This sort of success has been at a premium for the New York Knicks over the last quarter of a century. They had made the postseason just seven times in the previous 25 seasons and never made it past the second round.
Things have changed rapidly around Madison Square Garden in the Leon Rose era. The Knicks have made the playoffs in three straight seasons for the first time since 2011-2013, and a six-game upset over the Boston Celtics clinched their first trip to the Eastern Conference Final since 2000.
All things to celebrate, unless you are actually in the Knicks’ locker room, of course.
“I feel like we have a long way to go,” star guard Jalen Brunson, who has been the face of New York’s revolution, said. “Just the confidence we have in each other and everything. Just knowing who we are. We tend to be unsatisfied.”
It seems only fitting that the Indiana Pacers will be waiting for them in the conference final—a team the Knicks met six times between 1993 and 2000, including three times in the Eastern Conference Final. New York holds a 2-1 edge at that stage of the postseason, featuring a victory in 1999 that punched its ticket to the last NBA Finals it appeared in.
The Pacers knocked the Knicks out of the East semifinals last year to own current bragging rights, and upset the conference’s No. 1-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers to set up this rematch with No. 3-seeded New York — and they are almost everything the Knicks are not.
Indiana is a get-under-your-skin, calamitous squad that likes to push the pace, set up shop from three-point range, and get in your face while doing so. The same tactics are what upset the Knicks last year in seven games.
“It’s going to be a tough opponent,” forward Josh Hart said. “They push the pace, they run on makes, misses, and it’s going to be a huge communication series for us. We’re going to have to be locked in on every possession, we’re going to have to lock in defensviely… we just have to make sure we’re prepared.”
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