Jayson Tatum returns to Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, 11 months after so much changed for him, for the Celtics, for the Knicks, for two fan bases more than somewhat familiar with each other. It was Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals when Tatum crumpled to the court with an Achilles injury that would require surgery, in New York City, the next day, because it\u2019s an established fact that life comes at you fast.<\/p>\n
There was 2:58 left in the fourth quarter of Game 4 when it happened. The Knicks were ahead by nine points, that close to going ahead three games to one on the Celtics. Tatum had scored 42 points on this night, but the Knicks had blown up another double-digit Boston lead and now, in a blink, Tatum was gone. In the aftermath of that moment, with Tatum out of the way and the 61-win Celtics that close to being eliminated, it was clearly decided by the people in charge of the Knicks that if the team wasn\u2019t quite championship-or-bust yet, they were a lock to go back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.<\/p>\n
And even when the Knicks lost to the Pacers in the conference finals, the people in charge decided they had themselves a championship-or-bust team set up for this season. Even running back essentially the same team that had lost to the Pacers, they were going to win the Eastern Conference, and win it all, orange-and-blue skies forever. James L. Dolan and Leon Rose even fired their coach, Tom Thibodeau, because they decided he wasn\u2019t the man to take their team to the Canyon of Heroes.<\/p>\n
Only the Knicks aren\u2019t going to win the regular-season title in the Eastern Conference, they\u2019re still behind the Celtics, and Tatum is looking like a small medical miracle as he prepares to make his return to the Garden on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
So here is a big question for Knicks fans \u2014 one of many \u2014 as their team is still holding out hope of passing the Celtics and at least getting the No. 2 seed before the postseason begins:<\/p>\n
Just how often has their championship-or-bust team looked like it has a championship in it this season? Think about it: Even when they got that game off the Spurs back in December, Victor Wembanyama was still on a minutes restriction. And even the astronauts on Artemis II know what the Knicks\u2019 record is against teams with winning records, especially lately.<\/p>\n
But here they are and here we are, all this time after Tatum went down on May 12, 2025. By the way? Even with the Knicks coming away from Game 4 up 3-1, who knows how Game 6 goes at the Garden if Tatum were still healthy and came back there and put 40-plus points on them again. The only safe bet even if the Celtics had come all the way back the way a Boston baseball team once came back from 0-3 is that Thibodeau would have gotten fired, anyway.<\/p>\n
Coach Thibs\u2019 Knicks won 51 games. It looks as if Mike Brown\u2019s Knicks could squeeze past that number. But off what we\u2019ve seen lately, who has them as a favorite to come out of the East? Who sees them as better than the Pistons when Cade Cunningham is back (and look at what they\u2019ve done without him)? Who sees them doing it again to the Celtics this spring the way they did last spring now that Tatum is balling the way he is alongside Jaylen Brown?<\/p>\n
Really, who is convinced at this point, after the inconsistencies \u2014 at both ends of the court \u2014 we\u2019ve seen from this Knicks team that they are more than paper tigers, still living off the way they rolled the Celtics in Game 1 and 2 last May?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s another question to ask about the 2025-26 Knicks:<\/p>\n
Are they more likely to make it to the NBA Finals, which somehow got treated as some sort of birthright even after they lost the conference finals to the Pacers, or lose in the first round this time? Which one of those two boxes would you check?<\/p>\n
They remain a talented, flawed team. Nearly 80 games into his first season under Brown, Karl-Anthony Towns still looks as if he\u2019s somebody who just subbed in to a game on W. 4th. Jalen Brunson can still look tremendous, of course, but over the past month or so, he\u2019s spent too much time looking like a smaller version of Carmelo. OG Anunoby still looks like a wonderful complementary player to Brunson and Towns most nights. But if Mikal Bridges, the guy for whom they gave up five No. 1\u2019s, is going to do that on a consistent basis, he can start any time.<\/p>\n
Brunson was truly great the night Tatum got hurt, scoring 39 and handing out 12 assists. When it was over, he said this:<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually telling everyone to get off the court. I was like, it\u2019s nothing to celebrate,\u201d said Brunson.<\/p>\n
He was right, absolutely. He is right about a lot of things as the face and voice of the team. But the fact of things it that the Knicks would only win three more games the rest of the season, even with this big idea in New York City that they were some kind of lock to make it to the Finals; even knowing that the Pacers had knocked them off the year before, just in the second round that time.<\/p>\n
The Pistons got a lot better this season. The Celtic turned out to be better than anybody thought they were going to be without Tatum, and look at them now. I was watching the Knicks against Memphis the other night and the announcers were breathlessly reminding everybody that, hey, it wasn\u2019t too long ago that the Knicks won seven in a row.<\/p>\n
Yeah, they sure did, against the Pacers twice and Jazz and Warriors and Nets and Wizards and Pelicans. Going into the weekend, those six teams were a combined 191 games under .500. By the time the Knicks got to Memphis the other night for their game against the Grizzlies, Josh Hart had already labeled that one \u201ca must win.\u201d Over another tomato can, this close to the end of regular season play. Says plenty about where they are. Maybe they\u2019ll show up big Thursday night.<\/p>\n
New coach, new season, same old problems for the Knicks. We still don\u2019t know how good they really are. Even with decent numbers on defense, if you watch the games you know that point-of-attack defense is still an issue. So is ball movement at the other end of the court, and Brown and his coaches still trying to find a place in that \u201csystem\u201d of Brown\u2019s that we heard so much about where Towns looks comfortable and involved and getting the ball where he did under Thibodeau.<\/p>\n
For sure, the Knicks have a chance to start fresh in four more games, either from No. 2 or No. 3 or even No. 4 in the East. A chance to start to look like champs. Isn\u2019t that what this was all about when they fired Thibs? Or maybe he wasn\u2019t ever the problem. Another way of looking at things.<\/p>\n
NICKLAUS IS THE TRUE MASTER OF GOLF, EXPERIENCE STILL MATTERS IN MARCH & IAN DELIVERS IN THE MOMENT \u2026<\/p>\n
Next week will bring us the 40th anniversary of Jack Nicklaus, at 46, coming from behind to win one more Masters.<\/p>\n
I still believe it is still the greatest day in the history of the majors.<\/p>\n
Better than the day Tiger Woods won his Tiger Slam at Augusta 25 years ago.<\/p>\n
And, as emotional as it was watching Rory McIlroy complete the career Grand Slam last April, even better than that.<\/p>\n
Six years after Jack had won his last major, he shot 30 on the back nine, and came up inches short of making it 29 on the last hole when one last birdie putt came up that short.<\/p>\n
So that was the way it ended for him at No. 18 on the day when he got to 18 majors.<\/p>\n
We still hear that Tiger is the best golfer of all time.<\/p>\n
No, he\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
It was Dan Jenkins who once said that the only things that could stop Tiger were injuries and a bad marriage.<\/p>\n
Dan just didn\u2019t know that he could have added pain pills being carried around in Tiger\u2019s pocket like breath mints to the list.<\/p>\n
Imagine the NCAA being resistant to the Virginia quarterback, Chandler Morris, not getting a 7th year of eligibility, those spoil sports.<\/p>\n
Still trying to process the meritocracy at the Garden, with Tom Thibodeau gone and Chris Drury still there.<\/p>\n
Was Coach Glenn talking about Geno Smith leading his team to the promised land, or did he somehow confuse him with Geno Auriemma?<\/p>\n
We were reminded of something at the end of the UConn vs. Duke game last Sunday night in Washington, D.C.:<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter how talented a freshman like Cayden Boozer is, because in the biggest moment of his team\u2019s season, he was still a freshman when UConn double-teamed him the way they did.<\/p>\n
Incidentally?<\/p>\n
Ian Eagle\u2019s call on those last ten seconds was a master class on how you\u2019re supposed to do it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m surprised the deputies didn\u2019t thank Tiger for sharing after he told them he just got off the phone with the president.<\/p>\n
Finally today:<\/p>\n
Happy birthday to our youngest son, Zach.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t just the Glue Guy of our family, he\u2019s even the Glue Guy of Instagram fame now, and also one of the stars of the YouTube series, \u201cWho\u2019s Next.\u201d<\/p>\n
On top of all that, he and his fianc\u00e9e Sophie are getting married on June 6.<\/p>\n
Not enough good things can ever happen for any of our children.<\/p>\n
They sure are happening for Zach right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jayson Tatum returns to Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, 11 months after so much changed for him,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,46,1409,288,77,563,304,9483,6,1136,191,3810,3806,297,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-697777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-celtics","10":"tag-eastern-conference","11":"tag-jalen-brunson","12":"tag-jayson-tatum","13":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","14":"tag-knicks","15":"tag-mike-lupica","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-knicks","19":"tag-newyork","20":"tag-newyorkknicks","21":"tag-pistons","22":"tag-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116346696835011678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697777","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=697777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}