The Knicks — still gritty, still tough, still clutch — deserve respect

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BOSTON — Maybe, after all this, the New York Knicks you fell back in love with are still here. Still gritty. Still tough. Still clutch.

After all, it was the Knicks who scraped, clawed and prevailed out of a first-round series, not the tough-and-rugged Pistons. It was the Knicks, down 20 in Game 1 of a second-round matchup against the Boston Celtics on Monday night, who won the game, not the team with championship rings.

All season, the overarching feeling surrounding these Knicks was that something was missing. “It,” whatever that is, was absent when conversing about the collective. The teams of the last two years didn’t have the expectations of this iteration of New York basketball. Those teams took New York’s heart by outkicking their coverage and punching twice before an opponent could punch once. Those teams got back up when the haymakers came flowing. By default, the stakes got higher this season as the talent grew and the assets shrunk. The feelings about what the Knicks once were faded with expectations.

Maybe, though, these Knicks just needed time. Maybe they just needed to go through something together.

Whatever the reason, these New York Knicks deserve respect.

“It took us a little while to figure out how this series is going to be,” guard Josh Hart said after his team outlasted the Celtics in overtime 108-105. “We got beat with bats for six games, so we brought our bats here.”

Like three of the four meetings during the regular season between these teams, Boston found itself with a commanding lead, despite a season-worst 3-point shooting performance. The game quickly felt like yet another example as to why the Celtics and Knicks don’t belong on the same floor, in the same conversations. The expectation was that the Knicks were going to fold and concede because, well, that’s what has happened in these games.

This New York team, though, the one in the postseason, hasn’t been that. What the Knicks became during the previous six games is a team not willing to go away. If they lose, they go down swinging. That was no different in Boston.

Mikal Bridges was 2-for-12 from the floor before a corner 3 with 2:30 left in overtime pushed New York’s lead out to two possessions. He followed that up on the defensive end by flying out of bounds to save a possession for New York. And then, with the Celtics having a chance to tie at the end of overtime, Bridges snatched the basketball from the pythons of Jaylen Brown.

Jalen Brunson struggled most of the night to score the ball. Yet, in the fourth quarter, like he always does, he ran to the back and grabbed his cape. Captain Clutch scored 11 of his 29 points in the final 5:55 of regulation to help push his team to overtime.

OG Anunoby was everywhere all night, hounding ballhandlers and standing strong in driving lanes. He also made timely 3s, finishing with 29 points, for a New York team that needed the scoreboard moving in an attempt to claw back. Hart did Josh Hart things throughout the night, grabbing rebound after rebound and pushing the pace. He gave New York energy when it needed it most. Karl-Anthony Towns had key rebounds and stops in the game’s most critical moments, despite blunders offensively early and foul trouble. Miles “Deuce” McBride found his shooting stroke after he lost it somewhere in Detroit, firing at 50 percent from 3.

Even the coach, Tom Thibodeau, upped his game. New York deployed a switching scheme not seen much all season, if at all. In the first half, it led to the likes of Towns and Mitchell Robinson getting picked on by Boston’s ballhandlers. However, by the end, the Knicks were defending one-on-one with pride. Maybe part of it was the Celtics’ arrogance, assuming everything they did would go down like it had in the past. But New York defended at a high level. It took pride on that end when the game mattered most.

“Coaches coming to us with the game plan and players wanting to take the challenge to guard, wanting to get stops,” Anunoby said. “It was about taking pride.”

To understand how far the Knicks have come this season, maybe there is no one better to ask than P.J. Tucker. The veteran joined after the trade deadline as a free agent, bringing a championship pedigree that the front office felt was needed with this group.

Tucker said when he got to New York, the communication within this team was nearly nonexistent. Little by little, though, the group began to hold each other accountable.

“That’s been something I’ve been trying to help with — getting them to talk to each other more,” Tucker said after the game. “They all talk to me, but they didn’t talk to each other in real time, in those situations. The situations to get stops, to have help, you know what I’m saying? That, to me, we have talent. But that’s 80 percent of everything else — being able to communicate, be able to get stops, to be on the same page on offense and to be able to read each other. We needed to do those things instead of putting our hands up and looking at each other.

“It’s changed. Do I think it needs to get better? One hundred percent. But it’s come a long way since I’ve got here, for sure.”

The Celtics, one of the NBA’s best 3-point shooting teams, missed a lot of 3s on Monday night — 45 to be exact. That won’t happen again.

However, that’s not with this is about. The Knicks almost got ran off the floor without the Celtics playing well, but they found a way. New York could have folded, but it didn’t. The Knicks had every reason to stop fighting in Boston. Instead, the Knicks brought the fight to the Celtics and left them panicking down the stretch.

No matter what happens the rest of this series or the rest of the postseason for the Knicks, it’s time to put some respect on this team. The Knicks have done everything people said they couldn’t.

That sounds familiar.

Maybe New York didn’t go anywhere after all.

(Photo of OG Anunoby dunking: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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