The Knicks couldn’t conjure one more resolute effort. One more indomitable victory. Misfortune finally took them down, adversity delivering a final knockout blow.
Battling a plethora of injuries, the depleted Knicks lost Game 7 of their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals matchup on Sunday at Madison Square Garden to the Indiana Pacers 130-109, exhausting every joule of energy in their collective bodies in the 4-3 series defeat.
It was a bitter close to a season that had palpable promise when they engineered the best record in the NBA in January, going 14-2, including an eight game winning streak, after acquiring forwards OG Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa in a trade with the Toronto Raptors on December 30.
But a string of injuries that began with a left ankle surgery for center Mitchell Robinson in the second week of December, which kept him sidelined for 50 games, followed by a season-ending dislocated right shoulder suffered by All-NBA forward Julius Randle on January 27, began a chain of bad injury luck.
However, as the pulls, strains, bruises and fractures mounted, those who sought more controversial and metaphysical reasons attributed blame to Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau’s high allocation of minutes to his players and the team being cursed by an unseen force. More pragmatic minds concluded the Knicks were simply unlucky.
“As a coach, you always measure what does the group have and are we getting everything out of the group?” The only thing you can ask for is everyone puts forth their best effort and we got that all year from these guys,” said Thibodeau.
“What goes along with that is peace of mind knowing that you did your best. That’s all you could ask for. A lot of teams would’ve folded. We took the hit with Mitch [Robinson], then you add in Julius [Randle] and OG, your starting frontline, and then Bogey [Bojan Bogdanovic] goes out. It was hit after hit, but these guys never folded. They kept fighting, so that’s all you could ask for.”
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, who fractured his left hand in the third quarter swiping down at the ball as Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton attempted a layup, tersely responded “No” when asked if the season was a success, but echoed Thibodeau’s summary.
“I would say that I love the fact of how hard we fought night in and night out. I just love this group of guys that we have,” Brunson said.
“And just like I said before, our mindset as a group is we;re strong and, some nights when we may not have had what people thought was a team capable of winning, our mindset pushes us over that hump and so, definitely proud of what we were able to do this year and proud of how we fought night in and night out. And, obviously, the outcome is not what we wanted, but the way we fought was awesome.”
The Knicks, who haven’t made the NBA Finals since 1999, have built a championship foundation. They will go back to the lab and continue to shape a roster that is constructed as well as any team in the East.
As this writer was exiting Sunday’s postgame press conference, I spotted Knicks Executive Vice President William Wesley walking in a long, cavernous corridor.
“Wes,” I called out. He turned around. “Great job, brother,” I said.
We shook hands. “Thank you,” he responded. “We’ll be back better,” he said with conviction. It’s a good bet they will.
Season over!