Previewing the Knicks’ potential playoff foes, Part 2
If the Knicks are going to make this a meaningful postseason, these are the teams they have to get through.
Last week we looked over the worst-case postseason scenarios for the Knicks, i.e. the Play-In Tourney or falling into the lottery. Here in Part 2 we dive into the East’s stronger sides and their playoff prognoses.
MIAMI/ORLANDO
The Heat probably don’t care where they finish in the standings, so long as it’s in the postseason. Acquiring Terry Rozier at the trade deadline helped keep their season afloat, given the month-and-counting absence of Tyler Herro with a right foot injury, but “afloat” only means you haven’t drowned; you still gotta get outta the water. The Heat will reach the postseason, but could finish sixth, seventh or eighth, with an enormous range of possible outcomes.
A 19-6 run the past couple of months has the Magic rubbing elbows with the Knicks and Cavaliers in the jostle for the third seed, and Orlando owns the tiebreaker over each. Despite Saturday’s late loss to the Kings, Jamahl Mosley’s team is getting fat on an eight-game homestand before a stretch of five of six away. Whatever ceiling the world had for the Magic broke long ago; they play with that freedom.
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
Did you know Florida has no income tax? NBA free agents know it. A vivid playoff run could make the Magic sparkle in the eyes of some starlet on the move – not only are they winning ahead of schedule, they don’t owe any of their picks to anyone, own an extra first in next year’s draft courtesy of Denver and enjoy a cap situation so flexible it’d make Tatiana Gutsu blush. Whenever their season ends, Orlando will have more players on team options than under contract, including Paolo Banchero, both Wagners and Jalen Suggs. They can pick all of them up – and probably will – and have them return making comically less than they would on the open market. The team could use an upgrade at guard and just happens to have $30 million coming off the backcourt’s books in Gary Harris and Markelle Fultz, plus two recent lottery picks in the wings in Anthony Black and Jett Howard.
The four-year Jimmy Butler/Bam Adebayo ticket has yielded three conference finals and two NBA Finals, often at the expense of the Eastern Conference’s city fathers, i.e. the Knicks, the Celtics, the Bucks and the 76ers. For most teams, a disappointing regular season followed by a first-round matchup with a conference power is bad getting worse, but it’s right up Miami’s wheelhouse; it’s easy to imagine Herro slotting back in in a few weeks and the team going on another deep run. Any good year for the Heat is a possible calling card to the next star on the go. They’ve lost all three games they’ve played against the Celtics, two of them close. They won’t fear the heavy and will consider themselves the favorite against everyone else, all the while painting themselves as the underdogs.
The Heat are the only team with four players making at least $25 million for two years after this one: Butler morphs from Bruce Banner to the Hulk every spring, but will be 35 before next season; as stars go, Adebayo is less “Jesus is Lord” and more “God is my co-pilot”; Herro was injured nearly all of the 2023 playoffs and will at best be working his way back into fitness when the Heat open the 2024 postseason, if he returns at all; Rozier helps, but he’s not a ceiling-raiser. Hard to imagine Riley sitting on this hand if it falls short of the Finals. Or even if it doesn’t.
PLAYOFF HISTORY
The Knicks and Magic have never met in the postseason. If Patrick Ewing’s finger roll had dropped in Game 7 of Knicks/Pacers ‘95, we would’ve gotten the Riley Knicks against Shaq, Penny and the Magic in the conference finals. That would’ve been something.
The Knicks and Heat may have met once in the playoffs – I’m fuzzy on the details – but if so was probably a long time ago anyway, and undoubtedly not terribly exciting.