NEW YORK — Head coach Tom Thibodeau made his expectations clear back in September. Yes, the Knicks had just won 50 games, finished with the second seed in the East and made it to the second round of the playoffs. But that was last year. This year’s Knicks would need to integrate new pieces — would need to develop new habits, forge new bonds. You don’t just respawn at the same point you ended at last year; if you want to get to the promised land, you can’t skip any steps.
“It’s a long grind, and you prepare for that, and I would think that you begin with the end in mind,” Thibodeau said at Knicks media day. “What’s it going to take at the end for us?”
It’s tempting to say that it’s going to take exactly what they got on Friday night in an absolute shellacking of the wounded and reduced Boston Celtics — a 119-81 win that now stands as the most lopsided victory in Knicks postseason history.
A composed performance from All-NBA point guard Jalen Brunson, burnishing his postseason legacy in New York with another Penn Station-shaking win. A bruising 21-and-12 double-double from All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns, continuing to prove in this postseason that he doesn’t need to drill a ton of 3-pointers to make a major impact. A triple-double — the first in the postseason by a Knick since Walt “Clyde” Frazier all the way back in 1972 — for the relentless Josh Hart, forever pushing the pace, soaring for contested boards, communicating defensive assignments and running HB Dive in transition. Twenty-plus points apiece, eight combined 3-pointers and seven combined blocks and steals from 3-and-D wings OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. Strong play off the bench from guard Miles McBride, who rediscovered the touch on his jumper against Boston, and center Mitchell Robinson, a behemoth on the boards who played the best point-of-attack defense of his career on the Celtics’ wings and guards.
It all amounts to a recipe for playoff success, resulting in two utterly dominant quarters — the second and third, during which New York outscored Boston 66-37, turning Game 6 into a laugher and Madison Square Garden into a revival tent — that offered a glimpse at what the best version of this revamped Knicks team might look like when all of its big bets pay off.
“I think the way you have to look at it is, whatever your ceiling is, that’s what you’re striving for, and you’re trying to go past whatever the expectations are for you,” Thibodeau said after the win. “And if everyone commits to that, the challenge is to bring the best out of everybody.”
It’s tempting to say that, but we can’t. Not yet, at least. Because while Friday marked the end of the line for Boston — perhaps in more ways than one — this is not the end for Thibodeau’s team. We don’t know what it’ll take yet. But we’re going to find out.
New York plays on. For the first time in a quarter-century, the Knicks will play in the Eastern Conference finals; on top of that, they’ll have home-court advantage in the series, welcoming in the red-hot Indiana Pacers for Game 1 on Wednesday.
“More to go, you know?” Bridges said. “We’re not done. And that’s what it is. We came out there tonight, played hard, handled biz. But season’s not over. We got so much more to go.”
When the Knicks reviewed the film of Game 5, what they saw disgusted them. Lackadaisical effort, absent communication, assignments shrugged off rather than handed off — an abdication of responsibility wholly insufficient for the stakes of a closeout game, and unbecoming of a team with championship dreams. When they review the film of Game 6, they’ll see a team with reason to believe it can make those dreams into reality: a team with four players who can go for 20 or more; a team with the physicality and athleticism to dominate the boards, win the possession game and own significant edges in points in the paint, fast-break points and points off turnovers; a team that can out-execute you in the half-court and outmuscle you in transition.
“I feel like we played 48 minutes tonight,” said Brunson, evoking the platonic ideal of full-game excellence that Thibodeau so often waxes rhapsodic about — the kind of outing in which, as the coach told reporters before the game, “you have to give maximum effort, but you also have to have maximum concentration.”
The Knicks had it on Friday, looking