It looked like January again on Friday night, inside the Garden and for the Knicks, even without Julius Randle and especially without OG Anunoby, who came to town from Toronto and helped make the Knicks look like a real contender again, and that means a contender for something plenty more than the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference. This was a game against the Magic that looked and felt like the first game of the playoffs, a bare-knuckle defensive game out of the past.
The Knicks had Jalen Brunson back on the court, which means the most valuable player they’ve had since Patrick Ewing was still young. They played playoff defense, Tom Thibodeau defense out of the past, and held the Magic to 74 points and won what really did feel like a playoff game going away. But they’re all playoff games the rest of the way. The Knicks get another one on Sunday night against the 76ers, who even without Joel Embiid are in the same conference scrum that the Knicks are in.
This wasn’t just a good night for the Knicks by the time all the games had been played, all the way to L.A. It was a great night. They beat the Magic. The Bucks lost later to the Lakers. The Heat lost. The 76ers lost.
Seasons are what they are. The Knicks were supposed to be playing for the No. 2 seed in the conference by now, off what we saw from them after Anunoby came to town. They weren’t supposed to be worried about play-in games when the regular season is over. They were supposed to be thinking about what it might be like to get a shot at the Celtics in the conference finals, to be back in the conference finals for the first time since 2000, if everything broke right for them.
They weren’t supposed to need this game against the Magic as much as they did. But they did. And won the way they did, with Brunson being great again and Josh Hart playing 40 minutes for the 8th game in a row. They won it with Precious Achiuwa looking like so much more than just somebody thrown in to the Anunoby deal, 15 points and 14 rebounds and five blocks.
So, they came out of it ahead of the Magic in the standings instead of behind. They were back into fourth place in the Eastern Conference, but still just two games in the loss column ahead of the 76ers, their opponent in two of the next three nights.
The Knicks believe Randle will eventually be back at full strength. Anunoby will likely be back sooner. These Knicks believe, period, that they have it in them, when healthy, to light things up in the spring the way they did in 1999, when they went all the way from being No. 8 in the East to the NBA Finals.
They are the most exciting Knicks team since then, a much more complete and exciting team than they were in that 2012-13 season, the first place in the Atlantic Division season when we thought they were going to end up playing LeBron and the Heat in the conference finals. But then they didn’t sweep the Celtics in the first round when they should have, not closing them out until a Friday night in Boston. Then they lost Game 1 at home in the conference semis to the Pacers and never recovered, all the way until Roy Hibbert stuffed Carmelo Anthony in Indy at the end of Game 6.
This team, whatever the final regular-season record is, is different. And better. There really hasn’t been a month as exciting as January was since the ’99 Knicks beat Pat Riley’s Heat in the first round, the Knicks finishing them when Allan Houston made that runner at the end of Game 5 on a Sunday afternoon at the old Miami Arena.
They had Houston and Latrell Sprewell and Patrick, already on his last legs. But these Knicks have Brunson, who truly is as valuable a player as there is in the league this season. Brunson gives them a chance every night, even without Randle and without Anunoby. He is that good, that important, clearly this ready for the moment. When he is out of the lineup, the Knicks look like a car running on rims. But he came back with 26 against the Magic on Friday night. It felt like more, because of how much the Knicks needed the game.
This is what Thibodeau said afterward:
“When we fly around and work together like that and we have the type of activity that we did, that gives us a chance to win.”
If the basketball gods smile on the Knicks, they will end the season with Randle on the court, with Anunoby on the court, with Robinson back in the middle, and the basketball spring at the Garden will still be as big and loud as everybody thought it could be when the Knicks started to roll in January. They will make some noise, and make their run, and do more than just win one round, the way they did last year before they ran into the Heat, when it looked like Brunson against the world because Randle was hurt.
It would be a shame if they never have their whole team whole, not the way they raised the bar on everything when they were 14-2 and looked as if they could play with anybody. Then people got hurt. Right now, though, the Knicks are back in the middle of the pack, again, trying to hold their place, trying not to fall to No. 7 in the conference, or worse.
They keep grinding. Flying around the court. Playing as hard on Friday night as they have all season. Seventy-four points for the Magic. Looked like a playoff game, felt like a playoff game. Was a playoff game. Another one on Sunday night. It’s one of the oldest Yogi lines in the book. Sure got late early around here.
WOODY IS STILL THE WORST, GIANTS SHOULD BE INTERESTED IN RUSS & METS NEED DIAZ TO BE GREAT …
Woody Johnson never wins real titles, of course.
But give him credit for now owning this one:
Worst sports owner in New York right now.
Tiger Woods and LeBron James share a birthday.
And share this:
How much their respective sports still need them.
The difference is that Tiger is 48 years old and has trouble making it around the course and LeBron, when his ankle isn’t barking at him, can still get up and down a basketball court like he’s still the kid coming out of Akron.
But when LeBron is in the gym, you watch.
On the rare occasions when Tiger is on the course, people still watch in big numbers.
And it may be a golf fever dream, but wait and see what happens if his legs are strong enough for the up-and-down of Augusta National and he shoots a 69 on Thursday in the Masters.
Sen. Britt seemed so occasionally distraught giving her State of the Union response the other night, I was worried about what sharp objects she might have in her kitchen drawers.
I keep having this nightmare about college basketball players actually entering the transfer portal while we’re watching Selection Sunday.
Maybe the Cavs aren’t going to be softer than soft ice cream in the playoffs this time.
Somebody needs to give Red Sox fans one good reason not to think their owner has thrown in the towel.
You know why John Henry brought Theo Epstein back into the fold?
For cover.
While he seems a lot more interested in Premier League football and professional golf and his Fenway Sports Group than he is in what’s happening at Fenway Park.
The A’s shouldn’t move to Vegas.
They should move to Salt Lake City.
Is Jimmy Dolan still doing his bad facial recognition thing at the Garden?
Chris Drury sure isn’t hanging back with the Rangers, is he?
Listen, if I’m the Giants, I’m interested in Russell Wilson, too.
It’s not that Russell Wilson can’t play football anymore.
It’s that he couldn’t play for Nathaniel Hackett or Sean Payton.
In a season after which Payton (he invented pro football, remember) gave up on him, Wilson managed to throw 26 touchdown passes, which is a couple more than Daniel Jones ever threw in a single season.
I can’t tell you for sure how much Wilson has left.
But he might come play for the Giants and do for them what Fran Tarkenton did a long time ago.
Now I’m starting to think that I may have to go on some kind of fast until Scottie Boras’ big pitching clients, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, can find work.
The really sad thing about Ben Simmons’ star-crossed career is how much fun it once was to watch him play ball.
JJ Redick doesn’t just have a chance to be good working with Mike Breen.
He has a chance to be great.
Other than Corey Seager, you look around baseball and tell me a shortstop who has more game than Francisco Lindor.
If the Mets are going to be any good, Edwin Diaz still needs to be great.
The Yankees are still so often covered like the company in a company town.
If you don’t think golf people are in this weird bubble, look at how they’re treating this reunion between Anthony Kim and the LIV Member-Guest Tour like it’s the Beatles reunion we never got.
I’m sorry, but when did we start treating dumb hockey fights like they’re cool again?
Really, the same people who think Joe Biden is too old and too forgetful are the same people who can’t find their television remote, or where they put the car keys.
And start looking around for their phone before they realize it’s in their hand.
The next time I’m having a lousy front nine in golf, I’m going to ask Rick Pitino to show up and tell me how much I stink.
Because if he does, look out for me down the stretch.
