The duality and imminent reality afoot is this: I can’t look at anybody and tell them that I didn’t think this was going to happen. I did; I wrote as much in October. This is the team, and this is their time.

This is it: the New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999. On the other side of the table, now that we’re allowed to discuss the surreality we are all about to experience, remains a best-of-three series between increasingly battered squads, both of whom are playing some of the best basketball mere mortals have ever seen.