Game 3: Knicks 118, Pistons 116 — Atlas needed a moment to adjust
The Pistons were looking for their first home playoff win in 6,178 days. They still looking
Every so often, a player or agent suggests New York sports fans can be a negative factor when considering joining a New York sports team. We don’t like hearing that. Obviously. “I wanna get married, I just can’t stand your whole [bleeping] family” isn’t much of a pick-up line. But in the dead of night, alone with our thoughts, we must admit we don’t make it easy. Take the New York Knicks and their series with the Detroit Pistons.
The 51-win Knicks won Game 1, dropped a tight Game 2 at home but recovered for a hard-fought Game 3 victory in front of rabid Pistons fans. Detroit featured a balanced attack with five double-digit scorers, but it wasn’t enough to overcome 32 points from New York’s sweet-shooting center. That leaves the Knicks just one win away from clinching the best-of-5 series.
Oh, sorry. You thought I was talking about the 2025 Knicks. No, that paragraph was about the 1992 edition. I wanted to draw a parallel between then and now to emphasize how good a position these Knicks are in — despite all the Doomsday talk — after last night’s 118-116 win at Little Caesars Arena The Nearly 50% Publicly Financed Arena Where 100% Of Tickets/Parking/Concessions/Naming Rights Go To Tom Gores, Who Built His Wealth Price-Gouging Incarcerated People And Their Families.
Despite the 2025 Pistons being nowhere near Bad Boys-level good, despite first-round series now being best-of-7s instead of best-of-5s (making upsets less likely) and despite the Knicks’ clear advantages in talent and experience, there was a bird flu making its way through the fan base after Game 2. Lotta Chicken Littles popping up, spouting all sorts of paranoid quackeries. Knicks gonna lose the series. Jalen Brunson’s the problem. Josh Hart’s the problem. Karl-Anthony Towns’ the problem. Deuce McBride’s the solution. Mitchell Robinson’s the solution. Losing the series and firing Tom Thiobdeau’s the solution. KAT trade was a mistake. Mikal Bridges trade was a mistake. Leon Rose done lost his Midas touch.
Last night the Knicks — Atlas, with the weight of the world on his shoulders — slowed down, took a breath, re-adjusted that weight and looked about as different as any New York sports team could from the start of the night till the end (the Giants did land a monster pass rusher and a new QB fans can hate in five years). After two games of Brunson dominating the shot distribution (31% of NY’s attempts), last night shared the wealth so effectively J.D. Vance labeled it terrorism: 20 for Brunson, 18 for KAT, 17 for OG Anunoby. Brunson and Josh Hart both had nine assists, a first in Knick playoff history. Four Knick starters had 7-plus rebounds. Four scored 20-plus points, a first for the franchise since 1972. And it wasn’t just the tangibles looking good.
Because it seemed every single one of the 20,062 souls in TN50%PFAW100%OT/P/C/NRGTTGWBHWPIP last night was on a mission to troll the Knicks, punk the Knicks, do whatever it took to fuck with the Knicks (which is bad, but not at all the same as fucking “wit the Knicks,” which would mean they like them).
Before the game, noted hard man Tobias Harris called the Knicks “soft.” Paul Reed got in a mild tussle with KAT and tried to Archduke Ferndinand it into World War 3; there are fewer sights more feral or frightening than an end-of-the-rotation role player targeting the other’s team star when he thinks he can get him kicked out. After a nice dunk on a late-arriving OG, Malik Beasley channeled his inner Shawn Kemp and pointed at Anunoby. It’s not the worst thing Beasley’s ever pointed at someone.
The Knicks bent, at times, but they never broke, led by their Big 3. KAT and OG were hot in helping the Knicks build a lead in the first half, Brunson’s 12 in the fourth more of his usual (but never unappreciated) clutch fare. One thing that impressed me the most: these Knicks took the black hats, wore them and handled their business. Think about it: when’s the last time the Knicks were this heavy a favorite in a first round? Maybe 2013, when the Celtics were without Rajon Rondo, though they still had Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce; if not then, we’re all the way back to the 2000 Toronto Raptors. Either way, by Knick standards those are eras long buried under the sands of time. Today’s Knicks are new to a lot of this. The Pistons made them out to be the bad guy. Okay. The bad guy just came to your block, walked through your front door, looked you in the eye, peed in your favorite plant and took a 2-1 series lead.
This series is far from over. I’ve never thought the Pistons could win it; it was obvious beforehand and more so after three games that they’re capable of dragging it out for seven games. But you can crunch numbers and stretch trends to prove whatever point you want to. In the end, it boils down to people. Dennis Schröder has always been a fun player to watch. I’ve had a fondness for Tim Hardaway Jr. ever since he broke in as a Knick (though it was surreal watching him drain all five of his threes in the first half, having spent years watching his dad do the same). Jalen Duren seems a nice young man, albeit one who still cuts the corners from his sandwiches. And Cade Cunningham? That cat is something else.
But the Pistons are trying to win a series where outside of Cade and Beasley, I’m not sure anyone else in their rotation would crack the Knicks’. They fight, they scratch, they claw, and those are admirable traits, especially given where that franchise spent the past few years. But the Knicks are built for bigger bouts. Some of you won’t wanna hear this, so go find whatever sugar you need to help the medicine go down, but this is a series these Knicks are more qualified to win than last year’s knighted Knicks. And a lot of that is because of the biggest, newest Knick.
Brunson has scored 30-plus points in a Knick playoff game 13 times. Last night was the first time one of his teammates scored as many in the same game. In last year’s canonized opening round against the 76ers, Brunson scored 39-47 points the last four games. Only twice did another Knick even reach 20. Last year, with no Julius Randle, Brunson didn’t have much choice. This year, he does. And last night Towns was so choice.
It wasn’t just the scoring, though his 31 points were huge. It wasn’t just the tough rebounds in traffic, or blocking and altering shots at the basket, though they were big too. It was the control Towns displayed, whether stopping a baseline drive on a dime to drop a teardrop over Dennis the Menace clearly hunting to draw a charge, spinning to his right for an impossible-to-contest baseline fadeaway over Hardtop Harris or walking away when Paul Reed was frothing like a recent religious convert.
Turn the temperature up in any room and Randle grows more kinetic, frantic, hurried, volatile. Maybe what some see as KAT being “goofy” is simply the self-assured personal space of a man who DGAF what you, Tobias Harris or 20,000 Michiganites proud to be gouged by a professional price gouger think of him.
The weight of the world seemed to be everywhere after the Game 2 loss. Atlas stopped, stooped, made some adjustments and kept on keeping on. It’d be weird and a little concerning if he suddenly stopped to figure it out all over again. It will be too if the Knicks lose Game 4 Sunday afternoon. That’s what the ‘92 Knicks did – dropped Game 4, then had to go home for a winner-take-all finale. If the Knicks lose Sunday, their backs aren’t yet against the wall. If they win, the Pistons’ are. Much better look on them.
