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When the New York Knicks face off against the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday night, it will commemorate twenty-five years since the home team advanced this far in the playoffs.
ECF Game 1: Matchup
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Who did the then-Jeff Van Gundy-led squad face? You guessed it: a Reggie Miller-led Pacers team that ousted the Knicks in six games en route to a six-game loss to the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers—the first of the Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal three-peat—while simultaneously ending Patrick Ewing’s storied yet ringless fifteen-year tenure with the franchise.
Only a year ago did injury and attrition devour the Knicks in seven games against Indiana in the conference semifinals. Mitchell Robinson (ankle) could not fully recover from the damage Joel Embiid afflicted in the round before, OG Anunoby (hamstring) crumpled to the ground after a transition bucket in Game 2, and Josh Hart (abdomen) took one too many bumps to his battle-tested body.
That’s not all. Jalen Brunson (hand) broke the hook that landed him in the history books, the final blow in a Game 7 rout that proved the Knicks could not keep up with mounting ailments.
Never mind that Julius Randle (shoulder) did not log a single minute in the postseason, nor did his replacement (Bojan Bogdanovic), acquired in a trade deadline deal with the Detroit Pistons, feature in any action against the Pacers. Sadly, New York were heavily relying on a retread (Alec Burks) and a sixth man signed on the cheap (albeit, a short-tenured Knicks legend in Donte DiVincenzo) for big minutes in Games 6 and 7 before sputtering to a last-gasp finish.
It cannot be understated that the Knicks have revenge on the mind in their plans to defeat Indiana and lead the city to the rarefied air of an NBA Finals appearance.
After a 38-point Game 6 drubbing of the Boston Celtics, who were dealing with a debilitating injury of their own to a fallen Jayson Tatum, the victim of an Achilles tear, in the eastern semis last Friday night, the Knicks enter this matchup, their seventh playoff tilt since their first ever meeting in the 1993 conference semifinals, against Indiana healthy, rested, revitalized, and fully capable of an NBA Finals berth, their first in twenty-six years.
Would it not be fitting to potentially face off against their trade partner in October, the Timberwolves, who exchanged Karl-Anthony Towns for Randle and DiVincenzo, all three of whom fit in seamlessly with their new clubs?
Given the Celtics’ loss to the Knicks, the NBA will crown a new champion in June. Should the Knicks win, it would be their first championship since 1973. Unless we count the Seattle Supersonics title in 1979 for the Oklahoma City Thunder, three franchises (Oklahoma City, Indiana, or Minnesota) are in contention to hoist their first-ever NBA title.
In a week when the Premier League’s Crystal Palace won its first ever major title in their 125-year history, the 2025 FA Cup, after a 1-0 victory over Manchester City, and Tottenham Hotspur could win its first trophy in 17 years, their first European title in 41 years, with a Europa League Cup win against Manchester United on Wednesday, the same night the Knicks and Pacers open their series, anything seems possible for the long suffering.
Every time the camera pans to a celebrity or Knicks legend in the Madison Square Garden crowd, recall who is missing from those ranks: the late great Dick Barnett, who passed away a week into the Knicks’ current postseason run, his number 12 memorialized on New York’s jerseys ever since.
Though the Knicks did right by Barnett in retiring his number in 1990, the NBA Hall of Fame was incredibly late in granting him access to its halls in Springfield, doing so only last year despite everything Barnett meant to two championship teams in New York. Barnett would lead the Knicks in scoring (23.1 PPG) in his first season in New York (1965-66), making his only All-Star team (1967-68) in a year when he helped push Philadelphia to six games after averaging 23.8 PPG, 3.5 APG, and 4.5 RPG on 52.1% shooting from the field in that first round matchup.
If the Knicks can pull off what the Yankees did for Joe DiMaggio in 1999—win a World Series title while commemorating his passing with a black number 5 on their arms—and win in Barnett’s name, they would honor a city that saw its two baseball teams tragically fall short in their magical runs last October, joining a Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu-helmed New York Liberty, who won their first ever championship last fall, in NYC hoops lore, a city who still turns up and out for its Knicks, whose streets surrounding the Garden after the Game 6 win against Boston look like the roads of a town celebrating a title despite what would only be a second-round playoff win.
Given Indiana’s heroics against an offensive juggernaut in the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers last round, many no longer pronounce Tyrese Haliburton as “overrated,” even rating him better than rising superstar Jalen Brunson. The Pacers now boast Bennedict Mathurin, injured and unavailable in last year’s playoffs, as another anchor to a stout defense and much-improved offense.
Perhaps this tilts the series against New York, whom many believed stood no chance against the defending champions last round despite incredible moxie to storm back from not one, but two consecutive twenty-point deficits to steal Games 1 and 2 in Boston, and an unforeseen 3-1 series lead. (For those counting at home: the Knicks took a commanding nine-point lead on OG’s steal as Tatum fell to the ground with around three minutes remaining in Game 5, an otherwise inevitable victory before a raucous home crowd.)
Winless and supremely overpowered against OKC this season, having split two games against Minnesota, including a January home loss amidst a gargantuan 46-point effort from Anthony Edwards, the Knicks are given little respect against the three teams that remain.
But these Knicks remain hungry and unsatisfied, knowing full well what a New York Knicks title would mean to a city whose “block parties” during and after each game, home or away, have the makings of a Canyon of Heroes parade.
The other night, Mikal Bridges channeled Kobe Bryant’s “job not finished” mentality, suggesting there was no reason to celebrate too jubilantly after advancing past the Celtics before a sellout crowd on their home floor.
On Monday, Jalen Brunson proclaimed “it still bothers [him]” that the Knicks lost to the Pacers last season, giving him added impetus to answer the promise of what a captain, willing to take a drastic pay cut that permitted KAT and Bridges to come to New York, brings to his team: accolades, clutch play, and wins when it matters.
Should these Knicks manage eight more wins, improbably so, if we are being honest, they are staring down New York sports immortality that so many before them have failed to achieve in orange and blue.
