Sitting at a place around the corner early Sunday afternoon, I openly pondered whether I had been alive when the New York Knicks last swept a series. In a knowing nod to my predilection for superstition, the other party replied, “You shouldn’t have said that.” 

As it turns out, I was – a conference semis sweep over, of all teams, the Atlanta Hawks in 1999 –  but the feeling that accompanied the Knicks’ 144-114 Game 4 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday is not at all what it feels like to be a Knicks fan generally. The Knicks don’t sweep series; they go down 2-1, like they did in the first round against those very Hawks, before making every subsequent brush with disaster the most heart-stopping affair possible. The Knicks play (and, recently anyway, win) close games. They don’t play close series.