{"id":709927,"date":"2026-04-13T22:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709927\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T22:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:48:17","slug":"knicks-news-legend-gives-unsexy-nba-finals-advice-he-knows-fans-will-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709927\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks news: Legend gives ‘unsexy’ NBA Finals advice he knows fans will hate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks enter the postseason as one of the few Eastern Conference teams<\/a> seen as legitimate title contenders. After finishing the regular season with a 53-29 record, the Knicks arrive to the postseason healthy<\/a>, but have a difficult conference to traverse through, with teams such as the Boston Celtics, the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers all boasting of elite talent.<\/p>\n

And while there may be plenty of optimism as they inch towards the first round series against the Atlanta Hawks, former Knicks star Allan Houston had a straightforward piece of advice<\/a> for the current roster, per Ratings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s taking it one game at a time,\u201d Houston said.<\/p>\n

The two-time All-Star was previously part of the 1999 Knicks team that went all the way to the finals. New York arrived to the postseason as the No. 8 seed that season, defeating the No. 1 seed Miami Heat en route.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t like that. It\u2019s not a sexy answer. But when you\u2019re doing this every day, that\u2019s all you can think about. It makes no sense to think about \u2014 people outside want to do that because that\u2019s natural. The people outside want to say, \u2018Oh look, we\u2019re going to face this team, we\u2019re going to be here.\u2019 That\u2019s the last thing you\u2019re thinking about when you\u2019re inside the lines,\u201d Houston explained.<\/p>\n

And well, there is a clear rationale behind that advice. The East comprises of some top teams this year, with the Pistons (60-22) and Joe Mazzulla\u2019s Boston Celtics the obvious candidates to reach the Finals. Further, the Cavaliers, with the addition of James Harden, also look capable on paper to defeat New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause that\u2019s what kills you. If you\u2019re walking down some steps, you\u2019re not thinking about the third or fourth step down here, you\u2019re thinking about the next one or you\u2019re going to fall. So to me, that is the mentality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old obviously knows what he is talking about. Rather than looking ahead, he wants the team to simply look at their next game and continue that mentality until the very end.<\/p>\n

The New York Knicks enter the postseason as one of the few Eastern Conference teams seen as legitimate title contenders. After finishing the regular season with a 53-29 record, the Knicks arrive to the postseason healthy, but have a difficult conference to traverse through, with teams such as the Boston Celtics, the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers all boasting of elite talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks enter the postseason as one of the few Eastern Conference teams seen as legitimate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-709927","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-knicks","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116399839857639732","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709927","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=709927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}