The Celtics won their 18th pennant on Monday night, finishing one of their greatest seasons ever with a combined record of 80-21 and 16-3 in the playoffs. Not only did they never face a deciding game, they also never finished worse than a 1-1 tie against the Heat, Cavaliers, Pacers or Mavericks.
This will be the Celtics’ seventh championship since the Knicks won their second in 1973, and plenty of Knicks fans will argue that the Knicks would have given the Celtics a better fight, at the very least, than any of the four teams Boston beat.
That’s probably what happened.
Maybe not.
And that’s one of the problems the Knicks face as they officially resume their efforts to close the gap with the Celtics: It’s impossible to calculate exactly how big the gap is.
For that matter, it’s hard to shake the 27 days from Jan. 1 to Jan. 27 out of your head. Very, very hard. 27 days in which the Knicks were as good as any team in the NBA. They played 14 games, won 12. Boston went 9-5 in that span. Dallas went 6-7. Oklahoma City went 10-4. Denver went 9-4. Minnesota went 8-7.
At the time, the only team that came close to the Knicks were the Cavaliers, who were 10-2, but as the season progressed it became clear that the Cavs were building cards and inflicting heavy damage on the NBA’s weaker teams during the regular season.
Among the Knicks’ 12 wins during that halcyon period were a 112-106 victory over the Timberwolves on New Year’s Day, in which the Knicks blew a 16-point lead after the third quarter; four days later, they crushed a full 76ers team by 36 in Philadelphia; their only losses were a four-point loss at Dallas, in which the Knicks took a little too long to come back; and a four-point loss to Orlando at the Garden, in which they blew a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter, their only real loss.
And, of course, the two games that capped a 14-game, 27-day winning streak included sweeping both teams from the previous year’s Finals appearances in a two-day stretch at the Garden, 122-84 over the Nuggets and 125-109 over the Heat.
When Knicks fans think about this year’s team, they always think of the team that went on a winning streak despite the addition of OG Anunoby and the absence of Mitch Robinson. Could that team have won a series against the Celtics?
That’s probably what happened.
Maybe not.
And Leon Rose will have to do that math in the coming weeks. Here’s the thing: If Julius Randle hadn’t called it a season on Jan. 27, if Anunoby hadn’t missed so many games over the next two months, the Knicks surely would have won the 50-plus games that would have kept them in the No. 2 seed. That means the final week of the season could have been used as an opportunity to rest players and bring Robinson back into the rotation.
And yet, knowing Game 7 would be in Boston, they still needed to beat the Celtics in four games out of seven. All I know is that I would have liked to see that series between these teams in the alternately frantic and manic environments of TD Garden and Madison Square Garden.
So, knowing all that, would the Knicks do it again?
If they do, they’ll need to acquire Anunoby first. His impact was notable after Randle was injured, as the Knicks went 26-5 with him in the lineup (excluding his cameo in the Game 7 loss to Indiana), including 13-3 without Randle.
Bringing back Isaiah Hartenstein may not be possible unless he accepts a big hometown discount, but the hope that Robinson will be healthy (if that’s not illusory) is offset by this: The Knicks have built Hartenstein from a useful player into a desirable asset in two years. Could the Knicks find another version for a fraction of that cost?
In many ways, the biggest question mark is Randle. It took Randle a few games to fully blossom after Anunoby’s arrival, but he played his best game of the season with Anunoby as one of his wingmen: 24.9 points, 8.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists. Overall, resting him was the smartest move, but it will take a tough few weeks of NBA life to fully test his shoulder.
And the one question that has plagued Randle — can he be the best player on a championship-contending team? — no longer applies, with Jalen Brunson clearly on the top team.
That would be appealing. Of course, by October the Celtics will be hungry to defend their title. The 76ers might add Paul George or Jimmy Butler to the roster. Doc Rivers emphasized that Dame Lillard hasn’t been at his best this year. He and a fully recovered Giannis Antetokounmpo would be formidable in Milwaukee. And it doesn’t make the Pacers and Magic any less athletic or dangerous. Heat culture is always lurking.
And that’s just to get out of the East.
So many questions, so little time. Maybe Rose has been waiting for the exact moment to make the decision to spend. Maybe now is the time. Or maybe, like the rest of us, he’s thinking about how the Knicks performed against the Celtics, and he wants to know.
