The top-seeded Pistons — one year removed from being eliminated by the Knicks — need to win a third consecutive elimination game to advance to the second round for the first time in 18 years.
The Cavaliers — who haven’t been past the second round since LeBron James left Cleveland for the second time — are on the verge of underachieving again, needing to win Game 7 against the Raptors to keep their season alive.
And the Eastern Conference favorite was eliminated Saturday night when the 76ers completed their comeback from a 3-1 series deficit and defeated the Celtics 109-100 in Game 7 in Boston, setting up a rematch of the electric 2024 first-round matchup, when the Knicks beat Philadelphia in six games.
The Knicks — coming off three of their best efforts of the season, including a 140-89 beatdown of the Hawks to reach the second round for the fourth straight season — will have had three days off before Monday’s game at Madison Square Garden against the 76ers and oft-injured nemesis Joel Embiid.
They return a core that broke a 25-year conference finals drought.
Now, there is no question of the team to beat in the East.
“I haven’t heard of it,” Jalen Brunson said Saturday, “and I don’t care.”
He is supposed to ignore what Nick Saban long described as “rat poison,” the kind of premature praise that can make a team overconfident and underprepared.
The Knicks captain is supposed to embody the cliches they have perfected — getting one percent better every day, controlling the controllables, etc. — leading a group that has made the East’s most convincing case as a contender on both ends of the court.
Chemistry, health and momentum are on their side.
So is history, which has seen the Knicks defeat the conference’s biggest remaining threats (Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia) in the playoffs in recent years.
“I mean, I would hope that when we step on the court against anybody, I feel we could beat anybody,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “So, [the past three] games shouldn’t be the reason we have confidence. We should have confidence because we put the work in and we put the time in in the gym. So, then we have trust in each other. I feel like our confidence was built way before the game was played.”
Mike Brown is in his first season with the Knicks, but in his 17th postseason as an NBA coach.
In Cleveland, he led the Cavs to the NBA Finals.
As an assistant in San Antonio and Golden State, he won four rings.
Even without the likes of LeBron James, Stephen Curry or Tim Duncan, Brown sees similarities between these Knicks and some of the most successful teams of all time.
“The first thing is they’re resilient,” Brown said. “… The connectedness that this group has is similar. The sacrifice that this group has is similar, the competitive spirit that this group has is similar and then the belief is similar as well.
“It’s been like that since the beginning of the year and this group is up there with those other groups.”
