52 pick-up
I thought for a moment about naming this blog "Party like it's 1999" but that would have been maybe a bit too cliché for the moment. So instead, we go with "52 pick-up". No, I don't mean the prank card game or the 1986 movie with Roy Scheider and Ann-Margaret - I am going somewhat obscure with this one, but you'll find out why soon enough. (Very soon.)
To provide a bit of a clue, I'm writing this the day after the New York Knicks eliminated the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals to advance to their first EC final in 25 years. Coincidentally they are facing the same opponent from that series back in 2000, the Indiana Pacers, a team that knocked NY out of the playoffs last year.
All right, here it is: It's been 52 years since the New York Knicks won an NBA championship. When I was in junior high and high school, I was a huge Knicks fan. Patrick Ewing was in his prime, they started consistently making the playoffs, and then, in a watershed moment, the team hired former LA Lakers head coach Pat Riley to run the show in New York ahead of the 1991-92 season. The Knicks responded with 51 wins that year and an EC semifinal appearance; the next year, the team went 60-22 - tied with the championship 69-70 team for best record in franchise history - but fell to those darn Bulls in the EC finals.
1993-94 was the memorable run to the NBA Finals, where they fell to the Houston Rockets in seven games - I remember watching Game 5 in a small box in the corner of the TV screen while the rest of the screen was dedicated to showing that infamous white Ford Bronco crawl down the 405, with seemingly half of the entire California Highway Patrol behind it.
Okay, time for a little sidebar. Think about that week in 1994, especially for New York City sports fans:
Sunday June 12 - Rockets beat the Knicks in Game 3 to take a 2-1 lead
Tuesday June 14 - NY Rangers beat the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 to win their first Stanley Cup in 54 years
Wednesday June 15 - Knicks beat the Rockets to tie the series at 2
Friday June 17 - The 1994 FIFA men’s World Cup holds opening ceremonies at Soldier Field in Chicago, the OJ Simpson chase ensues, the Knicks beat the Rockets to take a 3-2 series lead
Saturday June 18 - the USMNT plays the Swiss to a one-all draw in its opening World Cup game at the Pontiac Silverdome, while Ireland beats Italy 1-0 in their opening game held at Giants Stadium. As someone with Irish ancestry growing up in a predominantly Italian area of Staten Island, many of my friends were PISSED after that game.
Anywho, after that crazy week, the Knicks dropped games 6 and 7 of the 1994 Finals, then it was four straight seasons of losing in the EC semis, another Finals loss to cap off the 1998-99 season, then that EC loss to the Pacers in 2000, a first round exit in 2001, and then, in late 2001, Jeff Van Gundy quit 19 games into the 01-02 season, and history tells us that was when the franchise went off a cliff. Over the 19 seasons that ensued since JVG walked away, the Knicks had just three winning seasons and four playoff appearances, and churned through 12 permanent/interim head coaches - and for a few seasons in the late aughts, their most productive player was David Lee, who had some solid seasons, but not exactly a guy to build a team around.
Enter Tom Thibodeau, a former assistant coach under Jeff Van Gundy with the Knicks. In his first season as head coach, the Knicks went 41-31 in 2020-21, a campaign shortened by the pandemic, and it was good enough for their first playoff appearance in eight seasons. After a down year in 2021-22, the Knicks have reeled off three straight winning seasons for the first time in over a decade.
Emphatically eliminating the Celtics at MSG was an awesome gift to a long-suffering fan base, which has seen more than their fair share of miserable seasons, terrible draft picks (Frederic Weis, anyone? How about Mike Sweetney? Frank Ntilikina?), awful trades (Ewing to the Sonics, Antonio McDyess, Andrea Bargnani, yikes!) and washed up superstars (Penny Hardaway, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, and on and on) that have all served to set the franchise back several years at a time.
There are shades of 1994 here, when beaten-up fans of the New York Rangers saw their 54-year Stanley Cup drought come to a joyous and unforgettable end. If these Knicks can pick up eight more wins, they will also have a moment that, to paraphrase a Rangers broadcasting legend, will last a lifetime.
Jason the psychic
I have to mention this - in our previous blog by Jason about the NHL and NBA playoffs, he mentioned "Your team could be up by 20 points and all of a sudden, they go cold and the opponent will stage a comeback…" And sure enough, later that day, the Celtics blew a 20-point lead in Game 1 of the EC semis and lost in overtime to the Knicks. And then the Celtics blew another 20-point lead in losing game 2. And that set the stage for where we are now.