Knicks 120, Bulls 119: “And the award goes to . . . “
Manhattan’s men script a Hollywood ending in ending the season as the 2-seed & a team that fears no other
On the last day of the season, the New York Knicks clinched the 2-seed in the Eastern conference with a 120-119 overtime win over Chicago. The Knicks will face the winner of Wednesday’s Philadelphia/Miami Play-In game, with the playoffs kicking off next weekend. The Bulls pushed to the Knicks to the limit for 53 minutes, but by this point in the season with this team, there was only ever one ending that made any sense. The Knicks needed a win? The Knicks won.
Heroes abound, on the day and the year, so consider this recap an awards show. Every Knick who you can expect to see at some point in the playoff rotation is deserving of some recognition, so today we honor the main cast for the most satisfying regular season in at least 10 years.
Best Knick from the Bronx since 1990 - Precious Achiuwa
The Knicks and the Boogie Down go way back, from the franchise’s early years featuring Hall of Famers Dick McGuire and Richie Guerin to later beloveds like Dean Meminger and Kemba Walker. The last Bronxite to bring meaningful light to MSG before this season was Rod Strickland, but Precious Achiuwa earns honors for bringing a boost when the team was at its lowest. And his value doesn’t drop when his minutes do: Achiuwa had two huge blocks and a big bucket in overtime to help the Knicks get over the finish line.
Right before the Knicks swung their midseason deal with the Raptors, they lost in Orlando, so depleted size-wise at the time that RJ Barrett defended Paolo Banchero much of the fourth quarter. In the recap that night I wrote: “Without Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks currently have just two rotation-caliber bigs on their roster in Julius Randle and Isaiah Hartenstein; if you ran into [Franz and Mo Wagner] in an elevator, there’d be as many in that elevator.”
Achiuwa was not the most, second- or third-most talked about player in the deal, but his relief of Jericho Sims and Taj Gibson – both net negatives on the season – was a silent but deadly eruption of starter-caliber production in a season that was starting to smell. Achiuwa’s footspeed for a big on defense plus his ability to hit the occasional three not only helped stabilize the team, it diversified the threats they possess. A good fastball and a solid slider are a useful tool box; adding a changeup gives the opponent an entirely new dimension to worry about.
Best old-man-game by a Knick with 10 letters in their last name since Kiki Vandeweghe - Bojan Bogdanović
Bogdanović hasn’t been here very long and took a while to get going, so it’s fair that I have to reach a bit here for an honorific. It’s also fair that it took him a while to get on track – the day he arrived in New York he’d started 451 of his prior 452 games, following three years with Turkish side Fenerbahçe where he was First- or Second Team every season. Bogdanović also moved from a team that lost 28 games in a row to one that fancies itself a conference finalist, at the least. An adjustment was inevitable.
Kiki Vandeweghe was a brilliant scorer through the 1980s, scoring more points that decade than all but nine Hall of Famers (Alex English, Moses Malone, Adrian Dantley, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dominique Wilkins, George Gervin, Robert Parish, Magic Johnson) and three mortals (Reggie Theus, Mark Aguirre and Mike Mitchell). He came to the Knicks near the end of his career, long after he was the sort of second banana worth splitting with Patrick Ewing. He was their second-leading scorer his last year as a starter; if the team had been better, maybe he could have made a meaningful impact providing punch off the pine. Bogdanović is closer to the end than the beginning, too, but a couple of postseason scoring outbreaks might be the kind of capstone that crowns one’s career.
Best Knicks second-round pick since 1985 - Deuce McBride
Technically Oklahoma City selected McBride 36th in the 2021 draft, though they did so as part of a trade with New York that included still-unseen Barcelona point guard Rokas Jokubaitis. The second-round pick that landed Mitchell Robinson was acquired from the Thunder, too, originally a Bulls’ pick that the Knicks acquired when they traded Carmelo Anthony. I’m gonna bend the rules a little here to justify this little nugget: the last second-round pick to become a vital Knick was Gerald Wilkins. Until now.
While 46 players heard their name called that night before Wilkins, he finished 11th in career points and 12th in games played among his draft class. This year McBride emerged as what the Knicks hoped Quentin Grimes would be: a plus-defender at both guard spots who offers precision touch from deep. Deuce also brings secondary ballhandler chops, something Grimes looked like he wanted nothing to do with. McBride’s been a spark off the bench, an effective spot starter when Brunson’s missed time and an intriguing fit in three-guard lineups alongside JB and DDV.
Best luxury big man since 1999 - Isaiah Hartenstein
In the summer of 1998, the Knicks acquired the player who’d gone #2 in the 1996 draft, a double-figure scorer his first years in Toronto who’d just led the league in blocked shots. Marcus Camby was a bench big his first year as a Knick, assumed a bigger role in year two and eventually spent a couple of years as the team’s starting center. Isaiah Hartenstein was a bench big his first year as a Knick, assumed a bigger role this year and performed so well it’s neither unfathomable nor unpleasant imagining him as the starting center someday soon.
Hartenstein not only kept the team from missing a beat after Robinson was lost to ankle surgery, but made a heaven of his hybrid nature, marrying Mitch’s rim protection and glasswork with novel passing and post-up skills. There are better centers around the league, but Hartenstein is one big reason the Knicks get 48 minutes of plus-level play from their centers every night.
Best starter-to-bench move since 2021 - Mitchell Robinson
Three years ago, facing rising restlessness from his own people and threats of international sanction, Tom Thibodeau abandoned the human rights violation that was Elfrid Payton as New York’s starting point guard. Despite months of millions of Knicks fans wailing and gnashing of teeth, Thibs just wouldn’t quit Elf, insisting his 6-foot-4 height justified his 0-foot-0 game. Payton played 50 games for Phoenix the next season before his career came to an end.
Maybe the last significant case of a Knick starter agreeing to a reserve role comes with an asterisk. In the summer of 1996 the Knicks signed their point guard of the future. Chris Childs started 61 of his 65 games that first season in New York, but struggled mightily and was replaced in the starting five by Charlie Ward. Childs would play four more seasons with the Knicks, but only started seven games in that span. In interviews since, it sounds like the official spin at the time — Childs being a selfless teammate, relinquishing his role for the greater good — was more public relations than epiphany. Whatever it takes.
Unlike Payton, Mitchell Robinson’s height does matter, and unlike Childs Mitch went to the bench during a career-year. That year was interrupted for months due to ankle surgery; returning late in the campaign was a mitigating factor in slotting Robinson behind Hartenstein. In many ways Mitch has been a model Knick, his career to date mostly one example of growth after another. When he signed his contract extension some worried he’d lose focus on his craft; he responded with the best ball of his life. When he returned after surgery he might have pushed for his old role ASAP. Instead, Robinson gives the Knicks a second starting-level big and a restless heart on both ends of the floor.
Best Knick defensive player since Patrick Ewing - OG Anunoby
This is where the fundamentalist types point out Tyson Chandler was DPOY for the Knicks in 2012. That is where I point out that just as Larry Bird, LeBron James and Luka Dončić were all Rookies of the Year, so were Emeka Okafor, Michael Carter-Williams and Ben Simmons. John Lennon won as many Grammys as Justin Bieber. Not all awards mean the same thing.
This is not to slander Chandler, but to put Anunoby’s play in the proper perspective. Chandler was a terrific rim protector and the biggest reason the Knicks were fifth in defensive rating when he won DPOY. But while Chandler was the finishing piece on a terrific unit, he wasn’t an omega-level threat; in 2013 the Knicks slipped all the way to 18th. While that wasn’t Chandler’s fault, being legally adopted by Roy Hibbert in those playoffs was, and illustrates the difference between Chandler and, say, Ewing, who was primarily, secondarily and probably tertiarily responsible for the acumen of a team that dominated on that end year after year. Anunoby is the first omnipresent defender the Knicks have had since the Big Fella.
In OG’s first game as a Knick, he came out on top in isolated matchups against both Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards; in his third he won duels with Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. In today’s win Anunoby made DeMar DeRozan work for 30 points when any lesser defender would’ve bled 40. If they face the Sixers in the first round, what a weapon to re-deploy. If it’s Miami, Jimmy Butler will have his hands full. And should the Knicks advance deep enough to encounter Giannis Antetokounmpo or Jayson Tatum, OG gets first dibs on them too. If you really wanna be accurate, Anunoby is the best defensive player the city has seen since Revis Island.
Best perimeter threat since the word for hope was “Rooster” - Donte DiVincenzo
With five 3-pointers in today’s finale, DiVincenzo finishes the year with 283, obviously a team record and good for third in the Association. The last time a Knick finished that high you have to go back to 2010, when Sant’Angelo Lodigiano’s Danilo Gallinari finished second behind Aaron Brooks. Fun quirk: third and fourth were future Knick Jason Kidd and former Knick Channing Frye.
DiVincenzo played 81 games this year and saw his minutes skyrocket after Randle was lost, including 52 of 53 today. May that man drink a melatonin milkshake every night this week and rest long and well. Whoever the Knicks face is going to spend much of the matchup doubling, tripling, blitzing and assaulting Brunson. DiVincenzo’s scoring and spacing threats are essential for the Knicks to make any serious noise this postseason.
Most immaculate vibes since ??? - Josh Hart
I’m gonna leave this one open for discussion. I can’t think of many Knicks whose vibes anyone’s cared about when the team stinks, so that rules out a lot of people. Rasheed Wallace had incredible vibes – if teams retired jerseys for that, his would be up in the rafters in Portland and Detroit – but he didn’t play often enough or in big-enough spots as a Knick to enter the fossil record. I’ll go to my grave swearing Chris Copeland could have been that guy, if Mike Woodson let him play in the 2013 playoffs. So who was the last real “vibes” player on a Knick team anyone cared about? On one you cared about, specifically? Gotta go back 26 years for mine, to the last Knick highlight of his career.
Best Knick coach since Pat Riley - Tom Thibodeau
It will seem a sacrilege not to say Jeff Van Gundy here, unless you’re one of the poor souls so traumatized by the David Fizdale era you’d endorse Roy Cohn simply because he wasn’t Fiz. “Best” is not always a useful differentiator; besides, Van Gundy’s Knicks won eight playoff series, reached two conference finals (would’ve been three if David Stern didn’t ruin 1997) and an NBA Finals. The Thibs Knicks beat the Cavs last year; to this point, their next-biggest accomplishment – winning 50 games this year? taking the Heat to a game 6 last year? – pales in comparison.
Maybe rather than “best,” I mean “most important.” Van Gundy couldn’t have known this when he was promoted to “interim” head coach in 1996, but he was to benefit from a lot of things Thibodeau could only dream of. In Ewing JVG inherited a 10-time All-Star in his 11th season, a six-time All-NBA honoree who would earn a seventh nod a year later. The Knicks were going into the offseason flush with cash and three first-round picks to rebuild. The Riley years were a foundation JVG helped establish and work from.
Thibodeau inherited a 17-65 team that had missed out on Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Zion Williamson. There was no foundation. They had to build from the bottom up. Spoiler: they have.
Four teams came into today top-10 in both offensive and defensive rating. One is Boston, who own the league’s best record and finished first and second, respectively. One is Oklahoma City, tied for the second-best mark and fourth in both categories. One is the defending champs: the Nuggets were sixth and eighth. The other is the Knicks. In four seasons on the job, Thibodeau has three playoff appearances and a 50-win season under his belt – as many as Miller, Fizdale, Jeff Hornacek, Derek Fisher, Mike Woodson, Mike D’Antoni, Isiah Thomas and Larry Brown combined.
Thibs is not perfect. Neither were Van Gundy or Riley. Odds are Red Holzman kicked his dog or didn’t brush his teeth at night. He has not yet hit the heights that those three all did. But the results so far speak for themselves, and just like his players Thibodeau has shown impressive growth and range, more than many thought possible. Turning the Knicks around has been as arduous a task this century as turning the Titanic around was early in the last. The hardest choices require the strong wills. Thibs’ team reflects that willpower, one reason they finished as high as they have for the first time in a decade.
Best Knick season since ??? - Jalen Brunson
Saving most of my ammo on this subject for a feature that will run later this week. A tease that won’t surprise you in general but might if you knew all the names involved: since the Knicks traded Walt Frazier, only four players* had more win shares in a season for them than Brunson this year. The asterisk is ‘cuz I have to see the stats tomorrow to know if that’s changed — entirely possible after yet another 40-point save-the-day swashbuckling from Son of Rick. But it wasn’t the points he scored that most encouraged me. It was two that he didn’t.
At the end of regulation, the game even, Brunson struggled with the final possession, nearly losing the ball before ultimately settling* for a Hail Mary three while drifting to his left out of bounds. The asterisk is ‘cuz for the shot he ended up with, “settling” would apply to 99% of NBA players – and not just the blue-collars. The degree of difficulty was beyond most of the best.
But over the years, some stars are so good, so confident, so sound in body and mind, nothing they do looks desperate. Even their misses hit different. For a select few, what appears to be failure is instead a lesson learned on the path to bigger things. We can debate where Brunson’s season ranks in Knicks history. Today I celebrate the first Knickerbocker I’ve ever seen whose ability to meet the most magnitudinous of moments reminds me of the greatest closers I’ve ever seen – not because they always come through. But because they’re always worth betting on.
See you soon, loves.
