This was supposed to be the Knicks\u2019 time in the Eastern Conference, a high time, or so they thought coming into the season. They weren\u2019t supposed to have to worry about the Celtics, that was for sure. They had beaten them up pretty good in the playoffs before Jayson Tatum went down with an Achilles injury, then finished them off after Tatum was out of the way, even if the Knicks didn\u2019t make it to the NBA finals after that, you probably remember.<\/p>\n
But it was enough, as all Knicks fans know, for the people in charge to decide that they were officially a championship-or-bust team for 2025-26. The people in charge further decided that all they needed to finally get over the line with this group was to change the guy \u2014 Tom Thibodeau \u2014 coaching this group. So they made the change.<\/p>\n
Now here the Knicks are with 14 games left in the regular season, starting with the Steph-less Warriors at the Garden on Sunday night. But the Celtics not only haven\u2019t gone anywhere, they\u2019re still ahead of the Knicks for the No. 2 spot in the Eastern Conference, both teams trying to stay away from a possible second-round matchup against No. 1, the Pistons.<\/p>\n
And because things often work out this way, of course it will be the Celtics coming into the Garden on the evening of April 9. There will be two regular-season games left for the Knicks after that (Raptors, Hornets, both at the Garden). But that game on April 9 could very well be for the second-seed, and feel like the first game of the playoffs. For both teams.<\/p>\n
Here is something the new coach, Mike Brown, said not long ago:<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is geared toward being your best toward the end of the season and going into the playoffs and hopefully throughout that run. I\u2019ve never been a guy who put stocks in everything and it\u2019s the end of the world if it doesn\u2019t happen in this game. That\u2019s not life in general. Things are going to average out to however they need to at the right time. And hopefully after 70 games or whatever it is, you feel pretty good where you are going into that postseason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s Knicks have a chance to win more regular-season games than Thibodeau\u2019s Knicks did a year ago. They have their chance to finish the regular season better than Thibs\u2019 Knicks did a year ago (11-11 at the end). They also have a chance, after all the wild mood swings we have seen from them to here, to show some consistency before we reach the money-on-the-table portion of our program, and Brown\u2019s program, after all these months showing us that they can beat anybody and lose to anybody, sometimes in the same week.
By the way? The schedule before and after the Celtics game on April 9 goes like this:<\/p>\n
Warriors and Pacers at home. Nets in Brooklyn. Wizards and Pelicans at home. Hornets, Thunder, Rockets Grizzlies on a 4-game road trip. Bulls at home. Hawks on the road. Finally, the Knicks finish at the Garden with the Celtics, Raptors, Hornets. There are easier schedules, but not very many. The Celtics have a more difficult path, even with Tatum back and playing at a surprisingly high level 10 months after his surgery. But these are our Knicks, who have been so chock full of surprises even on their way to 43-25, and that means surprises both good and bad.<\/p>\n
The other day, The Ringer\u2019s Zach Lowe was talking about the Knicks season, and talked about how \u201cloud\u201d their losses can be. Knick fans know how right that is. There could have been another one on Friday night in Indianapolis against the Pacers before OG Anunoby roused himself in the second half. So they finished this 7-game stretch \u2014 Spurs, Raptors on the road, Thunder at home, Nuggets and Lakers and Clippers and Pacers on the road \u2014 with a 4-3 record. They showed up when they had to and didn\u2019t fall further behind the Celtics while remaining ahead of the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n
These last 14 games are absolutely not the defining moment of this Knicks season. Even the chance that they might have to play the Pistons in the second round this time around \u2014 after beating them in the first round a year ago \u2014 doesn\u2019t turn the postseason into more of a minefield than it already is. If the Knicks are as good as Jimmy Dolan and Leon Rose think they are, if they really are championship-or-bust, they are going to need to win three series in the East after winning just two last spring.<\/p>\n
But all this time after they took out the Celtics in six games, with and without Tatum, the Celtics still have a nose out in front. They didn\u2019t go away. They had a better record than the Knicks even before Tatum\u2019s return. Last year it was the Cavaliers at No. 1 in the conference, the Celtics behind them and the Knicks behind the Celtics. For now, the Celtics and Knicks are right where they were a year ago, and it\u2019s the Pistons who have spent all of this season \u2014 even with their recent slump \u2014 looking like the beasts of the East.<\/p>\n
We see where the Knicks are right now. We just saw how they stood in there against the Thunder last week even without their best stuff, two balls in the air in the last seconds to tie that one. We see how they have navigated lately through the way Jalen Brunson has been shooting and Mikal Bridges hasn\u2019t been shooting at all. They won on Friday night, against a Pacers team that is always a tough out for them, without both Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart.<\/p>\n
At this point, we know they\u2019re tough enough. But the question is the same now as it was five months ago: Are they good enough to go all the way? And because seasons are what they are, that\u2019s the enduring beauty of them, they\u2019re still looking to be better than the Celtics. Not the whole plot, obviously. But it will do for now, right?<\/p>\n
COVER UP WORSE THAN THE CRIME, THE RAVENS PIVOT & DOLAN NEEDS TO GIVE MARV HIS DUE \u2026<\/p>\n
My alma mater, Boston College, should hire Bobby Hurley to be its next head basketball coach.<\/p>\n
In the old days, we didn\u2019t really turn the page to baseball, even around here, until the Knicks stopped playing.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s St. John\u2019s, too.<\/p>\n
You want to know what Rick Pitino has really done out there off Union Turnpike?<\/p>\n
That.<\/p>\n
Mark DeRosa would have made things a lot easier on himself if he\u2019d simply worn it on not knowing the tiebreaker rules in the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n
But he chose not to.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the crime of the century.<\/p>\n
In the end, Team USA survived because Italy rolled Mexico the way it did.<\/p>\n
But the more DeRosa tried to explain it away afterward, the worse he made things for himself.<\/p>\n
By the way?<\/p>\n
The Ravens committed no crimes this week in sending Maxx Crosby back to the Raiders and keeping their two No. 1 picks.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s a little difficult to believe that it was only Crosby\u2019s physical that caused them to change their mind, keep the picks, then pivot as quickly as they did to Trey Hendrickson \u2026 there should be a new figure-skating move named after them.<\/p>\n
Seriously?<\/p>\n
Crosby had surgery eight weeks ago and was still on crutches about eight days before the Ravens made that trade with the Raiders.<\/p>\n
What exactly did they think there were getting for those two No. 1\u2019s at this point in time.<\/p>\n
Eric DeCosta, the Ravens general manager, said a couple of days ago that his phone was still ringing because teams are still willing to trade with him.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m thinking this is going to be like an old country western lyric going forward:<\/p>\n
If the phone don\u2019t ring, you\u2019ll know it\u2019s me.<\/p>\n
Wait, now the Rangers want to play?<\/p>\n
Hoping that Scottie Scheffler starts hitting a few fairways again before he gets to Augusta.<\/p>\n
March Madness, 2026: My NIL All-Stars are better than your NIL All-Stars.<\/p>\n
The other day on The Golf Channel, Max Homa got more out of Tiger Woods \u2014 and more fun \u2014 than any interview with Woods I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n
Speaking of golf: One of Jimmy Valvano\u2019s old players, Terry Gannon, has become one of the best announcers in the sport.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s coming off Gannon\u2019s terrific work for NBC at the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
All this time later it\u2019s still hard to believe those muttonheads didn\u2019t elect Bill Belichick to the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Mikal Bridges still has plenty of time across the rest of this season to change his own narrative.<\/p>\n
And for us to stop thinking that his full name is: Mikal Bridges For Whom the Knicks Traded Five No. 1 picks.<\/p>\n
YES never should have let John Flaherty go.<\/p>\n
Is Jimmy Dolan going to hold a grudge against Marv Albert forever, or finally give Marv the night at the Garden \u2014 one more great night \u2014 that he deserves?<\/p>\n
There is no more ridiculous calendar, or schedule, in professional sports than the one in tennis.<\/p>\n
I have pointed this out before, just because of the way Brooks Koepka sold out as much of his prime as he did to the LIV Tour, but this is a guy who\u2019s won the same number of majors as Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n
It started to reach the point early in the week that I felt as if my guy Adam Schefter had moved in with me.<\/p>\n
I know this sounds crazy, but for a while the other night, it looked as if the Jazz were actually trying against the Knicks.<\/p>\n
I kept expecting the Dodgers to sign a couple of guys during NFL free agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was supposed to be the Knicks\u2019 time in the Eastern Conference, a high time, or so they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,46,288,563,304,83483,1260,3357,6,1136,191,3810,3806,297,15872],"class_list":["post-658143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-knicks","tag-basketball","tag-celtics","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-knicks","tag-lupica","tag-mikal-bridges","tag-mike-brown","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkknicks","tag-pistons","tag-thibodeau"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116228279720882020","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}