The 2025 Knicks are just the latest example that the playoffs truly are a new season.
A team that seemed to roll over against the league’s best (0-10 against the NBA’s top three), appeared non-competitive against the Boston Celtics, and lacked the late-game intensity and grit that made last year’s team so lovable is now just one win away from its first Eastern Conference Final in 25 years following Monday night’s 121-113 Game 4 win at Madison Square Garden.
Just one step closer toward ending a 52-year championship drought.
“It just takes some time,” Mikal Bridges, who shrugged off ceaseless scrutiny in his first year with the team to become one of the heroes of this series, said. “I know everybody wants success early on. But just kept getting better, all of us.”
Bridges scored 23 points with seven rebounds, supporting another massive night from Jalen Brunson, who poured in 39 points with 12 assists and five rebounds, including 18 in a third quarter that once again saw the Knicks overturn a double-digit deficit (14) to take an 88-85 lead heading into the fourth.
“I think there was a sense of urgency, desperation, knowing that we had a great opportunity against a really good team,” Brunson said. “I don’t even think we’re playing our best basketball yet. We have a team that’s still fairly new this year, and we have a long way to go to be the best team we can be. There’s always time to learn for us. We’re never satisfied, and that’s the mentality.”
That lack of satisfaction was best embodied when the final buzzer rang out to give the Knicks their 3-1 series lead over a Celtics team that swept them aside in four games during the regular season.
“I was actually telling everyone to get off the court,” Brunson said. “I was like, ‘It’s nothing to celebrate.”
There are enough New Yorkers in the Big Apple to do the celebrating for them, as they have seen a remarkable revolution of a team that has now made crunch time its winning time.
While Detroit Pistons wing Malik Beasley claimed his team was “mentally tougher” in their first-round series against New York, the Knicks overturned fourth-quarter deficits of eight points in Game 1, 11 points in Game 4, and seven points with just 2:25 to go in Game 6.
Their comebacks against the Celtics in Round 2 have been even more epic: They were down 20 in Games 1 and 2 in Boston and won before being down by as many as 14 in the third quarter on Monday night in Game 4.
“We’re a good team. We knew that all year.” Josh Hart said. “We just have to build from this. We’re up 3-1, but that doesn’t mean anything. We have to go into [Game 5] with a sense of urgency and desperation from the jump.”
Game 5 from TD Garden in Boston tips off at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
