Steve Popper: Knicks found perfection vs. Hawks, but can they sustain it moving forward?
Knicks center Mitchell Robinson celebrates after scoring in the first half during Game 6 against the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday. Credit: AP/Brynn Anderson
There have been times over the years when you have seen basketball that seemed to reach perfection. The run of championships by the Spurs when the likes of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and David Robinson seemed to be running practice drills while opponents desperately flailed at efforts to slow them. Golden State put on display clinics of offensive beauty while earning four titles, moving the ball as if on a string.
And during those runs, Mike Brown had a seat on the bench as an assistant coach, so he has been close-up for those shows, seeing fully what is capable of a team running at a level above what the rest of the league could imagine — not one star carrying a team on his shoulders, but a connected group working as if of one mind.
It would be hard to imagine that he would witness that sort of magic in New York, but for one night, the Knicks found perfection.
Now, the question is, was that because it was the Hawks, an inferior first-round opponent who’d already gone as far as the road would take them this season and threw up the white flag once the Knicks hit them with an early punch? Or was this something real, a glimpse of what the team could be when the front office assembled a group with a championship as the expectation?
“It’s hard to replicate, duplicate, however you wanna say it,” Brown said seated on stage after Thursday night's 140-89 win to close out the series. “But our guys, they’re connectedness right now is off the charts. And like I said, when you lock into the detail and you’re connected like that with a group that’s as talented and versatile as that group, you got a chance to do that.”
It’s hard to imagine that this sort of talk could arise even a week ago when the Knicks gave away a pair of one-point defeats and all of the questions that had nagged them this season, the inconsistency of highs and lows, the uncertain roles in the first season under Brown, all boiling to the top. And the flame under it was the pressure, the firing of the head coach who’d brought them to this level but fell short of the NBA Finals last season and the public assurance from Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan that the floor for this group was reaching the Finals.
Under the microscope of the postseason, Brown and his staff adjusted in midstream, changing up the offense after Game 3. And suddenly, everything flowed on that end, while the defensive potential fell into place like square and round pegs finding their proper slots. OG Anunoby suddenly seemed like the best two-way player in the game. Mikal Bridges, who was discussed as moving out of the starting lineup a week ago, was stellar and revived in Game 6 with his series-high of 24 points. Jalen Brunson was, well, Jalen Brunson, the star that it all revolves around.
“Yeah, it speaks volumes about our team,” said Karl-Anthony Towns, who dominated the last few games without his usual scoring punch — instead serving as a facilitator to work the offense through while raising his defensive level. Towns had two triple-doubles in the series.
“When we’re locked in, playing close to our best, we’re really really good," he said. "So it’s about finding that team, that version of us consistently. Especially in a seven-game series – tapping into that version of us more often than not.”
“I don’t think it boosts confidence,” Josh Hart said. “It just reinforced the kind of team that we have, the players that we have, the coaches that we have. … That’s something where it shows what we can do. And now we gotta continue to build off of it. Now we can’t sit there and not do it because we know we have what it takes to do it.”
This incarnation of the Knicks wasn't mediocre this season, winning 53 games in the regular season. But there were legitimate questions from the very start as Brown experimented, starting the season with Hart on the bench, Towns openly questioning his role and one-sided losses to the Eastern Conference regular-season-leading Pistons. But Detroit has struggled with Orlando, exposing flaws in its team, and Boston is playing to avoid elimination Saturday night against Philadelphia.
The thing about those great teams that Brown watched from the bench was that they did it not just game after game, but year after year. Maybe the best sign for the Knicks after the domination Thursday night and really over the last three games of the series, that the conscience of the team voiced the reality.
Asked what this performance did for the Knicks moving forward to the next round, Brunson was blunt. The Knicks made history in that game, but that’s not how the history they are seeking is made, not in one night. Asked what the team could take from this moving forward, Brunson, calm and measured behind sunglasses, never smiled.
“Honestly, nothing,” Brunson said. “It’s something that we’re going to have to flush, and turn the page and get ready. Happy with the way we were performed, but it’s time to turn the page and refocus up.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
