EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsCLEVELAND -- One down, one to go.It sounded silly, if not foolish, when New York Knicks owner James Dolan went on local radio and shared his expectations for the team: reaching the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999."I'd say we want to get to the Finals, and we should win the Finals," Dolan said on WFAN radio Jan. 5. "This is sports; anything can happen. Getting to the Finals, we absolutely have to do. Winning the Finals, we should do."The Knicks were in the middle of their most trying stretch of the season, going 2-9 from Dec. 31 to Jan. 19. Just hours after Dolan's radio appearance, they suffered their worst loss to date, a 31-point drubbing to the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena.The Finals seemed to be the last thing on the Knicks' minds after the Pistons destroyed them in every meeting this season, and the Boston Celtics were cruising without Jayson Tatum, who was scheduled to return ahead of the playoffs.Now, the Knicks are one of the three teams left standing, having won 11 consecutive playoff games, all by double digits, including Monday's 130-93 win in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. Boston was eliminated in the first round by the Philadelphia 76ers, as the Knicks were waiting. Detroit fell in seven games to the Cleveland Cavaliers, whom the Knicks just swept to get to the Finals.Improbably, New York stands on the doorstep of history, with its strongest chance of hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy for the first time since 1973 -- three years before the landmark ABA/NBA merger that paved the way for the modernization of basketball.Everything about these Knicks feels improbable yet modern. Jalen Brunson aims to join a very exclusive club -- just two members -- of players 6-foot-2 or under who are the undisputed headliners for a championship team.Isiah Thomas and Stephen Curry are the only ones who can make that claim, and Brunson, the Eastern Conference finals Most Valuable Player, is four wins away. When the Knicks signed him in free agency in 2022, he was viewed as a piece but not the centerpiece for a Knicks revival. The Dallas Mavericks bungled extension talks, but Brunson's signing didn't set off alarms across the league -- though it led to an NBA tampering investigation. Instead, the move was viewed as very Knicks-like, and not in a complimentary way.There's a long list of players who were expected to carry the Knicks to contention since Patrick Ewing left the Garden, but it has been more conjecture than substance. The Brooklyn-born Stephon Marbury produced disappointment in the late 2000s. After the pipe dream of landing LeBron James vanished in the summer of 2010, the franchise invested in Amar'e Stoudemire, who battled back problems.Carmelo Anthony wanted to be the King of New York, and whatever the Knicks might've been building was cut short to acquire him. It was the latest example of the Knicks rarely having a discernible plan that aligned with where the league was going, let alone being ahead of the curve.The Knicks going all-in on Brunson seemed to be another road to nowhere, especially against some stars running the East at the time: Giannis Antetokounmpo with the Milwaukee Bucks, Tatum and Jaylen Brown in Boston and even Joel Embiid in Philadelphia.But at some point over the past couple of years, Brunson took down the Celtics' duo and Embiid in the playoffs, and he was a major reason Antetokounmpo wanted to team up in New York last summer.Everything the Knicks have done -- from trading five first-round picks for Mikal Bridges to acquiring Josh Hart in 2023 to adding OG Anunoby the next year to dealing for Karl-Anthony Towns on the eve of training camp in 2024 -- has been to maximize Brunson's strengths and minimize his weaknesses.Though team president Leon Rose & Co. were clearly chasing the Celtics, the front office was also looking at what wins in today's NBA. Bridges and Hart -- both teammates of Brunson's at Villanova -- and Anunoby protect him on defense, to prevent him from being hunted by opposing guards the way Brunson hunted James Harden in Game 1 of the conference finals. They fight over screens to ensure he has enough energy left to carry them on offense, where he has become almost unguardable during the past two seasons.In acquiring Towns for Julius Randle, the Knicks left no doubt who was the dominant personality in the locker room and gave Brunson all the space he needed to operate on offense.The Knicks bet against history and conventional wisdom, which says a defensive liability at the point of attack and the rim couldn't anchor a contender, and yet, here they are. The flaws exist, but in today's NBA, the Knicks have done as good a job as any in ensuring those flaws aren't fatal.The Knicks have resisted temptation, and that has been as important during this run as any personnel move. They've stuck to the plan, steadfast in belief, but not rigid. Getting Antetokounmpo last summer would've been reminiscent of the Knicks' personnel moves of the past, chasing the attention, abandoning prudence and embracing the possibility of chaos.They've seemingly avoided every pothole on the road to June, and it began last June, when Dolan spearheaded the firing of popular coach Tom Thibodeau, according to Yahoo Sports, even after he got New York back to the conference finals for the first time since 2000. Dolan believed Thibodeau wore down the players every season with his hard-driving style, which he thought caused physical and emotional breakdowns in series losses to the Indiana Pacers the past two years.Not even a win over the favored Celtics last spring was enough for Thibodeau to keep his job, and bringing in oft-fired and affable Mike Brown, who hadn't coached a team to the Finals since 2007, seemed to be patchwork, not a championship move.Brown was questioned at every turn this season and seemingly was coaching for his job this postseason. He showed his chops where they were needed most, however, spearheading this dominating winning streak. Even when they were trailing by 22 in the fourth quarter of the series opener against the Cavaliers, they stormed back to decisively win in overtime."We can get out of any situation," Towns said after Monday morning's shootaround. "Regardless if it's [a] 2-9 run in the season or if it's a [22]-point deficit in Game 1, as long as we continue to believe in the goal and continue to lean on each other."That shift in Game 1 effectively ended this series. The Knicks proved their mettle and stamina, while the Cavaliers wilted. Perhaps Thibodeau forged some of this championship-contending DNA, similar to what Mark Jackson did for Golden State before Steve Kerr stepped in.Even Dolan admitted as much in January."The team is really built on Tom Thibodeau. He built that core," Dolan said. "We went as far as we did last year, so you really have to take your hat off to Tom. But we did come to the conclusion on how we wanted to organize the team, and that meant we needed to evolve, beyond the old traditional coaching formulas."In stepped Brown, who has to feel some satisfaction after being fired by the Sacramento Kings in December 2024, and watching his team demolish Cleveland, which had dismissed him twice.Dolan and Rose are likely breathing a sigh of relief, absorbing the scorn in the immediate aftermath of Thibodeau's firing in the hopes, or rather the expectation, of getting to June.What they couldn't have foreseen is the Knicks squeezing teams until they quit, the roster that often had exhausted players this time of year flipping the script, breaking the minds and spirits of every playoff opponent along the way to June.Atlanta by 51 points to close out the first round. Philadelphia by 30. Cleveland by 37.One down, one to go.
