New York Knicks' Situation Reveals In-Season Tournament's Success and Failure
It's perhaps unfortunate that the New York Knicks aren't competing for a spot in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament or the College Football Playoff, as their strength of schedule enjoyed a slight jolt last week.
The NBA probably doesn't run through Manhattan anymore ... that tends to happen when you go over two decades without a conference finals appearance. An extra opportunity to potentially raise a banner, or at least turn the Empire State Building blue and orange for a night, presented itself through the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, which ended its captivating debut run over the weekend. What transpired on the Knicks' end should long studied by critics, supporters, and adjustors of the Association's latest initiative.
New York's latest taste of championship glory was the briefest sip: they reached the quarterfinal round as the wild card afforded to the top Eastern Conference group runner-up but ran into the defending top-seed Milwaukee Bucks, who gifted them a swift dose of reality in the form of a 146-122 shellacking at Fiserv Forum on Tuesday. The follow-up was a de facto consolation game with the conference-leading Boston Celtics on Friday, one slightly closer but firmly entrenched in the hosts' favor at 133-122.
It was obviously far from intentional, even if the NBA's scheduling process seemed like it was out to get the Knicks. But New York's situation on and beyond the bracket perfectly personifies what's working and what's not about the NBA's newly minted (late) Fall Classic ...
A comeback win over Miami in group play was one of the most exciting moments over the past year for the Knicks
USA TODAY SPORTS
What's Working
Any conversation about the In-Season Tournament should tip off with the acknowledgment that it's not going anywhere. The biggest surprise, as it stands, would probably be if Major League Baseball and/or the National Hockey League doesn't stage an imitation event within three to five years.
The IST has more or less done away with the idea that the NBA season doesn't "officially" start until the Christmas Day slate. Those who make their way to the arenas to breathe in that IST air have provided at least something resembling a playoff atmosphere.
Look no further than those who sat/stood at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 28, hanging onto the final minutes of what became a 24-point final against the woebegone Charlotte Hornets as if it were Game 7 of a playoff series. The fact that Knicks fans at home immediately flipped to TNT to see how the game between the Bucks and Miami Heat ended ... with the network's broadcast showcasing other scores at the top of the screen while Milwaukee put the finishing touches on its win ... only added to an atmosphere that marginally resembled the opening days of the NCAA Basketball Tournaments.
To cap it all off, the NBA probably couldn't have asked for a better outcome in the championship game in Las Vegas. The Los Angeles Lakers are going to draw a crowd no matter who puts on their purple and gold, but if there's another chance for the Association to give LeBron James a chance to hoist a trophy (and thus prolong the perpetual verbal showdown against Michael Jordan staged by each man's supporters), it'll happily take it.
To earn that moment, the Lakers took down a feisty challenge from the Indiana Pacers, who took full advantage of national airtime only sporadically afforded to them since their turn-of-the-century heyday. Hindsight may define the first IST as Tyrese Haliburton's official introduction to the casual basketball fan, as his antics guided the Pacers past Boston and Milwaukee to set up a Saturday night showdown in Sin City.
That circles back to the Knicks' situation.
What the NBA has in the modern Knicks is the best of both worlds: almost everyone expects New York to appear on this spring's Eastern bracket but few will pencil them into the conference's NBA Finals slot. Like the Lakers, the Knicks will always be the national networks' pet (recall that a 5-25 Knicks team opened the Christmas Day proceedings in 2014) but the Association likely needs some sort of justification for frequent appearances. Such a set-up allows the Association guilt-free chances to show Knicks games in their premier time slots while the Knicks get a chance to show the casual viewer what they're building.
The IST is perfect for a modern Knicks group unable to afford a penthouse and yet is far too refined for the basement. It's a sideshow that not only gives added weight to November games that are often quickly forgotten but also affords teams on the rise a chance to clear their throats and hint at what's to come.
The first eight-team bracket provided a perfect balance, equally showcasing established contenders (Los Angeles, Boston, Milwaukee, Phoenix) facing off against up-and-comers who may be a move/year away from true contention (New York, Indiana, New Orleans, Sacramento). Headliners for the contenders (i.e. James, Giannis Antetokounmpo) will obviously steal the show but the IST gives a chance for niche (Haliburton, Brandon Ingram, Domantas Sabonis) or even first-time All-Stars (Jalen Brunson) to make their case to the casual fan, the most vital demographic in the exhibition's voting.
Their maiden voyage into the IST waters was equal parts euphoric and heartbreaking for the Knicks. On the one hand, it perhaps set the franchise on an intriguing, if not turbulent, course after they were easily handled by the East's finest. On the other, experiences like the group momentum-shifter against Miami on Black Friday ... one that saw the Knicks emerge victorious from a 21-point deficit against their most recent season-enders ... can potentially serve as franchise cornerstones and landmarks.
Perhaps the produced euphoria says more about the state of the new-century Knicks than the franchise would be comfortable admitting. But New York played the hand it was dealt fairly well, all things considered.
Mitchell Robinson guards Giannis Antetokounmpo during last week's quarterfinal
Benny Sieu, USA TODAY SPORTS
What's Not
Nothing's perfect, and the IST is no exception, especially after year one.
From a broader perspective, the NBA can certainly live with its flaws: fans and observers complaining about the eccentric court/jersey designs and multi-millionaires competing for a $500,000 prize is nonetheless attention for the Association in a portion of the calendar dominated by football. There are, however, deeper-rooted problems with the IST and the Knicks just so happened to run into almost all of them.
The obvious elephant in the room lies in the schedule: by virtue of their quarterfinal loss and Indiana's accompanying win, the Knicks are now destined to become just the fourth team in NBA history to play 42 road games and the first in over 40 years, harkening back to an era where neutral site games were commonplace. The opponents in the Knicks' undetermined IST pairing, the only two spots left empty when the original schedule was released over the summer, will only cause more frustration.
If the Knicks miss out on, say, the top six by a game or two and are forced to work through the Play-In Tournament ... which, ironically, would produce an extra game at MSG ... supporters would likely cry foul over the fact that the eliminated Brooklyn Nets (current holders of one of the final Eastern playoff spots and ahead of the Knicks by a half-game) got to face Atlanta and Washington in their "to be determined" spots despite dropping out of group play. The Knicks likely would've also been penalized if they threw that final game against Charlotte for an easier slate, especially if the Dallas Mavericks' Play-In avoidance gambit to keep their pick from the Knicks was any indication from last year. Yet, their de facto reward of sitting among the early elite eight was extra tilts against the Bucks and Celtics with no playoff committee to impress.
To their credit, the Knicks embraced the idea of facing the East's finest in a surplus format and likely won't use it as an excuse if the numerically unthinkable came to pass. The fact they looked relatively lifeless against teams they want to be associated with come spring, failing to take full advantage of those opportunities is the bigger issue in New York. But it does present a design flaw that the NBA would do well to work out by the time the IST returns next season.
The Knicks also partook in one of the tournament's more realistically avoidable gripes: the point differential tiebreaker in the knockout round. When one situates five-team groups in a round-robin format, there's bound to be ties and the NBA's first was point differential. While there was undeniable down-to-the-wire excitement in games that were otherwise over, it created an awkward situation of teams like the Knicks and Celtics running up the score on otherwise downtrodden teams. Knicks forward Josh Hart admitted it was "weird" to bully the hopeless Hornets, especially in a December game.
There's a whole year, of course, to work out the kinks of the In-Season Tournament, where expansion will certainly be on the table. That could come in the form of home-and-home matchups in group play (similar to the WNBA's Commissioner's Cup format) or simply staging more games or even inviting more teams. That could also give the Association time to work on the other, more complicated issues that haunted the Knicks, such as scheduling and deciding the tiebreakers.
The Knicks provided some valuable R&D in the NBA's boldest experiment in years. Alas for this Manhattan project, there doesn't appear to be any kind of check for their participation heading their way.
