Hit Cruise Control; Rubbed My Eyes

As diabolical as Google searches have so quickly become recently, I’ll take a chance on the Industrial Metal and Supply Co. of California and concur that iron has a melting point of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. At some point, then, with enough energy driving it on either side, iron begins melting against iron.

The point is, it’s not a toughness thing: iron wears down either way. Having sharpened themselves against an MVP-level Joel Embiid and a noticeably heightened Tyrese Maxey, the New York Knicks pulled out an improbable six-game victory in the first round.

Against exact counterpoints in the Indiana Pacers – the fastest team in the NBA, whenever Tyrese Haliburton was in the lineup – the Knicks tried to grind the opponent again, only to now find themselves, “Metamorphasis”-like, ground. A parsimonious Knicks offense just kept losing options. In the spirit of the ’90s series preceding this one, the Pacers are more survivors than winners.

We are going to have a new NBA championship franchise for the first time since at least 2011, but it will not be the New York Knicks, who lost Game 7 at home in a series that had, up until that point, featured only home team victors; in that case, if the maxim is true, the series both started and ended on Sunday night.

As a Knicks fan: that’s fine, given the circumstances, and the subterranean starting point. Even those of us that appreciated an actual point guard on the team from Jalen Brunson’s arrival two summers ago didn’t see this coming.

Losing Julius Randle in January had set the light on a flame that caught the carpet and carried into the drapes: the Knicks just could not stay healthy from that point forward. Trading for OG Anunoby, Precious Achuiwa, Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks created various excitements, more like curiosities, about fleetingly-possible lineup combinations.

Bogdanovic, at 35, overcooked himself shortly after checking in against the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round; immediately, he was out for the season. Having returned from a stress fracture in late March, Mitchell Robinson played a vital role in beating those same Sixers before suffering an ankle injury during Game 1 of this series against the Pacers.

From there, a downward trajectory health-wise. Anunoby, instrumental in the Knicks’ playoff run so far, would be out with a hamstring injury; he returned for Game 7, hitting his first two shots in a Reed-type effort (we’re asking for a lot of Willis Reed-type efforts out of a lot of players who, though I adore, are decidedly not Willis Reed, or at least not yet) before exiting the game. Josh Hart also suffered an abdominal injury that relegated him to the injury list prior to game 7.

Myles Turner dominated the game defensively from the start, issuing signature blocks and cooking as a help defender on Brunson’s or Hart’s drives. From Turner back up through Haliburton, all five starters scored 17 points or more. Once again, a team went out of its way to set an NBA record against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden: this time, it was field goal percentage in a playoff game, at 67.1%.

Pascal Siakam, the Pacers’ midseason acquisition from the Raptors during the same fire sale which begat Anunoby heading to the Knicks, played a sublime closeout game after an effective, if not all the way star-reinforcing, series. T.J. McConnell, in his element, was an absolute nuisance who didn’t score that much (12 points) but seemed to hit every single shot – the JJ Redick corollary the Pacers fans deserve.

Awaiting Indiana are the Boston Celtics, who’ve been all-business so far in the playoffs. We’ve seen this before, in previous Finals runs, and they should clean up against an exhausted, frustrated and banged-up Pacers team, whose focal point in Haliburton hasn’t looked right all postseason.

With the Denver Nuggets now out, though, no clear favorite stakes a claim: at this point, the Celtics are as accomplished as any of the rest of the teams involved, and they should remind themselves of that as often as they possibly can if Jaylen and Jayson are about to pull this thing off. Quick notes: neither of them have the juice of Anthony Edwards, and the current version of the Dallas Mavericks are terrifyingly sleek. Buyer beware, an annual Celtics tradition.

Returning to the Knicks: Brunson, the 6’2” straw-and-drink at the same time, had battled an ankle issue before leaving Game 7 with what ended up being a broken hand. He very nearly had a double-double on his way out the door anyway.

After falling down by fifteen at halftime and then drawing within six before letting go of the rope entirely, the Knicks – along with the fans who soon became aware of Brunson’s injury via various reporting – were dismayed, finally too burnt out in the Garden to be too excited for, once again, one of the best games of Donte DiVincenzo’s career.

However inadvertently, these Knicks forged themselves in the hottest pits imaginable. Despite the potential defensive pitfalls[1], I’m unconvinced that a player of Brunson’s height cannot be the best player on a championship team – but, of course, I also want to be proven right.

As always, some decisions await this summer – primarily, what to do with the centers, Hartenstein and Robinson, who are complementary and expensive and who seem to personally enjoy each other and work well as a unit, if only they can stay healthy collectively – but for the most part, this New York Knicks team should look mostly the same come October.

Tom Thibodeau has the reputation of an out-of-commission drill sergeant with too much love for his food processor, but in wearing all of the starters ragged, it does appear he kept the backups ready in similar fashion. Alec Burks was supposed to be an exciting offensive re-addition; he sat for two months and then burst into flames, at least as best he could.

As a baseline, I hope the Knicks do not reject everything that worked for them and embrace antiquity, as they did following the last time they were this successful, in 2012-’13[2]. That would similarly involve throwing away point guards, but I don’t…think the Knicks would do that now, or at least I hope they wouldn’t. I’ve been surprised before, but I won’t again be shocked by the Knicks.

The sentiment around the neighborhood was that the Knicks went out nobly and will return. With a much-needed offseason to recuperate (and re-sign) its most fiery players, New York will have further time to figure out what the most winning version of itself looks like. Everybody in the city, at least, now talks highly of Villanova in public for reasons not usually pertaining to the university itself, but rather to the triumvirate of its heroic alumni: Brunson, Hart and DiVincenzo.

With an unorthodox, winning team, one now with a recurring track record and most of its players younger than 30, a time like this is the team at its most fascinating. At a parallel time when the West is in its greatest state of flux in 20 years, where the New York Knicks go from here could shift the tide of the East for the next half-decade. If only; the iron is there either way, sweating in the sun.

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[1] And with obvious bias given the glow around this guy right now, already an all-time Knick…!

[2] A defensive-driven Pacers loss that was almost the opposite of this series but for Turner’s interior blocks being vaguely reminiscent of [REDACTED] that I think Paul George’s shuttering playoff reputation has lent itself to dimming in hindsight, but he was excellent in that series and in the East Finals that followed against the Miami Heat.