeles Lakers? The KD/Russ/Harden Thunder? Remember just how powerful the dynastic Warriors were? It wasn’t all that long ago that the Phoenix Suns were the big boss out west.

Whoever’s ruled the roost left of the Mississipp’ this century, the Knicks couldn’t touch ‘em. Most of the past 20 seasons New York has been swept by the Western conference’s best record; there’ve been a couple splits, but mostly all 0-2s. This year’s top-seed in the non-Knick conference belongs to the Denver Nuggets. In a season where literally every other Western power has stumbled – except Sacramento, the newest power, oddly enough – Denver’s held the top spot for months. Consistency is an underrated yet integral quality in any successful enterprise.

Which brings us to the New York Knickerbockers,. Early this season the haters whispered New York’s success was the residue of luck, that they kept running into teams missing their best player and winning them. One early exhibit of this libel: the Knicks’ early December win in Denver with the home team missing Nikola Jokić. The man’s the two-time defending MVP and close to 50/50 to threepeat this season. “Holler at me when the Knicks deal with the likes of him,” the skeptics sang. 

Ring, ring

Yesterday afternoon the Knicks defeated the Nuggets 116-110 at MSG. The Knicks have won 32 of their last 49 games, a 54-win pace. The win also gave them seven of eight at home, one of the few glaring items remaining on their 2023 to-do list: after spending much of the season a losing team at home while vexingly victorious on the road, the Knicks are winning everywhere. The reasons behind their big-picture success were some of the highlights of Saturday’s W.

To be fair, nobody in the league is “the likes of [Jokić].” Even on a day where the Knicks defended him with a variety of looks, feints and doubles, forcing him into six turnovers, his most in about a month. He still ended up with 24, 10 and eight, along with a positive rating in a game where his team lost three quarters by 19 points. But Mitchell Robinson continued to show us actions speak louder than words; he was clearly up for this match-up, finishing +11. If plus/minus is too abstract, consider some classic counting categories: three assists and seven offensive rebounds, six of which led to points. So, like nine assists.

Did you know per 36 minutes the Knicks get – on average – 19 points, 24 rebounds and 3.5 blocks from their two centers? What a delight getting to watch Isaiah Hartenstein over a full season. As his health has improved his defense and mobility have as well. And the mobility isn’t just mobilizing on the defensive end.

Saturday also marked the return of Jalen Brunson, who’d missed five of the previous six games dealing with foot and ankle soreness. You wouldn’t have known that watching JB play. Brunson Burner lit up the Nugs for a team-high 24. 

I could have focused on RJ Barrett, Quentin Grimes and Josh Hart instead of Mitch, iHart and Brunson. Could’ve drawn your attention to their free throws, where they made 25 of 28, more than double Denver’s makes. That many Knicks made meaningful contributions to the win. It was a true team effort, coming back from down a dozen in the third to sweep the season series from the best out west.

A lot of years, mid-March is the worst. The Knicks are often out of it by this point and we’re already arguing about draft prospects and the lottery. This year waiting out the end of the season brings a newfound restlessness: not the desire to be done with competition, but rather the drive to get to the good stuff ASAP, for the Knicks to test themselves among the crème de la crème. They’ve beaten Denver, Boston, Philadelphia and Cleveland twice each. We know where the Knicks have been. Where are they going? Still too early to say. But wherever they go, they look likely to play proudly once there.