We don’t know what the Knicks can do over the second half of the year simply because we don’t know when they are going to be whole. It seems now that everybody except Mike Breen and Walt Frazier got hurt as the Knicks limped into the All-Star Break, and we all saw what happened after they lit up January the way they did, were well on their way to No. 2 in the Eastern Conference.
So we don’t know what they can do when the season starts up again. Or what they can be. But if they do get healthy, if they get Julius Randle back sooner rather than later and Mitchell Robinson really can come back before the season is over, this is what they have shown even before we see how things are going to look with Randle and OG Anunoby and Bojan Bogdanovic on the court together:
They are as good as anybody in the conference behind the Celtics.
And maybe, just maybe, the real dream in the spring in our city is a major basketball event out of the past, which means a big playoff series between the Knicks and the Celtics, the way it used to be when the great Dave DeBusschere would say, “Just throw the f–king money on the table, we’ll be there.”
Again and again: This is all predicated on Tom Thibodeau getting his players back, meaning the ones he started the season with and the ones he picked up along the way. We saw what a difference-maker Anunoby was on the wing when the Knicks got him from Toronto. And soon, if the basketball gods are friendly, we will see how the Knicks roll when OG and Bogdanovic really are on the court together, and Randle is back to being the physical presence he has been since he got to town.
Most of all, we will see how Jalen Brunson makes it all work. Whatever puncher’s chance the Knicks are going to have the rest of the way, whatever they can be if and when they are healthy again, starts with him.
He is the best and most complete point guard the Knicks have had since Clyde. He is as important to this Knicks team as Steph Curry is to the Warriors. He has made himself as important as any Knick since Patrick Ewing, and that includes what Carmelo Anthony did and what he gave the Knicks a decade ago, when the Knicks won 54 games and the Atlantic Division.
This Knicks team is a much better team than that one was, just off what we saw in January, and that means even with Robinson already gone for awhile; before OG and Bogdanovic and Alec Burks got here; after Randle got hurt. You have to keep talking about health, because that is going to be the whole ballgame the rest of the way. But if they do get healthy and whole, this has the chance to be the best basketball time at the Garden since the Knicks made their run from No. 8 all the way to the NBA Finals a quarter-of-a-century ago.
The only team in the Eastern Conference that has been demonstrably better than the Knicks so far this season is the Celtics, who have been better than everybody. The Bucks, even after a coaching change, are still a mess. Joel Embiid is hurt again for the Sixers, and no one knows when he is going to play again. The Cavaliers have been terrific so far, and they are the ones currently holding down No. 2 in the conference, but what Knicks fan who saw the Knicks beat the Cavs in the first round last season would bet against their team doing it again?
The Knicks had won 15 of 18 before everybody started going down, and now they have predictably dropped down in the standings, or they would be the ones right there behind the Celtics. And understand: Nobody in your sport ever throws you a pity party when your main guys get hurt. It happens to everybody. Now it has been happening to the Knicks. It doesn’t change the run they had made before falling back and falling down.
You know why the Knicks made such a fuss after that bad call against the Rockets the other night, and acted as if it was the first and only call like it in the history of the NBA? It wasn’t just because the refs admitted they were wrong afterward. It was because the Knicks needed the game. And might need it down the road when the seedings in the East get locked in place. The Knicks fully understand what the possibilities are for them once the sides really are again even. If they can get even before things continue to get worse in the standings.
It would be a shame if it happened that way, for this particular group. There have been other fine moments for Thibodeau’s Knicks since he got to town. They shocked everybody and got to No. 4 in the conference in the 2020-21 season. A year ago, they gave the Heat all they could have wanted in the playoffs before it truly was Brunson against the world in Game 6.
But then came January 2024. Then came the New Year. They played 16 games in January and won 14 and the two they lost, to the Mavericks and the Magic, were each by four points. Suddenly the rest of the league was paying attention to what was happening at the Garden again. And with each win, it became more and more clear that Jalen Brunson had become the biggest sports star in town.
Maybe that will change once we get a look at Juan Soto at Yankee Stadium. Maybe it will change when Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso start hitting home runs. Maybe it would have been different if Dr. Rodgers had played for the Jets this season. But he didn’t play. He got hurt and then he just talked and talked and talked. The great spotlight of the city kept finding Brunson and he kept playing his game, and suddenly the Knicks were the biggest game in town. At which point things got really loud, and not just at the Garden.
He has finally been recognized as an All-Star. He is more than that here, of course. He is a star of the city now, a star point guard in a place where point guards have always been revered. Patrick was great once. He and Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston and Marcus Camby made their run in ’99. The Knicks of Carmelo and Jason Kidd had that one shining season. But all they did in the end was win a single playoff round.
That’s all these Knicks did last year. That was then. This is now. These Knicks are capable of doing more. Much more. If they can get healthy.
STILL THINKING ABOUT SUPER MAHOMES, KYLE FIRING THE WRONG GUY IN SAN FRAN & CAITLIN’S MOMENT …
It is a week since Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs did what they did in Super Bowl LVIII.
And you know how it always goes in sports, how quickly the caravan moves on.
But it’s all right if we linger a bit more on what we saw last Sunday night in Las Vegas, because it was such a surpassing moment for Mahomes’ sport and any sport.
This was one of the great players of all time — and someone who might someday be called the greatest of all time — playing at the height of his immense talent and the height of his game with the biggest prize in his sport on the line.
This was Mahomes doing it in the Game 7 Michael Jordan never got to play for the Bulls.
This was LeBron doing it in a Game 7 against the Warriors one time, after he had gone back to Cleveland.
This was Tiger Woods five years ago, remembering who he was when he was young and winning another Masters, and his 15th major championship.
Ernie Accorsi always said that the ultimate crucible for a quarterback was whether or not he could take his team down the field with a championship on the line.
And last Sunday night in Vegas, Mahomes didn’t just do it once, he did it twice.
Once at the end of regulation, when he had to take his team down the field and at least get a field goal or lose the game and his season.
Then he did it again at the end of overtime, when he was 8-for-8 and ran for a first down on fourth-and-one, before finally throwing it to Mecole Hardman in the right flat for everything. Mahomes himself made it clear he didn’t do it alone.
Chris Jones played the game of his life, the way Justin Tuck and Michael Strahan once did when the Giants knocked off the 18-0 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
Travis Kelce caught nine balls.
Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo, Reid’s defensive coordinator, were brilliant all game long.
But the headliner for Super Bowl LVIII, the way he is the headliner in American sports right now, was Patrick Mahomes.
The NBA All-Star Game has turned into flag football at the Pro Bowl.
So, wait: Kyle Shanahan is firing his defensive coordinator but keeping the analytics guys who told him to take the ball?
Got it.
I wish Caitlin Clark’s season was just beginning.
Hers isn’t just a story for this time in women’s basketball.
It is one of the best basketball stories of all time.
Caitlinsanity, is what it is.
