Knicks 121, Pacers 91: “This is our way”
The Knicks’ most dominant 48 minutes in weeks leaves them just 48 away from the Eastern conference finals
My grandmother was 15 and perfectly happy growing up in Puerto Rico when one day a young man passing her on the street said hello. That was all it took: next thing she knew her frightened father shipped her to New York City, where the girl who spoke no English would surely be safer. Not everybody who comes to this town arrives to pomp and ceremony. Just ask the New York Knicks, now a game away from the conference finals after a Game 5 romping of Indiana, 121-91.
Isaiah Hartenstein tied a club record on the offensive glass set 30 years ago by Charles Oakley. In a game the Knicks won by 30, they finished dead-even with the Pacers in threes and -2 from the foul line. That means New York made 16 more twos than the visitors, which sounds sus until you see they took 29 more shots than the visitors, which sounds sus until you see they had nearly as many offensive rebounds (20) as the visitors did defensive (24), which sounds sus until you see a dozen of Hartenstein’s 17 rebounds came on the offensive glass, along with five assists in just 31 minutes. Two years ago iHart got less money in free agency than Mo Bamba, John Konchar, Javale McGee and Marvin Bagley. Talk about no pomp.
Alec Burks was the 2021 Knicks’ best fourth-quarter player; one year later, that and $2.75 would get you a ride on the subway. In a city of long shadows, memories sometimes run short, and by 2022 Burks was miscast in a New York institution as long-running as the Rockettes: the Knicks’ quest for a point guard. They shipped him to Detroit in a move meant to open up some money, which depending who you believe may or may not have helped secure Jalen Brunson’s services -- finally completing their point guard quest.
Then a couple of months ago the shorthanded Knickerbockers swung a deal that brought Burks back almost as an afterthought. Years ago a girlfriend and I threw a party at our house. The next day while cleaning up, we found a dildo. We texted everyone who’d been over that night, dozens of people, offering no judgment but wondering if someone wouldn’t mind claiming their dildo. No one ever did. At times Burks has felt like New York’s unclaimed dildo.
But needs must, so after one too many limp playoff performances by the bench Tom Thibodeau took Burks off the shelf — with Deuce McBride starting alongside Brunson, Donte DiVincenzo and Josh Hart, that’s four guards in the starting five. The Knicks need a backcourt man who can give them minutes and buckets. After scoring 55 points the past two months, Burks has 52 the last three games, including 18 in last night’s win. No one wept when he was traded two years ago and no one figured he’d be one of the last Knicks standing this time around, but 2021’s Mr. Fourth Quarter isn’t just tagging along – whatever is happening in this magical spring, there is Burks magic in it.
The two best changeups to hit the city this century came when Pedro Martinez and later Johan Santana signed with the Mets. Now joining that rarified air: Brunson. And not only in the literal sense, though even Knicks fans who’ve seen his art for two years get dizzy trying to keep up with all the hesis, head-fakes, pump-fakes, step-throughs and fallbacks. Brunson’s kismet, the path he walks – jitterbugs, really – affects opponents and teammates. Narratively, even.
Brunson looked cooked after Game 4. Gas tank on E. Fin. Indiana had reason to feel his foot injury plus him carrying the offense and heavy minutes since February plus New York’s injury woes spreading like bubonic plague was a combination even the ever-game Brunson couldn’t withstand. Instead Mr. Hyde reverted to Dr. Jekyll, though if you’re the Pacers it’s the other way around. The Brunson we saw last night made no sense. Spry and bouncy, as if he’d not only never hurt his foot but never suffered any kind of physical malady, ever. When Brunson went to the locker room in Game 2 injured, he had played 38+ minutes in 16 straight games. The wheels were starting to fall off, sadly but understandably. In two of the last three games, he played 30-32. Was that all the rest he needed? This isn’t somebody crawling to the finish line.
Imagine how uplifting it must be when your best player rises from one foot in the grave to yet another postseason apotheosis. Imagine how deflated Indiana, like Philadelphia before them, must feel when this supposedly too short, too slow, too big-headed man, who looked on his last legs 48 hours ago, hangs nearly a point for every one of those hours (a game-high 44) on their heads.
Brunson, like Hartenstein and Burks and McBride and Precious Achiuwa and Thibodeau and my teenage grandmother back in 1950, wasn’t greeted with the fanfare Pedro and Santana were. Like the cabbies, the shopkeeps, the muses and the blue-collar salts of the earth who turned the city from a constellation of dreams to a multiverse of realities, he’s reminded us what the world can be and has pretty much delivered on that vision. The Garden isn’t just alive this May, it’s thriving, attracting OAKAAKUYOAKs from Walt Frazier, Patrick Ewing and Carmelo Anthony to Stephon Marbury, Tim Thomas and Kyle O’Quinn.
Late in the blowout the crowd chanted Julius Randle’s name, who was on the bench with his teammates; they chanted “Knicks in six”; there was even a “We Want Boston” chant. The Big Apple may not care about most people when they get here, but it’s obsessed with those who find success. If necessity is the mother of invention, desire is the mother of re-invention. “This is our way,” Thibodeau said post-game. The Knicks are a win away from the final four because they wanted it more last night. That is their way. Win one of the next two games and the long-sought dream of re-invention will become reality.
